"Just get a job, bro!!" That sums up what I'd like to tell a 19-year-old man living in Grand Rapids, Mich. My dogmatism is sobered by the fact that this young man has the most complicated set of circumstances I've ever encountered. I started mentoring him when he was 16 years old.

According to a report from the Guttmacher Institute, a Planned Parenthood-related think tank, abortions in the United States fell 33 percent between 1974 and 2004. This is great news. Sadly, rates remain high among minority women and older women.

As a matter of fact, if your default image of a female seeking an abortion is a teenage girl who finds herself in an "unplanned pregnancy," chances are you are at stuck in a 1960s or 1970s paradigm. According to the report:

Is it the government's job to bail out financial institutions that enter into irresponsible business transactions? There is nothing wrong with allowing a business in the real world to experience the natural consequences of making a series of bad decisions, many economists argue. The market correction witnessed this week by the tumbling of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch's $50 billion buyout by Bank of America will actually be good for the economy in the long-run.

Within minutes of John McCain announcing Sarah Palin as his running mate, sexism and vitriol surfaced. Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, noting the major difference between him and Palin, concluded that "she's good looking." Liberal commentator Alan Colmes suggested that Palin was reckless because of the birthing timeline of her last child, asking, "Did Palin take proper prenatal care?" Gender politics aside, it seems that many critics have forgotten that Palin is a vice presidential candidate, not candidate for vice dictator.

Should the rest of America take a cue from women's professional golf? ESPN reports:

The LPGA will require its member golfers to learn and speak English and will suspend their membership if they don't comply.

Just when I put my French fries down for carrot sticks, to keep from gaining weight, a new study says that my weight is less important than my overall fitness. The New York Times reports a story suggesting that your favorite offensive lineman, weighing 320 pounds, with his gut bursting from his jersey, is actually more fit than a skinny, unfit calorie counter who has exchanged over-priced specialty coffee for food.