We’re all going to die before they get to turn on the Large Hadron Collider

Our good ol’ fission bombs will have done us in long before CERN starts smashin’ atoms next year.

A fire at a nuclear missle launch silo caused $1.4million in damage in May, but wasn’t discovered until five days afterwards. Seriously:

A fire at a US nuclear missile launch site burned itself out and was undetected for five days, US military sources say.

However the May 23 fire, which lasted an hour or two, never threatened to accidentally launch a  Minuteman III missile or release radiation, Associated Press reports.

The fire was only discovered on May 28 when a repair crew went to the the launch site about 160km northeast of Denver, in the southwest of the US, because a trouble signal indicated a wiring problem.

Now, think of the caliber of people who don’t notice their nuclear missle silo is exploding for five days. You would think if it’s your job to, like, keep the Rockies from blowing up, you’d think someone around the office would notice when something’s on fire. You’d think.

Really puts the election in perspective. Until you realize these people will probably still be working there after the election, and there’s a chance Sarah Palin might have to codes that put the fate of the world in the better judgment of whoever Turns the Keys and Pushes The Button around there.

Somali rape victim stoned to death before “crowd of thousands”

Via NYT, though I’ve reporduced the entirety of the report:

A woman was stoned to death for adultery on Monday in an Islamist-controlled region of Somalia. Somali human rights officials said the woman, 23, had been raped, but the Islamist authorities determined that she was guilty of adultery. She was buried up to her neck and stoned after a crowd of thousands gathered at a soccer field in the town of Kismayu, which is controlled by the Shabab, a radical Islamist group.

“Rape is not something we’d be allowed to discuss within our community”

The BBC reports on a woman who said her imam tried to talk her out of reporting sexual abuse by her father.

Do they even know what “wench” means?

 

I’m not in any position to judge 9-year-olds’ clothing, but is there anything objectionable in the dress in of itself?

Oh, and the “they” in the headline refers to the marketers of the above product. It would perhaps be disheartening if a 9-year old knew the definition of “wench.”

Also, a commentor did more poking around Hallowween Express than I did, and found even worse costumes: A French maid and “Honey Bunny,” an assemblage so bizzare it can only make sense with reference to the Playboy bunny motif.

Obama’s 8 p.m. Eastern-Standard Time infomercial tonight: As if anyone has time

I know I don’t.

But does anyone else think it’s a little much dropping $3 million on a prime time slot to rehash talking points? Unless he’s got some October suprise in store. Oo! Do we finally get to see those drapes he’s been measuring for the Oval Office? McCain’s been harping about those for months, so they must be awesome!

California Rep. race gets fugly

Wait until the 30 second marker:

Also, to any California readers: Vote no on Prop. 8, please.

An inaguration: Impossible Question Tuesday

Is it better to be fired from a horrible job or to quit?

Tribune publishes chiding column on “sexy Halloween”

            And here it is. A highlight:

…Let me say I’m all for the fun of the holiday, and every year I see costumes on campus that make me smile with their originality or hilarity. I hope you all enjoy a fun and safe Halloween in a costume you can enjoy yourself in, while perhaps giving some extra thought to the advantages of thinking outside the box.

 I saw this coming; something like it appears every year on a college editorial page. I give the columnists’ creativity the benefit of the doubt by assuming such a column is mandatory.

I do and I don’t understand why it would be. The actual costumes in of themselves are an issue I’ve always been somewhat ambivalent on, maybe more, maybe less than I should be. It seems the majority of women who wear them do so of their own volition with little or no explicit pressuring from a male SO, even though provocative display of the body is more likely to evoke insecurities in one’s body image than an affirmation of the same.

                However, detractor’s artless denunciations of “Slut-o’-Ween” come off as divisively judgmental. Not that there’s anything wrong with being judgmental; I just don’t like the tone, which oft reaches the same pitch as our opponents who air blanket condemnations of “promiscuity” without defining the same.

                However, Hren’s tone lacked real condemnation, and she provided positive alternatives by way of suggestions. I approve.

Evangelical teens have sex eariler, use less contraceptives

Via the elitist New Yorker:

 …According to Add Health data, evangelical teen-agers are more sexually active than Mormons, mainline Protestants, and Jews. On average, white evangelical Protestants make their “sexual début”—to use the festive term of social-science researchers—shortly after turning sixteen. Among major religious groups, only black Protestants begin having sex earlier.

Another key difference in behavior, Regnerus reports, is that evangelical Protestant teen-agers are significantly less likely than other groups to use contraception. This could be because evangelicals are also among the most likely to believe that using contraception will send the message that they are looking for sex. It could also be because many evangelicals are steeped in the abstinence movement’s warnings that condoms won’t actually protect them from pregnancy or venereal disease. More provocatively, Regnerus found that only half of sexually active teen-agers who say that they seek guidance from God or the Scriptures when making a tough decision report using contraception every time. By contrast, sixty-nine per cent of sexually active youth who say that they most often follow the counsel of a parent or another trusted adult consistently use protection…

 Nationwide, according to a 2001 estimate, some two and a half million people have taken a pledge to remain celibate until marriage. Usually, they do so under the auspices of movements such as True Love Waits or the Silver Ring Thing. Sometimes, they make their vows at big rallies featuring Christian pop stars and laser light shows, or at purity balls, where girls in frothy dresses exchange rings with their fathers, who vow to help them remain virgins until the day they marry. More than half of those who take such pledges—which, unlike abstinence-only classes in public schools, are explicitly Christian—end up having sex before marriage, and not usually with their future spouse. The movement is not the complete washout its critics portray it as: pledgers delay sex eighteen months longer than non-pledgers, and have fewer partners. Yet, according to the sociologists Peter Bearman, of Columbia University, and Hannah Brückner, of Yale, communities with high rates of pledging also have high rates of S.T.D.s. This could be because more teens pledge in communities where they perceive more danger from sex (in which case the pledge is doing some good); or it could be because fewer people in these communities use condoms when they break the pledge.

Also:

In some schools, if too many teens pledge, the effort basically collapses. Pledgers apparently gather strength from the sense that they are an embattled minority; once their numbers exceed thirty per cent, and proclaimed chastity becomes the norm, that special identity is lost.

Update:Now the headline features correct grammar goodness, as far as a headline can be said to be grammatical.

AL Sen. Ted Stevens found guilty on ethics charges

That’s on all seven charges. That charmer had accepted innapropriate gifts from an oil contractor, including free home rennovations. His road to redemption won’t be a truck ride; spend the next few years winding through the series of tubes that are the bowels of the US justice system.

Incidentially, one of his fundraising 527′s was run by Sarah Palin. She’s a reformer!