Texas, ... has one of the highest teen-pregnancy rates in the nation, costing the state "approximately $1 billion annually for the costs of teen childbearing."

It's a morality play disguised as a policy preference. Ask the Lege, and you'll get a version of the old MasterCard commercial, to wit:

"Cost to the state of teen childbearing: Approximately $1 billion annually.
Punishing sluts: Priceless."

When the full blown AIDS epidemic hits Texas they'll blame it on the liberal press. Nauseating...

Does anyone know how we go about giving Texas back to Mexico?

More evidence that morality is completely man-made. Any God worth worshipping would want children to know.

"When the full blown AIDS epidemic hits Texas they'll blame it on the liberal press. Nauseating..."

no, silly. it will all be the fault of those damn gays.

As someone who knows that Texas is the best state in the country and routinely defends the state against you jealous haters, I've got to say that I really have got nothing on this one. I hide my head in shame.

"Does anyone know how we go about giving Texas back to Mexico?"

What have the Mexicans ever done to you to deserve this?

Over 70% of black children born in the United States are illegitimate. That means that they raised without fathers and whatever love, support and guidance a father might give. That is true ignorance and a tragedy. Prior to Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, the ideological forerunner of Obama's movement, black family formation equalled that of white's. And here we go again. Liberals never learn.

Any belief system that actively encourages ignorance is faulty. I will never understand why people would rather blind their children to reality than provide them with facts to make an informed choice. Talkig about sex in an informed, fact-based manner does not create more sexually active teens, but not doing so definitely does lead to more pregnancies and STDs.

Why am I not surprised that a discussion of sex education has rapidly devolved into a Rep/Dem cat fight?

Which is why Sweden, with its 54% illegitimacy rate, is such a hell-hole.

and it seems trolls here are raised without grammar. "That means that they raised without fathers ..."

I'm sorry, only Matt Yglesias gets to mangle spelling and grammar and look intelligent.

PS: Born illegitimate does mean no father is there. I know many families where the parents never married, but both parents were there for the kid(s).

If the only thing you know about someone is, that he uses the word "illegitimite" for a child, it's the only thing you need to know.

Am I reading Fox News ? Giving Texas back to Mexico, sure any day, we will take the 2nd largest port, untold petro reserves, NASA, and all out refining plants with us. Idiots.

Living here in Democratic Houston, I can say this. The problem is the people making the decision were once kids being told the same non-sense. They are lying, but repeating what they were taught, believing it is the truth (condoms are porous). It's extremely hard to break that cycle and when people assume we are all hillbillies and write us off, it only makes change that much harder.

You know how Americans hate when foreigners assume we are all like Bush, well the people who went out and campaigned for Obama hate when everyone assumes we are all republicans.

I'm a native Texan now living in CA, and I am not at all shocked by this report. The religious right has had Texas by the balls for decades, and every now and then, they give another squeeze. Even Governor Rick Perry is a creationist. Years ago, in a community service program, I met a Welfare mom--a product of the infamous public schools--who insisted that a married man cannot get his girlfriend pregnant if his wife is pregnant. When a teenage girl in "health class" asked how girls could masturbate, she was told, "There are some things you are better off not knowing." I love many things about my home state (remember, Texas gave us Ann Richards and Molly Ivins), but I grieve that the state is becoming an intellectual wasteland.

"Does anyone know how we go about giving Texas back to Mexico?"

Too often the ignorant talk of Texas as an entity with a single point of view. That is akin to believing that there is only a single point of view in the United States.

What should be done about Texas?

As a former resident of El Paso, I believe that everything in Texas that is south of New Mexico should be permitted to join that state. That would keep my beloved Big Bend National Park in the U.S.

2nd - Everything east of there & 40 miles west of Fort Worth should be permitted to form the 'Independent Duchy of Midland-Amarillo'.

3rd - Everything within 40 miles of Dallas & Fort Worth should form their own 'Republic of Fake Cowboys'.

4th - Everything more than 40 east of Dallas & 40 miles north of Houston should be ceded to Louisiana.

5th - Houston should be drowned.

6th - The remainder of Texas north of Dallas should be ceded to Oklahoma.

7th - The remainder of Texas south of Dallas includes Austin & San Antonio & the Rio Grande border and are good people who should be kept as the smaller state of Texas.

