Thank you and you're welcome! These discussions often become arguments about birth control failure when it's really more complicated than that.

Dude. It's not clear because it's not clear if or when any specific act of sex with any specific partner will result in pregnancy. That's why people say they're "trying to get pregnant" and fertility treatments don't kick in until after a year of failure, give or take depending on the woman's age, patience and…

The idea that women control this process goes beyond birth control failure. It goes into hidden ovulation. We don't know when we're at our most fertile. We can guess, even make a very educated guess, but short of expensive, daily tests, we can't know. We definitely don't release the egg through an act of will.

I mentioned somewhere above that Beyonce recorded a wake-up greeting for the astronauts on Atlantis. She made an extra comment about Sandra Magnus being an inspiration for girls who want to go into space.

I thought it fit perfectly. I remembered it right away, and when the video really kicked in, it gave me a chill. Most people think of space flight as a really awesome, fun, exciting thing that's dangerous, sure, but they're super-careful, so why not, if you get the chance? Amusement parks are the same thrill on a much…

The southern white woman of a certain age thing is indeed that South, the slave-owning states and staunch defenders of segregation laws that continued well into the 20th century, providing "separate but equal" accommodations for blacks that were miles away from equal. Ms Rodgers was born in Alabama, and went to…

Ah...whoops! I did not mean to shut discussion down, only broaden the scope of it, and I spent way too much time on information gathering, to be honest.

I'm a moron, but I'm a moron with google. I had no idea what Beyonce sang or who Ms Rodgers was, so I looked them up. Beyonce's video is on YouTube. Ms Rodgers has a website, her statement is online, she's been mentioned in Challenger-related news articles, and her book is on Amazon, with some reviews.

Ms Rodgers was never a widow struggling to feed her starving babies. The families of the Challenger crew were compensated, which meant that whatever hells of shock and grief they were living through, money wasn't the issue it would have been had their loved ones died on an ordinary job. There was enough money so that…

Reading the comments on CNN and running into gems like this:

The news: Make the most money possible off disaster, tragedy and freak occurrences. Shove them in as much detail as possible into everyone's faces, complete with sensationalizing commentary by shocked, appalled or horrified talking heads.

I watched it. First Beyonce video I've ever watched, and I thought she nailed it. I think the problem is that people don't expect someone like her (by which I mean a black woman in pop music) to do something simultaneously subtle and hard-hitting.

Oh dear Lord, this is my son! I have learned not to wait until he's done showering to shower because I'm better off sharing the hot water than hoping there's some left when he's through. I think he has learned to pace his orgasms to the length of time it takes to drain the hot water tank.

From a certain point of view, collecting statistics on male victims isn't nearly as important as protecting the anonymity of rapists. This form is extremely dangerous because it allows the victim or witness to name the attacker.

I am trying to say this as gently as possible, but maybe there isn't a way.

I have pictures of my son sitting on my mother's lap when he was about 8 months old. They were playing Popcorn and Pong on this elderly machine my mother had kicking around. He took to computers like a duck takes to water, and I never set limits on his screen time, not at any age. He and Grandma could play as much as…

This was my kid. No screen limits, ever. Hours and hours at the computer. Came out of it a decent human being who was ahead of the curve on computer science.

And I also agree that we shouldn't have to talk about how traumatising rape is to get it taken seriously as a crime. If someone gets punched in the face but isn't traumatised by it no one suggests that physical assault isn't a crime. And no one demands that the physical assault victim be traumatised in order to prove…

In the story recounted above, the attacked woman screamed and fought back, waking the neighbors as she did. The next morning, the whole community was talking about it and laughing, but not at her. They laughed at her wannabe rapist, mocking his undignified escape.

Raped, beaten and molested here.