The shootings -- not just in CT, but really every time guns are used to kill innocent people -- are tragic, but moreso because they could be solvable but for political logistics. I get that owning guns is important to a lot of people, but nobody has the right to do do that. Let's talk about stopping this from ever happening again. If that means ( Read more... )

A couple years ago I was doing some research for a debate and looked up emergency contraception. The first page of Google was awash in the debate, in which the religious zealots posted a bunch of lies and those with actual medical knowledge (or had done research) responded with medical facts ( Read more... )

Ganked from interactiveleaf:

Seriously. This is such an unbelievably ridiculous story that I'm finding it near impossible to accept it at face value, yet I'm forced to simply because of how horrifying the truth must be that the official lie is a story of criminal recklessness on the part of the officer in question, plus some completely absurd gay panic garnish ( Read more... )

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Is it possible for a religion to jump the shark? The "Christian Side Hug" (introduced to the general public by an unlistenable rap song, above) was introduced by youth pastors because apparently "front hugs" are too sinful. Seriously; Christian youth are being taught that it's sinful to hug each other ( Read more... )

Yesterday a post on Pandagon caught my attention. It started with a reference to a British advice columnist who gave some questionable advice to a woman who wrote this letter. Here's the short version:

( this is a long one. You've been warned. )

No matter who you are, no matter what you're doing, it's a good idea to know whether you're allowed to be doing it in the first place, especially if people are gathering at your behest. If you don't check first, and learn that there's a city ordnance against your event, you've got a choice between canceling and ruining everybody's fun, or ( Read more... )

h/t Pandagon.

The Ultimate Man's Survival Guide is now available, so that all of you men can learn to be real men. Real men, men who presumably still don't eat quiche, who wrestle bears and alligators and drink wine(?). The link is of an email that Human Events sends out, and all of its hotlinks lead to an even crazier version of the ad ( Read more... )

The 24-hour news cycle has been killing American news since the second such channel arrived on-scene (CNN alone managed to handle the load pretty well, just running Headline News every hour or so with only minor changes as needed). I'm unsure at this point whether FOX News or MSNBC came along first, but both are killing news, and I honestly think ( Read more... )

I spent an hour longer at my part time job than I wanted to tonight. It was frustrating. One reason is that the commercials I produce ever other week, for some reason, always have this huge wave of hotels. I really, really hate doing hotel ads because they are almost uniformly a) identical, b) void of useful information and c) 60 second spots. ( I will explain why these things are obnoxious as hell in that order. )

Today, on the way out of town, I stopped to get gas and, as I walked into the gas station for a bottle of water, I smiled at a cute girl in a car, and she smiled back. She was in the passenger seat, so I figured she was with someone and it was just a nice little moment ( Read more... )