But the Iraq parliament did succeed in doing something the U.S. Congress has not: A majority of Parliament members announced support for a bill that would impose timelines for American troop withdrawal and freeze the number of American troops. I've said for a long time there would have to be a political solution, not a military solution to this war. Maybe the Iraqis will beat us to it.

The Iraqis, or rather a majority of Iraqis, have wanted us out since at least the six-month mark. If we were really trying to promote democracy and listen to the Iraqi people we would've mostly pulled out several years ago.

I think this is a very important point, because it gives direct lie to the claim that we're promoting Democracy in Iraq; "promoting Democracy" while acting in direct opposition to the will of the people is not promoting Democracy at all. It is the very antithesis of Democracy.

Impeachment (and an inevitably failed trial in the Senate) could be a very good thing indeed if it prevented Democrats from "legislating" on taxes, or health care, or the environment. -- Elephantman

You're not very bright. The Democrats have basically two powers now: subpoena and not passing legislation.

Developed nation populations do not, in general, grow except by immigration. Focusing on U.S. population growth, IMO, entirely misses the point; it will have no effect on the population growth which actually matters.

Developing all the poor nations with current technology will halt global population growth but do catastrophic damage to the environment - assuming it's even possible, which frankly seems unlikely since there really isn't enough oil.

So, we could try to get all the poor nations to implement something a la China's one child policy. I'm not especially opposed to that, but I can't honestly say I'm impressed with the odds of success.

That leaves creating hypothetical new technologies by which poor nations can be developed to the point of shutting down explosive population growth without destroying their environment or running out of energy. I can't say I really think this will happen in time, either, so catastrophic population loss by famine does seem to be the most likely actual future. Nonetheless, the potential seems more promising in the long run. I think it's generally better to work with nature (i.e. take advantage of the normal population curves) than against nature (i.e. try to change the normal population curves through draconian regulation).

The price of enforcing mandatory disclosure is that desperate girls won't be able to trust official providers. That does not always lead to them being "protected" or statutory rapists getting caught; it also leads to them being dead from unsterile, unprofessional operations.

Now, I understand people can argue the relative merits, however, it's disingenuous to pretend that there isn't an associated cost. It's not surprising that people who want to help girls in trouble are disinclined to turn them in; they're not thinking about protecting the father (although that certainly could be a consequence), they're thinking about protecting the mother, which is their current and primary charge.

How does it help a 15 year old or younger girl being raped by a a man over 21 to not notify her parents?

Are you serious? Are you completely unaware of the issues involved? You sound serious.

It may prevent her from getting professional help because she might be afraid of being harmed or of harm coming to another.

It may get her hurt/killed by unprofessional help.

It may get her hurt/killed by her parents.

It may get her hurt/killed by her statutory rapist.

To repeat, you can argue the relative merits, but pretending there isn't any dark side to mandatory disclosure just makes you look ignorant.

I am surprised that Broadsheet feels it necessary to report it as an atrocity when someone lies to Planned Parenthood to expose uncouth practices...

What article did you read? The part where they called that an atrocity was not in the Broadsheet article in Salon. It's real easy to accuse people of ANYTHING if you just falsify their writing.

Thank you for publishing this. And now Gonzales is Attorney General - how convenient.

Intolerance of the intolerant is only hypocritical if you're a simpleton who can't wrap their head around the fact that these are relative, nuanced concepts. Of course, people like this particular anonymous don't do nuance. I love the fact that he's flat out MISSING blatant references, he literally has no clue what people are talking about. He wants his world divulged in black and white, no word can fit multiple similar but distinct meanings, and no act or sentiment can have different ethics based on context or subject.

I don't give a shit what the genetic issues are to a resultant child, the issue is contractual privacy and how that is handled.

The offspring didn't sign the contract.

Uh, but the mother and the donor did. Children (and the not born) cannot lawfully enter into contracts, but their legal guardians can.

Setting aside whether an unconceived child can even have a legal guardian, that guardianship ends at adulthood. Contracts engaged on their behalf do not automatically end, but they sure as heck can be challenged, and that challenge is highly likely to succeed. This isn't just theoretical; child actors frequently have to go to court to extricate themselves from what their parents did to them, and while it's messy, they generally succeed in the end.

How to distinguish between a lie and a colossal mistake?

I don't know about the lying about the war thing - I don't think there's even a law against that, really, in fact it's probably 1st amendment protected speech - but the warrantless wiretapping is another matter, and at this point very well established. I'd've voted for impeachment the moment he wrote a signing statement claiming he wasn't bound to obey the constitutionally mandated law.