Twenty happy years ago, Jim and I married. I wish all who marry the joy we have shared. I also hope soon legal marriage will be possible for others who wish so fervently to marry.

Justin Katz of Dust in the Light. has responded to my post describing the drop in the US non-marital birthrate and its the relationship to the campaign for same sex marriage. Mr. Katz suggests my argument is flawed in these ways:

• Either a) I misstate the themes promoted by advocates of same sex marriage or b) I correctly state the themes, but pre-date these themes to some time before either the publication of Jonathan Rauch’s new book, the Goodridge case or the drop in the non-marital birth ratio.

• I fail to address three possible alternate reasons for the distinct drop in the rate of increase in the US non-marital birth ratio.
• Either the drop in the rate of increase in the US non-marital birth ratio is a) not distinctive, or b) it is distinctive, but it is not strongly associated with the key events in the US campaign for SSM.
• I did not expend as much ink as Dr. Kurtz who explains why the campaign for same sex marriage could potentially effect on the non-marital birth ratio.

I think these criticisms are worth serious amounts of ink. I will address the first criticism in this article, and the other criticisms in later articles.

Mr. Katz suggests I misstate the principal themes of the campaign for same sex marriage. More precisely, he thinks I define the themes too narrowly. Mr. Katz is correct to believe that misstating principal themes, defining them either too broadly or too narrowly or predating them would flaw my argument. ( I believe Dr. Kurtz entirely misstates theme of the campaign for same sex marriage; that is one of the flaws in his argument.)

However I think I state correct themes that are neither overly broad narrow nor anachronistic. To support my claim, I will address these three important questions:

To begin, let us compare the themes Mr. Katz and I suggest.

• I believe that the right to make a lifelong commitment and provide a safe haven for families with children rank among the principal themes of the campaign for SSM.

• Mr. Katz suggests “the principle theme of advocacy for SSM has been to assert their rights to marry”.

Our themes differ, yet I do not think his theme is totally incorrect; it is only too broad. It begs the question: to marry and then what?

Nevertheless I must clarify.

The way I define a “principal theme” is related to how I categorizes the numerous campaigns operating simultaneously under an umbrella or parent campaign. In this context, the campaign for same sex marriage falls under the parent campaign for gay rights. I see the assertion of the right to marry as the one of the principal themes of the parent campaign for gay rights. Other themes in the parent campaign include the right to nondiscrimination in employment and housing, and decriminalizing gay sex. Looked at individually, many of the themes of the parent campaigns are themselves campaigns, which we could call child campaigns. Each child campaign has its own principle themes.^[1]

The campaign for gay marriage as a child campaign, has its own principal themes which distinguish the child campaign from the parent campaign. Promoting long term commitment and responsible parenthood number among the principal themes of those advocating legalized same sex marriage.

Evidently, Mr. Katz sees the themes I identify this way as being overly narrow. I believe substituting the themes of parent or umbrella campaign as overly broad.

Right or wrong, I will continue to classify themes of campaigns in this way.^[2] When evaluating the effect of the campaign for same sex marriage on the nonmarital birth ratio I think it is foolish to focus on the broader theme of the parent campaign. To do so would suggest “the right to marry” and “the right to nondiscrimination in housing” have equal potential effects on the non-marital birthrate.

Interestingly, like me, Dr. Kurtz does not suggest the theme of the parent campaign for gay rights as the theme for SSM. Dr. Kurtz seems to think one of the principal themes of those advocating same sex marriage is the idea that parents should not be married, or that unmarried parents are preferable to married parents.^[3] Right or wrong, his theme and mine are equally narrow, and being excessivly narrow is the flaw Mr. Katz finds in my choice of theme.

Since Dr. Kurtz suggested theme and mine are equally narrow Mr. Katz must also find Dr. Kurtz’s theme overly narrow. If Mr. Katz thinks this, I have not yet read Mr. Katz’s criticism.

