Sex education classes that focus on encouraging children to remain abstinent can convince a significant proportion to delay sexual activity, researchers reported Monday in a landmark study that could have major implications for the nation's embattled efforts to protect young people against unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

In the first carefully designed study to evaluate the controversial approach to sex ed, researchers found that only about a third of 6th and 7th graders who went through sessions focused on abstinence started having sex in the next two years. In contrast, nearly half of students who got other classes, including those that included information about contraception, became sexually active.

"I think we've written off abstinence-only education without looking closely at the nature of the evidence," said John B. Jemmott III, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who led the federally funded study. "Our study shows this could be one approach that could be used."

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Education • Sexuality • Teens / Youth

We elect our politicians to take account from experts of a wider range of factors than the will of the people on specific issues, such as capital punishment and assisted suicide. In the case of the latter, almost the entire medical profession is arraigned against proposals for legalised assisted suicide, in the shape of trade unions and professional bodies such as the British Medical Association, the General Medical Council and the Royal College of Physicians.

Doctors' resistance is rooted in the prospect of the administration of death as a clinical practice. It is one thing, they argue, to provide an assessment of a patient's health for insurance purposes or fitness to travel; quite another and wholly compromising of a professional duty of care to do so as a justification for ending a life.

That is partly why a simple majority in a public poll, for whom the prospect of a lethal dose from a doctor is a logical extension of consumer choice, cannot be the sole or even principal guide for changing law in matters of life and death. There is too much at stake. And not just for the sick and dying and for those who care for them, but for all of us.

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Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals • * Culture-Watch • Health & Medicine • Law & Legal Issues • Life Ethics • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

Regardless, getting angry isn't the answer, said [Dr. Reed] Tuckson, who cautions against demonizing heavy people.

"Not only is getting angry mean-spirited and antithetical to the kind of society we want to live in, but it's also counterproductive," Tuckson said. "We need to convert our concern into positive action and find ways to support individuals to make better choices."

He believes that reducing the incidence of obesity and its related health costs will require changes on four levels:

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Children • Dieting/Food/Nutrition • Education • Health & Medicine • Marriage & Family • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life

I understand that positioning for the next election, partisan politics and lobbying money are a deadly combination to any possible reform. But its so obvious to me watching these folks push and shove good ideas away that they: 1) are utterly clueless how all of this (credit crisis, recession, housing bust) happened; b) have absolutely no idea how to fix any of it; iii) are primarily concerned with getting re-elected.

--Barry Ritholtz

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Corporations/Corporate Life • Stock Market • The Banking System/Sector • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • The U.S. Government • Federal Reserve • Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner • Energy, Natural Resources • Politics in General • House of Representatives • Office of the President • President Barack Obama • Senate

One of our strengths as a nation is that we are a land of immigrants. Over the centuries, people have come to this country, fleeing conflict or seeking new opportunities, from other parts of the British Isles, from mainland Europe, or from further afield, to enrich and develop our common life.

Many of us will have Scottish or Welsh blood in our veins. Others trace our ancestry to the West Indies or Pakistan, though we ourselves are English. In Leeds, we have one of the larger Jewish populations in the country, and our city has benefited immensely from their contribution.

Yet, frequently in recent years, there have been expressions of fear over the role of immigrants to our country, and they have surfaced
again with the recent declaration of the cross-party Group on Balanced Migration. This calls for political parties to declare, in the run-up to the General Election, how they will restrict immigration. One of the signatories has described Britain as "our claustrophobic island".

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK

From the morning email traffic:

Adam Feuerstein: Dave Morrow, TheStreet.com's former E-in-C died last night after a too short battle with cancer. He was 49. R.I.P. Dave, you'll be missed.

Dave had pancreatic cancer and was not quite 50; very sad--KSH.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Parish Ministry • Death / Burial / Funerals

The Obama administration projects rosier economic-growth prospects than most mainstream economists do but a sobering jobless recovery, according to documents released Monday about underlying assumptions in the government's $3.83 trillion federal budget for 2011.

Other documents outlining proposed tax cuts and hikes reveal that the administration, concerned about growing income inequality, seeks to pay for a number of programs to help the middle class by taxing the wealthiest Americans and imposing new taxes on corporations, especially those with international operations.

The administration created a public relations nightmare for itself last year when it came into power forecasting an optimistic 8 percent unemployment rate. Policymakers then watched in horror as the jobless rate climbed to 10.2 percent before dipping back to 10 percent in December.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • The U.S. Government • Budget • The National Deficit • Politics in General • Office of the President • President Barack Obama

As people get older, "they just have this sense, this feeling that time is going faster than they are," says Warren Meck, a psychology professor at Duke University.

This seems to be true across cultures, across time, all over the world.

No one is sure where this feeling comes from.

