Chatological Humor: Monthly with Moron (March)

I'm your age and didn't have any sex education and no talk about it from my parents. When I was about 14 or 15 I asked my mother how you got pregnant. She wouldn't tell me anything. So I asked my grandmother who told me that she wouldn't tell me but that when I found out I wouldn't even let a boy touch my hand. So of course I thought that if a boy touched your hand you got pregnant. No wonder I was so terribly shy around boys all through high school. Maybe I was more screwed up about sex then today's kids.

I keep going back and forth between pilot suicide, pilot/crew involved terrorism, passenger/stowaway terrorism, mechanical failure due to plane, mechanical failure due to cargo. None of these really account for everything, and there's a hole in the logic for all of them. I'd hate to think the passengers were conscious for the entire 7 hour flight though.

I am in my 50s, and was laid off two years ago from a regulatory/legal compliance job. In a job like that, one frequently pisses off one's colleagues (ie, the people who need to comply with the regulations.) Three people in particular, whose actions were placing the company at risk, worked to get rid of me for several years. My senior management knew what was going on and didn't get involved. My state does not have useful or applicable Whistleblower laws. One of them, an executive with my former employer, is particularly nasty and vindictive, and as she had done with several people before, went after me with a level of aggressiveness I have never seen in my many years of working. It was clear to people around us that she was affirmatively trying to ruin me professionally. The layoff was described as being part of a corporate reorganization (which is in fact a sham) and has been very costly to me. Because of the way it was timed, I was denied some significant financial incentives, as well as some very large additions to my retirement account. Had they waited a few months, I would have received these benefits. I am starting to come out of the miasma of fear and panic, and am putting together what seems like a satisfying new career for myself, which may be successful in a few years. All three of the people who lied and whispered about me for years are prospering, which rankles. I have discovered that I can provide damning information to their new bosses completely anonymously, with little possibility of anyone finding out where the information came from. Their bad acts are so widely known within that part of my former employer that there is a very long list of people who might have written such a letter to the new Board and executives above these three. What do you think? I've let this go as much as I can. Hearing that they are doing well - really well - just seems wrong to me.

Gene, I can't imagine laughing at this, and no, I didn't listen to it because I hate this topic so much. I wish I had never read your article on it, and I did buy your book, but manually removed the pages with that essay. As a parent, it makes me literally (yes) feel sick every time I'm forced to think about it. I wish we could lay this to rest (ugh.) because it is the only topic that you routinely discuss that makes me think about no longer reading your chats. More pubic hair, please.

From CNN's website - a video of a baby left in a car but with a happy ending. What I don't understand is why the police were careful in getting the car open. It takes a hammer and about 30 seconds if you ask me.

In your March 11th update, you couldn't have been more positive about the guilt of Jeffrey MacDonald. While I understand that you have written extensively about this subject, could your relationship with McGinniss impacted your ability to form an opinion on this case impartially?

Gene, can you make a poll for men sometime? I tried Googling to see if you had covered this topic before, so forgive me if you have. Today my coworker told me that another coworker (whom I find annoying and strange) always rips big, loud farts while at the urinal. Since I am a bathroom stall-using woman, I... do not understand this. It's one thing to fart audibly in the privacy of your own stall (I don't know much about physics of farts, but I imagine the stall walls also protect others from the smell, at least somewhat), but it's quite another thing to fart while standing out in the open, potentially making eye contact with your colleagues. I am not a fart prude. I will generally do it around my friends and I actually do it with joy around my immediate family members. But I draw the line somewhere. I just cannot imagine doing this at work. I don't care that "it's the bathroom", it's still out in the open. Like, control yourself and go in the stall where there is some degree of anonymity!!!! I need to know if most men do this. I can assure you most women do not. I bet it's a divisive issue among men, since the coworker who told me about it (a guy, obviously) was grossed out by it. I asked my Dad his thoughts and he said he would do it alone in the bathroom, but not if others were present. He said what is the point of wearing a suit and tie to work if you are then going to fart in front of others, even if it is in the bathroom? I have not consulted any of my male friends but I'm not sure I want to know if they are the kind to fart at the urinal or not.