While I am addressing this Dr. Kurtz’s theme, I want to comment on what I see as its flaw. It is simply incorrect. Better expressions of the theme include this one: “Preventing a loving same sex couple from making a legal commitment to each other can only hurt their children.”⁸ One of the reasons it hurts their child, and the children of heterosexual couples, is that denying a parents the right to marry communicates the idea that it is acceptable for parents raising children to remain unmarried. Say this often enough, and make it force of law, and the child might actually believe it!

So far, my difference of opinion with Dr. Kurtz seems to me substantive, that with Katz seems to be semantic or at least related to our different methods of classifying campaigns. Possibly, it is simply that he prefers to list extremely broad themes.

I will now provide evidence the themes I suggest are discussed by advocates of SSM and that these themes predate the downturn in the rate of increase in the nonmarital birth ratio which occurred during the mid nineties.

First, let us examine the theme of love and commitment. Andrew Sullivan, a prominent advocate of same sex marriage said:

Jonathan Rauch constantly emphasizes long term responsibility, stability, fidelity and commitment. One could also read newspaper columns and find all sorts of quotes from recent brides and grooms telling us they married to express their love and commitment.

Now, let us examine the child welfare theme. Because Katz specifically state that Sullivan and Rauch, both prominent advocates of SSM do not discuss the welfare of children I will provide links to some of their web articles.^[4]

Sullivan discussed the need to unite gays and lesbians with their own children, the importance of marriage as a place to nurture children, and the benefit of providing a stable home headed by a married couple in at least three articles available on the web, published in 1989 ^[5], 1997 ^[6], 1998.^[7] While promoting his book, Jonathan Rauch observes “…. marriage is the best environment for raising children and wonders why conservatives don’t seem to consider the 28 percent of homosexual couples with children.” He reiterates the importance of marriage to children here.; he laments the trend toward unmarried cohabitation particularly when children are involved here.

Of course, even less well known advocates discuss the importance of marriage. Recently, we have seen the explosion of political blogs; some address the topic of same sex marriage. Surely, Justin Katz has read posts by Gabriel Rosenberg who Mr. Katz often debates in his own blog? Likely, Mr. Katz has noticed the child oriented theme at “Daddy, Pappa and Me”?

Katz’s claim that advocates of SSM do not discuss the idea that legalized same sex marriage would benefit children is simply wrong. They have been advocating this before the nineties began, and still do. Given the evidence that advocates of think we should legalize same sex marriage to because it benefits children, one can wonder where the highly educated, white, Dr. Kurtz, who is employed at an elite think tank, Mr. Katz or other white, educated elites, developed any other idea.

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What one Bush official said about the judge’s ruling in the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban case:

In fact, the Bush administration’s lawyers begged this judge to legislate from the bench. According to the judge’s ruling (p. 30 - pdf file), the law written by congress was too broad to be constitutional, so the administration’s lawyers asked Judge Hamilton to “narrow the construction of the statute to eliminate any doubts about the Act’s unconstitutionality.” The judge quite properly refused to do so, since her job is to rule on the law, not to rewrite it.

So first they beg a judge to legislate from the bench. Then, when she refuses to do it, they turn around and criticize her for legislating from the bench (which she didn’t do). Lovely people, these Bush folks.

Said by Congressman Steve King (R-IA), regarding Judge Phyllis Hamilton, who recently ruled that the Partial Birth Abortion Ban is unconstitutional.

The IWF has criticized Mary Koss’ study of rape incidence over and over for being “commissioned by Ms. Magazine.” I’ve written about this before.

What I didn’t realize until last week (when I was researching this post) is that the IWF has financed a study conducted by the think tank The Institute for American Values (IAV). (The study is the source of much of the talk about the alleged “hook-up culture” on college campuses today).

So, the IWF commissioned a study - just like Ms. They selected researchers, just like Ms.

Hey, wasn’t the IWF claiming that there was something wrong about doing that?

