What Caught My Eye Today

Nuclear Non-Proliferation - President Barack Obama locked up enough Senate Republican votes to ratify a new arms control treaty with Russia that would cap nuclear warheads for both former Cold War foes and restart on-site weapons inspections. The Obama administration has made arms control negotiations the centerpiece of resetting its relationship with Russia, and the treaty was critical to any rapprochement. Not to mention the fact, that dude won the Nobel Peace Prize last year largely based on the expectation that he would do something to reduce the number of nuclear weapons worldwide. Obama has insisted the treaty is a national security imperative that will improve cooperation with Russia, an argument loudly echoed by the nation's military and foreign policy leaders, former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton and six Republican secretaries of state. You might think that this was one of those rare occasions where the interests of national security would trump petty partisan politics, which one could argue it did since 11 Republicans voted to end debate, but there was plenty of grumbling going on. "We know when we've been beaten," Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah told reporters hours before the vote. Really, Senator, who was beaten here? The American people or the GOP. Every once and a while, you find yourself in that unusual situation, where you have to the chance to do right thing with no real downside, dude. Do you really want to ruin the moment by pouting about it?

Education - Nearly one-fourth of the students who try to join the U.S. Army fail its entrance exam, painting a grim picture of an education system that produces graduates who can't answer basic math and bolstering bolsters a growing worry among military and education leaders that the pool of young people qualified for military service will grow too small. Let's consider this for a moment, shall we? Some of those questions can be sort of tricky and...let's face it...might not be that terribly important for your rank-and-file foot soldier. Questions are often basic, such as: "If 2 plus x equals 4, what is the value of x?" See what I mean? who cares what "x" is? "X" isn't gonna be of much help when somebody is shooting at you. (Incidentally, "x" is 2, should you have been wondering). All kidding aside, it isn't the simplicity of questions like this and the fact that 1 in 4 test takers could figure out the correct answer. No, that sad fact is just the tip of the iceberg. Recruits must score at least a 31 out of 99 on the first stage of the three-hour test to get into the Army. Seriously? That's it? The military exam results are also worrisome because the test is given to a limited pool of people: Pentagon data shows that 75 percent of those aged 17 to 24 don't even qualify to take the test because they are physically unfit, have a criminal record or didn't graduate high school. Isn't that nice? Looks like we hit the trifecta--fat, dumb and stupid.

Teen Pregnancy - Good news, people, good news. You know that silver lining you've been looking for these past couple of years that the economy has been languishing in the gutter? I found it. The U.S. teen birth rate in 2009 fell to its lowest point in almost 70 years. The birth rate for teenagers fell to 39 births per 1,000 girls, ages 15 through 19. Experts say the recent recession — from December 2007 to June 2009 — was a major factor driving down births overall. Do they now? Maybe these researchers didn't get the memo from the Department of Defense about how many rocket scientists between the ages of 15 and 19 cannot solve for "x"? Experts acknowledge they are speculating and noted a lack of key data that would answer questions about whether teens are having the same amount of sex, whether their use of contraception changed, or whether they were getting pregnant just as often as in earlier years but were having more abortions. I agree. Maybe if the study contained some actual key data, the findings might actually be useful. That said, there was a tasty little morsel buried in this study. Turns out that one age demographic is getting its freak on. The one exception was women older then 40 — a group that may be more concerned with declining fertility than the economy. The birth rate for women ages 40-44 was up 3 percent from 2008, to about 10 births per 1,000 women. That's the highest rate for that group since 1967. It's all about the cougar, my friends. It's all about the cougar.