Underage sex

A large percentage of teenagers are having underage sex, and one in 20 before they were 12, according to a survey.Nearly two thirds (60%) of teenagers have at least once chosen not to purchase condoms because they considered them expensive.
South Asian teenagers are also much less likely than Afro-Caribbean or white teenagers to get condoms from their GP and a high proportion said they had a poor service from their health clinic.

Catholic Priests

Initially the catholic priest was allowed to get married, however, because of the doctrine that sexual intercourse with a woman makes a man unclean, married priests were prohibited from celebrating the Eucharist for a full day after sex with their wives. Because the trend was to celebrate the Eucharist more and more often, sometimes even daily, priests were pressured to be celibate just to fulfill their basic religious functions and eventually they were prohibited from ever having sex with their wives. Celibacy was thus somewhat common by 300 CE, when the Spanish Council of Elvira required married bishops, priests, and deacons to permanently abstain from sex with their wives. The pressure this put on marriages was not important and the consequences for the wives would only get worse. In 1139, the Second Lateran Council officially imposed mandatory celibacy on all priests. Every priest's marriage was declared invalid and every married priest had to separate from their wives leaving them to whatever fate God had in store for them, even if it meant leaving them destitute. Of course this was an immoral thing to do to those spouses, and many clergy realized that there was little religious or traditional basis for it, so they defied that order and continued in their marriages. The final blow against priests' ability to marry came through a technicality at the Council of Trent (1545-1563). The church asserted that a valid Christian marriage must be performed by a valid priest and in front of two witnesses. Banning such clandestine marriages effectively eliminated marriage for the clergy.
Opposition to ending the requirement of celibacy for Catholic priests is strong — but isn't it strange that, despite this requirement, there are so many married Catholic priests who seem to be doing as good a job as unmarried priests? If celibacy is so vital, why do married Catholic priests exist at all? This isn't something that the Roman Catholic Church is anxious to advertise. They'd much rather keep the matter quiet in order not to "confuse" rank and file Catholics. Most married Catholic priests are part of the Eastern Catholic Churches, also known as the Eastern Rite, who can be found in places like the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, the Ukraine, and other nations along the border between Western and Eastern Christianity. These churches are under the jurisdiction of the Vatican and they recognize the authority of the pope; however, their practices and traditions are much closer to those of the Eastern Orthodox Churches. One of those traditions is allowing priests to marry.Why are they married? They got married while serving as priests in other Christian denominations, usually the Anglican or Lutheran churches. If such a priest decides that he would be better off within Catholicism, he can apply to a local bishop who then submits a special application to the pope, with decisions being made on a case-by-case basis. If accepted, he is certainly not expected to get divorced or otherwise separate from his spouse, so his wife comes right along as well. This exception to the celibacy rule was created on July 22, 1980.

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Opposition to ending the requirement of celibacy for Catholic priests is strong — but isn't it strange that, despite this requirement, there are so many married Catholic priests who seem to be doing as good a job as unmarried priests? If celibacy is so vital, why do married Catholic priests exist at all? This isn't something that the Roman Catholic Church is anxious to advertise. They'd much rather keep the matter quiet in order not to "confuse" rank and file Catholics.
In this context, "confuse" seems to mean "let them know that when we say that celibacy is a requirement, we don't really mean that it is necessary." In effect, then, greater control over Catholic believers is maintained in part by ensuring that information which might cause them to question the decisions of the hierarchy is not publicized too widely. Like any organization, the Catholic Church depends upon the ability to control followers in order to ensure its survival.

Who Are Married Catholic Priests?