Of course, there are a few differences:

• Koss’ study design was published and presented at conferences years before Ms’s involvement began - proof that Ms didn’t influence the study’s basic design. The “hook up” study design was not published before the IWF got involved.

• Unlike Koss’ study (supervised and funded by the National Institute for Mental Health), the “hook up” study was not independently supervised by a neutral scientific institution.
• Unlike Koss’ study, the “hook up” study did not pass through an academic peer review process before being published.

So either the IWF doesn’t believe that studies are corrupted by being associated with an ideological group, and they were just pretending to believe that to dis Koss…

Or, they do believe that studies are corrupted by association, and they intentionally set out to make a corrupt study.

I really don’t see a third possibility.

* * *

P.S. Just to be clear, this post is not criticizing the “hook up” study. The study is good or bad on its own merits; that the IWF funded it doesn’t matter to me. I’m just pointing out that, yet again, the IWF has shown all the intellectual integrity of a carnival barker.

On a listserve I subscribe to, someone pointed out this interesting (well, not really) New York Times article about John Kerry’s inner circle - the people who have Kerry’s ear. There are 30 people mentioned in the article:

Of the 30 people named in the article, 28 are men. Neither of the 2 women are connected to Kerry at all.

The 15 folks whose names are marked with a * are the people who are working on Kerry’s campaign. All of them are men.

Needless to say (and as the person I’m swiping this from pointed out), not a single woman is being considered for the VP nomination.

I’m just sayin’.

UPDATE: Although the Times article doesn’t mention her, Kerry’s campaign manager is a woman (Mary Beth Cahill), so that’s something.

Eugene Volokh links to a Jeff Jacoby column about how reporters discuss parital-birth abortion. According to Jacoby (who quotes several examples), reporters often say things like

According to Jacoby, this is problematic because reporters don’t do similar things with phrases like “the right to choose”:

To me, this seems to miss the point.

Typical news readers, in the context of an article about abortion, are not likely to misunderstand the term “right to choice” - or, for that matter, the term “right to life” (which, oddly enough, Jacoby doesn’t object to). These partisan terms have entered the public consciousness, and although they may not be literally accurate, they are well understood.

I doubt that the typical reader - or, for that matter, the typical reporter - has a clear understanding of what “partial birth abortion” means. How could they? The meaning of “partial birth abortion” changes in important ways depending on context. In reading media reports and the law, I’ve noticed three distinct, yet frequently used, definitions of “partial birth abortion”:

First definition: For many who oppose “partial birth abortion” - including many newspaper editorials and politicians - partial-birth abortion refers to a late-term abortion performed on a fetus old enough to be viable. As some ban proponants argue, if not for the fact that the “baby” is killed partway through the procedure, there would be no distinction between a partial-birth abortion and a birth. (”Partial-birth abortion is a barbaric procedure which literally kills a baby that is completely delivered except for the head,” according to Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America). This is presumably the meaning Patrick Moynihan had in mind when he called partial birth abortion “as close to infanticide as anything I have come upon.”

Second definition: Both pro-choicers and pro-lifers sometimes suggest that partial-birth abortion is the same as “intact dilation and extraction,” or “intact D&X,” which is also sometimes called “intact dilation and evacuation.” The Newsday article Jacoby quotes also suggests that the terms are interchangeable. However, most intact D&Xs are performed in the second trimester, before the fetus is viable - which contradicts with the first definition of “partial birth abortion.”

Third definition: Congress defined “Partial birth abortion” in the language of the partial-birth abortion ban. Congress’ definition contradicts with both of the previous definitions I’ve described. It is not in any way limited to late-term abortion or post-viability abortions, which contradicts with the first definition. Furthermore, parts of Congress’ definition make it clear that they are banning many procedures besides “intact D&X”; for instance, Congress’ definition bans some “head-first presentation” abortions, whereas according to medical definitions intact D&X abortions are always feet-first.

