I hope you're not serious, KiteFlyer. Chemical castration is not about eliminating the possibility of pregnancy, it's about eliminating sexual desire altogether. Most men are not going to give up their sex drive to avoid babies. Just like most women.

"Comments about how a male-pill would protect guys from being tricked into fatherhood is a load of crap. If a guy is afraid of that, why is he sticking his dick into someone with whom he wouldn't ever want to have kids?"

Why, to... achieve an orgasm, perhaps?

"If you don't know her well enough to know if and when she ovulates and you are having condomless intercourse with her anyway, then let's be honest, you aren't responsible enough to be responsible for contraception. All those "she tricked me" anecdotes only happened to a willing idiot. Coulda sticked to oral, guys."

Hm, have you ever discussed the male sexual response with a man? Have you ever read much about it? Maybe you haven't. Men who only want oral are, in my experience, a small minority; comparable to women who only want pornography.

As for responsibility: if men can balance their checking accounts and remember to shave and wash, I'm sure they're responsible enough to remember to take contraceptives so as to be sure that no unwanted pregnancies will ensue. You seem to have a pretty low opinion of male intelligence and little knowledge of male desires. I swear we're more complicated that you make us look.

is actually making some pretty good points/suggestions here. What do the others think of his idea that one of the reasons against introducing a male pill is that this would reduce the Pharma Industry's profit from selling female birth control pills (since at least some women would trust their men and stop taking their pills)?

Sadly, I see myself agreeing with achilleselbow here. Despite the fact that the South Ossetians are being used as a pawn by the Russians, they do have valid claims. They speak an Indo-European language (related to Persian), totally different from Georgian, which is Kartvelian (non-Indo-European); their culture and traditions unite them to North Ossetia, still within the Russian Federation). Georgia has been less than perfect in its effort to keep minorities under control. Clearly, Russia has made things worse, but there were already problems before, from long before Georgian independence. Besides, Mikheil Saakashvili, though certainly better than Slobodan Milošević, does not have a very good record as a demoncratic president. And the Kosovo precedent can certainly be used.

Strategically, I can see the arguments against getting involved in the conflict: with NATO apparently encircling it, Russia may get paranoid, and standing up for Georgia doesn't seem to be worth it. Yet I can also see that losing an ally from the former Soviet Union would reverberate in other ex-USSR countries as evidence that, when push comes to shove, they'll be left alone. Or would the reaction be any different if, say, the Russians pushed for recognition of Transnistria? Or tried to retake Crimea? Despite the difference in scale (South Ossetia is, after all, a very small region), I do get flashbacks of the occupation of the Baltic states: nothing was done, except non-recognition by the US.

Maybe the best thing would be to either try to stop the conflict without any obvious winner -- with a ceasefire at some point -- or then to try to make it difficult for the Russians. I'm afraid that, if they can claim a quick victory, the fait accompli will only reinforce Russian militarist groups. The siloviki must be ecstatic now.

This lying thing seems to be really big in America, I see -- perhaps because of a combination of bad experiences by some people with lies from others and a still very Christian Protestant culture + upbringing.

Armagednoutahere is perhaps a little too aggressive, but he has a good point. Some frequent, even pathological liars do lie because of low self-esteem, because they want to project the image of the life they wish they had had. These people can also be good, and quite worthy. They should probably be distinguished (again along a continuum of variation) from those with more-or-less psychopatic tendencies, the manipulators and others of that ilk.

We don't know what kind of liar the LW is, and what the relationship between him and his girlfriend is exactly like. I say: we all agree that he should tell her the truth and hope for the best. Hope that she will see what kind of person he is (whatever it is), and act accordingly. The discussion here is no longer about his situation, but about lying in general and what should be done with people who lie, and I see it sheds some light on interesting aspects of American culture.

Do you think that the Russians will limit themselves to operations within South Ossetia, or at least only to conquering South Ossetia, or will operations in the rest of Georgia (given the recent declaration of war by the Georgian parlament) eventually become more important than South Ossetia? The bombing in Gori and the apparent mobilization of the Black Sea fleet seem ominous.

with Mary Elizabeth Williams on this one. Judging Edwards' little adventure says nothing about him as a politician, just about how sanctimonious American society is. It's like trying to judge him by studying his chess strategies -- there certainly are clues to his personality there, but we should be much more interested in his record as a politician than in any sexual escapades. Just like his wife's cancer, that's a family problem.

And this while war breaks out in South Ossetia, with repercussions for NATO, the EU, and the US.