Posts Tagged ‘pledge’
Republican Pledge to lie [a little bit] less and steal more!
What really caught my eye in TV coverage of this sterling event was – when was the last time you saw so many stiffs standing around looking like they’re prepped for a Sears, Roebuck Fall catalog photo shoot?
Would you pledge your soul as collateral for a loan?
Ready to give your soul for a loan in these difficult economic times? In Latvia, where the crisis has raged more than in the rest of the European Union, you can.
Such a deal is being offered by the Kontora loan company, whose public face is Viktor Mirosiichenko.
Clients have to sign a contract, with the words “Agreement” in bold letters at the top. The client agrees to the collateral, “that is, my immortal soul.”
Mirosiichenko said his company would not employ debt collectors to get its money back if people refused to repay, and promised no physical violence. Signatories only have to give their first name and do not show any documents.
“If they don’t give it back, what can you do? They won’t have a soul, that’s all,” he told Reuters in a basement office, with one desk, a computer and three chairs.
Uh, OK. Maybe that works – if you believe? I think it’s useless for all the right reasons: non-definable collateral, worthless on the open market.
Virginity Pledges Don’t Work
The U.S. government spends more than $200 million annually on abstinence-promotion programs, including virginity pledges.
A new study of a federal survey taken in the 1990s finds that teens who took virginity pledges are just as likely as other teens to have sex before marriage. Importantly, when the pledgers broke their vows they were less likely to use birth control, including condoms.
“Taking a pledge doesn’t seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior,” said Janet E. Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose led the study. “But it does seem to make a difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is quite striking.”
These teens who’d promised to avoid premarital sex actually ended up exposing themselves to greater risk of pre-marital pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease, despite the hopes of those who support federally funded virginity pledge programs.
Is anyone surprised that dimwit programs run by self-deluded ideologues produced nothing of value?