The point is, there is legitimate, substantial controversy over what the term “partial birth abortion” refers to. It’s appropriate for reporters to make that lack of agreement clear, not because they are partisan, but because doing so gives readers a more accurate understanding of the issue. In contrast, there is no serious controversy over what terms like “right to choose” or “right to life” mean, nor is there a serious gulf between what they mean and what readers think they mean. Demanding that all these terms be given identical treatment is ignoring substance in favor of a mindless evenhandedness.

However, while I approve of reporters indicating that “partial birth abortion” is a controversial term, I’m not convinced that current reporting really facilitates a greater understanding of what the term refers to. I’d prefer newspapers to publish context-dependant sidebars. For instance, in articles about a particular law, perhaps the sidebar could explain how “partial birth abortion” is defined in that law in particular, rather than relying on readers to know how the legal definition differs from popular understandings of the term.

Ronald Reagan died today. This is CNN’s write-up. I was born the year Reagan was reelected and so don’t remember much about his Presidency; my only exposure to him has been through history books and retrospective articles. Honestly, I don’t think I liked him and his policies very much, but hope that his passing was peaceful, nonetheless. Alzheimer’s is a difficult disease to cope with for both family members and medical staff; I wish no ill on any of them.

Update: I addressed the issue of whether or not this post was meant as hagiography in the comments section. That aside, I found a couple of good pieces on the pieces of Reagan’s legacy you’re likely not to hear about in the next few days: “Reagan’s Liberal Legacy” by Joshua Green from the Washington Monthly — which has been linked to by a few others, as well — and, most especially, “Ronald Reagan 1911-2004″ by Steve Gilliard from his blog.

If you’re in Portland, this Sunday you can come see me - and loads of other cartoonists, including my pals Jennifer Lee and Kevin Moore - at the first annual Stumptown Comics Fest. It should be a hoot and a half.

There will be tons of Portland-area cartoonists, a few of whom are “names,” many more of whom are interesting people who do great comics you probably haven’t heard of. There’ll be drawing exhibitions of various sorts. There will be a panel discussion with me on it (the horror! the horror!). And it’s all set in a Victorian church building, which is a heck of a lot cooler than a hotel basement, if you ask me.

(Image swiped from Jenn’s blog)

Do me a favor?

If you’re in the market for body jewelry, don’t buy any from piercing-magic dot com. They spammed my comments earlier tonight.

If you have any friends in the market, spread the word: piercing-magic dot com are scumbag spammers, so don’t buy from them.

And if you happen to run into the owner of that website, Mr. Suren Ter-Saakov, of 1519 Larchmont Place, Mt Laurel, New Jersey, (609) 280-7460, do me a favor and glare at him in an unfriendly manner.

Thanks.

You may have heard about this already; a Hooters in Florida was planning to host a “Little Miss Hooters” contest. (Sounds to me like the management there had drunk too much of the “Hooters is a family restaurant” kool-aid).

Instapundit linked to it, there was a storm of angry e-mail, and the contest was cancelled. Sara at Diotima then asked an interesting question:

Will Baude answered (and here I’m paraphrasing) that the problem with “Little Miss Hooters” is that it isn’t consensual (if I were Mary Daly, I’d probably write that as “con/sensual”), since a sub-five-year old girl isn’t old enough to consent to be a quasi-stripper. But Sara responded that “there is a legitimate source of consent in this situation - the girls’ parents…. Parents give consent for their children all the time, why shouldn’t they be allowed to give consent for their daughters to be in a Little Miss Hooters contest?”

(If you’d like to read the full Sara/Will debate, you can do so by following the links found here and here).

It’s ironic that I link to Sara’s post, because I’m the opposite of the people she sets her question to: I can explain why working at Hooters is not just another job choice. But I can’t quite articulate why the “Little Miss Hooters” contest is such a big deal.

* * *

First, why I think it’s degrading to work at Hooters.

