Nobody has any general authority over grammar and usage, so there aren't any "Grammar Nazis."

I absolutely negotiated with my son from the time he was old enough to speak, and I frequently had people tell me that I was doing parenting wrong when they'd overhear us negotiating.

I don't have a Facebook account, and never have. But even if I did, they would have information I provided them; and Facebook isn't regularly used by banks, insurance companies, etc. in ways that affect you financially. (And I have literally never seen a copy of my credit report without some error or another on it,…

Agreed. Even when it's just providing information in anonymous aggregated form, it's creepy.

And I am prejudiced against you for being mean to me!

One of the early reported patterns reported with the last swine flu outbreak, though, was that it was affecting an unusual number of young, otherwise healthy people, probably due to immune system overreaction and to the fact that younger people were less likely to have been exposed to similar strains in the past.

I'd argue that 'common sense' is the problem. Common sense is what tells people that things they hear that reinforce their extant worldview don't need fact checking.

It's ageist and it's sexist, and your getting defensive about it doesn't mitigate that. I only hope that you don't find yourself on the receiving end of attitudes like yours in another ten or fifteen years or so.

I wonder if 45+ women are more worried about their prospects because of the common attitude that middle aged women are pathetic and incompetent.

"[L]onely, middle-aged ladies are easier to fool online" isn't patronizing?

It's possible to take exception to deceiving people online without the patronizing defense of middle aged ladies.

Like Albert Einstein said, "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."

Are you actually equating social awkwardness and shyness with introversion? As though introversion is some kind of pathology?

According to the lawyer, the release "was very clear that the image was not to be used in a way that would defame her daughter or hold her up to ridicule in public."

Funny, I'd say we live in the opposite. That privacy is considered quaint at best and paranoid at worst, and where the type of busybody behavior that used to be looked down on is the norm.

It is confusing, but ultimately, PETA advocates the extinction of domestic animals. Newkirk has plenty of times expressed the idea that humans should not interact with other animals, period, but enjoy them from afar, and that being a housepet is equivalent to being a slave or a prisoner. (You may be more surprised…

It's always good to encourage little girls' interests in mechanics and in traditionally 'boy' things and not to shoehorn them into societal gender roles, but by making active efforts to discourage 'girly' interests, you're ultimately giving kids the message that being female is something to be ashamed of and to try to…

Yeah, but with the government shutdown, I won't be able to deliver scrolls to the Town Crier anymore, and I'll have to communicate further via telegram.

What makes Gwyneth Paltrow's unexamined privilege so worthy of scorn on this blog, while Judge Judy's is lauded over and over and over again?

Phones aren't really optional if you have kids or anyone else dependent on you. I don't use the phone a lot, but it's always how I've been alerted to emergencies.