Y'know, if you're quoting something, there's this neat trick that helps people see that. Handily located to the right of the semicolon on a qwerty keyboard, they're called "quotation marks".

Not unrelated to the phenomenon where people who believe in 'past lives' were always really interesting, sexy people previously. No one was ever just a boring bastard in a past life.

The sample wasn't randomized, though. It was conducted through the people they could find and would agree to a DNA test during the unspecified research that the two descendants did.

Wouldn't relative wealth figure in too? People with money and power would be more likely to avoid starvation and disease, thus having more healthy children who can live long enough to have healthy children of their own and so on.

The fact that artificial insemination wasn't widely used at that time probably works in the favor of genetic diversity. Being rare, I expect the clinic would have drawn patients from a fairly wide geographic area.

Is my writing really that opaque? I thought it was clear that I know the Hapsburgs are the poster children (poster emperors?) for the hazards of inbreeding.

I've read that inbreeding is most genetically dangerous between full siblings, less so for half siblings, and first cousins are probably OK biologically speaking. So the squick factor is mostly based on cultural things.

It's a bit of leap, I agree. They can't be sure they didn't just happen to get a higher percentage of "his" kids.

If they start contacting you a lot afterward with "funny" little messages and running into you "by chance", then complaining when you aren't available, is that getting the Boyfriend Experience?

So, they invented Craigslist?

I hate the concept of "face time", I truly do. Even before I had kids and just wanted to hit the gym before it got too busy. And since kids...pssh. I work to live, I don't live to work.

More than the lease agreement, I've always been loathe to renovate a rental because you're upgrading someone else's property on your dime.

I like the way you think, my friend.

It seems really old-fashioned, doesn't it?

Probably depends on what she does with the rest of her life.

Some kids are definitely more stubborn than others. My daughter is hard-headed and much more of a wheedler than her brother is; I know what you mean. I didn't intend to imply that it's easy or even not-exhausting to get your point across to a kid that wants something.

Pro tip, uptight parents: when you tell a child 'no' consistently, they will stop fighting with you.

Nah, you know he makes her do all the work.

Um, the "Hero of Flight 93" Mark Bingham was gay.

Mish forever!