Mood:  cheeky

Harold Ford Behind in Tennessee

Republican Bob Corker now leads Democratic opponent Harold Ford Jr. by five percentage points in the race for a U.S. Senate seat from Tennessee, a new poll reveals.

In the poll by the Wall Street Journal, former Chattanooga Mayor Corker got 47.6 percent of the vote, while Ford -- a five-term Congressman from Memphis -- received 42.4 percent.

A poll earlier this month had Corker ahead by only one point.

The two are vying for the seat being vacated by Majority Leader Bill Frist, who is not seeking a third term.

"This poll just confirms what our internal polling has shows -- that once Tennesseans learn about Congressman Ford’s record, the more they agree that he does not share our Tennessee values,” said Corker Campaign manager Ben Mitchell in remarks reported by chattanoogan.com.

Mitchell said Ford -- who was national campaign co-chairman for John Kerry’s presidential run in 2004 -- is "in the mold of Sens. Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry.”

News Max.com ** Harold Ford Behind in Tennessee

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 3:17 AM EDT

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Mood:  cheeky

Analysis: Senate terror vote boosts Bush

The U.S. Senate handed President George W. Bush not one but three victories when it overwhelmingly approved his new terror bill Thursday.

First, the president not only won congressional approval for his tough policies on interrogating terror suspects, he won big. The vote in the Senate was 65 to 34. It came the day after the House of Representatives voted Wednesday in favor of the bill a comparably decisive margin of 253 to 168.

Second, the victory looks likely to give the Republicans another boost in the hard-fought fall midterm congressional election campaign. The congressional victories came after the president had suffered a long losing streak on his ambitious legislative initiatives in his second term. Also, presidents are supposed to be passive and ineffectual lame ducks as they head into the last two stretches of their second terms. But instead, Bush is successfully reversing the conventional precedents and dynamics of administration power cycles.

Third, the vote revealed the degree to which the opposition Democrats remained divided and unsure in how to oppose Bush's relentless emphasis on national security issues. Several Democratic senators facing tough reelection battles broke ranks to back the president in the vote.

Their defections confirmed that the president's tough policies on interrogating terror suspects remain broadly popular with the American people, especially in the heartland.

The victories also came at the perfect time for the White House to use them to deflect the media spotlight and public interest from the declassified sections of a National Intelligence Estimate that concluded the war on Iraq was seriously hindering rather than helping the U.S. war on terror.

Over the past six years, the president has repeatedly proven masterful at winning widespread popular support for his party at the Democrats' expense by expressing tough, unrelenting stands on national security issues. But Thursday, empowered by his congressional victories, he tied his national security policies to partisan campaigning far more openly and powerfully than he never has before.

"Five years after Sept. 11, the worst attack on the American people in our history, the Democrats offer nothing but criticism and obstruction, and endless second guessing," the president told an audience of several thousand people in Birmingham, Alabama, Thursday to enthusiastic applause.

That kind of rhetoric is without question divisive rather than unifying in a time of war. It was also vintage Bush in responding to criticisms not defensively, but by counter-attacking as fast and as fiercely as possible. And recent polling trends, as well as the precedents of the 2002 congressional elections and the 2004 presidential campaign, suggest that it is almost always highly effective.

In factual terms, the published extracts from the NIE are a devastating indictment of the president's policies in Iraq and their negative impact upon the war on terror over the past three-and-a-half years. And it remains to be seen whether the tough new terror law will have any significant impact on preventing terror attacks within the United States and around the world.

In fact, the relative paucity of such attacks anywhere over the past five years compared with what the terrorists appeared capable of after Sept. 11, 2001 suggests that the tough interrogation and detention policies have indeed been effective in blunting the might of al-Qaida and related groups except, ironically, in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they have thrived on ill-judged U.S. and allied military and occupation policies.

The United States looks likely to pay the price of decreased popularity around the world, especially in allied nations, now that Congress has backed the president's policies in these areas. But that appears unlikely to have any adverse effect on the Republican Party's popularity in the run up to the November elections.

Bush, like former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, is a conviction politician who rules by retaining a dedicated, loyal core of supporters. His emphasis on security issues and the congressional passing of the new terror legislation looks likely to re-consolidate that base after it has been wavering on Iraq, immigration policy, border security and other issues. It will not convince many, if any, Democrats to vote for the GOP in November, but it is not intended to.

