News

Switzerland company to manufacture condoms for 12-14 year olds

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From the UK Telegraph. (H/T Caffeinated Thoughts via ECM)

Excerpt:

Extra small condoms for boys as young as 12 are going on sale in Switzerland.

Called the Hotshot, the condom has been produced after government research showed 12 to 14-year-olds did not use sufficient protection when having sex.

The study, conducted on behalf of the Federal Commission for Children and Youth, interviewed 1,480 people aged 10 to 20.

It showed more 12 to 14-year-olds were having sex, in comparison with the 1990s.

Nancy Bodmer, who headed the research, said… “The results of this study suggest that early prevention makes sense.”

[…]Nysse Norballe, a spokesman for the company, said: “At the moment we are only producing the Hotshot in Switzerland. But the UK is certainly a very attractive market since there is a very high rate of underage conception. The UK would definitely be top priority if we marketed abroad.”

[…]The UK has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe.

In 1999, the government pledged to halve the teenage conception rate within 10 years.

But data released last week from The Office for National Statistics shows it has clearly failed to make any significant impact.

Maybe the government should commission some research on how premarital sex affects people’s ability to form stable, life-long marriages.

Commentary

A father explains what it is like to grow up fatherless

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Post here on the Goranson family blog. (H/T Caffeinated Thoughts)

Excerpt:

I grew up fatherless.  I saw my dad a few times growing up.  I knew his name and whereabouts.  I spent about two weeks with him in 1991 and he was always very kind to me when we saw each other.  I got cards most birthdays and christmases.  But he wasn’t a part of my life, was never married to my mother, and we lived many states away from each other most of my childhood.  It wasn’t until I was 17 that I began to get to know my dad and to develop the friendship with him that I am grateful we still have.  We are a testimony to genetics and I’m proud to be his son.  My mother was young and I was a surprise.  I never wondered if she loved me but I also knew she struggled in many ways raising a son by herself.

The path of fatherlessness was a long and painful road shrouded in insecurity for me.  It is a path so far off the one God meant for families that I didn’t know I was even on it until I had my own kids.  I knew it was better to have a mom AND a dad but I didn’t understand what I was missing.  As I’ve been reflecting on my role in my own kids’ lives, it’s proven to be extremely painful for me as I look back on my childhood.  So I figured I’d write a bit about it…

What potential in me was lost not having a father and being exposed to men who were perfect losers?  What struggles would have been overcome earlier in life or avoided altogether?  What could my father and I have learned from each other?  How much less equipped am I to be a father and husband having [grown up?] without many positive male role models in my early childhood?  How much relational heartache could I have avoided?  How many unhealthy situations as a kid would have been avoided?  How did the fear and insecurity that plagued my childhood affect me today?

This is a shot in the arm you all you Dads out there who wonder whether anyone understands and appreciates the sacrifices you’re making to be a good husband and father. This post made me feel really sad. I’m always pretty emotional when it comes to things like this, but this one really hit me hard. (Especially the “But can you ever truly recover…” paragraph)

I think that people think that I am super-focused on apologetics, but that is only because I don’t know many people who are dealing with health struggles, family struggles and money struggles. I think that when I take time to read things like this, it helps me to be more alert about taking the opportunity to weep with those who weep. If you have trouble understanding what it is like to be without a father, then read the post and let your heart be informed and softened.

Maybe those of us with intact families should be more interested in opening up our homes to troubled kids to come over and experience life in a healthy family? It seems that being able to observe love in action would really have a big impact.

News

How green lobbyists shape energy policy in the Obama administration

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Story here at the Washington Times. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

In 2008 and 2009, Mr. Obama told Americans on no fewer than eight occasions to “think about what’s happening in countries like Spain [and] Germany” to see his model for successful “green jobs” policies, and what we should expect here.

Some Spanish academics and experts on that country’s wind- and solar-energy policies and outcomes took Mr. Obama up on his invitation, revealing Spain’s policies to be economic and employment disasters. The political embarrassment to the administration was obvious, with White House spokesman Robert Gibbs asked about the Spanish study at a press conference, and the president hurriedly substituted Denmark for Spain in his stump speech.

Team Obama was not amused, and they decided to do something about it. The crew that campaigned on change pulled out the oldest plan in the book – attack the messenger. The U.S. government’s response to foreign academics, assessing the impact in their own country of that foreign government’s policies, was to come after them in a move that internal e-mails say was unprecedented. They also show it was coordinated with the lobbyists for “Big Wind” and the left-wing Center for American Progress (CAP).

What emerged was an ideological hodgepodge of curious and unsupported claims published under the name of two young non-economist wind advocates. These taxpayer-funded employees offered green dogma in oddly strident terms and, along the way, a senior Obama political appointee may well have misled Congress.

[…]What is clear is that the Department of Energy then worked with Center for American Progress and the industry lobby AWEA to produce an attack that would serve all their interests.

First we had ClimateGate, and now we have WindLobbyGate.