According to the Center for Disease Control, a quarter of teenage girls — more than 3 million — have a sexually transmitted disease. There doesn’t appear to be any corresponding research for teenage boys.

The numbers likely seem overwhelming

CHICAGO (AP) — At least one in four teenage girls nationwide has a sexually transmitted disease, or more than 3 million teens, according to the first study of its kind in this age group.

A virus that causes cervical cancer is by far the most common sexually transmitted infection in teen girls ages 14 to 19, while the highest overall prevalence is among black girls — nearly half the blacks studied had at least one STD. That rate compared with 20% among both whites and Mexican-American teens, the study from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

About half of the girls acknowledged ever having sex; among them, the rate was 40%. While some teens define sex as only intercourse, other types of intimate behavior including oral sex can spread some infections.

For many, the numbers likely seem “overwhelming because you’re talking about nearly half of the sexually experienced teens at any one time having evidence of an STD,” said Dr. Margaret Blythe, an adolescent medicine specialist at Indiana University School of Medicine and head of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ committee on adolescence.

I hate to come off like a prude or seem naive, but I find the fact that 3 million teenage girls have or have had a sexually transmitted disease a bit disturbing.

When I read this headline in Tuesday’s edition of the Daily Breeze, I assumed it was ironic, or tongue in cheek.

Chuck Norris - The GOP’s Oprah

But the headline is completely serious.

I realize that the Breeze leans to the right. And I realize that the Breeze loves to focus on South Bay success stories and that Norris was raised in Torrance, graduating from North High in 1958.

But, really, the star of Good Guys Wear Black is a political player?

Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, has stunned the Republican establishment by jumping out to a wide lead in the Iowa presidential caucus - now little more than two weeks away.

Huckabee has a small organization, not much money, and scant support from prominent conservatives. Even in the evangelical community, which forms the former Baptist minister’s base of support, most of the big names have backed other candidates.

So what explains his meteoric rise?

Two words: Chuck Norris.

“The Norris endorsement may be a bigger factor in Iowa than evangelical support for Huckabee,” conservative commentator Robert Novak wrote Saturday in a piece titled “Huckabee’s Oprah.”

“Norris may be no big deal in New York and Washington, but he is a folk hero with ordinary Iowans.”

I grew up a fan of Norris’ old, post-Bruce-Lee kung fu flicks. I worked at the Northridge Four Cinemas when we played The Octagon and I saw it like 100 times.

But I had no idea he was a player in the game.

Though Norris got to know Ronald and Nancy Reagan through a charity tennis tournament, he did not become politically active until 1988, when George H.W. Bush ran for president.

Norris was asked by Lee Atwater, Bush’s campaign manager to introduce Bush at a rally.

“People were calling Bush a wimp,” Norris said. “So I went out to emcee the rally, and 20,000 people showed up. Next thing I know I’m on the campaign trail.”

Before that election, Norris had never voted. Perhaps as a result, his political loyalties today are much more the result of personal connections than of a particular ideology.

Norris’ endorsement of Huckabee should be taken with a grain of salt:

Norris came to Huckabee after reading about him on a Christian Web site, TheRebelution.com. He researched his positions, and liked what he saw, but found a deeper affinity in Huckabee’s life story.

“Mike hasn’t lived an isolated, out-of-touch life like so many politicians,” Norris wrote in a column on the conservative site WorldNetDaily.com, in late October. “Mike and his sister grew up poor, not privileged.”

Norris also cited Huckabee’s values, which are rooted in his faith, and compared him to King David.

Though he had not met Huckabee, Norris felt compelled to endorse him.

Huckabee had shown some dark-horse potential at the time, but he was still an obscure candidate. After the Norris endorsement, Huckabee said in an online video, “Everything in my campaign changed.”

“Our Web traffic went completely nuts,” Huckabee said. “There were people who suddenly said, `He’s a serious candidate.”‘

Dalia “my future bride” Lithwick:

You can use the passive voice all you want, I suppose, but it doesn’t change the fact that Taylor and now Harriet Miers have chosen to honor their former boss’s absurdly broad assertion of executive privilege over a congressional subpoena. Loyalty to your boss is not a legal doctrine. Nor is trying to position yourself to get a good job someday in the future.

Don’t hate me, baby. You’re still my favorite Canadian.