I heard a theory - unsubstantiated - that I actually think has merit. And I do not generally buy into unsubstantiated theories and reject conspiracy theories with eye rolling scorn. What if a group like anonymous hacked the plane? It could have been done to prove that it could be done, like some of their other stunts, and they likely would not have intended harm. But, once hacked, the pilots couldn't regain control and the hacker would have lacked the inability to pilot the plane. It would explain why no one has stepped forward to claim the act, which is what you would expect from "traditional" terrorism. It would also explain the weird turn. Again, there's no evidence (that I know of) to support this theory. And I don't know enough about computer systems on planes to even know if it is possible. But it just feels like the right answer.

I'm (just barely) old enough to have read the original Doonesbury strips in the very first collection books within a few years of their being published -- in other words, I've seen these strips before but never in an actual newspaper, and long enough ago to find it fun to see them again. My questions to you are: 1) What do you think of the idea of running the very original crudely drawn strips in the paper? 2) Do you take his calling it "Classic" to be a dig at the idiotic notion of running a dead cartoonist's reruns in perpetuity under the name "Classic Peanuts"?

As a 23yo female redhead, I have always feared--possibly to a paranoid extent--any question about the carpet matching the curtains. (Yes, it does, and yes, this fear comes from being questioned by a pair of my high school classmates at the age of fifteen.) Therefore, I have always trimmed, especially during swimsuit season, with a six-month stint of going clear-cut at the request of my then-boyfriend. I like the look and feel of clear-cut, mostly because it feels clean and cared for, kind of like shaving my legs. I hate the effort I have to put in to maintain it, and I do believe this general preference is tied to porn (though my former boyfriend claims his preference was tied to a specific activity). I did hear a theory that wanting a woman to shave anything--legs, underarms, nether region--has something to do with wanting her to be childlike.

There's a photo that's making the internet rounds, showing a group of people standing outside the Westboro Baptist Church HQ holding up a banner of their own. It says, "Sorry for your loss."

As a (barely) under-35 woman, I responded that I hadn't seen any sexy images or video before the age of 18. I was 14 or 15, however, that I discovered sexy literature, Jean Auel's "Clan of the Cave Bear" series being a notable example. I would argue that devouring books like that -- and flipping back to reread my favorite parts -- distorted my perception of what sex was and ought to be like, probably as much as pornography might for a man. In certain types of books, the women are always beautiful and busty, the men are always handsome and well-endowed, and both parties reach simultaneous heights of ecstatic climax in 3-5 pages. After that build-up, my first fumbling in-person encounters were quite disappointing.

Gene, what do you make of the Nationals' new pitcher Fister? He faced Hand in an early exhibition game.

Yes, this is highly unethical, but made me laugh a little because sometimes I try a different tactic when I am travelling (note, I am NOT a journalist). When I go to a restaurant in a different country, a make a subtle but noticeable move that always gets their attention, and almost ALWAYS gets me better service, and the occasional freebies. I have a small note book sitting next to my plate that I will write in after few initial moments in my meal, such as sipping the wine, a couple of interactions with the server, after trying a bite or two from a dish. I never state, EVER, that I am a writer or a food critic. But I am telling you, it seems in the world where anyone can be critic (via Yelp, TripAdvisor, what have you), if they see you writing stuff down, they start stepping up their game. I never have to say a word. Works almost every time.

I am straight white male in my forties. (FWIW) As abhorent as other bigotries are, I kinda get that my kind see 'those' people as some sort of economic threat. (More people looking for a piece of the pie) However the campaigns against LGBT seem to have nothing to do with the workplace nor education but all around the purely social and family issues like marriage and adoption. What can possibly motivate these folks other than hatred?

I am pretty conservative on many issues but not gun control. It just seems to me that if you look at the other well established free societies with strict gun control, none of the bad stuff the NRA predicts seems to be happening. The most depressing thing I have come to realize is that it is really all about money: The shooters want large capacity guns and clips so that when they are paying by the hour for range time they spend less time reloading and the manufactures can thus sell them more bullets. Can't prove it by it is the only conclusion I can come to based on everything I have read.

