The logic I don't get, is how having a hunk of metal on my finger magically transforms the disrespect I feel for my wife after she engages in hot enthusiastic monkey sex with me, into respect. I really don't see how that works, does the ring somehow re-wire my brain? Is it putting ions into my blood-stream that affect my dopamine or serotonin uptake?

Or perhaps, it it ok to disrespect her now, since she has me contractually nailed into the relationship and a good level of contempt and disrespect is the inevitable outcome of marriage?

This is a way of thinking about sex that is truly and deeply warped, that I just cannot understand.

Lets fix the infield fly rule. And the designated hitter rule.

Oh, and offensive pass interference and the notorious leg before wicket rules too.

Heck, I think it is about time the whole red-line blue-line thing got a second look too.

Enough of this playing by the rules thing. Too arbitrary, right?

Shades of JonBennet Ramsey, really.

It is creepy, disgusting, outrageous, and, as the article points out, problematic in that it makes a Dr's work harder.

And for what purpose, please? Are child beauty queen judges really looking there too?

I really wish the child protection folks would start busting stage moms.

Is all this is, really.

I do feel sorry for the couple, and for the kid. They are all going to get shit on again and again for the next 20 years. I hope somebody teaches the kid some kungfu or whatever, s/he is likely to need it in the coming years.

I wouldn't be betting a whole lot of money on that marriage's longevity either; doing it transgendered has to be hard enough, without the added complications of fertility issues and celebrity limelighting.

So we have established that MSNBC is adolescent and stupid. What next?

You folks do realize that you are arguing with a dude that believes that there are giant trees on Mars and that he belongs to a super duper secret society where this knowledge is shared, because he is like, special? Who once (maybe) went on Estrogen therapy to better grok women and improve his luck with them? Who, for all I know, types away wearing a tinfoil hat?

This is a case where medical help is needed, not attempts at reason. There is no reason there to be had.

You've totally unmasked yourself now. You can't keep up the pretense of objectivity any more, and we all know what you are.

You are clearly a Ferraromaniac, as is all of Salon, root and branch. Just can't get past that Italo-philia, can you?

(Incidentally, don't you think you are giving a mediocre shock-jock type Randi Rhodes just a teeny tiny bit more recognition than she deserves?)

Is there any indication that USAID exerted direct or specific pressure on POPLINE/John Hopkins, or did some over-zealous administrator just impose it on his or her own? Which is actually more frightening-- administrative orders like USAID's, if they do have to be obeyed at all, ought be treated at a minimum level, not full and enthusiastic compliance (like Yahoo and Google did for the Chinese). It is this kind of silent, creeping imposition of control that scares me, far more than public fiat from on high.

Almost 20 years of unremitting, catastrophic warfare has brutalized the population, whatever is left of it anyway, there have been something like 5,000,000 deaths (there are still over 1,000,000 million internally displaced Congolese). The country has been ruled by brutal dictatorships, foreign invaders, and ongoing ethnic rebels, for well over a century. Possibly the bleakest period was under the rule of Belgian King Leopold, when about half the population, 10,000,000 died and the atrocities caused even all the old racist imperial nations to blanch.

You know what has driven the last two decades of conflict? Blood diamonds and coltan (a tantalum ore, vital in making electronics, especially cell-phones; 80% of world's reserves are in Congo). It is the western demand for diamonds and coltan that has driven the conflict-- every time you put that cell phone next to your diamond earringed ear, if you listen closely, you might hear the screams of all those women being raped.

I've been trying to figure out what this article reminded me of ever since the first time it came up, and I finally got it.

Remember in high school when one of the princesses decided to take pity on a fat girl friend and tried to hook her up with some socially outcast sweaty nerd/geek? BMOCs would do it too, encourage much lower status guys helping them with their homework or something to hook up with geeky socially outcaste girls.

I started high school as a pimply sweaty twitchy nerd, and it happened to me regularly; it was patronizing, humiliating and disgusting then, and I think it still is. (Incidentally, I graduated not only with the second highest GPA, but also with with Allstar awards and Letters in two manly sports, football and judo. Inside every frog there is a prince, you know.)

For men, I think that there is something of the same feel to all the "how to pick up women" gurus (that a certain BroadSheet reader is so fond of): it is still the cool guys telling the fat losers how to do it, and that they should target insecure, unhappy women, essentially because that is what they, losers that they are, deserve.

As for ads, I pretty consistently get movie ads, pretty much everywhere on Salon. Which is odd, I don't read movie reviews on Salon very often, and a waste, as I attend maybe two movies in a year, dragged there by my family. Oh, and I think everyone is getting US Air Force ads, they seem to have bought wall to wall coverage; your US tax dollars at work. (And I just love their newish "Uber Alles" motto; have they a completely tone-deaf ear for history?)