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I find teen pregnancy wrong, therefore I denounce it.

The problem here is that people in the US administration still equate sex with pregnancy. That's simply wrong. Norway has taken the opposite approach, really teaching details in sex ed. Teenage pregnancy rates has been low for long, but policy-makers have found that every new thing has to be met with a no-taboos approach. So, if researchers find that "whoops kids are actually having group sex", the response is to have teachers give objective information about group sex and it's risks and how to mitigate those risks. When every increase in STD and aborts are met with this approach, a corresponding decline is seen soon thereafter. It works.

The original poster had 20 class-mates getting pregnant. Among the many hundred kids in the schools I've been to, I have heard about teen pregnancies twice. My mother is a teacher, and she has never said anything about any of her pupils getting pregnant, but then, she probably wouldn't.

You can denounce teen pregnancy all you want, and you can try to mark it as socially unacceptable. But what we're dealing with here, is that this is about biology. The sexual drive is the strongest there is in mankind. You can't just fight that. It is silly and destructive to fight that.

The reality is that Bush is letting dogma stand in the way of a facts-based rational policy that is known to work.

Finally, do read this page. It is a former sex-ed site that closed, for various reasons. One of them being that freedom of expression isn't what it used to be. Take note.

The Soviets lived in constant fear of Big Brother because unlike our government,

Not really.

You'd actually have to do something to get onto their shitlist. For most, who did not care, the led a boring but safe life.

My parents were communists in the early 60-ties, and my uncle married a girl from Eastern Germany. In fact, my mother was a Norwegian delegate to a big youth-conference in Bulgaria in 1968, but that became a big wake-up-call for her. Pretty much all the delegates were brain-dead droids, except the Czechoslovakians, who had a government heading in the right direction. That's how my parents viewed the possible future of communism, not authoratorian, more anarchistic. While they were there, the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia. To my parents, that's the straw that broke the camels' back, and they resigned.

They also made some moves towards their Eastern German friends, which made my parents enter the STASI shitlist. It didn't really matter to them, but it has been very interesting to look in the STASI archives now. They knew pretty much everything.

To those never entering the shitlist, what made a difference was the constant pounding of head against the beaurocratic brickwall, the humiliation of "sorry, you're not allowed to enter that flight", "you're not authorized by proper authorities", always have to submit to some greater authority. Always hearing "you have nothing to fear if you have done nothing wrong". To most, that's something they could live with. And what it would take to change it had very little to do with leadership, it had to do with people getting off their asses.

My cousin (the son of the Eastern German), studied three years in Jacksonville. He happened to be just a couple of blocks away from Bush when the planes hit on 911. Because of family that was still in Eastern Germany, they had been there a lot, even though STASI made sure they were thoroughly examined on every visit. He knew what that was about. The privatized US beaurocracy (especially in banks and insurance companies) is not very different from the Eastern German beaurocracy according to him. The three months that he spent in the US after 911, he felt that the US had lost most of its lead on Soviet-era Eastern Germany.

That includes freedom from reprisal from government. Look here to know what happens if you try to say that abstinence only is wrong

Now, the hard part in Eastern Germany was to get on the shitlist. You would actually have to do something. They did in fact not have the resources to keep a tab on everyone.

With Echelon, they can.

OMG! OMG! VENUS razors? They're using RFID to trace teen masturbaters! Could YOU be next???

Your sarcasm is wasted on me - I'm an atheist myself. However, there is indeed a big difference between what the CoS is doing and, say, people who try to convince you of the creation myth. Do you understand the word "abuse"? Can't you see that it is different from "deceit"?

From Spaink's site:

Scientology urged him to get the money any which way he could. According to Fishman, they also assigned him to kill somebody, and failing that, ordered him to commit suicide.

Allaboutsex.org does this....

You're right, and here's why:

By using a definition that says anything representing any sort of sexual act of anyone "underage" we get into situations that make this illegal (yes, I'm in Canada, and I'm technically going to break the old version of our laws):

It is reccomended that anyone under the age of 18 use a condom during sex to prevent the possibility of conceiving a child. A condom is worn by simply removing it from its wrapper and then rolling it down one's penis.

Because I mentioned sex, and a sexual act between minors I have broken the law. Does anyone else here think that's silly? Insane, perhaps?

Don't believe me? Click here.

That's why child porn laws should be used to protect children from abusers, and not from information such as the above which they have a right to know. But an incensed public just doesn't seem to understand the difference, unfortunately, and only listens to police who clamour for such broad-scope laws that let *them* decide who gets raided and who doesn't, rather than you.

Remember, you can tell someone's true support for free speech by seeing if they're willing to support those they detest who harm no-one. And I detest pedophiles, but if they aren't abusing children, it's hard for me to find a reason they need to go to jail for. Really hard. Mental hospital, sure, but jail...

I think this site puts it better than I ever could have.

For those wondering what goes through the mind of a pedophile, read this. I'm surprised I even found it.

So, putting the computer in the living room is not a solution. At least, not a very good solution.

I think one solution is to teach the kids to behave responsibly. But that's only part of the solution, I do think filters must be a part of this too. But good filters, filters that simply do not exist today. I think TimBL's Semantic Web-dream will go a long way in providing the solution.

Actually, I would really like to see good filters become a reality. I maintain a site on how to use a compass, and I've got a page where I put up mnemonics people send me. One very common goes something like "True Virgins Make Dull Companions At Weddings" (there are many variations). Since I'm aiming this tutorial mainly at kids, I haven't put that one up. For one thing, the sucky filters of today would likely block me, and besides you never know how people could take offence. If I could label it, and trust that filters would handle it properly, I could make a separate page with those, problem solved.

Well, I don't have a solution to the poster's problem. I don't think there exists a solution right now. Perhaps putting it in the living room is an acceptable temporary solution, and then showing her the a bunch sites that you find acceptable for her to explore in privacy while you're at work or something.

However, I recognize the need for some automated rating criteria, and that is not just about pr0n, but all kinds of information. I think that rating technologies are not inherently good or bad. Take RDF for example. It can be used to check out enormous amounts of information for you, and you may decide whether or not you want to see it. Since you have a finite life, you can't wade through all the information, so you'll be happy that somebody or something has done a lot of things for you. So the opposition to RDF or (even) PICS is a bit wrong, I feel.

Now, the same technology can be used to vlock sites for kids. Well, that could be good or bad, I would for example have no objections to let kids explore AllAboutSex without me hanging over them, but there are certain sites I would want to guide them through... So, you need rating schemes that are able to make a clear distinction somewhere here, that's the important thing. Opposition to any technology that can do this is counterproductive.

What one should oppose in this case is not the technology, but rather any laws that makes any rating scheme or technology mandatory. That's the scary thing, if any of this is mandatory, that's wrong, as long as it is voluntary, it's OK.