After reading your latest article, the first thing I noticed Saturday was "asp" and "epee" in the crossword, but I was disappointed for no love for Asta in your column. I was nearly as upset at no mention of the Tern/Ern. But mostly, you nailed it. Tom the Butcher is uncultured.

Did you happen to read Dan Snyder's letter that he e-mailed to ticketholders last night? He describes his 26 visits to Indian reservations and how he couldn't find a single Native American that found the term "Redskin" offensive. Native Americans must be as unified as the Soviets were when most elections were won with a 99% share of the vote. He also mentioned that social problems affecting Native Americans are far more important than the "Redskin" naming controversy and that we should really focus on these and forget about the racist nature of the name. Is this guy completely tone deaf?

I couldn't believe this was real. I kept thinking the Onion had leaked a story, but no. Danny is actually heading this foundation. I guess he thinks buying off Native Americans is the best approach to stifling protest to the "Redskins" name? And the rest of us are too stupid to figure it out? I shouldn't be surprised, but this is just so crass and transparent. UGH.

In 1983, I took typing as a freshman in high school. I'm a guy, but I figured that I'd need to type my papers in college, so I might as well know how. Plus, I liked the idea of a 7:30 class that required no brainpower. For an entire year, thirty of us sat at our IBM Selectric 2s, following along as Mrs. Karakash -- an elderly Hungarian who'd fled the Soviet invasion and looked and sounded like Baba Yaga -- shouted, "Period, space, space, CAPITAL," tapping her ruler on the giant chart of the keys hanging at the front of the room to emphasize each letter. By the time I left for college four years later, I had my first computer and two spaces were already obsolete, but it didn't matter -- that habits I learned in that year with Mrs. Karakash's would last a lifetime. I can no more type a single space after a period than I can keep my eyes open while I sneeze. Thirty years later, I'm a copy editor at a technical publisher. And, yes, part of my job is reading over the copy provided by writers of a certain age and changing their double spaces into single spaces. It doesn't help. I'm really good at spotting them and marking them for correction, but I still have to go back over anything I'm writing for serious publication and do a global fine & replace of two spaces to one. Every. Single. Time. To the kids: you're right. We're wrong. But if you'd had a year with Mrs. Karakash before the world changed, you'd do it wrong, too.

Far better than your freaky Boy Scout book, boys today can check out www.jackinworld.com, which is dedicated to former US Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders. I wish there were a similar resource for girls.

You once opined that one's preference for pubes may be tied to when they first saw the part in question. Perhaps that, more than porn, explains it?

I think the only redeeming value in running the old Doonesbury strips is to show how poor they reproduce at today's size. I am in my thirties, with perfect vision, and every day I have to pull the paper up to my face to read the strips. And then I feel guilty about reading it because I also feel like reruns are a sham. Oh, maybe a guilt/comic poll is in order! What's your guilty pleasure comic?

I don't own a gun. However, I am a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment. I couldn't help but notice that Gene had to villify the people who differ from him and come up with bogus reasons to make people who disagree with him seem silly. That speakms more poorly about the lack of Gene's ability to think differently.

I think you are equating Branding with Self Promotion. You are actually "branding" by creating something called "Chatological Humor". Even as I type this, there is a squiggly red line under the word "Chatological" which implies I made a typing error. But by creating a word that only applies to your chat (in most people's mind), you have "branded" the chat.

To tampax. Seriously, my mother found out I was using my sisters tampons 2 months into the start of my period (she had never said a single word to me about it or anything else for that matter, if it wasn't for Judy Blume and the bodice rippers at one of the houses I babysat for I'd know nothing) anyway, my sister must have mentioned the rapidly dwindling supply to my mom who mortified, told me they would take my virginity and made me switch to pads, the #1 worst invention in the world. So, I like to say that I lost my virignity to tampax at age 14, but then didn't have actual sex until I was 18.

Living well is the best revenge. Plus, I think your expectation that anonymous feedback about your former coworkers will be taken seriously is unfounded. So, go ahead and ponder your revenge fantasies, but don't act on them.

Gene, there are times where one MUST release the gas to allow the flow of urine into the urinal. I'm no doctor but my guess is that the gas is putting pressure on the urine pathway which stops the flow. Now, one should try to minimize the sound but I mean you are in bathroom.

