Direct address of the government is part of the first amendment: “and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” People typically forget that’s a Constitutional right.

The petition website is just the latest form it’s taken, but they do have to have SOMETHING.

Oh. I’m glad you approve of police, because I was police—and veterans, because I am a disabled veteran. (I was also an EMT at one time, if that helps.)

But I’m also a woman, and loathe Trump for his well-documented offenses. He also wants to privatize the VA.

Believe me when I say the veterans you’re so keen on don’t…

Okay, please, I want to establish that this was tragic and the police should not have shot this man. Two of my immediate relatives are trans and violence against trans people grieves me deeply.

As far as I'm concerned, "I don't want to go in the water" is a valid reason.
I'm a teacher, I don't LIKE it, necessarily, but if you don't want to say you're afraid, or that you're having your period, or you just want to take a personal day from phys ed, then you might make something up and take the hit to your grade.

And the Guardian piece, which the commenters there apparently read as light and humorous, was very much [titter] "I'm ~such~ a ~stalker~ you guys! LOL"

"That's what Gamer Gate is, and yes, I am comparing them to a hate group, because that's what they are. They're a grassroots campaign born out of a concern for journalistic ethics that's been hijacked by insecure children with rage boners for feminist theory."

If a household has a console, and there are two people in the household who share the console and they both play it... Even if the male party in the household bought the console, and his female partner plays on it, she still plays.

I can't print what I ACTUALLY said to this. So I'll just say you're wrong, and echo that the research disagrees, and the only perpetual sticking point is what constitutes a "real" video game.

Great post.

It is completely idiotic for someone SO in the public eye to do something so serious—so criminal, and above all, so easily debunked—as a bomb threat or threat of a ~school shooting~ against themselves and attempt to involve the federal authorities, when that is an invitation to get caught doing it.

You're pro-choice in name only.

If you actually don't romanticise fetuses, then an abortion is a medical procedure. No, I don't want to have to schedule an* abortion. I also don't want a root canal, or to have my tonsils out.

I did enjoy the movie. Now if only I didn't have to swallow the fact that enjoyable entertainment didn't contain dialogue with "whore" as a punchline.

What, like a dozen posts where people try to avoid spoilers, and you blurt out the names?

What I picked up was that it wasn't the apology but the repeated texts and the utter abjection. The apology wasn't "I'm sorry—I can't make it, the baby is sick. Can we reschedule?" It was a mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, don't hate me, I'm-flagellating-myself-right-now demonstration of sorry-ness that seemed sort of…

All a suicidal person wants is to stop the pain. It looks like it will never, ever stop and there is no help coming.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought that. Evil Colbert.

Don't argue with me. Argue with a dictionary.

Evil can mean harmful. It doesn't have to be sentient.

Just because officers *will* arrest people doesn't mean they *should*, and it seems to be playing out legally that it's a citizen's right to record the police. I did cite the case. The charges against Glik were dismissed and the Boston PD is now trained not to arrest people for recording. There's an injunction…

"In most places it's illegal to film the police whilst they are policing."