• What? Could this be? You mean school kids will actually learn useful stuff about sex? Like how their own bodies work and how not to get pregnant? CRAZY TALK. But if the rumors are true, Congress recently passed the 2010 Omnibus Appropriations spending bill, which eliminates funding for abstinence-only sex ed. And yesterday, President Obama signed the bill, which means $115 million will be allocated to comprehensive sex ed programs that teach both birth control and abstinence, as well as teen pregnancy programs. That sounds totally rational, for once. [Reproductive Health Reality Check]

There’s a first time for everything. And when it comes to federal funding for teaching abstinence programs, the pun is intended. In what feels like an unprecedented protest, more than half the states in the country are turning down offers of national tax money to teach teens abstinence. Just this week, Iowa and Arizona added their names to the long list of states staying, “no, thank you!” Only 28 states still accept the cash to encourage chastity. You’d think a president named Bush would at least know how to talk about it, but alas, his plan to tell students to stay virgins is getting more rejected than a pubescent boy. As Elke Shaw-Tulloch of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare says, “There was mounting evidence the abstinence programs weren’t proving to be effective.” Idaho alone saw an increase in underage pregnancy over the past two years after they tried to tell teens keeping it in their pants was the only option rather than explaining the facts. Luckily, in the case of America’s future crotches, money may talk, but knowledge is power. [Huffington Post]