as I'm clearly not the first to notice. Well, at least Obama isn't discussing plans to fund the British Railway system of contraception ("always pull out on time"), because there's a name for people who use it. They're called "parents," and the same is evidently true of most graduates of "abstinence only" programs.

Maybe I am confused but isn't abstinence only the alternative being proposed by Obama and Baccus to replace the Universal Health care promise from the campaign?

There is a communication gap going on in this "debate." Clearly when abstinence folks say that abstinence prevents pregnancy and STDs, they are correct by default. The real issue then is that kids just don't seem to get it and we must teach them about the safe methods for having sex.

So why not say, "We adults believe that you shouldn't have sex at your young age, when you most likely won't be able to handle the consequences. But if you are going to have sex, WRAP. IT. UP, fool." Is it really that hard to tell kids the truth?

Abstinence is included inmost comprehensive plans already. It is "the ONLY programs that are medically inaccruarate. If they just put a rule that they have to medically accurate and review the programs before funding.

Under Bush the Abstinence Clearing House, a marketing entity of the Christian right, used federal funds to market purity products such as purity rings and the very perverse purity balls.

Should I be excited that 75 percent of this funding will go to programs that work? I guess we could do a lot worse, but 100 percent seems like a better goal.

Seems like you are searching for a story here when it's just the government doing what it's supposed to do.

After 8 years of Bush, it IS a story.

It looks like good government to me. Seems like you are searching for a story here when it's just the government doing what it's supposed to do.

I'm afraid my inner Butthead is showing...

I miss those guys.

Is the insistance on referring to an abstinence only curriculum as education. I perfer the term "abstinence only misinformation". I'm going to curious to see how the abstinence only folks dunmmy up "studies" to "prove" that their silly misinformation campaigns work so they can keep getting the government to pay for them to force their religious indoctrination down young throuts.

Quick quiz -- which of the following is conservative:

1. Spending money on programs that fit with a pre-determined, never-tested theory, and continuing to spend it even when the programs are proven to be failures. Making "does it fit the ideology?" the determining factor for spending.

2. Spending money on programs that succeed. Making "does it work?" the determining factor.

If you said 1...you're a modern Republican. If you said 2, you're conservative and, well...Barack Obama, apparently.

Here, Obama has sensibly said that if, by some stroke, abstinence programs can be shown to work...great, we'll fund them. If not, then we're not going to engage in the nonsense of funding a program for "optics" or "politics." We're going to take that money and do things that make sense, things that history and experience tell us will work.

How very conservative.

Abstinence education isn't necessarily bad.

I'm not so sure about that. I've heard stories about abstinence courses using all kinds of mind games to try to make an impression on the kids. I don't think that making kids neurotic about sex is a good idea.

I also don't think there's any such thing as a "white lie" in sex education. Telling scary fairy tales is counterproductive. The kids will dismiss everything they've been told as soon as they discover that any of it is bullshit.

...if you're just pulling out.

it seems highly unlikely that abstinence-only sex ed would be expressly funded by an administration that is looking for common sense answers to chronic problems. emphasis on common sense.

It's the "only" part that is at odds with reality. Some kids will certainly benefit from abstinence education, and other kids (such as kids named "Palin") won't.

My own abstinence education came from my girlfriend's father, who taught me that if I got his daughter pregnant he would murder me. It worked!