I was going to make a point similar to ScottW. Texas is probably at a point where people who were given piss-poor sex education are now helping run the schools in their same small towns, and this piss-poor "information" is further passed on to another generation, but from a generation who believes it is also the truth. Furthermore, any attempts to school the parents who are schooling the kids is met with skepticism at best, and usually disbelief: "Condoms DON'T have a 30 percent failure rate, ya say? Well, *I* say, you don't have the same facts I do." Really, you can rarely argue with willful ignorance, the only thing you can do is keep your kids educated, and the fact that so few parents express this level of interest in their children is why we're in this cockup in the first place.

Oh, and mhr is a douche, for obvious reasons.

Just as Rush is the de facto leader of the GOP, Texas is the de facto HQ State for the Party. Rushtexlicans?

It's shameful. My niece attends a public junior high here in Houston - she see's pregnant 13 and 14 year olds on a daily basis. Sky high pregnancy and low graduation rates - it's pretty disgusting.

"Does anyone know how we go about giving Texas back to Mexico?"

No thanks. Yes, we have local BBQ and Blues here in KC that are, imnsho, even better, I don't want to have to bring along my passport to go hang out on 6th Street in Austin.

People tend to neglect the credibility effect of these programs as well. By undermining the trust of students in the veracity and value of the information presented in school they water down the entire educational experience for the students.

Don't Mex with Tessex!

Thanks, Texas, for distracting the nation's mockers. We owe you.

"God bless Texas," indeed. They obviously need a bit more divine wisdom than the rest of us.

(un)proud to be from the district that held the title of "highest teen pregnancies per capita" in the whole state for two consecutive years!

also, in texas, it's called "righteous," not "ass-backwards." as a transplant, i learned that one the hard way.

Why am I not surprised that a discussion of sex education has rapidly devolved into a Rep/Dem cat fight?

Because the stunningly backwards policies in Texas are a direct result of the Republican party control and influence there and so it's natural to address the cause?

From the 2008 Texas Republican Party Platform, page 17: "Sex Education: ...We oppose any sex education other than abstinence until heterosexual marriage."

And...that's a wrap!

Perish the thought that a "good old boy" Texan would actually have to take some resposibility in this tragedy.

I found it very interesting that of those states that voted for John McCain, Texas was the among the closest to turn Blue.

Is Texas getting tired of Republican fantasy land where kids don't have sex and all tax cuts pay for themselves and then some?

Can you imagine the disaster that a Blue Texas would bring to the GOP?

What can we do to make that happen? 32 electoral votes in the blue column if we could turn Texas. Boehner and Steele would be publicly shot.

Hey! Some of us are trying to fight the good fight down here. It ain't easy, just check out the editorial pages and opinion letters of any major Tx newspaper as exhibit A.

Are they claiming a 30% failure rate for condoms in Texas because without sex education, teenagers don't know the proper use of condoms? I mean, if they wear it on their noses - that does up the failure rate.

ckelly, I think of Texas as a microcosm of the Bush-era U.S. It was really hard to get people overseas to understand that although Bush had two terms; although a strong case can be made for the average American being a vicious, warmongering, half-educated idiot; although we are an amazingly provincial and superstitious society in addition to being the wealthiest and most technologically advanced country...although all those things are true, half the country didn't vote for Bush and a large minority of citizens were horrified at his foreign policy, knew his domestic policy was all wrong, and were deeply embarrassed at and angered by the abuses that took place under the Republicans.

Texas is much the same way, is it not? Despite your state having a level of conservative crazy that gives Louisiana, Alaska, and other nutty stalwarts a run for their money, the blue population is now just under half of Texans, yes? There is no mandate for all the crap that prevails down there. And I wish for you the same path that our country as a whole took this past November: enough people wake up and smell the coffee that the majority shifts. We're pulling for you, friend.

If you've ever lived in a small west Texas city like Amarillo or San Angelo, you know that all the teenagers there f**k. Probably the only way to slow this runaway train (assuming you think it needs to be slowed, rather than the side effects (pregnancies, stds) addressed) would be a thoroughgoing critique of the masculinist jock/kicker culture in the schools. But fat chance of that ever happening.

