If its first name isn’t Pearly, and its last name is Gates, it’s an asshole.

The God. Damned. Word. Is. “negotiate.” Nuh-GO-she-ate. Not “negoseeate.” Please make a note of it. Thank you.

Michael Medved argues that the phrase “abortion rights” is biased in favor of abortion because the use of the word “rights” presupposes that abortion is in fact a right. I say, the language police has made a false arrest. For one thing, abortion is a right, both as a matter of state law (recall that even famously anti-abortion South Dakota rejected two separate referenda to outlaw elective abortion in recent years), and, courtesy of a string of screwball court decisions dating back to Roe (or, arguably, Griswold), as a matter of “constitutional” law, as well, so it is indeed reasonable to debate whether abortion should be a right, it would strain logic to argue that it isn’t. Second, as polarizing as the abortion issue is, it’s damned near impossible, if not impossible, to describe that controversy in any terms that won’t manage to piss someone off. Calling abortion rights advocates “pro-abortion” pisses them off because they supposedly don’t support abortion, only a woman’s right to choose one (unless that woman happens to reside in China, in which case they support the Chinese government’s right to choose it for them). And of course it doesn’t help when pro-lifers and pro-choicers call their respective enemies “baby killers” or “anti-choice.”

I say, either call both groups by their own preferred designations (pro-life vs. pro-choice) or call them both by a single, objective, neutral term that neither side would necessarily choose for itself, but which neither could seriously argue is inaccurate, either. “Abortion rights” would seem to meet that standard. After all, it’s not as though we’re arguing over what is or isn’t an abortion (OK, maybe in some cases, but not generally). We’re arguing over what rights pregnant women, their unborn children, the fathers, and society in general should have with respect to abortion.

I’m sorry to say that our efforts to save Babe have ultimately proved fruitless. While we did locate a dog-friendly attorney who was able to persuade the court to stay her execution while he made the case for being allowed to adopt her and place her in a sanctuary he lined up, in the end, that wasn’t good enough. It seems that a court order against North Las Vegas Animal Control is just as effective as a restraining order against an abusive ex. Which, I’m sorry to say, is not that effective.

On a similar note, R.I.P., Sunny.

Because without it, expectant mothers in labor might get turned away from hospitals and forced to give birth on their own bedroom floors. Oh wait…

Steve Irwin makes a compelling case for intolerance in response to those sicko Liberian parents in Phoenix who blame their eight year old daughter for being assaulted by four juvenile monsters earlier this week. Money quote:

We teach tolerance in this country, and respect for those who might disagree with us. Yet I can’t imagine anyone who isn’t disgusted and appalled by the very notion of blaming a victim, a child no less, for her own rape.

If there is such a belief system, anywhere in the world, our message to them should be unyielding and clear. If you seek refuge here; If you seek the freedoms and benefits of a democracy, then you must cast aside the barbarism which you might label tradition or faith.

There can be no compromise in this, for if we can’t unite behind the cause of a child’s safety and well-being, then our own lives don’t rise to the level of anything resembling culture.

Amen.

Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on title insurance, which some regard as a bit of a scam – enough so that one state, Iowa, prohibits it outright. OK, so maybe prohibit is the wrong word. Let’s just say they prohibit title insurance like most states that have lotteries prohibit gambling. Or given that their own title certificates are reinsured by the same eeeeeevil title insurers they forbid to issue policies in the state, maybe the better analogy would be to a hypothetical state that forbid gambling while maintaining a lottery and subcontracting that lottery out to Harrah’s. Something like that, I dunno.

The thing about title insurance is that it’s an odd bird that by all right really shouldn’t’ be called insurance. If I spent $20,000 on a new car, with $1,000 going to the manufacturing cost of the vehicle itself and the other $19,000 on its warranty, it might make sense to call my car an insurance policy, since after all, that’s where most of the price goes. But we don’t call cars insurance policies just because they carry warranties; we recognize that they are products that are primarily about doing something other than risk allocation. The element of the warranty is merely ancillary to that. Ditto for title insurance, where upwards of 80%, often more like 90%, is retained by the agent as commission that the insurer never sees. That’s because far more blood, sweat and tears is spent scouring public records for potential title defects, fixing such defects, etc. than in insuring against the relatively remote risk that the abstracter missed something. So calling the composite product “insurance” is a bit like calling a dog a tail.

That said, if you do think you’re paying too much for title insurance – the insurance part, not the abstracting – then it would seem that the most obvious solution would be to abolish the monoline laws in many states^* that forbid title insurers to write other lines of insurance and vice-versa. If every property and casualty insurer could compete with your title insurer, the market wouldn’t be so damned concentrated, and the famous invisible hand would drive prices down, no?

Full disclosure: When I lived in Virginia I worked for what at the time was the fourth largest title insurer in the country. There’s no love lost between me and that particular title insurer, however, and I can’t say I shed a tear when they declared bankruptcy last year. Schadenfreude ist die schönste Freude.

^*With ramifications for all states, since several of those monoline laws cover insurance written in other states, as well.

I’m generally one of the last people to say “there oughta be a law,” but in this case, there really, really ought to be a law.

Want to burglarize a store without having to set foot in it yourself? No problem, just train a monkey to do your dirty work for you.

As of July 31, Concord Mills is now a free speech free zone.