I didn't think "Borat" was as funny as everyone else did, because the targets of the jokes - homophobic, the old/rich, Repubs - were too easy to hit. I would have been much funnier (albeit un-P.C.) to see Cohen lampoon, say an effeminate gay man who's secretly, deeply misogynist (and trust me, they're out there!)

In a similar vein, Sarah is picking off easy one in satiring Bridezillas, that annoying Yoplait commercial, etc. What's next? The easiest targets of all, like "My Super Sweet 16" or "The Real Housewives of Orange County"?

Come on...she's got the potential for to go for great, thorny satire. How about "Starting Over"? Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty? The Michigan Womyn's Festival? Geraldine Ferraro, and the feminist who called Obama an "inadequate black male"?

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Satire only becomes worthy of praise when you're willing to go after everyone...even your target audience(s). That's what makes, say, "The Simpsons" timeless.

I would call myself a "humanist" or an "equalist," as if those weren't euphemistic ways of saying that I did, in fact, support women's rights.

As a progressive male who supports women's rights (equal pay for equal work, pro-family planning and pro-choice), I call myself an "equalist" or "egalitarian". Why not just say "feminist"? I would like to, but there are a couple key points on the feminist platform that renders me unable to wholly join/subscribe to the movement:

--Divorce outcomes in the U.S. for (ex-)husbands

--View of fathers (more specifically: positive adult "father figure" male role models in kids' lives...biological or not) as being irrelevant and unnecessary

--Unquestioned, unchallenged racism on the part of some white feminists, e.g. Steinem & Ferraro. (Yes, I am an ethnic minority living in the US.)

So for me, at any rate, calling myself an equalist is not about euphemistic hedging. It simply symbolises my support for the majority of a progressive agenda...but not the platform in its entirety.

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As for "Bust"? Well, any woman's mag that chooses to feature Iggy Pop in it is all right by me.

Her body, got it? She decided to not use a condom or birth control, he has a body and a choice and he decided to not use a condom. Even if that's not accurately what happened, it's still their bodies, their choices.

As someone with social libertarian leanings, I totally hear you. You have a right to do what you want with your body - treat it well, fuck it up...it's your choice. Live healthy or do drugs? Practice safe sex or get AIDS and syphillis from a one-night stand? It's your right to choose.

But...BUT...what you don't have a RIGHT to do is to inflict the results of your poor choices upon others in your community.

Wanna be a methhead junkie? No complaint or judgement from me. But you try to break in to my apt. and steal my stuff to sell for drug money, THEN we've got a problem.

Wanna practice unprotected, contraceptive-free sex? Absolutely fine by me. BUT if you can't afford treatment for AIDS and other STDs you contract from your choice of behavior, don't look to me the taxpayer to pay for your healthcare.

And if you have a kid because you didn't want to use a condom? Fine. Just don't ask me to pay for & subsidize your behavior, via free money like a welfare check.

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As for the population of the planet, well there is really nothing you can do other than not breed yourself, but sure you can work yourself into an angry hissyfit for people filling one of the most basic biological drives of becoming a parent.

This sounds eerily similar to, say, a pro-SUV or pro-Mc Mansion argument. After all, why work yourself into a hissyfit if people wanna drive a Navigator instead of an Impreza? Or have 10 kids instead of a more sustainable 1 or 2 (...or, you know, none?)

In the end, it's all moot. The Earth has a limited carrying capacity for all species - including humans. What is this exact capacity? 7 Billion people? 9 Billion? I don't know.

What I do know is that unless we find another planet (or space station?) to bear the brunt of our overpopulation, eventually your (or your relatives') grandkids are gonna be embroiled in - and probably lose their lives in - bloody, interminable wars for what scarce resources are left in/on our world.

But don't get into an angry hissy fit about that. There's nothing you can do about it, anyway.

"Exposing your mother's nakedness in public, breaking publicly with the only woman who ever gave birth to you, is a tabooed, ungrateful, desperate, perhaps dangerous and always complicated act."

What about mothers who commit abuse - emotional, physical, sexual - of their children?

What about mothers who abandon their kids? Who murder them under the haze of post-partum depression?

What about mothers who savage any hopes of their children having healthy self-esteem - through constant demeaning, infantilizing and/or overbearingness?

What about mothers (*cough* Dina Lohan *cough*) who throw their daughters to the wolves just so they themselves can pretend to be famous celebrities?

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Being "the only woman who gave birth to you" doesn't automatically make a mother a saint, free for life from any criticism or sanctioning. There are many men and women who have no business being fathers and mothers, based on how they FUBAR-ed their kids for life...thus perpetuating cycles of abuse, neglect, etc.

Moms should not be "untouchable"....living or dead. Tell 'em like it is, Rebecca!