I'm a research scientist in the health care area.

So I know that there's never been *any* research studies to justify all the "required" screenings women are subjected to by the medical establishment.

Unfortunately, women have been told over and over for the entire lives that these screenings are *absolutely, vitally necessary* and they have also been forced to get these screenings by patronizing doctors and health insurance.

How many women like myself have spent 25+ years going for pap smears every single godd*mn year? I only went because if you didn't get your "annual exam", your jerkface doctor would hold your birth control pill prescription hostage and refuse to renew it? And this has also been the main reason why the birth control pill has been withheld from ever being available over-the-counter--because women had to be forced to go to the doctor all the time so they could be "protected" by constant pap smears.

How many women like myself, who have zero risk factors for breast cancer, found not only their birth control pill prescription but also their very health insurance held hostage unless they showed up for that yearly mammogram beginning at age 40?

It would be nice if the medical establishment actually respected women and reported the actual facts of cancer screening and other tests and let women make their own decisions.

Unfortunately, the medical establishment has a long history of regarding women as both apriori unhealthy and also too idiotic to make their own health care decisions.

I agree with others here: the new Salon is a nightmare.

Why not put the newly-posted stories someplace where people can see them?

Why not leave them there long enough for people to find them again?

Instead we get "prominently featured" that one over the top rancid stepmother Cary Tennis article from months/years ago.

And a full week (!) headlining Aaron Traister's ridiculous social commentary about people being openly disparaging towards a couple expecting a girl rather than a boy. That he appears to have made up because I've never seen a hint of this in my loong life, even from the unenlightened and truly sexist red states. (Could he live in Afghanistan and forgot to mention it?)

Like icemilkcoffee, I found double X's format so difficult to navigate, and the "stories" themselves so brief and minor, that I stopped trying to read it.

Each story required multiple clicks from the Slate link to get past the teaser sentence, through slow-loading pages larded with video ads. And then the story itself was usually just a disappointingly thin 2-3 paragraphs. It seemed like not a magazine at all, just a transparent attempt at a click-generator.

Was there ever any significant amount of content in this so-called "magazine"? I never knew. I never succeeded in finding the "front page" of this so-called magazine (that may have had more than 1 article?) or the archived stories.

The name "double X" is also problematic--yeah, I get it how cute--two X chromosomes = female in biology. But it's a bad choice to make a link name resemble a porn site when the target audience is likely to surf it from work.

Everyone hates you on the road because you are endangering everyone else by driving as if they didn't exist.

When you are on the road, you are actually in a social situation, and you have to comply with expectations etc or you will create an accident.

When you are on the road, particularly if it is crowded, you have to drive at the same speed as everyone else. You also need to obey the "expectations" of the other drivers. If you don't, you create a huge hazard for everyone else.

If the light isn't red, the expectation of the car behind you is that you will continue through the intersection. When you don't, they have to slam on their brakes in order to avoid hitting you, and yes, they will blame you for doing something unexpected and almost creating an accident. And rightly so--it's your fault.

Similarly, if you insist on going the posted speed limit (or lower!) at all times in a passive aggressive manner, even though the traffic flow is obviously at a rate of speed higher than that, the other drivers will be freaked out and will have to slam on their brakes upon encountering you seemingly stalled right in front of them, and then they will have to dodge around to try to get past you.

Do not stop where there are no stop signs so you can wave through people who don't have the right of way. When you merge onto a freeway, for god's sake speed up and get into the flow of traffic! Don't stop and wait until there are no cars coming---this is the most dangerous thing you can do.

The cop probably gave you a ticket for driving in an unsafe manner and creating a road hazard.

Your commute on a busy road is *not* the time for you to put your car on autopilot and zone out in your private space. To be polite and safe you must be alert and drive like an intelligent social creature, responding and reacting to those around you in a predictable manner.

Did anyone expect we'd go from 600,000 lost jobs a month straight to hiring 600,000 a month?

The new numbers are way better than last January and indicate that the economy is coming back. It's going to take some time, of course.

Why did anyone expect re-hiring in a month or two?

What did you expect?

Toughen up and get to work.

It's easy to be an idealist in a perfect world. Do you have what it takes to live and work in the world we actually have?

Also: if you think the biggest problem is corporate phone trees and corporations screwing their consumers, you need to get out into the world a bit and look around.