Thanks! I was worried that I've been too pedantic, ha. I'm glad the discussion's been so civil, though.

Apologies for another long answer! I hope I'm not boring anyone, or coming across as too pedantic, ha.

Oh, here: links to the Nature article (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v485/n7397/full/nature11069.html) and the U.S. Food Policy Blog post (http://www.usfoodpolicy.blogspot.ca/2012/04/how-to-read-organic-agriculture-debates.html). Either Kinja is ignoring the html in my last post or I was doing it wrong, lol.

There've been a few studies done that seem to show that organic/sustainable ag doesn't actually produce lower yields than conventional crops (even non-GMO crops), and produces more stable yields from year to year. (I'm thinking in particular of a study to come out of Iowa State, which admittedly I have not been able…

Well, a large part of the concern from organic and sustainable farmers has to do not with the nutritional benefits of sustainable organic farming, but the environmental benefits. A few good years with high crop yields that give way to a lot of bad years with low soil fertility, a decline in water quality, genetic…

Part of the reason why people feel uncomfortable with GMOs is because of cross-pollination between GMO and non-GMO crops. Food isn't grown in isolated environments—it intermingles with the rest of the plants and animals around it. This argument sounds like 'But they're unnatural and therefore bad!' but it's…

Aw, thanks! Fortunately, I'm not the only sane person from Kansas, ha. We just need more of those people in the state legislature.

Better idea: more reasonable people should all move to Kansas. Kind of like the Bushwhackers from Missouri during the Bleeding Kansas era, except instead of using your votes to enter the union as a slave state, we'd be using your votes to protect civil rights, the environment, and the social safety net.

My dad is a recovering Catholic, from a big enough family that we've been to a lot of Easters, funerals, christenings, weddings, visits to grandma, etc. My brother and I—who have never attended church regularly, never went through Confirmation, were never even christened—can fake our way through mass pretty handily. …

My mom bought me my first thong when I was 15, I think? I had a modest but slinky prom dress that year, and it would have been more conspicuous to have a visible panty-line than to wear tinier underwear. My date dropped me off at my parents' house by 1:30 without even a peck on the cheek, so my mom and I were the…

As someone between an A and B cup, I wear them for two reasons: 1) I like a little added insulation in cold rooms so I don't make other people uncomfortable, and 2) I actually like to have a little bit of padding and lift to balance out my silhouette. It's sad that I've internalized this, but going without a bra in…

Wikipedia confirms this. I had no idea—in part because there was a great piece on Kris Kristofferson in Rolling Stone a few years ago (pretty sure Ethan Hawke wrote it), which opened with an anecdote about Toby Keith telling Kris Kristofferson not to try any "lefty bullshit" at a Willie Nelson birthday concert. Now…

I'm not sure that focusing on two individuals who were apparently wrongly accused of murder is "ethically questionable". In fact, I'm pretty sure that wrongful accusations are the basis for some of our most powerful literary works on ethics (I'm thinking of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Snow Falling on Cedars" in…

D'awww. Reminds me of my parents' maine coon. If those are the boots in the background, they're cute, too!

If it's sexy here, it's only because apparently obnoxious is the new new sexy.

The Sherlock fandom would probably argue that there's a right way to do it.

I mean, they're not wrong about Lawrence in that respect, ha! They're very smug/defensive about basketball in particular, and we had a good run a few years ago in football under Mark Mangino that made the sports fans truly insufferable. Also Lawrence got sacked during the period leading up to the Civil War, and I…

Oh, there's no denying that, ha! I promise not all KU fans are assholes. It's just hard to tell because the assholes are way louder than everyone else.

I wasn't talking about immediate family members, though. In a lot of families, cousins aren't socially immediate family members. I don't see the majority of my first cousins more than once ever year or two; many of them I might not immediately recognize if I passed them on the street. I'm not even sure I can list…

People always asked me: why go to KU over K-State? This. This right here.