At a wedding rehearsal I attended last week, a bridesmaid wore a dress that left nothing but her nipples to the imagination. I didn’t, and don’t, consider that degrading. If it makes her happy to wear a dress like that (and as far as I could tell, it did), it’s not my place to scold her for it.

So I don’t think it’s intrinsically wrong to wear revealing clothing, “flaunt your sexuality,” or whatever. But I still think there’s something wrong with Hooters.

Here’s the thing; a Hooters waitress isn’t dressed like that because it makes her happy. Shes’ dressed like that because there’s money to be made providing men with young women wearing revealing clothing and flirting with customers. And if she’s having a bad day, or just isn’t in the mood to flirt or wear revealing clothing or be looked at by strange men, and if it’s not fun for her? Well, then, she better pull on the baby tee and pretend to be having fun, because that’s her job.

That, in my opinion, is degrading.

Of course, you may respond, if having to fake emotion for money is degrading, then many jobs in capitalism could be called degrading. “Yeah, so?,” I might respond. (It’s not like I ever claimed to love capitalism.) Also, there are very few things as pesonal as sexuality, and how one chooses to express sexuality; and considered in that light, working at Hooters is worse than working at McDonalds.

(I also agree with the usual feminist critique of Hooters, but I assume that “Alas” readers are familiar enough with it so they don’t need me restating it.)

So that’s why I think there’s something wrong with working at Hooters, even though I understand that women working at Hooters may not have better alternatives (which brings up questions of job discrimination against women, but that’s another post).

* * *

But what about “Little Miss Hooters”?

Of course, I find it disgusting. But that’s an emotional reaction, and, although emotions can be a helpful moral guide, we have to be cautious. After all, it’s emotinalism about children’s sexuality which has led to parents being arrested for taking innocent photos of their nude children.

There’s the argument that a “Little Miss Hooters” contest will encourage pedophelia, but I don’t buy it. Normal adults don’t see anything sexual about a four-year-old in a tied-up t-shirt; and whatever creates pedophiles, I don’t think it’s contests like this one.

Nor do I think that the contest organizers were intending a pro-pedophilia statement. They were just playing with the fact that small children dressed as adult costumes are adorable (think of a little girl dressed as Mae West - or as a fireman, for that matter - to see what I mean). To me, it suggests they’ve gotten so used to “Hooters” that they’ve lost track of how the rest of the country sees their business (hence my comment above that they’ve drunk too much “Hooters is a family restaurant” lemonade).

I think it’s horrible to teach little girls that they should be valued according to their ability to be more conventionally pretty than other girls. But that’s an objection I have to all child pageants (and to many other things in our culture), not to “Little Miss Hooters” in particular. (It’s notable that the widespread disgust for “Little Miss Hooters” in the blogosphere isn’t matched by a similar disgust for all the other “Little Miss” contests out there).

There is, also, the matter of consent - but in general, I think parents ought to be free to “consent” to things for their children (stopping short of actual abuse or abandonment).

So why condemn “Little Miss Hooters” in particular? So far, I don’t have any better answer than “it squicks me.” And, clearly, it squicks a lot of other people, too.

But I’m not sure that’s a good reason to make “Little Miss Hooters” a big deal. In fact, there’s a danger in over-reacting to stuff like this. From a Salon article:

Anyhow, that’s where I stand: disgusted (or perhaps just squicked?) by the whole idea of “Little Miss Hooters,” but not able to articulate any reason to find it grosser than any other child pageant. Reader suggestions are welcome.

Sorry if folks have trouble reading “Alas, A Blog” today; apparently lighting took down our server’s DSLAM for a while (which is located in Maine, in case you’re wondering).

I’m told a DSLAM is a “box with wires.” Apparently they perform some sort of fuction, without with “Alas” is, alas, lost.

Wandering around the blogosphere, I drifted over to the Volokh Conspiracy and I came across a contest at Crescat Sententia.

The contest: Whose vision of the constitution produces spifier diagrams?