Scientists have theories, of course, and one of them is that when you experience something for the very first time, more details, more information gets stored in your memory. Think about your first kiss.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Psychology • Science & Technology

At his meeting-house on an industrial estate in Kano, northern Nigeria's largest city, Sheikh Ibrahim Khalil laments his country's sporadic uprisings in the name of Islam."I don't know why this change has come," says the 57-year-old Muslim preacher. "Twenty years ago we never used to have this. Everyone got along."

Outside his vine-covered house, silence prevails on the Sharada estate. Most of the factories that once helped Kano honour its state slogan, "Centre of Commerce", are shells. The economic slump worries the Americans, especially since it has strengthened the hand of the more militant of northern Nigeria's Muslim leaders, who are rattling the mild-mannered sheikh.

The role of Islam in Nigeria is in the spotlight, especially in America, since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up an aircraft landing at Detroit on Christmas Day. The young Nigerian's failed attack has since been claimed by al-Qaeda, fuelling long-held fears that the jihadist group, already present in north Africa, could win recruits among Africa's most populous country with some 150m people.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of Nigeria • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • * Religion News & Commentary • Inter-Faith Relations • Other Churches • Other Faiths • Islam • Muslim-Christian relations

It's quite a graphic--take some time to try to let it sink in (Hat tip: Calculated Risk)

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • History • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market

The Most Rev. Dr. Mouneer Anis, who has resigned his position on the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion, told The Living Church that discussions at the committee’s meeting in December 2009 are what prompted his resignation from the committee.

“I had been in communication before the meeting that I needed to discuss the participation of the Episcopal Church on the standing committee. I found some resistance to this,” said Bishop Mouneer, who is Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Egypt with North Africa and the Horn of Africa, and President Bishop of the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams • Anglican Covenant • Anglican Provinces • The Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East

[Today]...Christians keep the feast of Candlemas, 40 days after Christmas. For some it will be kept this Sunday. Candlemas, with its candle procession and theme of light, commemorates the story in St Luke’s Gospel of the child Jesus being brought to the Temple in Jerusalem to be presented to the Lord. As Mary and Joseph carry the child into the Temple, two old and devout people, Simeon and Anna, meet them. Simeon, Luke tells us, has looked for “the consolation of Israel”. The word translated consolation is the word that St John uses for the Holy Spirit — “the Paraclete”, a word that means advocate, comforter, even goader. Simeon is longing for transformation and deliverance, for God’s salvation to come to his people. He longs for liberation in a land that is occupied territory, he longs for transformation and renewal, which is the “paracleting”, the Holy Spiriting of his people.

Simeon, with his rheumy eyes, encounters a child carried in by two poor parents. Suddenly he sees in this child the salvation he desires. He bursts out into the great cry of thanksgiving that we know as the Nunc Dimittis. “Lord, now you can let your servant go in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation!” This song of Simeon, rightly used at funerals, is often heard as a lament, a gentle commendation, but in the story of the Presentation in the Temple, as Luke tells it, is rather a great cry of triumph. In the same way at the end of the Creed Christians “look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come”. This is no casual glancing forward, but the burning hope that waits with longing expectation for the transfiguring of our earthly bodies and the fulfilment of eternal life.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • CoE Bishops • * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Epiphany

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams • Anglican Covenant • Anglican Provinces • The Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East

Pope Benedict is to visit the UK in September in the first papal visit to England, Wales and Scotland in more than a quarter of a century — although Northern Ireland will not be on the itinerary.

However, Irish church sources still hope Pope Benedict will visit both Northern Ireland and attend the International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin in 2012, some 33 years after Pope John Paul's historic visit to the Republic.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • --Ireland • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

Pope Benedict XVI has confirmed he will this year make the first papal visit to the UK since John Paul II's of 1982.

He is expected to visit Birmingham - as part of the planned beatification of Cardinal John Newman - and Scotland. Dates for the trip have not been set.

The Pope spoke of the UK's "commitment to equality of opportunity" for all.

But he criticised equality legislation which imposed "unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs".

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

The Pope has made an unprecedented attack on the human rights policies of Gordon Brown’s Government, claiming that they threaten religious freedom and urging Catholic bishops to fight back with “missionary zeal”.

Pope Benedict XVI said that new equality legislation was unjust and violated natural law.

He urged the 35 Catholic bishops from England and Wales, in Rome on a five-yearly "ad limina" visit, to make a united stand against the Equality Bill currently going through Parliament.

He claimed the proposed new laws threatened “long-standing British traditions” of freedom of speech.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

The Catholic Church and the Church of England continue to have good relations after Benedict XVI has paved the way for Anglicans to become Catholics in groups.

This was affirmed by Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster today when he addressed the Pope on behalf of the bishops of England and Wales in Rome for their five-yearly visit.

Archbishop Nichols characterized the Holy Father's response to Anglicans who have requested communion with Rome as "generous and paternal."