Even if political independents and undecided voters stay on the fence, that will be an acceptable outcome for White House master strategist Karl Rove. Bush and Rove won three election campaigns in a row by mobilizing their own political base while working to depress or discourage turn out among their opponents, and confused or anemic Democratic responses to the president's current attacks will continue to play into his hands.

The GOP still faces the possibility of losing control of the House of Representatives; the president's aggressive policies and public rhetoric on terror issues and national security, coupled with the 10 percent drop in oil prices over the past few months and the still booming stock market, appears to have blunted the widespread sense of frustration at the Congress.

The American public usually only votes out large numbers of incumbent Congress members once every couple of decades. The last such upheaval was 12 years ago in 1994, and the previous one was in 1974, after the Watergate crisis, 20 years earlier.

The possibility of another such upheaval this November can still not be discounted. But the president's congressional victories this week and his determined, aggressive speeches targeting his political foes make it less likely.

Washington Times ~ United Press International -
Martin Sieff ** Analysis: Senate terror vote boosts Bush

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 2:57 AM EDT

Updated: Saturday, 30 September 2006 3:23 AM EDT

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Mood:  chatty

Intelligence on Bush's side

Report is far from damning of President's insistence on maintaining the course in Iraq

Truth, like beauty, is apparently to be in the eye of the beholder. That's the only conclusion you can draw from the reaction to the US National Intelligence Estimate entitled Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the US, with a declassified summary of its conclusions released by President George W. Bush after parts were leaked to The New York Times.

The media coverage and most political reaction suggests the summary is damning of Bush's position on Iraq. I have two things to say about that. One is that people must be reading a different document from the one I am. The other is that the summary seems to me to ignore some significant considerations.

Bush says that if the US were to pull its forces out of Iraq it would lead to increased terrorism and, conversely, that victory in Iraq would be a blow to terrorism.

Here's what the NIE says: "Perceived jihad success (in Iraq) would inspire more fighters to continue the fight elsewhere." And "should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight". That's supportive, not undermining, of Bush's opposition to withdrawal.

Bush constantly emphasises that the spread of democratic processes, pluralism and support for moderate forces will eventually work against the terrorists. So does the NIE, not just once but in several places.

It says democratic reform efforts in Muslim majority nations during the next five years will drive a wedge between intransigent extremists and groups willing to use the political process to achieve their local objectives. There is a risk that such reforms could be destabilising in the transition period, but that's the case whenever countries move towards democracy.

So the NIE supports two key Bush propositions. As to the impression created by the reportage and commentary that the NIE judges it is Iraq that is creating these problems, in fact the NIE identifies four underlying factors that are fuelling the spread of the jihad movement.

One is Iraq and another is anti-US sentiment among Muslims. The other two are made up of local factors such as corruption, injustice and the slow pace of economic and political reform in many Muslim majority nations. I find this list logically incomplete. The jihadists undertook many attacks well before the 2003 attack on Iraq.

The biggest encouragement to the terrorists was that nothing serious was done to respond to these attacks during 20 years, culminating in the spectacular success of the 9/11 attack.

For those who say the war in Iraq has spread terrorism, surely the October 2001 invasion of the terrorists' home base, Afghanistan, had already done that. The 2002 bombings in Bali happened before Iraq, as did the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 and many other terrorist incidents.

I know these facts are quoted by Bush and John Howard, yet they are still facts and the logic that flows from them remains logical. Jihadism took off way before Iraq and there is no reason to think it needed Iraq to explode.

There is another, deeper, problem here. The NIE states: "We assess that the Iraq conflict has become the cause celebre for jihadists." Well, let's assume that's correct. My question is: And? What follows from that assessment? Israel is also a cause celebre for jihadists. Does that mean we should abandon it? If the answer is: "No, that's a ridiculous proposition", then it is logically equally ridiculous in the case of Iraq.

Indeed, there is a more general question. If we think certain actions we take may inspire sustained hatred and motivate terrorists, should we always do nothing? Supporting the Afghan jihadists against the Soviets contributed to Islamic terrorism. Most likely so did the first invasion of Iraq in 1991 to protect Kuwait, as did the subsequent maintenance in the region of US troops to try to contain Iraq, a policy that failed after 12 years, a failure that in turn led to the second attack on Iraq. So should we still have done those things?

