Spoilsporting ahead: although a person's diet affects their odds of developing colorectal cancer, no amount of diet monitoring will fully prevent it. It's like any cancer: some people are predisposed to it by family history, some people by behaviours that they could (depending on cultural/economic/social factors)…

Yes! I live alone, and occasionally will have wine or a mixed drink with supper or while working late on a weekend. In theory it's not particularly dangerous (I still drink less than most people I know), but because I spend so much time by myself, it sounds awful and I'm afraid of ever mentioning it in conversations.

But but! They probably got the flu from doing gross things, like working with people, or going to cinemas, or caring for sick relatives/friends/neighbours. If they didn't have such a big social circle, or hang out with people with a big social circle, they wouldn't get sick - it's not my fault if I feel superior…

Fun fact: Apparently there is a blood test that people can request. It looks for immune reactions - so it can tell if a (non-immuno-compromised) person has been, at one point in their life, infected. Since this identifies people whether they are contagious or not, and whether have the disease latent in their cells or…

Yeah - I feel like a killjoy, but I have to agree with you. Even really positive words are ultimately reductive, and some words can put a lot of pressure on the child (for instance having many shirts that laud your kid's intelligence, which is just as bad as lauding their beauty).

Also:

I'm not sure, but I think that for most psychiatric and psychological disorders, the diagnosis is never only about the objective symptoms (ie are you mistaken in seeing your nose and ass as disproportionate) and usually has more to do with how much that affects your ability to live a good life.

Wow - the cruelty involved in most of those posts is astounding. There is one thread about how a woman raising a severely disabled daughter should not receive any money to support the child, since her disabilities were caused by a botched abortion attempt. Because having a good parent live in extreme poverty is good…

I assume that it's an intimidation tactic, because of the real threats that the women would face if their names were ever accidentally or intentionally leaked? So basically, if you don't comply to the abusive measures being imposed, hello sword of Democles?

I also hate the fashion fixation on promoting a single acceptable body type, but to be fair, beauty is at least as elusive for people who aren't beautiful as thinness is for people who aren't naturally thin. And it's just as arbitrary a standard to impose.

Yes! I was shocked to find out that none of my friends left that movie feeling the same way; much awkwardness and a realization that I might have odd tastes followed.

Good question: sleeping with a bunch of potential terrorists is acceptable and need not lead to a designation of slut, provided that you do it for your country don't enjoy yourself in the process.

So true - if he knew the victim, it ceases to be the violence, said jerks are able to see the crime as something that is all about the victim and not about the perpetrator. And then they are able to see it not as random act of violence that could hit good upstanding people like them anymore, but as natural retribution…

I love how men who complain that women are naturally more powerful, because they are powerless in front of the v, and how our having actual power creates a more unequal society are also men who are opposed to actual initiatives to create a more equal society (affirmative action, etc.).

Urgh. I hate the old argument that "If [Breivik] had gotten a little sex, and even someone to be a girlfriend of (his), they would never turn out massacres in the first place."

I'm honestly surprised not to have seen any comments to that effect ("Why should the death of 80 white kids living in a rich country overshadow 80 thousand Somali kids"). It's really tacky and really insensitive, and it's not all constructive, but it's oh so in keeping with the Norway tragedy>Winehouse tragedy…

I didn't experience any sudden realizations of my heterosexuality. As a child, I found myself equally awed by men and women; as a teenager, about equally likely to be attracted to men as women that I met or saw in movies. But by 28, all of my major crushes, and every time that I have fallen in love, it was with men.…

I think that I may have to steel that expression, since it works for any occasion. "I love cake and Lee Pace in 'The Fall'"; "I loved that concert, and Lee Pace in 'The Fall'".

Ha! Similar feelings here: I am going to be pitting my love for anything by Tarsem Singh against my hatred for anything with Julia Roberts, and hoping that the former wins out.