Something similar happened to me. I left a toxic work environment voluntarily, and immediately the bad boss started spreading stories about how I was plotting to drive her out. I was furious and started planning a defamation suit. Then a cleric advised me, "Do you want to be her? She has to live with her lies for the rest of her life, and in eternity too. No one loves her on earth, and she's going to hell. You have people who love you, and you're going to heaven." Filter out the religious part if you wish, but the message is the right one: Their evil will be discovered and they will receive their just deserts.

If I understand correctly, the writer has information about employees of a company who are violating laws or policies. If that is true, I see nothing unethical about helping his former company by providing that information to their superiors. The fact that it also screws over his nasty former coworkers is just a bonus. But he should be sure that he's being honest with himself. Self-deception is easy.

Gene, this plane stuff is disturbing. I have purposely tried NOT to think about the people on the plane, etc. because it is just overwhelming to my soul and psyche. It is all too much to comprehend, what they and/or their loved ones have gone through. And now the theories that readers are bringing up...esp. the one re. Anonymous...this is really starting to freak me out, on a very basic level...i.e. it comes down to an issue of trust...we used to be able to trust that you could take a plane, etc. and be (generally) OK...it seems we now have to worry about *everything* we used to be able to take for granted. Geez. Any positive thoughts to help?

I have no idea who the woman is in that MythBusters farting video, but I fell in love with her a little bit at the end of the clip.

This must be a stupid question because I haven't seen or heard it addressed at all in the news. On the plane their must have been over 200 cell phones plus laptops and tablets. We know that in the U.S. you can use all these devices on a plane (even though cell phones are supposed to be off.) And on 9/11 passengers were calling on their phones in the air. During those 7 hours or so, at least partially over land, wouldn't there have been any opportunities for passengers to text or tweet or phone somebody? (I guess in that part of the world it must not be possible.) Has that question occurred to you?

I have a question that can probably only be answered here. I'm a woman and, therefore, I accomplish all of my bathroom tasks sitting on the toilet. Something that often happens to me is that I will sit down to pee and then realize, mid-task, that I also need to poop. No problem -- I'm already on the toilet. I wondered if this is some sort of conditioned response to BEING on the toilet. And then I wondered -- does this happen to men, who generally pee standing up? And if so, how do you handle this in a public restroom? Do you have to finish up at the urinal and then proceed to a stall?

I hate to be this guy (ok, I actually don't hate it..), but you do realize that the moment the last century and millennium changed was on Jan. 1, 2001, not Jan. 1, 2000. This drives me nuts, it is just as grating to me as "I could care less" or other completely wrong phrases. I am amazed at how this is gotten wrong a majority of the time.

I was introduced to it at much too young an age -- 12 years old. I think being introduced to porn at such a tender age has affected me well into middle age. Raising my own son who is about that age has made me realize what a precarious age it is. Things children are exposed to at that age, I believe, become hardwired in a way they aren't either before or after. I'm still working on my demons, but the experience with my son, and this chat, I think, is helping me to overcome them.

Good guy, good pitcher. We Tigers fans are still shaking our heads over that trade.

A key wrong premise in the original post to this subject is that men make eye contact at the urinal. Nope, they don't. Don't, don't, don't. Even on the rare occasion that they speak to each other there, they don't look at each other.

Wait, your mom freaked out that you were using tampons but was ok with your sister doing it? Because she'd already lost her virginity? So she was upset that tampons might take your virginity, but totally cool with your super slutty sister having sex, since it wouldn't take her virginity? (I'm not really saying your sister was super slutty, just I can't imagine a person who would think tampons are able to take virginity would be ok with her other child having sex - I assume unmarried as she's living at home, or at least keeping her tampons there).

I don't think hacking a plane could be done remotely. Could someone have hacked the autopilot and physically prevented the pilots from flying the plane? Yes, but the pilots could have turned off the autopilot by pulling the breakers and flown manually.

It'd cost him a chunk of change to change the logo, because the team would need new equipment, etc. So that's one reason why he's digging in his heels. He's also a heel, of course.