It turns out that you have to pick between Randy Barnett’s and Laurence Tribe’s diagrams.

Well, come on! Do you have to be a lawyer to enter? Do you need to have a constitutional theory? Must the theory be reasonable? As I understand it, this is a contest for the best diagram. My diagram is best!

With all due respect, I think they should have announced this contest and let the rest of us enter. Aren’t the American voters all tired of having only two choices on the ballot?

Here is my diagram. It is based on the “Penumbra Principle” described in “Griswold v. Connecticut”. Think, birth control and right to privacy.

Vote for my diagram! Vote early! Vote often! Show those elite lawyers any one can win!

The Crestcat Sententia didn’t provide a method for writing in a vote. That’s just unAmerican. I suggest emailing wbaude@crescatsententia.org .

Oh, if possible, provide constitutional theory to go with my diagram. That’s what comments are for!
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Page five of Hereville is up!

Unlike last week, there’s no really show-off-y art this page (can’t show off every page, or the pacing will suck). But I got to draw speed-lines, which was fun.

This weekend my significant other and I decided to take advantage of the three-day weekend and took a vacation to Dinosaur National Monument in Vernal, Utah. Seeing as how my car is a piece of crap that I’m hesitant to drive around town, we loaded up her car, a 2000 Honda Insight, and set off at the requist time that all travellers must leave: four hours later than originally intended.

I was worried as we left town that we’d run into a money crunch because of the rising gas prices. We’re not exactly well-off, especially with my still being unemployed, and so with gas prices going up and up and up this summer I was concerned that gas would suck us dry. I shouldn’t have been worried; J.’s car is a hybrid and managed to average 66.7 MPG over the course of the trip.

Doing the math that comes out to: 66.7 MPG over 1,000 miles at $2.15 per gallon, thus 14.9 gallons at $32.23 for the entire trip. I should have been more worried about food. (Incidentally, a single serving of Triscuits ‘ six crackers ‘ contains 4.5 grams of saturated fat. How do they get so much saturated fat in there? Do they cook the Triscuits inside of a pig? And, really, how can they get away with advertising that ‘low in saturated fat’? Does 4.5 grams per serving sound high, or am I just too used to health food?)

[Spelling error in the post title corrected. How embarassing; I feel like I was just caught with my fly down while on stage.]

A Federal Judge in San Francisco has struck down the “Partial Birth” Abortion Ban, finding that it’s unconstitutional.

This is good news, but it doesn’t end the issue. The case was one of three lawsuits against the PBA ban working their way through the system; it’s also possible that the Supreme Court might decided to consider the ban. Plus, there’s the appeals court, if I understand things correctly.

As I had predicted, the PBA ban was found to be unconstitutional both for vague language and for not having an exception to preserve a woman’s health. In addition, it’s unconstitutional for placing an undue burden on women seeking abortions of nonviable fetuses. From the New York Times:

The complete decision - which is 117 pages long - can be read here (.pdf file).

Good article in the Chronicle of Higher Education comparing pornography and the Abu Ghraib photos.

Nonetheless, I find the comparison more than a little stretched, and perhaps even distastefully opportunistic; the Abu Ghraib tragedy shouldn’t be understood primarily as a chance to bring the porn industries abuses to light.

Subtler, and more interesting to me, is the comparison of Abu Ghraib photos and historic photos of lynchings.

Read the whole.

• For those who enjoy logical debate, Radgeek has an genuinely excellent post arguing against the “Roe v. Wade is judicial tyranny” school of thought.

• I’ve read so many stories about unethical prosecutors, and they virtually never seem to face any penalties at all. Via Talkleft, here’s an exception - the Arizona Supreme Court disbarred a prosecutor for lying in a death-penalty case.
• From Tim Wise’s blog archive, a good post considering the question of white boy riots.
  I just spoke at Minnesota State University–Mankato, where a few months ago there was a riot by white students. Not because of anything serious like police brutality, or other forms of oppression–ya know the kind of things that occasionally spark riots in communities of color. Nope, the white folks rioted for the reason white college students always seem to riot, and have done so over thirty times in the past seven years or so: namely because of the outcome of a ball game, or in the case of Mankato, merely the celebration of Homecoming.

