ita, my derby team has been salivating over those leggings. Too spendy for derby, however, since they will end up in tatters.

Yeah, I have to admit I'm kind of boggled at the Catholic Church, the place that coined syncretism and adopted the Celtic goddess Brigid as a Saint, insisting on this kind of ideological purity.

Cosigned. And, again, it's an ideological purity that does not and cannot actually exist in the world -- if you're seriously going to whine about "abortion-inducing drugs," at high enough dosages or in combination with the right/wrong other drugs, that's broad enough to cover just about every drug in existence. In which case your beef is with modern medicine, not Obama.

And, again, 98% of sexually active USian Catholic women and their partners either currently are or have at one time completely ignored this call to ideological purity, which means by the Church's own rules it's no longer valid.

There's a giant shitstorm flying in the comment threads at the National Catholic Reporter, which just posted an article headlined "Catholics Unite In Opposition To Contraception Mandate"; the comments are a practically solid wall of "Are you fucking kidding me? United? Have you seen the polls? How could you post that with a straight face?" I haven't seen so much calling-out-of-bullshit within a major Church publication in, like, ever.

20 common grammar mistakes. Some are valid mistakes, some I don't get why people make, some I make myself, others I swear I've never seen, and at least one I have to say "Oh, give it up" on.

Nauseous? It's had both meanings for 100 years now. If it ever was a battle, it's OVER. Untwist your knickers.

I care about nauseous, if only because of my fondness for Strunk & White's advice: "Do not, therefore, say 'I feel nauseous,' unless you are sure you have that effect on others."

Nauseous is useful as an identifier for people who are probably just too annoying to even hang around.

(People who would correct another person in speech on that, I mean. I did that once. And my first thought after it came out of my mouth was "damn, do you need to get over yourself.")

Can a Catholic hospital or university choose to stop offering health insurance to their employees? Not in most states, I'd assume. They have way more that 50 employees.

Some conservative Christian group said that pro-life has nothing to do with quality of life.

I had a student who wanted to write on the ethics of late term abortions, normally the kind of topic I nix, but her questions were so earnest and she was so bright I let her do it. She came to me late in the paper saying she had the hardest epiphany when she realized that you could be for preserving all life, or you could be for the best possible life for those who are born, but you couldn't be for both.

Oh and msbelle, I also am sending hugs to you and your noodle.

Why couldn't they, Burrell? I don't think there is any legal requirement that you do so.

If you're an organization of any size it should kill you in the marketplace, but that's their call, I guess.

ita !, I knew exactly which leggings you were talking about. I've been coveting the for ages.

I thought that if you had 50 or more employees you had to offer health insurance. Is that only in California? I guess I was making a false assumption that there were other states with similar laws.