There's been a lot of discussion about the book Sex at Dawn across the internet. It's written by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá who are described as "renegade researchers" in the press release for the book. And what's the book about? It's evolutionary psychology at its finest, trying to explain modern behaviors with "just so" stories about what our ancestors did. It's largely concerned with polyamory and explaining how we're evolved for it and therefore it's a natural state.

They make frequent references to bonobos (AKA "sex chimps") as examples of how they think humans should behave, or at least how they think early hominids did behave. Many of the problems we suffer from today, they claim, are the result of moving away from this natural state.

I think it's pure, unadulterated bullshit.

In these difficult economic times, we're all looking to get a little extra money coming in. Those of us who are lucky enough to have a job still want to be making the most of it. We want to be sure our bosses know that we are good, valuable employees. Sometimes we need to do a little work to ensure that they're paying attention and recognize that fact and reward us with raises appropriately.

But how do you do that? It can be awkward going in and demanding extra money, after all. We don't want to feel like lumbering, smelly oafs stomping around and complaining. We want our bosses to want to give us raises!

Luckily, Women's Day and Summer's Eve are here to help.

This op-ed piece is an interesting way of interpreting the statistics about single parent households and how they influence children.

Apparently, by allowing gays to marry we are encouraging poor black women to be single parents and this is leading directly to young black men failing to graduate high school. The fact that you can't compare the household of two parents of the same gender to a household involving one parent never occurs to the author.

While I have known many a single parent, the causes behind such a situation are very, very, very different from what leads to two men deciding they want to raise a child together. Single parenthood can be the result of losing your partner to death or divorce, or it can be an accident, or it can be someone wanting a child and not caring about having a partner. Single parenthood is a complex issue and one that is very separate from SSM. That's without even touching the influence of poverty, which I imagine has a lot more to do with the high school dropout problem than the mother's marital status.

Should children ideally be raised by one man and one woman? I don't think so; not because there is anything wrong with the nuclear family, but because families are such an incredibly diverse concept that there is no "ideal."

These are all songs I'm subjected to at work, and since it was a quiet night tonight, I was inspired to start this thread.

Right now I'm pretty sick of Augustana's "Boston", where the singer says that he thinks he'll go to Boston where "no one knows his name". I really can't decide which is worse, whether he's deliberately playing on the Cheers theme, or he's completely ignorant of it.

Hoobastanks' "The Reason" fills me with all sorts of REAG. All his emotion really sounds to me like the guy just needs to be put out of his misery.

And the lyrics for Stealth Princess's "Freakshow" I just find painfully stupid. Here's the chorus:

"i feel like a reject from a freakshow
i'm kicking up the white trash from the sidewalk
i don't want the ocean in my seashell
i just want a boyfriend with a brain cell"

Why should you do better than he's going to? Also, shut the fuck up.

...that was kind of therapeutic.

The premise here is that Legolas is sending reports to King Elessar. Accompanying him on the journey is Captain Roland of the Citadel Guards, whose letters to his brother Ronceval are included with the reports from Legolas. Ronceval is a scribe/poet in the civil service of King Elessar.

Chapter 1:

From Legolas Greenleaf to my Lord King Elessar:
When last I sent word to you, we had just entered the road beside the Great Chasm and met the Ambassador from Khand, and the Chieftain Ararrat, whose daughter the Lady Larissa was wed to Squire Atacar, the young Sardaran Cavalier traveling with us. They left us and joined the Caravan that was returning to Sardara. Dispatches were sent with Squire Atacar to King Darius and the Duke Askelon.

I wandered by a Target today and saw a guy sitting outside, registering people to vote. Target hasa policy for a while to provide what they call "distraction-free shopping" to their customers. Basically no person or group, regardless of reason or cause, can position themselves in front of the store to solicit anything. Not signatures, not Girl Scout cookies, not donations, nothing.

According to their official policy, "We ask all solicitors and petitioners to respect our policy by ceasing their activities and leaving our property. However, frequently they refuse to comply. We partner with local law enforcement agencies to assist us in having unwanted solicitors and petitioners removed from our property."

I've never seen anyone removed from the front of a store before. Instead what happens is there is usually a big angry red sign stating that what this person/group is doing is against store policy.

I'm curious about everyone's thoughts on this policy or similar policies other businesses have enacted. Should the store call law enforcement to remove people? What about the people who are knowing violating the store's policy?