Most married Catholic priests are part of the Eastern Catholic Churches, also known as the Eastern Rite, who can be found in places like the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, the Ukraine, and other nations along the border between Western and Eastern Christianity. These churches are under the jurisdiction of the Vatican and they recognize the authority of the pope; however, their practices and traditions are much closer to those of the Eastern Orthodox Churches. One of those traditions is allowing priests to marry.
Some estimates place the number of married priests at around 20% of all Catholic priests in the world. This would mean that 20% of all Catholic priests are officially and legally married, even though celibacy continues to be a requirement. But marriage is not limited to priests who are part of the Eastern Catholic Churches — we can also find about 100 Catholic priests in America who are married and who are part of the Western Catholicism that comes to mind when most think of Catholicism.
Why are they married? They got married while serving as priests in other Christian denominations, usually the Anglican or Lutheran churches. If such a priest decides that he would be better off within Catholicism, he can apply to a local bishop who then submits a special application to the pope, with decisions being made on a case-by-case basis. If accepted, he is certainly not expected to get divorced or otherwise separate from his spouse, so his wife comes right along as well. This exception to the celibacy rule was created on July 22, 1980.
Thus, a current Catholic priest who wants to get married must choose between marriage and the priesthood (even though celibacy isn't an essential feature of being a priest), while a married Lutheran priest can apply to become a Catholic priest and keep his wife — he doesn't have to choose. Naturally, this causes some hard feelings for those Catholic priests who leave the clergy in order to pursue marriage; yet others are hoping that the presence of such married priests will eventually allow priests who have left to marry to eventually return.

The Amerindian genocide

In 1492, when the European invasion of the Americas was instigated by a human error that saw Christopher Columbus get lost at sea while trying to reach the Indies, and making landfall instead in the Americas, the two Continents were not, as some would have us believe, two vast and vacant land masses that were created by the Great Spirit for the specific purpose of enriching Europeans. In fact, both Continents were widely populated by humans who were citizens of hundreds of well established diverse civilizations - a statement of fact that may not set well with those who buy into the White Supremacist belief that the inhabitants of the two Continents were not civilized human beings but savage animals. Unfortunately, because of the lack of reliable statistics the number of humans that were residents of the Americas in 1492 can only be estimated. Thus, over the eons, using various methods, experts have made estimates that vary widely - a few million to a hundred million. However, I believe, due to the fact that the vast land mass was populated from the Arctic to the tip of South America, including deserts, islands, swamps, Jungles, and mountains, that a total population estimate of 100 million would not be far of.
The citizens of these Nations spoke hundreds of different languages and resided in societies that covered the spectrum - hunter gatherer to sophisticated city dwellers. Farms that fed thousands of citizens of these Nations existed, and many cities had large populations. The norms of human interaction such as marriage, divorce, social assistance, etc., were in place. Such disciplines as engineering, astrology, medicine, etc., were available for educational pursuit in many societies. Calendars, suspension bridges, and record keeping, etc., were also part of the fabric of many societies. Trading patterns between most Nations were developed and well established.
Politics ranged from democratic to autocratic. For instance the Aztecs, Inca and Maya lived under emperors, while most of the North American Nations were democratic. In fact, shortly after the invasion started, the democratic ideals of these Nations soon gave rise to the democratic aspirations of long oppressed Europeans. Proof of it lies in the fact that both the Constitution and Bill of Rights of the United States of America were modeled to a large extent after the democratic ideals and laws of Indigenous American Nations, in particular an Iroquoian law entitled “The Great Law of Peace”. The before mentioned adoption of American Indian democratic values and ideals was officially acknowledged for the first time by Caucasians when the US Congress did it by Resolution in November1988.
Over ten thousand years ago American Indian horticulturists engineered a plant they christened Maize, commonly known today as corn. In modern times the harvest of corn provides approximately 21 percent of human nutrition across the Globe. Interestingly, it took until 2010 before modern science could finally figure out how they did it. Further, American Indians were very ingenious in domesticating food sources; including corn, they domesticated nine of the most important food crops that feed and sustain the modern world’s population.
Another long ignored fact to ponder. Over five thousand years ago the Indigenous People of California, utilizing a process they had perfected to take the bitterness out of Acorns , were milling flour out of them. To assure a reliable supply of acorns they grew and groomed large orchards of Oak trees. This was at a time when many Europeans were still hanging out in caves.

GCSEs and A-levels are now far too easy

I was talking to my neighbour the other day about my daughter's GCSEs  and the A-levels of my son and she was saying how 'honestly though, they've got it much easier now - when I was at school there was no coursework so there was far more pressure on exams!' (my neighbour's in her 40s now).

I thought, well yes, more exam pressure. But, for a start coursework is very annoying. Secondly, they only did 7/8 subjects then (My daughter would love to be doing 7!! That's 4 less subjects than what she is doing/did!!). Also, far less people stayed on at college/6th form, let alone uni, in the 1970s (especially women) so there must have been less pressure on gaining good results, right?