Supporting Israel turns Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and many others against us. Should we still support Israel? If the answer is yes, the same logic applies to Iraq.

Another NIE assessment is that during the next five years the likelihood is that the threat of terror will get stronger, not weaker. Bush regularly warns about the high danger of terror and the need to be constantly alert, and for this he is condemned as playing politics in the lead-up to a congressional election. He may well be playing politics but, according to the NIE, he has pretty strong grounds for saying it.

But, still, doesn't this NIE assessment contradict Bush when he says US policy and actions have made the world safer from terrorism? Not necessarily. The US homeland has not been attacked despite obvious efforts by al-Qa'ida to do so.

Furthermore, you have to consider the consequences if no such action had been taken, if there had been no cause celebre such as the attack on Afghanistan and the attack on Iraq. Non-action has its own consequences. There is a strong case to be made, and certainly one I support, that non-action is exactly what caused the original growth and strength of jihadism in the lead-up to 9/11. Would the world have been safer if we had continued to avoid retaliatory action? I don't think so.

The present spike in violence in Iraq is motivated largely by the desire of the jihadists and Iran to see Bush's Republicans lose in the congressional elections. There is a prospect also that in the lead-up to those elections the jihadists will seek to carry out another terror spectacular in the US. They and Iran know that it is in US ballot boxes that the struggle will be won or lost. If the Republicans are trounced, the battle of wills is over and we have lost not only in Iraq but most probably in Afghanistan and globally as well.

Given the almost inconceivable incompetence, misjudgment and delusional pigheadedness of Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, largely unconstrained by Bush, the Republicans deserve a drubbing, and at the moment are more likely than not to get it.

But their defeat should not be because of this NIE which, far from undermining Bush's positions, largely supports them.

The Australian ~ Michael Costello ** Intelligence on Bush's side

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 2:38 AM EDT

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Mood:  spacey

Democrat Wants More Abortion for Ohio

The Democratic congressman running against Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell in the Ohio governor’s race said the state’s job-loss problem is not caused by high taxes or regulation, but by not having abortion on demand. He made the statement on Wednesday.

The Democratic congressman who made this statment? Liberal candidate Ted Strickland, who is trying to paint Blackwell as an extremist for being pro-life. But his comments raise the question: Who is the extremist here?

When Strickland was asked what he would do in his first 100 days to help create jobs, his reply was essentially to replace Ohio values with Hollywood values. Ohio overwhelmingly supported the marriage amendment and helped re-elect President Bush in 2004.

Cleveland Plain Dealer President and Publisher Terrance C.Z. Egger asked Strickland: "I hear taxes are an impediment to jobs in Ohio relative to other states. What are the two or three things today in the short term ... you think is an impediment to jobs, more job creation, and population growth in Ohio?

"I’m anxious about 100 days in year one ... There are a lot of things you can pay attention to and try to do. I’m really curious about those specifics ... so [regarding] the impediments to jobs, what would you do in the first hundred days of the first year?

Here is Strickland’s reply: "Ohio’s got a big problem with its image and with its attitude.

"Part of the image and part of the attitude I think that is holding back Ohio making it much less attractive to those who would invest or choose to come here is the social climate that is being promoted by my opponent. I mean it’s almost anti-science in my judgment. I believe in Northeast Ohio, stem cell research is a big deal.

"I talked to the head of the Ireland Cancer Center the other day and I toured that facility. He said he was [looking] forward to the day when he felt like the constraints would no longer be there so we can do what we must do in terms of medical research. This is not a little issue. It’s a huge issue in my judgment.

"Attitudes about a woman’s right to choose and embracing an attitude that a woman should not be able to choose an abortion even to save her life is so far out of the mainstream. All of these things paint a picture of Ohio, I think nationally and perhaps even internationally, as a backward state.

"So we need to change our image and I think that can happen almost immediately with new leadership.”

News Max.com ** Democrat Wants More Abortion for Ohio

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 11:56 AM EDT

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Mood:  d'oh

ANTI-W. $OROS: I QUIT POLITICS

Billionaire liberal financier George Soros, who spent millions of his fortune trying to oust President Bush in 2004, yesterday said he hopes to stay out of politics from now on.

"In the future, I'd very much like to get disengaged from politics," Soros said at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting on the Upper East Side. "I'm interested in policy and not in politics."

NY Post ~ Maggie Haberman ** Anti-W. Soros: I Quit Politics!

