We received an e-mail message from our daughter's middle school, attaching a letter from a police officer warning us about this "crime". The officer claimed he'd dealt with two such "incidents." In one, a 14-year-old boy took a picture of himself naked and sent it to his 14-year-old girlfriend, who saved it on her cellphone. It was not clear whether he counted the two kids as two separate "incidents". This would have been a polaroid snapshot in my teen years -- anyhow, then he went on to discuss the dire legal consequences that could, in theory, befall both of these kids (being deemed to be registered sex offenders for life, etc.).

This was on February 5. I printed the letter out, showed it to my daughter, and told her if she does stuff like that she'd be guilty of "Breathing While Stupid" and she agreed.

As a parent, you do have to think about the idiocy of a system in which the real danger to your kid is the punishment, not the "crime". The danger is not that there's a real crime with a real perp and a real victim and a discernable harm to society that needs to be punished -- the real danger is that your kid could get caught, doing something you probably would have done at his or her age. In that respect, note this recent NY Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html?ref=opinion

Don't forget, during the campaign, conservatives were wringing their hands and warning of dire consequences if the country's administration AND congress were both controlled by a single party. As usual, they were projecting their own twisted behavior on the rest of us.

The Republicans got a lot of mileage out of Reagan's 11th Commandment: "Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill of a Fellow Republican." So when they controlled the House, the Senate and the White House (and don't forget the Supreme Court), they marched in lockstep. Democrats, on the other hand, have always blasted their own. The Republican strategy was effective politically, but it was a disaster for America in the long range.

I never worried about one-party control, as long as that one party was the Democratic Party. Democrats are their own opposition party.

I know I'm a cynic, here, but this smells like an entirely manufactured scandal. Looking over the article, it doesn't sound as though thousands and thousands of surrogates are threatening to stampede to the nearest clinic to abort these pregnancies. It doesn't even look like one of them has done so. It's speculation, and nobody's subjected it to a reality-check.

There are many clauses in these contracts that have never been tested in court, so there's no telling how enforceable any of it is. As far as I'm aware, though, if the surrogate's not getting paid, it really doesn't matter what the contract says about abortion. She's not bound by the contract any more. My question is, in the real world, what is a normal person likely to do in this situation?

Assume the surrogate has no other unrelated reasons for wanting to abort the pregnancy (i.e., health issues or something like that). Chances are, she's going to work it out with the bio biological parents, even if they agree to pay her over time. If they don't agree to pay her -- sure she could abort, but she can also arrange to place this baby for adoption with some other couple who would agree to pay her medical expenses. The bio-parents can challenge it, assuming they'd rather pay lawyers than pay the surrogate who bore their child. Who knows how a court would rule, but paying your money to a lawyer for a 50-50 chance makes a lot less sense than paying half that amount to a surrogate.

He must have a chronic condition since he seems aware of what is going on. Rather silly of him to stay on camera and keep up appearances rather than just sitting down, though.

I have to admit, I feel for the guy. Even though he chooses to be a pawn of Glen Beck, unpredictable fainting is a horrible experience I wouldn't wish on anyone. I've been through it myself, and it took nearly 20 years to get it properly diagnosed. You actually can tell it's going to happen, a moment or two before it does, but it's not as though you have time to say "Hey, let's break for a word from our sponsors". One moment you're fine, the next moment you're looking at the world through a dark haze and the best you can hope for is to break your fall.

Joan, I'm glad you aren't taking a snarky tone (and let's admit it, the entire event lends itself to snark).

As for the guy who claims Obama "raised" his taxes, I'm not sure how that worked. Too bad you don't get to ask follow-up questions. The fact of his paycheck being lower than before has many possible explanations, not the least of which is that certain paycheck deductions max out midway through the year. So it seems that you suddenly get a little bump up late in the year, and then in January your paycheck drops down a bit. So he would have noticed a slightly lower paycheck beginning in January, probably before Obama even took office on the 20th. Did he confirm that his Federal taxes were higher, rather than his state or local taxes? I'd ask him whether the drop might have been due to his employer passing along increased insurance premiums to the employees. There are plenty of reasons why the take-home pay would have dropped; I would have pressed him for details on how he can trace this to the Obama administration.

If, for example, the drop in pay happened in January or February, it couldn't have been the result of any of Obama's initiatives having been passed; it's too early in the year.