I thought that embryos were just little clumps of cells for the first few months of pregnancy. Or weeks, anyway. There's just no way that a fetus could develop a heart 18 days after conception. If fetal development was that quick, and they have a heart at 18 days, why the fuck do they stay in their host's uterus for…

Sorry it took me so long to respond—the new format makes noticing comments difficult.

So, is the grad student saying that the Groupon ad was a critique of capitalism? Or was he saying that the joke is only funny in real life (as opposed to the logic of Groupon's PR department) if you recognize the evils of capitalism?

Wash died in Serenity, but he was by no means "canon fodder." He survived the series and died at the beginning of the final climax of the movie. Nor was (black) Shepherd Book canon fodder. You can't be canon fodder if you're integral to the plot and die in an appropriate and character- and universe-appropriate way.…

There has been no change on my end. I'm using Chrome on a mac. It looks exactly the same. But I see the change on both lifehacker and io9.

If the takeaway of the article is this: ""Talk to them like humans and don't be a jerk," conclude the writers, "Just like dudes in romance novels." "

Hm. No Lilith wasn't bad because of her vagina; come to think of it, neither was that Jezebel demon that made the church people evil.

@SassyHausfrau: oh, I ostly agree with you. But I actually do think that he had a lot to do with the sexual revolution. Namely, the bad parts of it. The media's constant objectification of women, the hypersexualizing of youth, the commodification of sexuality (the commodification of women's bodies had been going on…

You know, I don't even have a problem with Hottie McHotterson, She of Sexy Medieval Lore. I thought that shit was funny, mostly because her sexiness wasn't at all compromised or compromising of her effectiveness. She was clearly smart as shit, and hot, and the hotness was just a funny bit. Also because I feel like the…

I agree that moving away from Judeo-Christian mythology is A+. Especially since Crowley's treatment of the monsters of Purgatory would (potentially) indicate that they are not from the same mythology. This is an excellent extension of the lessons learned from the fairies—that religious mythologies aren't all operating…

@catalina: Yea Buffalo!!!! I am so homesick. Sigh.

@dubbs: If being verbal in the bedroom isn't your thing, you could always go for the physical. Like, instead of saying "put your hand here," you could just take his hand and put it there.

@teebear: I don't disagree with your points. But: do y'all think that "tomboy" is a word that participates in gender policing, or a word that subverts normative gender paradigms?

@paddlepickle: But see, even in that context it makes sense to me. Or it could. Like, the fact that you're straight is, like, the fact that your thumb is or is not a hitchhiker's thumb, or shape of your nose, or something. It just is, or is not, accurate. But if he was trying to emphasize your active participation in…

@lalaland13: I don't know what your deal is, but moving in with your parents is so not failure. Would you like to know what failure is? Fucking Dick Cheney. Or how about all those dudes in wall street who use burning hundred dollar bills to light their cigars. They're failures. Fuck them.

@paddlepickle: Eh. I'm cis. And I'm definitely not straight, what with a long and storied history of lady-loves, but I'm currently and long-termly dating a man. And I identify as queer.

@MissySmelliot: You can be all for the no sex/gender thing in theory (aka Judith Butler's realm: theory) while recognizing that in real life, gender exists. There are women, there are men. Even if Butler shows how those categories are permeable and limitless, they still exist in real life. It's like how race doesn't…

@singing_femmebot: I'm 27 and I say dating. Or "seeing," like "we've been seeing each other for 6 months." Or "together.'

@paddlepickle: As far as I'm concerned, saying "am" or "identify" is like the difference between saying "I walk" and "I am walking." In that "I walk" or "he's a man" is the neutral, un-emphasized way to say it. But when you want to emphasize the identifying, you'd say "I identify as such and such."

To be fair, I do feel like this is a regional-specific problem. Try being a Lady in Western New York and not knowing about football or hockey.