Right now, if you listen hard enough towards the DNC headquarters, you can hear a collective
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

But I'm not getting overly excited over this.
He's a libtard; when has a libtard ever kept his or her word (other than when they promise to oppose conservatives)? It's as simple as that.

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 8:30 AM EDT

Updated: Friday, 29 September 2006 8:37 AM EDT

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Mood:  a-ok

All Iraqi Ethnic Groups Overwhelmingly Reject al Qaeda

But Groups Vary on Iran, Syria, Hezbollah

Full Report
Questionnaire/Methodology

A new poll of Iraqis shows that al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden are rejected by overwhelming majorities of Shias and Kurds and large majorities of Sunnis.

Shias have mildly positive views of Iran and its President, while Kurds and Sunnis have strongly negative views. Shias and Kurds have mostly negative views of Syria, while Sunnis are mildly positive. Shias have overwhelmingly positive views of Hezbollah, while Kurds and Sunnis have negative views.

The poll was conducted for WorldPublicOpinion.org by conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland and was fielded by KA Research Ltd. / D3 Systems, Inc. Polling was conducted September 1-4 with a nationwide representative sample of 1,150 Iraqi adults.

It may be easy to assume that as the Iraqi people become more supportive of attacks on US-led forces (see LINK TO WPO ARTICLE 1), they may grow warmer toward al Qaeda—the probable source of a significant number of attacks on US forces. However, this does not appear to be the case. Al Qaeda is exceedingly unpopular among the Iraqi people.

Overall 94 percent have an unfavorable view of al Qaeda, with 82 percent expressing a very unfavorable view. Of all organizations and individuals assessed in this poll, it received the most negative ratings. The Shias and Kurds show similarly intense levels of opposition, with 95 percent and 93 percent respectively saying they have very unfavorable views. The Sunnis are also quite negative, but with less intensity. Seventy-seven percent express an unfavorable view, but only 38 percent are very unfavorable. Twenty-three percent express a favorable view (5% very).

Views of Osama bin Laden are only slightly less negative. Overall 93 percent have an unfavorable view, with 77 percent very unfavorable. Very unfavorable views are expressed by 87 percent of Kurds and 94 percent of Shias. Here again, the Sunnis are negative, but less unequivocally—71 percent have an unfavorable view (23% very), and 29 percent a favorable view (3% very).

Regional Actors: Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah
Some observers fear that with the ascension of Shias to a dominant role in Iraq, there is potential for the formation of an alliance between Iraq and Shia-dominated Iran. In this poll, though, Shias show only mildly positive attitudes toward Iran, while Kurds and Sunnis are quite negative. Asked whether Iran is having a mostly positive or negative influence on the situation in Iraq, just 45 percent of Shias say it is having a positive influence (negative 28%, neutral 27%), while Iran’s influence is viewed a mostly negative by large majorities of Kurds (71%) and Sunnis (94%).

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does a bit better among Shias, with 64 percent having a very (28%) or somewhat (36%) favorable view. But Kurds have a largely unfavorable view (very 43%, somewhat 34%) and the Sunnis an exceedingly unfavorable view (very 80%, somewhat 17%).

While some have expressed fears of Syria being a link in an emerging Shia crescent (though very few Syrians are Shia), public opinion in Iraq would hardly be the cement. Most Shias (68%) think Syria is having a negative influence on Iraq’s situation, as do most Kurds (63%). Sunnis are only mildly positive, with 41 percent having a favorable view (17% negative, 43% neutral).

Hezbollah elicits highly polarized views. An overwhelming 91 percent of Shias have a very (50%) or somewhat favorable (41%) view of Hezbollah, while an equally large 93 percent of Kurds have a very (64%) or somewhat (29%) unfavorable view. Sunnis are also fairly negative, with 59 percent having a very (10%) or somewhat (49%) unfavorable view.

World Public Opinion ~ Global Public Opinion on International Affairs **
All Iraqi Ethnic Groups Overwhelmingly Reject al Qaeda

Related: Intercepted Al-Qaeda Letter Says They're Weak, Losing...
NY Sun ~ Eli Lake ** As War Over Leak Grips Washington, Al Qaeda Quails
History News Network ~ Judith Apter Klinghoffer ** Poll: Al Qaeda lost hearts and minds in Iraq

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 1:11 AM EDT

Updated: Friday, 29 September 2006 1:15 AM EDT

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Mood:  lyrical

Cut And Run

(Sung to the Tune of "Let It Snow")

Oh the Weathermen all were Marxists
Their successors now are heartsick
So they beat their anti-Bush-war drum
Cut and run, cut and run, cut and run.