I saw a post about this study at another site late last week - might have been Kevin Drum's - and in the comments section one interesting fact came through.

Evidently, the figure of 94% was mostly made up of small, rural school districts in the state. Several posters, basically from Austin and Dallas, wrote that the sex education at THEIR local schools was actually quite good.

The thing that always gets me about "abstinence-only" bullshit is the number of pregnancies which result AND all the oral and anal sex that occurs because that's not "real" sex.

The Republican establishment, all male, has a new punishment for women in stock. They are determent to make woman submit to ultrasound before an abortion. The woman should be made to listen to the heartbeat and look at the ultrasound, also she may close her eyes if she wants to.

The point is to humiliate and punish the woman. It is not pro-life.

Texas is medieval.

The Republican establishment, all male, has a new punishment for women in stock. They are determent to make woman submit to ultrasound before an abortion. The woman should be made to listen to the heartbeat and look at the ultrasound, also she may close her eyes if she wants to.

The point is to humiliate and punish the woman. It is not pro-life.

Texas is medieval.

If one of Goodhair Perry's cronies had a condom company, we'd be selling them out of vending machines in the boy's bathrooms. Remember he was the guy who attempted to mandate that all teeneage girls be vaccinated for HPV.

The thing that always gets me about "abstinence-only" bullshit is the number of pregnancies which result AND all the oral and anal sex that occurs because that's not "real" sex.

Which is why "saddlebacking" (Rick Warren's church name) is now popularly defined as the act of anal sex between two abstinence-until-marriage "christian virgins" because anal vice vaginal penetration somehow constitutes "saving yourself for your future spouse."

The cognitive dissonance, it burns...

SteveT: "Does anyone know how we go about giving Texas back to Mexico?"

I think the first step would be to get rid of all its right-wing gringos. Perhaps we can induce Alaska to take them.

"5th - Houston should be drowned."

It probably should be. But even Houston has some cool museums and disc golf courses. And the shrimp are good. At first glance, Houston seems to have no soul, but it actually does. You just have to poke around. I spent a lot of time in Houston when my mom was getting treated at MD Anderson (great hospital), and I actually enjoyed it. Except for the heat and humidity, of course. Against my better judgment, I'm willing to let it survive.

Where do most people who adopt newborns get them from?

Texas.

Bush country.

As a transplanted Northerner in the lonely blue of Travis County (that's Austin, y'all), I find it all too easy to rip on my adopted state. And there is certainly much to rip on, as Molly Ivins showed the world. But I think it's important to remember that the policies and programs in the post effect real people, and kids at that. It might be hard to manage and more than a little patronizing, but I think it's important to think of this kind of thought and behavior - that engenders such ignorance and abuse (yes, it's abuse, and any sane society would call it for what it is) - as a sickness, the same you would think of any child abuser. Doesn't make it right, and doesn't ameliorate the damage, but it's more accurate and productive than damning Texas to hell. Yeah, Texas can be very much a distilled version of everything that's wrong with this country, but in my experience this is a symptom of a larger malaise, a sickness of the soul that sociopaths have foisted onto America and Americans for personal gain. Texans just happen to be more susceptible to the koolaid than others, I guess. I will say this much: this kind of crap is deeeeeply rooted in this culture, and cannot be 'eliminated.' I think reports like the McClatchy article, and the study it cites, are the way to go: tell it like it is, expose the insanity to the light of day. The abuser's best friend, after all, is secrecy and silence.

Texas is changing. We now have Dallas and are making gains in Houston, although not what we expected. We got rid of a Australopithecine who had been the Speaker of the famous lege for ever. The moneybags are facing opposition.

Even so, we still have an uphill battle. The moneybags have dominated state politics since before Sam Houston and they aren't going anywhere soon. Perry (Goodhair) is an opportunistic fraud who would sell his mother. He did sell off the state highway system, or is in the process thereof. Perry (crook) made a BUNDLE of money building crappy houses and then closing down one corporation and starting another when homeowners started suing him. He is one of the backers of the aforementioned australopithecine and the other Perry in their fight to make Texas safe for the rich and corrupt.

Maybe you can start new section for the website, "Steve's Obsession With Texas."

The nationalist Left arises from the swamp.