I don't really know what life was like for my mum's generation. However, it just really annoys me when people decide to have a moan about how our kids lives are so easy when they don't even know! Maybe if they went back to school they would be very surprised?

My neighbour told m: "You must admit that GCSEs are relatively easy when compared in the days of yore, when there were things like O Levels or something of that sort. When I looked at some past O Level papers, they seemed ridiculously hard (not because I'm thick). People used to rarely achieve straight As before. But now, or last year, I remember something like 40 people getting straight As in their GCSEs in my year.
Labour has definitely dumbed down the education system to achieve his pledge of getting at least 40% of people into higher education.

Angry and Depressed About the Recession?

There is no single response to losing your fortune and your job. Rage, depression, anxiety? They seem appropriate. Sadness is another obvious one, so it's not surprising that the recession is making some people glum — even to the point of suicide. Others are more panicky and fearful. And some of us are understandably angry. Many surely feel all these emotions at once. It's easy to combine them into a toxic stew of pain and uncertainty. But it's possible to disentangle these feelings rather than be swept up in them. And it's also possible to use them to our financial benefit. Here's an easy psychological road map for getting out of this economic mess:
1. Be Sad
Sadness is terrible because, obviously, it hurts. But sadness also serves an evolutionary purpose. It helps us avoid bad choices in the future. As a team of researchers pointed out last year in Psychological Science, sadness can also stimulate something this economy desperately needs: consumer spending. The paper's authors call this the "misery-is-not-miserly effect": sad people are more likely to spend than those who aren't sad. In the experiments, people who watched a sad video (the last few minutes of the schlocky '70s tearjerker The Champ) were compared with those who watched a dry nature clip. Subjects who were induced to feel sad ended up spending far more money on bottles of water offered for purchase after the experiment than those who watched the nature video.
This doesn't mean the President should cry at a press conference. But his team should know that humans are inclined to make themselves feel better by spending money. One reason: consumer spending is a rare moral twofer. It's both selfish and kind — you experience joy from your new product, and you also help a businessperson stay employed.
2. Be Angry
Anger is usually seen as a negative emotion, but it has at least one effect that would be useful in undoing the recession. Right now, banks aren't lending enough, and too many consumers are hiding whatever liquidity they have under their mattresses. Both banks and consumers need to be a little more risky.
Feeling anger usually makes people more willing to take risks. Harvard's Jennifer Lerner has shown this in a series of papers. She and her colleagues gave random groups of people a classic risk test. The subjects were asked how they would respond to a disease outbreak expected to kill 600 people. The subjects were told that if the program were adopted, 200 people would be saved, meaning 400 would die. They were also told that if program B were adopted, there would be a one-third probability that all would live and a two-thirds probability that no one would.
Program B is obviously riskier: you might save everyone, but you would probably lose everyone. The subjects with a demonstrated propensity toward anger were much more likely to opt for program B. That may be a scary outcome when you're talking about public health, but our struggling economy needs risk takers, people willing to give up certainty for the possibility of grand success. Taking great risk to chase great reward is, arguably, the essence of capitalism; a couple of kids max out their credit cards and work late nights in a garage, and a few years later, they sell YouTube for $1.6 billion. Every few years, there are cautionary tales: the day trader who loses his house; the hedge fund that turns life savings into dust overnight. But we want risk takers to play in our economy, which is why policymakers should stoke our anger now and then. Be angry at Bernard Madoff; be angry at Richard Fuld Jr.; be angry at your 401(k) statements. Anger, as Lerner has written, is "associated with a desire to change a situation for the better."
3. At All Costs, Don't Be Scared
Fear is the enemy of action. Fear keeps us sequestered in our homes, watchful if a penny vanishes from our accounts. Lerner and her colleague Dacher Keltner of the University of California, Berkeley, showed the corrosive effects of fear in their 2001 paper "Fear, Anger and Risk," which was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Those who scored high on measures of fear and anxiety were consistently less willing to take risks during games and more likely to predict negative outcomes in real-life situations. The fearful, in other words, are far more pessimistic. And it's a short line from pessimism to withdrawal.
We may not like feeling angry or sad, and it may be easier to relax in a warm bath of isolating fear. But anger and sadness prompt action, and that's something the country needs. This may even be useful advice for the President: Barack Obama won his victory partly because he has a steady demeanor. But he may need to encourage more raw emotion if he wants to jump-start this economy.