I've seen this question asked like a thousand times and there is a very very very simple answer. They make devices that will jam cell phone signals. I can't speak to whether it would also work on the satellite phones, but you can make it impossible for someone to be able to use their cell phone.

Gene Question for the crowd: I am participating in a photo exhibit (non-commercial - won't make money off it). Subject is DC. Other than the monuments which the world over knows signifies DC, what do you think of when thinking of DC? Unfortunately I cannot take photos with the subject as people due to legal concerns (releases, etc). Some ideas include Ben's Chile Bowl, Capitol Hill, the Zoo, Eastern Market, etc. I live in the metro area but not in DC and I'd like to take photos that a local would instantly recognize as DC (and wouldn't seem to be taken "just anywhere"). Thanks for any thoughts.

As a woman under 35, I answered the question about how porn has affected my life with "hasn't hurt, really." However, I can't be sure that's true - for all I know, men have been rejecting me my whole life because of the impossible standards set by pornography, and I just haven't known the reason. Or, maybe I would have achieved levels of intimacy with my partner that I can't currently imagine if it wasn't for the damaging effects of porn. So I can't say definitively that porn hasn't hurt my life, because I don't know what the experience of life without porn would have been. (FWIW, I'm happily married, and though my husband occasionally requests a porn-ish sex act, it's become a running joke between us rather than a source of tension).

Over 36 female here. On the question of seeing/viewing porn, I chose "rare, furtive, partial" as the best answer, although really it was limited to a few curious viewings of Playgirl and Playboy, plus watching a dirty movie while I was babysitting when I was about 12 (the couple had a selection of what I believe was fairly tame, Playboy-channel style porn). I mostly remember thinking the acting was terrible and the dialogue (such that it was) didn't even match the movement of the actors' mouths. I watched about 5 minutes and then got bored, but even in that 5 minutes I got the gist of the storyline (although I didn't understand it until later) - gay guy, women in brothel take turns trying to "convert" him. As an adult, I now recognize it as both a total hetero male fantasy (all of these gorgeous women wanting to sleep with him!) and totally pathetic.

I went to see the play "50 Shades: The Musical", In my personal opinion, it overall was dreadful, one of the worst plays I have seen in my life. Please tell me the books are better. While wading through a play about bad sex puns, I made two observations I wish to share here: 1. The sex jokes went beyond the sophomoric "slap and tickle" jokes to some serious stuff. By serious, I mean a sex act that I recall AIDS researchers years ago blaming for the initial spread of AIDS. I don't know if you are allowed to print it, so I will state what it is at the end so you may choose to delete it or print it. Is this the sex act that women supposedly crave that they could not speak out loud about? I had no idea. Or is it that readers were more into the "slap and tickle" kinky stuff and not that far kinkier stuff? 2. The audience (as was observed in the Washington Post review) looked like the nursing homes brought the audiences. It seemed the only two people under age 60 in the audience were two foreign women muttering something about "is this Spiderman?" OK, to be fair, there were a few younger people, but 90% of the audience was easily over age 60. What does that even mean? Anyway, the sex act that surprised me that was joked about involved a fist and a body aperture.

LOVE THIS ANSWER!!! No. I know Jeffrey MacDonald is guilty because I am among the most knowledgeable people on Earth about the case. Top 100, maybe top 30. And the most knowledgeable people on Earth about his case all know he is guilty. Among those people is Jeffrey MacDonald.

Do you do this also: two spaces after the colon? I was taught this as well.

You said there is probably no reliever with as bad a name as Grant Balfour. Well, he was only a reliever part of his career but do you remember Bob Walk? Basically the same concept as Balfour, just expressed differently.

If the thought that people were alive on the plane until it crashed makes you feel weird (and it does to me, too), don't find out what might have happened with the Challenger accident. (SPOILER, TRIGGER WARNING, etc: the crew cabin was found perfectly intact in the ocean, although it's thought unlikely any survivors were conscious until it hit the water)

You would win that bet.

Cell signals won't reach planes at cruising altitudes. The 9-11 flight from which there were phone calls only happened because the hijackers brought the plane down well under cruising altitude. Most cells towers do not send a signal up into the air.

