Plaidophile

There seem to be three camps in the ongoing debates about MSG as a cause of migraines:

1. Zealoty MSG-conspiracy folks who think that any form of glutamate (bound or unbound) is WRONG WRONG WRONG and all MSG in all its forms should be stamped out FOREVER
2. People who are out to disprove the MSG-conspiracy folks, who use any use of "I am MSG-sensitive" or "MSG is one of my migraine triggers" as evidence that someone is in camp 1 who are all experiencing psychosomatic/psychogenic symptoms and are WRONG WRONG WRONG
3. People who have MSG as a trigger for migraines, usually among many other triggers

1. Should chili have beans?
2. How strongly do you feel about this?

I really hate the term "microgravity." It is supposed to convey that people in orbit around the Earth are only subject to a small, immeasurable amount of gravity, but that simply isn't the case. They're actually subject to a rather large amount, it's just that their "ground" is also subject to it and is falling just as fast as they are. There are subtly immeasurable variations in the local gravity field due to the spaceship itself, but there is nothing "micro" about the total gravitational force, aside from how it would be measured without a known external reference (like the big honking planet right outside the window, which I think qualifies).

Personally, I prefer the term "freefall," since it explains exactly what's going on and follows every implication perfectly (relativistic effects included). What do other people think?

Paper or plastic?

Religion: Good or bad?

(I absolutely promise that I won't be posting in this one for a while.)

If one of the biggest environmental concerns is to reduce the amount of carbon in the ecosystem, doesn't recycling only make sense if the total carbon emissions of the recycling process were less than the amount of carbon which would otherwise go to a landfill?

How does the amount of carbon emission created by, say, paper recycling (which is a huge positive amount) compare with the amount of carbon emission created by, say, growing new forests (which is a huge negative amount) and processing it into paper (which is a positive amount, but ostensibly less than the amount of recycling alone)? That's also assuming that recycled paper were perfect (which it isn't) and that the use of recycled paper completely removed the need to make new paper (which it doesn't).

I understand why seltzer and club soda are normally sold in the water section of the store (rather than the soda section), but why is ginger ale sold with (and priced like) seltzer and club soda? I've never understood that.

Heathcliff is Marmaduke for cat lovers.

Marmaduke is Heathcliff for dog lovers.

Discuss.

All men are potential rapists.

All women are potential prostitutes.

Discuss.

Flowbee: Good, bad, or ugly?

Justify.

Nobody respects an altruist, neither in private life nor in international affairs. An altruist is a person who keeps sacrificing himself and his values, which means: sacrificing his friends to his enemies, his allies to his protagonists, his interests to any cry for help, his strength to anyone's weakness, his convictions to anyone's wishes, the truth to any lie, the good to any evil. — Ayn Rand

Discuss.

It probably goes without saying, but I do not believe the theory of intelligent design.