They're showing no signs of stopping
And their leadership's flip-flopping
Surrender-monkeys everyone
Cut and run, cut and run, cut and run.

When we finally win this war
I'll enjoy saying ''I told you so''
To the people who think Al Gore
Really won back in O-Ohhhh...

The peaceniks just keep on bitching
As their moles go right on snitching
John Murtha's their favorite son
Cut and run, cut and run, cut and run.

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 7:37 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 28 September 2006 9:12 AM EDT

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Mood:  party time!

Report: U.S. Health Care Quality Improves

WASHINGTON -- The quality of the health care provided to millions of Americans improved last year across several dozen categories, including increased immunization rates among insured children.

The improvements are seen through the reporting of data that the White House and Congress want more of from health-care providers. They're contained in a report being issued Wednesday by the National Committee for Quality Assurance, which accredits and certifies insurers.

The association tracks dozens of care measurements, submitted by many of the nation's insurance plans. The long-term tracking of the measurements helps improve the quality of care, according to the report.

For patients in private insurance plans, there was improvement in 35 of 42 measurements, including such categories as cervical cancer screening, colorectal cancer screening and the controlling of high blood pressure in hypertension patients.

Categories that showed a decrease in the quality of care included breast cancer screenings. The percentage of women in commercial insurance plans, ages 50-69, who got a breast cancer screening in the past two years dropped to 72 percent from 73.4 percent. Similar drops were seen in insurance plans covering Medicare and Medicaid patients.

The gains also include increased numbers of children with private health insurance getting all their recommended immunizations, with the rate reaching 77.7 percent, up from 72.5 percent. Also, more smokers enrolled in Medicare received advice about kicking the habit.

From year to year, many of the changes are small - often just a percentage point or two. But the differences come into clearer focus over a 10-year period, officials said.

For example, the committee said that more than 96 percent of patients who suffered heart attacks last year were given drugs to lower their blood pressure and slow the heart rate, which helps prevent a second attack. A decade ago, about 62 percent of patients suffering heart attacks were given such medicines.

One in four Americans are enrolled in health plans that collect and report data on the quality of care. However, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in plans that report no objective quality data, the report said.

"This past decade has demonstrated the benefits of measurement, reporting and accountability, but three out of four people don't enjoy those benefits today," said Margaret E. O'Kane, the president of the National Committee for Quality Assurance. "It's time to ask, 'Why not?'"

The committee noted that one important exception to a pattern of improvement was the quality of care for Americans with mental health problems. Patients in insurance plans who are hospitalized for mental illness are only marginally more likely to get appropriate follow-up care than they were when the insurers began collecting quality data in 1998.

News Max.com ~ Associated Press ** Report: U.S. Health Care Quality Improves

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 6:55 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 28 September 2006 7:01 AM EDT

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Mood:  surprised

Times employee arrested in sting

Metropolitan Police today charged the director of human resources at The Washington Times with one count of attempting to entice a minor on the Internet.

Randall Casseday, 53, was arrested at 9:45 p.m. yesterday in the 1300 block of Brentwood Road NE, where police said he had arranged to meet who he thought was a 13-year-old girl. He had actually exchanged Internet messages and photographs with a male police officer posing as a girl.

"When he went there, he was met by police," police spokesman Sgt. Joe Gentile said.

As set out in an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court today, Mr. Casseday, whose home address was listed in the unit block of Manner House Drive in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., initiated a conversation with the undercover officer in an online chat room.

The officer identified himself as a 13-year-old girl in the District, and Mr. Casseday identified himself as a 53-year-old man who usually lives in New York but was spending time in the District, the affidavit states.

The conversation included discussion of an explicit sexual nature.

In the course of the conversation, Mr. Casseday sent via e-mail several graphic photographs of himself, and the police officer sent him a photograph described in the complaint as of "a young child in a bathing suit." The two agreed to meet at 9:30 p.m.

Brian Bauman, a spokesman for The Washington Times, said that Mr. Casseday had been suspended without pay pending the results of the investigation.

