Totally. And bears really aren't very confrontational often, so it could account for the crypticity. We have solved it. Alert the media.

I had never thought about this! I've always lived in places with black bears, and did not realize the distribution was so geographically limited. If you added in grizzlies too, that might account for more west coast sightings. Black bears don't often get huge.

"Servant Girl Annihilator?" THAT is an awesome moniker.

The chemical analysis is really interesting.

Ugh! I did classes like this through "church" - Unitarian Universalist ftw - and decided I WASN'T ready in high school. I probably wouldn't have thought about it enough to make that call without good sex ed.

Somebody was handing out one about a young woman who had lost her way to every young woman working at the Starbucks I recently quit. I straight-up refused one when he tried me, as I do, but when I saw it in a coworker's hand I was all "MUST READ."

Even if not needed, it is still used. I had a roommate in college who kept pennyroyal on hand. I was horrified...because of that whole "isn't that dangerous?!" idea.

I don't think that's necessarily true. I've been limited from traveling in recent years (see above points about jobs/economy/etc), but always have done something nice with my friends. This year, my family is coming to visit me and we are already pretty darn thankful that we will get to see each other. All of us are…

Exactly what I was going to point out. Even now, if you don't agree with something the US as a nation does, you are "un-American." Because having a different opinion takes away your nationality? The way human brains work is crazy sometimes.

This is a really stupid argument. The people in my office who have kids DO make more than me...because they're older and have been here for years. Mostly we pity them for having to deal with kid-problems and they end up using their PPL for sick kid days instead of vacation. Sounds great!

This isn't really relevant, but what was his point exactly? Maybe I'm misreading, but was he actually claiming as a Republican that Republican hatred for Obama was because of racism? That's just...staggering.

Yes, but I actually did not know what those were until I just looked them up now.

Wow! That's great! I guess the silver lining is that I definitely know I need to change my registration and I have plenty of time to do it now.

This is true. I am ashamed not to have voted (I missed the deadline for absentee or changing my registration because my life is hectic which is another problem for young voters I imagine) BUT I also did feel these kind of hopeless feelings. I also live in a pretty blue area, so it also felt less necessary. For the…

Upstate NY. Cabbage Night. Always involved at least one house getting toilet papered (in addition to random pumpkin smashing and egg throwing).

I did not know that! I'm so curious now about why there are so many of those tales...I mean, water is totally scary: you don't have a CLUE what's in there. I suppose that's part of it.

Why?

I grew up in upstate New York and we traveled to Lake Champlain sometimes. This lake has it's own monster, called "Champ," who is basically a North American Nessie.

Gosh, I'll bet even the interrupting is tied to a lot of different things. Probably related to the fact that ADD/ADHD diagnoses are so much more common in men (which is ALSO probably for a ton of reasons.

I'm not sure about blame (because it's so complex and multifarious) but there has been real research on the fact that men are far more likely to interrupt women than any other combination (men interrupting men, women interrupting anybody) so...it's not like an uncommon problem.