So, not sure what my sister was doing, we have never talked about it. She is however, 3 years older, so maybe my mother had already lost that battle. I'm not really sure how far up the hymen is/was....maybe inserting a tampon could break it, but then you have the stupid argument that only an intact hymen makes you a virgin even if you've never had sex? My mother was born in a foreign country, has only an 8th grade education and was raised by parents who sent her to a nun school (her brothers went to priest school, one did become a catholic priest). She has said the following to me "oh, that's right, you believe in Science". Do not try to make logic out of my story, there is none to be found.

Everybody loves Kari Byron from Mythbusters. I'm a straight, married woman, and I, too, would have her baby. And I don't even want babies. Let me also just mention that it gives me great joy in the Mythbusters intro when they say "Kari, Grant, and Tory" because I always hear the first part as "Cary Grant."

Drew McGary of Deadspin had a column a few months back that talked about his introduction to women--swimsuit edition, stolen playboy, finally watching a porn which shocked his teenage mind, etc and then comparing it to kids today with iphones and the web and the fact that one errant google search can lead to all kinds of shocking things that kids aren't ready for. Happy to be 35 and having grown up without the web.

I didn't mean making eye contact at the urinal. I mean, if you are one to urinal fart, how do you handle blasting farts in the bathroom in front of people, that you may have to make eye contact with later, such as in a meeting, for example? If it were me, all I would be thinking about is how that person was ripping farts in the bathroom before. How anyone could do this and face people outside of the bathroom later for business purposes is beyond me. To me, it would be like seeing someone naked. I know that's a stretch, but what you're doing is TOO INTIMATE FOR WORK.

Hey Gene A few years back we talked about asparagus pee smell: Some people's pee stinks after eating asparagus, and some people are not able to smell it. I'm among those who can't smell it (or don't stink?) However, the few times I drink coffee, my pee stinks horribly. It's not a subject that I've talked about to a lot of people, but those few have never notice their own stink. My theory's been that everybody's pee smells after drinking coffee, and that big drinkers are so used to it that they don't notice. But maybe it's similar to the asparagus phenomenon? Some people stink, and some people can't smell it?

You may be on to another topic that is seldom discussed. I have known women who share clothes. I have known women will trade wearing each other's outfit that they began wearing earlier in the day. But, do women ever trade panties? If so, did they use to? What did that ad mean that you found? Was sharing underwear a thing years ago? Is it still a thing today? Or was it a wink and a nod that some women share their underwear with their boyfriends and husbands? What did that ad infer?

Why is the world trying to make me stupid? I recently started using my laptop more than my tablet. I'll go in to a site to read an article and click on another one that also looks interesting and up pops a video. Since when it is too much effort to read? But then I'll find myself watching it and when it's over, I feel stupid. I want words back Gene... I want to use my brain other than just for visuals! Thank you

In last week's discussion, Monica Hesse stated her belief that 99% of women wearing low rider jeans that reach "the plumber's effect" that exposes the upper part of their derriere-crack are unaware that happens and would be shocked to find this out. Does this strike you and readers as correct or incorrect?

A question about masturbation and you don't ask for male/female split? Really?

Sorry, but this just doesn't occupy enough of my attention to care.

...the repeated use of tampons would likely stretch it out.

That question was asked on the news shows at the beginning of this, and the answer was that it was not possible on a plane that old. Newer planes that are flown entirely by the computer could be hacked, however. It is similar in concept to hacking the computer of a modern automobile. That has, in fact, been done by benevolent hackers to demonstrate the potential harm.

Your definition of porn troubles me. Why not "Playboy"? As a teen in the early '80s, I was exposed to that. (I'm female) I babysat for a family that subscribed and kept the magazines out in the open. It shocked me! As for the effect, I don't think that porn has affected my actual marriage, but it affects the entire culture. There is ample research showing that using porn changes how we perceive victims of sex crimes, what we expect in relationships. I'm also very worried for my tween daughter, growing up in a culture where sex is so cheap and porn is everywhere. Your survey didn't capture that.

I'm really one of only a handful of women who felt we've been hurt by the expectations created by porn? Wow. Now I feel extra neurotic! Thanks, Gene!

