I have a typical Friday-afternoon headache (coffee, my friend, my betrayer…), and so you’ll have to wait until Monday for posts on: short fiction about abortion; slave “redemption” in Sudan and Mauritania; smart Yalies, foolish choices; and whatever else pops into my head. Wednesday, expect contest results!!! (go here to see the contest! Send your entries to eve_tushnet@yahoo.com and win a fabulous lack of prizes!), the new contest, and more on Rock’n’Roll Conservatism.

If people have read short stories that deal with abortion or related issues–especially stories published in unlikely venues, like The New Yorker or something–I’d be grateful if you emailed me about them. Thanks.

For the moment, you get a mini-blogwatch. Oh, and read Ramesh Ponnuru’s excellent article on philosophical, rational arguments against cloning. It just rocks.

Hold me closer, tiny blogwatch… watch the blogs upon the highway…

Minute Particulars thinks he’s disagreeing with me about the nature of compassion, but he’s actually just being a lot more articulate than I was. When I talked about “death as compassion,” below, I really meant something more akin to the statue of Comfort in the last section of A Canticle for Leibowitz (one of the greatest sci-fi novels ever).

The Old Oligarch’s Painted Stoa: The Downtown D.C. Empire of Blog is expanding…

VodkaPundit: Funny list of “Things I Know But Cannot Prove.” Here’s my list:

Walt Whitman didn’t write poems–he oozed them.

Jane Kaczmarek is the coolest person on TV. Not least because she is making the world safe for weird surnames.

People in Australia REALLY DO walk upside-down.

High heels are comfortable shoes.

If given a lightsaber, I would need Shamed to explain how to make it work.

Any food is better when it’s deep-fried. Even this.

This is the best art review NRO has published, ever.

If we’re going to slap a tariff on something, it should be Euro-art-flicks. Especially German ones.

The fact that the IRS allows you to deduct money you paid a CPA to do your taxes is a tacit admission of guilt.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is the ugliest building in D.C.

Vodka is better than gin.