Wednesday roundup

The invasion of Crimea has brought about, among other things, the rest of the world's bizarre confusion about Russian women.

And Americans, for one, have no excuse for being confused; Gloria Steinem has been rocking powerful and beautiful for decades.

It's not just you; most people think women look better with less (or no) makeup.

We don't know the full story, but--all while some girls aren't allowed to wear leggings--this girl wasn't feminine enough for her Christian school.

Beauty pageants are for chickens.

For the gazillionth time: industrialized meat production kills many more animals than the ones that get eaten. Eat the stuff on these gorgeous maps instead. Also: the Austrian study is full of $hit.

Hold that champagne... but only if your champagne was for inflation (of the cosmic variety).

SciAm takes on the other two-body problem.

Got a cold that won't go away? You're in good company.

About privilege, can we distinguish between "let your voice take a backseat to those who are affected" (good) and "shut up and listen" (not helpful)? And yes, I agree that body shaming (and body confidence) doesn't correlate to condition the way other things (race, gender, etc.) do.

If you don't know how to start or hold an meaningful conversation without insulting or offending someone, the problem is not that you're too interesting for your own good. Also, if you get sanctimonious when someone asks how your wife is (after she just gave birth), the problem is your head up your @ss, not the people asking after your wife.

Mmm, I love this:

I have seldom met an individual of literary tastes or propensities in whom the writing of love was not directly attributable to the love of writing.
A person of this sort falls terribly in love, but in the end it turns out that he is more bemused by a sheet of white paper than a sheet of white bed linen. He would rather leap into print with his lady than leap into bed with her. (This first pleases the lady and then annoys her. She wants him to do both, and with virtually the same impulse.)

I'm normally not above gwynethfreude, but I just can't bring myself to rejoice at someone else's breakup (no matter how annoying that someone). The mitigating factor is that it's always appropriate to smirk when a sanctimonious lifestyle pusher is brought down to earth--and I certainly did so when one of The Rules ladies got divorced... but all I can say here is, 'meh, it happens.'