  When the African American editor of the school paper (the first ever) noted in a column how such a riot was laden with white privilege (after all, only white folks at Mankato or anywhere else could possibly think they could riot and not all go to jail or even be shot by cops), he was called a racist and threatened by students who resented his pointing out the obvious.

• Good, short article in Time on the ridiculous stem cell controversy.
• Soylent Green Sauce is made of people! Well, made from people’s hair, anyway. If you’re in China, look out for soy sauce marked “blended” on the label. Via Copeland in the Body and Soul comments.
• Jessica at Feministing has a good point about how the big-pro-choice orgs talk about young women: “…Young women have more to offer than just their vote. Naturally it’s important to mobilize young women around voting, but when the only time we get attention is election time, there’s a problem.”
• World O’Crap fisks an ad for a men’s rights book on avoiding paying child support. She (he?) doesn’t get every tiny detail right (check the comments for Trish Wilson’s factual corrections), but the post is still wonderfully nasty fun to read. Via Trish Wilson, naturally.
• Hey, speaking of nasty fun, I have to admit that I’ve been enjoying Superstar USA far too much (we only watch it on tape, so we can skip over all the filler), and I’ll probably go to hell for it. Regarding last night’s episode, I’ll miss Nina-Diva’s “I am the world” attitude, but she sung that last song too well to keep her on. I’m betting on Rosa to win, if her dancing is even a tenth as bad as her singing.
• Remaining in the “nasty fun” category, Wonkette takes on a cultural conservative critic. It made me giggle, anyway.
• Respectful of Otters takes on eugenics - and also criticizes how mainstream media outlets tend to cover the issue.
  It concerns me that people may come away from the Slate series, and other modern discussions of eugenics, with the impression that eugenicists correctly identified a problem to which the solution was morally unacceptable. In fact, the eugenicists incorrectly identified a problem, to which they proposed morally unacceptable solutions. The difference is considerable.
• Amanda at Mouse Words and Oliver at Liquid List are both annoyed that Ralph Nader’s supporters are seeking ballot signatures from Republican voters. I’m not a Nader supporter nowadays, but I don’t get this issue; if Nader supporters honestly believe that they’ll do the most good from getting Nader on the ballot, then why not get the signatures from whomever they can?
• Check out this fascinating New York Magazine essay by a woman who was falsely accused by the press of having an affair with John Kerry. She describes vividly what it’s like being at the heart of a yellow-press storm, and also confronts some of the reporters who smeared her. Via The Corner.
• The Well-Timed Period has a “just the fact’s Ma’am” post regarding how many abortions take place in the US. In 2000, according to Ema, there were 1,048 third-trimester abortions, out of 1.31 million total abortions.
• Via Now What?, The New York Times reviews the evidence on abstinence-only education and finds that it doesn’t work very well.
  One national study, published in 2001 in The American Journal of Sociology, found that while some teenagers who promised to remain abstinent until marriage delayed sexual activity by an average of 18 months, they were more likely to have unprotected sex when they broke their pledge than those who had never pledged virginity in the first place.

  And Columbia University researchers reported in March that in a national study of teenagers who pledged not to have sex before marriage, a majority did not live up to their vows. The adolescents also developed sexually transmitted diseases at about the same rate as teenagers who had not made virginity pledges.

• The Washington Post has a story on the mounting evidence that fingerprints may not be reliable, after all. Via Balkinization.
• Weird suicide attempts department: 14 year old boy poses as spy on the internet and recruits his own murderer, another young boy. There’s something seriously wrong with this lad, clearly, but you have to admire his initiative. Via Electric Venom.