"The Washington Times strictly prohibits any illegal activities on our property," Mr. Bauman said. "This is a law-enforcement matter and we are cooperating with officials to the best of our abilities and it would be inappropriate to comment any further since it is in the process of investigation."

It is not clear from the affidavit whether the online conversation took place on company property or on a company-owned computer.

Lt. Patricia Williams, head of the police department's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, declined to discuss the specifics of the case because it is still under investigation.

Lt. Williams said the four-officer task force has been conducting active undercover investigations since May. Police have made nine arrests of persons going online and arranging to meet minors for the purpose of engaging in sexual relations.

She said that in all cases the persons charged with the offenses have initiated the conversations and requested the meetings. "We will not encourage, we will not start or initiate a sex conversation," Lt. Williams said.

Federal law prohibits using the Internet to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity and carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in federal prison without parole and a maximum sentence of 30 years in federal prison without parole.

The Washington Times ** Times employee arrested in sting  -- Also at:
ABC Radio - WMAL 640 ~ Assoc. Press ** Washington Times Employee Busted in Internet Sting

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 3:23 AM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 28 September 2006 3:32 AM EDT

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Mood:  mischievious

Teens' T-Shirts Make Educators Squirm

Suggestive Messages Challenge Dress Codes

Ashli Walker rifled through a rack of designer T-shirts one recent afternoon, pondering which one she should buy and wear the next day to Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Prince George's County. The big black one that read, "TRUST ME..I'M SINGLE"? Or the snug white T-shirt emblazoned with, "I KNOW WHAT BOYS WANT"?

They're blatantly sexual, occasionally clever and often loaded with double meanings, forcing school administrators and other students to read provocations stripped across the chest, such as "yes, but not with u!," "Your Boyfriend Is a Good Kisser" and "two boys for every girl." Such T-shirts also are emblematic of the kind of sleazy-chic culture some teenagers now inhabit, in which status can be defined by images of sexual promiscuity that previous generations might have considered unhip.

The T-shirts, which school officials say are racier than ever, are posing dress-code dilemmas on Washington area campuses. School systems typically ban clothing that expresses vulgarity, obscenity or lewdness or that promotes cigarettes, alcohol, drugs or weapons. For instance, T-shirts advertising Budweiser or the movie "Scarface," with Al Pacino holding a tommy gun, are taboo.

But sexually suggestive T-shirts often fall into a gray area that requires officials to evaluate one shirt at a time. Some messages are considered harmless -- "Single and Ready to Mingle" or "My Boyfriend Is a Good Kisser." Others are not.

"We try not to make a huge deal out of it, but we also want to be protecting the school environment," said Rick Mondloch, an associate principal at Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax County, who recently ordered a "Pimps" shirt turned inside out. "These shirts are more risque than they were even five years ago and probably a little more blunt, so you have to be attuned to it."

Robynne Prince, an assistant principal at Eleanor Roosevelt, said: "If there are shirts with obvious sexual connotations, then we know exactly what we're going to do, but there are some students who push the envelope."

For teenagers who chafe at clothing rules for midriffs and cleavage, "attitude" shirts offer a chance to show some skin, without showing skin.

"We have so many dress codes or whatever, so the T-shirts are like us rebelling against the teachers and principals because we can't wear what we want," said Ashli, 17, a junior at Eleanor Roosevelt, in Greenbelt, who said she does not want to have sex until she is married. "I think most girls and boys get the T-shirts because they're funny and they draw attention to you. I don't really care what guys say."

Her mother, Yakini Ajanaku, does not mind her daughter's T-shirts because she said Ashli wears them to be ironic. "I know she's a sweet girl, and I know that she's very conservative and is not sexually active," Ajanaku said. "Other people would probably get the wrong message, but I am pretty much like, 'Who cares what they think?' "

In a culture that bombards teenagers with sexual imagery -- think of rapper 50 Cent's song "Candy Shop," about the pleasures of consuming lollipops -- the T-shirts are just another way to revel in raunchy entertainment, without necessarily getting physical, according to students interviewed for this story.

"It gives me a little edge, but it's just to get a rise out of people, because people know me," said Allison Wynn, 17, a senior at Osbourn Park High School in Prince William County. "They're just like in every ad you see in magazines, people wearing these clothes or they're always making out. It's how you want to be. My boyfriend thinks it's funny." She said she is fond of wearing a shirt that says, "Don't Call Me a Cowgirl Until You See Me Ride."

