Ken Kusmer has an article for the Associated Press suggesting that opponents of women’s abortion rights are shifting their strategy to impose obstacles at the county level. They want counties to pass legislation requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at local hospitals.

I have some initial questions as to the legality of such ordinances. I haven’t done in any research, but it seems like there is a decent chance that counties are preempted by state law from regulating physicians in this way.

But, beyond that, it’s just a bad idea. Proponents will disingenuously say that these regulations are necessary for women’s safety. But, as the article points out, there hasn’t been a death from a legal abortion in close to 30 years. (I suspect the same can’t be said for carrying a child to term.) The American Psychological Association also debunked the claim that abortion of an unwanted pregnancy causes the woman any more psychological problems than carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term.

“The best scientific evidence published indicates that among adult women who have an unplanned pregnancy, the relative risk of mental health problems is no greater if they have a single elective first-trimester abortion or deliver that pregnancy,” said Brenda Major, a psychologist specializing in stress at the University of California Santa Barbara, who chaired the task force.

The reason to make abortions harder has nothing to do with the woman who wants one and everything to do with the potential child. But, even the failure to be able to agree on basic terminology highlights the binary nature of this debate. If, at the time of conception, a fully human creature has been created that is entitled to the full spectrum of human rights, then abortion is a monstrous, unconscionable act. It’s right there with Nazis gassing the Jews. Half-measures purportedly for the purpose of making the Nazi gassers safer are ridiculous.

I, of course, don’t think that blastocysts are fully human, and I think that, from the moment of creation, the embryo progresses toward humanity. As such, I can’t get more worked up about embryo rights than I do about the causes championed by PETA. I understand where PETA and abortion opponents are coming from; but I’m coming from a different place.

In my mind, the job of abortion foes is to win the public debate as to whether embyros are morally entitled to the rights of fully developed humans; not to impose stumbling blocks at the county level for specious, disingenuous concerns over women’s safety.

How Stuff Works has an article on how laughter works. It’s a pretty good read but, as always, humor becomes more elusive the more closely you look at it. Turns out laughter is wired pretty deeply into us and has all sorts of salutary effects. Oh, and kids think poop is funny.

Arkansas Democratic Party Chairman Bill Gwatney was gunned down at state Democratic headquarters by Timothy Dale Johnson. The killer appears to have been Timothy Dale Johnson whose motive is, as yet, unclear. He seems to have been fired earlier in the day from Target. I find myself wanting to draw parallels with Jim David Adkisson who shot up a church, apparently because he hated its liberal tendencies. But, that’s obviously premature.

Erika Smith has an article on GenCon 2008 which is coming to Indianapolis today. It’s a conference for science fiction and fantasy gamers. Apparently it will attract 85,000 people and runs through Saturday. That’s pretty big. I wonder if Blog Indiana 2008 is losing any people to GenCon.

I’ve mentioned it before, but one piece of advice given to me in law school was to always be careful about accepting the way the other guy frames an argument. Scott Lemieux makes a similar point about the ridiculous “debate” among the talking heads about whether Obama’s Hawaii vacation was too “elite.”

The proper response is not to engage in an argument about whether or not Hawaii is “American enough.” The proper response is to either ignore it (which I have not done) or to point out how ridiculous it is to be talking about whether Obama is “too elite” compared to a guy with eight houses.

Of course, the whole “regular guy” fetish we seem to have in our electoral politics is probably not helpful to start with.

I had had a vague notion that it was a Constitutional requirement that the President and Vice-President had to be from different states. Not actually the case, as it turns out. Rather, Article II (and the Twelfth Amendment) require that the electors, who cast a vote for President and for Vice President, cast at least one of those votes for a candidate who is from a state different from that of the elector.

For example, had we believed our lying eyes instead of Dick Cheney and concluded that Cheney and Bush were both, in fact, residents of Texas; then the Texas electors could have voted for only one of the pair and would have had to cast another vote for someone from a different state. The rest of the electors could have voted for both Bush & Cheney even if they were both from Texas.

I went ahead and signed up for Blog Indiana 2008. It’s the first time for the event, so it’s hard telling how things will go, but I figured, at the least, it will be nice to put some faces to the names around the local blogosphere. It’s $50 and will take place at IUPUI in downtown Indy this coming Saturday and Sunday (8/16 and 8/17). The “business track” doesn’t seem to have too many interesting (to me) sessions planned; but the “general,” “basics,” and panel discussions look to have some interesting stuff.

Bloggers I’m looking forward to seeing/hearing at the conference include Chris Hardie, Renee Wilmeth, Ruth Holladay, and Thomas Cook.

So, if you’re going to be around, keep an eye out for me (so we can say hello or so you can avoid me; as your inclinations dictate). I’ll be the tallish, gangly fellow with a retreating hair line.

I have no problem with the French and am not particularly a bellicose American. But, I love my country and trash talkers drive me up the wall. So, the Americans beating the French in the 400 meter freestyle relay is a great story. French swimmer, Alain Bernard had claimed that his team would “smash” the Americans. It looked like they were about to do just that when Jason Lezak trailed Bernard by a body length going into the last 50 meters. Lezak closed the gap to just barely pass Bernard on the final stroke. Awesome.

It’s hard to avoid the suspicion that Putin has set Russia back on a Soviet trajectory. At the moment, Russia’s military has control of the Georgian city of Tskhinvali which is the capital of the region of South Ossetia.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili appealed for international mediation after Russia claimed full military control of South Ossetia’s capital, which it invaded Friday after Georgia launched an assault on the rebel statelet.

Moscow, which says the assault killed 2,000 civilians and displaced 34,000, says it is fulfilling its peacekeeping mandate under 1992 accords that ended Georgia’s civil war. But some analysts, including a former US diplomat, believe that Russia’s true strategic goal may involve redrawing the map in its old Soviet spheres of influence.

“The Georgians were too quick to move, they rolled the dice to regain control. But that doesn’t justify a [Russian] act of aggression and invasion to take the [Georgian] regime down,” says Ronald Asmus, a former Clinton administration official responsible for NATO expansion. “This is a watershed in relations with Russia, comparable to the [1979] Afghan invasion, since it is the first time they have sent troops illegally out of their borders.”

Russia continues to pour troops into the area; mounted a naval blockade of Georgia in the Black Sea; and its air force has bombed the outskirts of Tblisi, the Georgian capital. This seems like the sort of thing that could get really, really ugly.

Update Russians have advanced beyond the logical stopping point for just settling matters in South Ossetia and have assaulted the city of Gori in central Georgia.

A senior Western diplomat said it was unclear whether Russia intended a full invasion of Georgia. “They seem to have gone beyond the logical stopping point” to retake the separatist regions, he said.

The Indiana Attorney General has issued an advisory opinion to the effect that state law preempts local government’s ability to adopt and enforce red light camera ordinances. An attorney general’s opinion doesn’t bind the municipalities or the courts, but it tends to have persuasive force.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of camera enforcement. I think it too quickly will become more of a method of revenue generation than a true effort to preserve law, order, and the well-being of citizens.