And he affirmed that the groundwork of "close cooperation and deepening friendship and communion" between Anglicans and Catholics have "helped us to ensure that the various interpretations of and reactions to 'Anglicanorum Coetibus' have not seriously disrupted the relationships between our Ecclesial Communions."

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

We thank you for the leadership you have given, even in recent months, on the questions of our care for the environments of our world: both the natural environment and, crucially, the human ecology necessary for our proper development. These matters are of deep concern to many in our countries, including many young people, who have accepted the invitation, in large numbers, to look closely at ways in which they can live more simply, so that others may simply live.

We thank you, too, for your constant encouragement to us through the initiatives of the Year of St. Paul and the Year for Priests. In our different dioceses we have built on these invitations both in the deeper appreciation of the Word of God and of the gift of the Eucharist. At this time we appreciate your concern for the dignity and reverence with which the Mass is celebrated. This is a central part of the life of every priest and bishop and we are committed to constant effort in this regard. In particular the new translations of the Roman Missal offer us an opportune moment to deepen our appreciation of the Mass. Through catechesis we can renew our reception of the richness of the Church’s faith through the ages which, in faithfulness, is now handed on to us in these texts.

Of particular delicacy for us is the response made by you, Holy Father, to those Anglicans who, from different parts of the world, asked for a pathway to be established by which they could come into the full communion of the Catholic Church bringing with them elements of the Anglican patrimony which fully accord with Catholic faith. Years of close cooperation and deepening friendship and communion with our brothers and sisters in the Church of England have helped us to ensure that the various interpretations of and reactions to ‘Anglicanorum Coetibus’ have not seriously disrupted the relationships between our Ecclesial Communions. Indeed the commitment to commence a third round of discussions as part of the work of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission has reinforced this relationship. We remain ready to explore with those Anglicans in England and Wales who wish to take up your generous and paternal response to their requests the ways forward towards full communion. We ask for your prayers in these important and sensitive matters.

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams • Anglican Provinces • Church of England (CoE) • * Culture-Watch • Religion & Culture • * Religion News & Commentary • Ecumenical Relations • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology

Your country is well known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society. Yet as you have rightly pointed out, the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed. I urge you as Pastors to ensure that the Church’s moral teaching be always presented in its entirety and convincingly defended. Fidelity to the Gospel in no way restricts the freedom of others -- on the contrary, it serves their freedom by offering them the truth.

Continue to insist upon your right to participate in national debate through respectful dialogue with other elements in society. In doing so, you are not only maintaining long-standing British traditions of freedom of expression and honest exchange of opinion, but you are actually giving voice to the convictions of many people who lack the means to express them: when so many of the population claim to be Christian, how could anyone dispute the Gospel’s right to be heard?

If the full saving message of Christ is to be presented effectively and convincingly to the world, the Catholic community in your country needs to speak with a united voice. This requires not only you, the Bishops, but also priests, teachers, catechists, writers -- in short all who are engaged in the task of communicating the Gospel -- to be attentive to the promptings of the Spirit, who guides the whole Church into the truth, gathers her into unity and inspires her with missionary zeal.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Law & Legal Issues • Religion & Culture • * International News & Commentary • England / UK • * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Roman Catholic • Pope Benedict XVI

Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer; from the end of the earth I call to thee, when my heart is faint. Lead thou me to the rock that is higher than I.

--Psalm 61:1-2

Filed under: * Theology • Theology: Scripture

Almighty and everliving God, we humbly beseech thee that, as thy only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple, so we may be presented unto thee with pure and clean hearts by the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Filed under: * Christian Life / Church Life • Church Year / Liturgical Seasons • Epiphany • Spirituality/Prayer

President Obama was forced to concede today that the US deficit will soar to record levels this year as he unveiled a $3.8 trillion annual budget that faces a perilous passage on Capitol Hill and could decide the fate of his presidency.

Blaming the extraordinary levels of government debt on the profligacy of his predecessor George W. Bush, Mr Obama said that the deficit would reach nearly $1.6 trillion this year, far more than the White House predicted last year and a staggering level that is alienating voters.

Mr Obama, facing a difficult political landscape and an economy where one in ten Americans is still unemployed, sought to present a budget with dual priorities: bringing down the deficit while spending billions of additional dollars to create jobs.

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Filed under: * Economics, Politics • Economy • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • The U.S. Government • Budget • The National Deficit • Politics in General • Office of the President • President Barack Obama

In summary of the discussions, panels and lectures presented during the Trinity Institute's conference on building an ethical economy, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams identified four repeated themes in his closing remarks: language, education, definition of self and trust.

"Building an ethical economy is something that will engage us on all of these levels, and I trust and hope that in the light of these discussions that engagement will indeed go forward," Williams said. "We belong to churches and communities of faith, have resources that we are bound to share … We are able to hold up models, images, ideals, not as distant abstractions, but as matters rooted in our very identity and faith."

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams • * Economics, Politics • Economy • * Theology