Joanne Wynn said her daughter's shirts are humorous. "If it's not in good taste, I don't let [her] wear it," she said.

The T-shirts highlight a paradox about this generation: Even as more teenagers absorb ubiquitous sexual messages, federal data show that they report having less sex than their predecessors.

Although a recent National Center for Health Statistics survey found that more than half of all teenagers engage in oral sex, teen pregnancy rates have plummeted since the early 1990s. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of high school students who reported having sexual intercourse dropped from 54 percent in 1991 to 47 percent in 2005.

"It's a puzzling picture," said Sarah Brown, director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy in the District. "When someone sees a girl or boy in provocative clothing, they make a lot of assumptions about what's going on, which may or may not be true -- which really is the point, isn't it?"

Suggestive T-shirts have been around for years. A decade ago, some teenagers sported shirts that featured Coed Naked sporting events or Mr. Zog's Sex Wax. But school officials now are dealing with shirts that are much more blunt. It's up to them to determine what's innocuous, what's mildly suggestive and what, frankly, is truly awful.

At Potomac Senior High School in Prince William, a girl recently wore a black T-shirt parodying the "Got Milk?" ad, with sexual slang replacing the word "milk." Steve Bryson, the school's administrative assistant, brought the girl into his office. "I asked her, 'Why would you wear something like that?' And she said: 'I don't know. My dad knows that I have it,'" he recalled. "So I called the dad, and, of course, he had no idea. He said, 'Throw it away.' "

One popular merchant of suggestive shirts is Hollister Co., a chain owned by Abercrombie & Fitch. Its shirts say such things as "two boys for every girl" and "FLIRTING MY WAY TO THE TOP."

Larissa Olson, 20, a Hollister employee at Potomac Mills Mall in Woodbridge, said she wonders why girls buy them. "I'm like, 'She has no respect for herself.' "

Asked about the messages his company markets to teenagers, Thomas D. Lennox, Abercrombie & Fitch's vice president of corporate communications, said, "Our T-shirts are sometimes controversial, which we're fine with." He declined to elaborate.

When students are caught with shirts that cross the line, they are usually given a school T-shirt or asked to turn theirs inside out. Administrators said evaluating the shirts can be awkward because the words are usually printed right over a student's chest. Sometimes students stride quickly past or take other evasive maneuvers to conceal a questionable T-shirt.

"It's almost like a live-action Pac-Man game. You see them coming through the hall, and they're trying to avoid you," said Myca Gray, an assistant principal at Gar-Field Senior High School in Prince William.

At Eleanor Roosevelt, students caught with over-the-line shirts sometimes must wear school shirts that mark them as "dress code violators." One day, Assistant Principal LaTanya Catron saw sophomore Paula Akanni wearing a tight black T-shirt that said, "I AM TOO HOT TO HANDLE." The word "Hot" had gold studs on the letters.

"Are you too hot to handle?" Catron asked with a smile. "Is that for the boys?

"It's for nobody," Akanni replied, walking away.

Most parents interviewed said that they would rather not see their kids wear the racy shirts but that they sometimes give in. Rosa Pulley tried to order her daughter Keana, 17, a Gar-Field senior, to return a T-shirt that says, "yes, but not with u!" But Keana insisted. "I have to pick my battles," the mother said. "Okay, I don't like it. She's wearing it, but it could be something worse."

Keana said her shirt's message was ambiguous. "It could mean, 'Yes, I want to go to the movies, but not with you,' " she said. "If I wanted to be sexy, like on MTV, I would just buy low-cut tight shirts."

The T-shirt trend appears to have no racial or ethnic boundaries. Girls appear to wear them more often. Guys say there is nothing confusing about the messages. "When I see a T-shirt that says, '100% single,' then you're compelled to go up and talk to them," said Paul Barrett, 17, a senior at Osbourn Park. "But if they're not single, it'd kind of [tick] me off, like they're a tease. I wouldn't let my girlfriend wear that."

At the boutique in Prince George's, Ashli decided what she would wear to school. Back to the rack went "TRUST ME..I'M SINGLE." She took "I KNOW WHAT BOYS WANT" and headed the register.

"I like this one," she said, "because I have shoes to go with it."

Washington Post ~ Ian Shapira ** Teens' T-Shirts Make Educators Squirm

Posted by yaahoo_06iest at 3:10 AM EDT

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