Just thought I'd give you an update -- 2 interesting developments: 1) I went on a diet for that required me to take a daily laxative (or suffer constant constipation). For 2 months I never had a formed BM, and never cried once in that time. 2) I've been dating a doctor for the last few months, and he found out about my crying poops. He said that he suspects that it is has something to do with the parasympathetic nervous system, esp. since it only happens with a formed BM.

Does the Democrats losing the Senate have any practical considerations? Instead of Harry Reid vetoing the House Republicans, it will just be done by the President.

My spouse wants to adopt a 11 year old beagle in addition to our 2 other dogs. I don't want to. He/she wants to give this dog a few good years near the end of his life. I argue that the only reason we can tolerate an old dog's eventual bowel/urinary problems destroying thousands of dollars of carpeting is that we enjoyed them for the first 10 years. Am I just being a jerk in vetoing this decision?

I'm one of the first people who took this poll yesterday, choosing catastrophic mechanical failure and plane full of corpses like everyone else, and I'm having buyer's remorse. I picked this because what course data we have seems to indicate the plane was flying navigational waypoints programmed into the autopilot -- but not in a way that was going to get it anywhere. The problem is, I can't imagine anything that would kill everyone, take out the communications electronics (radio, transponder, etc.), but leave the autopilot functional and the plane capable of flying for eight hours. In retrospect, I'm thinking it's more likely the plane was taken over who weren't as smart as they thought they were. They had someone with September 11-style pilot training. They got into the cockpit, killed the crew, took over the plane. And they reprogrammed to autopilot to take them somewhere, but they did it wrong. Those waypoints are cryptic and not obviously connected to real-world locations. I don't know what the real waypoints down there are, but they probably did something like selection KELO instead of KINO and accidentally set the autopilot to fly them into the middle of nowhere. In the dark, at high altitude, they never noticed. By the time they did, if ever, it was too late and they'd run themselves out of fuel.

There's a major flaw in your poll -- how about "Hurts because it takes time away from more productive pursuits"?

Not an option in your poll but I've submitted this sentiment to your chat before: I find porn harmful because it legitimizes an economy that provides little agency to women, objectifies women, and establishes unrealistic expectations about women's bodies and performance. So no personal harm, just harm to the gender in general. Would you want your daughter to seriously consider porn as a career option?

Really? That's what most people think? I can only assume that people haven't been following this too closely. The plane makes at least two turns to change course, with the first entered into the plane's computer to make the turn smooth and automatic. The communication was fine and routine right up until the approximate time that the automatic course change is executed, which occurs around the time that the transponder is switched off. It's pretty clear that this was deliberately done, and by someone who knew what he was doing. It looks more and more like one of the pilots took control of the plane (locked the door after getting the other crew members to leave the cockpit?), and committed suicide in a way that took an entire planeful of people with him, perhaps wanting to leave behind some sort of unsolvable mystery of a vanished plane. (I wouldn't rule out that he had some other goal, but that he messed up in setting his course, and/or became physically incapacitated (heart attack?) somewhere along the way.)

I've always asserted that my pee smells like tuna fish after I drink coffee (I'm a woman). I've spoken about this at length with friends, and have never encountered anyone else who felt this way. Some have admitted that their coffee pee smells like coffee, but none have experienced the tuna phenomenon.

Speaking of butts, I recently walked into the ladies room at work and saw a woman in only the top half of a business suit (blouse and jacket) with her trousers on the sink, she had her back to the mirror and was examining her butt cheeks. I quickly walked into a stall, did my business, washed and left. I noticed while at the sinks that she had some king of cream she was applying. Butt (hehe) really? Pants-less at the sink? FYI I work at a big international org downtown

Do not beg us for money ever again.

I just wondered why men have urinals in public restrooms at all when they have just toilets at home, and then I realized it's because they wouldn't life the seat at a public restroom either, thereby making other men have to sit on the wet seat. Can I get a urinal in my house?

His plane, when faced with depressurization, automatically turns left and descends to 14K feet (biz jet). Not far fetched that a Boeing would do similar and to 12K feet. That sounds plausible and everyone on board would be unconscious if not dead.