Personally, I thought 'zib would go for this cartoon.

Added myself, but I noticed you did not...

Robert, 
 
It is entirely possible that low levels of radiation is good for you and I think that there is some evidence for it; but until they show the mechanics of how radiation can benefit the cell, I will have doubt. 
 
BTW, what kinds of radiation are good?

Dog, 
 
I think Liv's comments are obviously using humor to make a point. I don't understand those who are offended by them. 
 
Actuall, Liv was using humor to be just plain silly. I confronted her on this point, and she responded with more silliness.

Liv, 
 
Your comments, I hope, were a joke since, if a woman did consume lead to lower the IQ of a male, she would do much more damage to herself. Plus, it would not prove anything about the relative intelligence of women v men, just that lead results in congentinal abnormalities. 
 
OTOH, if women in general did consume lead for that reason it would be strong circumstantial evidence to their lower intelligence.

Liv, you're kidding right? What you write reads like a verbatim parody of feminist rant.

I thought she was dating Dweezil Zappa.

Rietzche, 
 
Is that question really relevant?

I don't know, Ms Hunt is certainly attractive, in "I only have a half hour to make myself look good in the morning" way; though comparing her to celebs and media types who spend hours and a lot of $$s to work on their looks, she is not.

One other site I find helpful is Iraq the model. Another, if you are goulishly inclined, is Iraqi body count a good anti-war site that fairly lists the amount of civilian deaths. It is a good resource when you get a lot of lefty bloggers who are reporting greatly exagerated death counts to try to make a moral equivalence between Bush and Saddam (one prominent far-left blogger and Saddam suporter is reporting "over a million")

rik, 
 
that is true, I searched for an hour on pubmed and could not find a paper on it. However, I just referred to my own professional experience on how they did it (I have talked to one researcher who thought about doing a similar experiment)

Derb did a good start at forming an original argument(s), but Tom basically did the usual "blah, blah, blah, see that book, it did not write itself, blah, blah, blah" ID argument. 
 
Sorry if that sounds snarky.

Good questions, but what prompted #8? I found it a bit odd of a question and his answer a basic O Chem answer.

I second Liv's speculation. I've always noted that Ms. Theron is not very attractive due to the fact that she is pretty non-curvy and big-boned, not to mention fairly tall for a female.

Jacq, 
 
Is it your maternal Grandmother? Cuz an easy way to track that is through mtDNA

Straight out of Gattaca. Now, I wonder who will take advantage of this tech. I'm sure potential employers and potential mates will find it irresitible to find out, which will create a whole new area of law.

David, 
 
OK, I conced your point that the Russians cannot simply shut them off, but they can restrict supply. Then the only way the Ukrainians could get at the gas would be to damage another country's pipeline (Russia) or forcing open the vents (things the Russians would protect if the "shut off" supply to Ukraine) both instances would be seen as a violent, aggressive act and something a Ukrainian might think twice about doing. In contrast, the Chinese kid looks to be pilfering gas from his own country's oil wells, which is merely a police, not military matter*. 
 
*OK, maybe for the Chinese it would automatically be a military matter, given their recent history.

From the article Flouting a government ban, farmers around the central Chinese town of Pucheng frequently filch gas from the local oil field. 
 
Now, the Ukraine situation was a threatened cut-off of a gas delivery line by Russia while this is stealing from local oil wells. I don't think that kind of innovation would be possible in the Ukrainian situation.

Robert, 
 
I've often wondered the same thing. Our sentience rests very heavily on the fact that we are biological beings (animals) with very animalistic drives. An AI would have radically different motives, it wouldn't care about sex or food or more complex desires of humanity. I wonder if we would even recognize it as sentient and if it would even consider us much different from bacteria.

Don't worry, as soon as our complex computers which we are using to model the universe turn sentient we will all be taken care of by a benevolent AI. I look forward to worshiping Omnius. 
 
But, seriously, do you think Mentats are possible?