Presumably, women on the Pill do not want to get pregnant. If you miss pills and ovulate, you should be able to tell. Why not make it standard to tell women the basics of fertility awareness? Surely they wouldn't want to keep a temperature chart, but checking cervical fluid is really easy. For many people, fertile fluid is unmistakable, and you don't have to go looking for it. People do sometimes ovulate even if they don't forget their pills, so it seems like a little awareness (it could be as simple as EGGWHITE=EGG) could go a long, long way. When I learned about fertility awareness, I was amazed that no one had ever told me that stuff before. I still haven't figured out why Planned Parenthood doesn't advocate it is a supplement to other forms of birth control. How did knowing what it looks like when you're ovulating become so damned fraught with politics?

No, you get a yellow one when you start paying for a subscription.

I do sympathize with this idea, but in the short term it causes pain to people in rural areas. You can't be a Wal-Mart greeter or make thermostats from home. And there is no public transportation.

I will support the proposed "Patriot Tax" when we have adequate alternative transportation for those who have to pay it. Otherwise, it's just too regressive and a hardship for people who are already struggling.

I guess I would rather have at least one devil's advocate viewpoint, because I already know my own.

Anyway, here's a fuller story on this decision: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/moveon_to_close_its_527.php

You wrote: "Whatever happened to the American Dream? The place where a kid from a dead-end town can grow up and make something for himself/herself if they worked hard at it, what happened?"

Actually, I am living the American Dream. The trouble is that only a few people actually can. It's always been possible, but it's always been a longshot for any individual.

They obviously don't want it. Might as well try to feed pureed spinach to a 14-month-old who is screaming for a cupcake.

As teen pregnancies go, I suppose there is some merit in 1) admitting you're doing it on purpose and 2) intentionally doing it in a way that will provide a support network.

But it still makes me sad. I narrowly missed a similar fate myself, but my sister (three years older than I) now has a granddaughter a year younger than my daughter. I wished we lived in a country where having your physical and emotional needs met were the standard, but it's just not the case.

You wrote: "Liberals hold that homosexuality is innate. Why? Simply as a reaction to the fundamentalist idea that it's a product of upbringing and something that can be avoided. This is not thinking. This is being a knee-jerk reactionary."

Happily, no. This premise is based on the experience of being gay. Rather than on, say, the idea that one's god would not create human abominations and therefore the gay person must be "choosing" to be one.

Now that they have found out that homosexuality is not caused by bad mothering, they have had to "discover" that it's the womb ITSELF! Don't worry, dear. Just smile and take your pills. Ahh, isn't the yellow wallpaper lovely?

I wonder, though how it would go over with the much-mythologized feminist Clinton diehards. Hmmmm.

AncientAssyrian, you really hit the nail on the head about the headline. Didn't Farhad Manjoo just remind us the other day that repeating a rumor is counterproductive ... unless you're actually trying to spread it?

I have been resisting the idea that Salon is anti-Obama. I'm all for a healthy dose of critical viewpoints (like Glenn Greenwald's awesome and much-deserved smackdown this morning), but this tabloid crap has a nasty stench. I doubt that it's intentional, but it stinks. The tabloid-style headlines have stunk for a long time, but when you start mixing them with serious business like debunking rumors about presidential candidates, it gets positively rotten.

I have always, always been mystified by the idea that gay guys should try to "reform" and go out and marry women and have lots of babies. Note to insane pseudochristians who need to control everyone else's sex life: ENCOURAGING THIS PROCESS PROBABLY MAKES EVEN MORE GAY PEOPLE.

Not that I mind personally, of course. But it is much nicer when the gays who procreate do so with the people they actually love, and then actually love their children regardless of their sexual orientation. Sheesh.