I haven't seen the other Scott's "frightened child" comic, but the bit about a kid being afraid of being killed is pretty clueless. First of all, most kids are oblivious to their own mortality. They may be frightened by threats of harm but it's extremely rare for children in our society to even consider the finality of death. Second, offices full of cubies are far more safe than any child's own home. How would a kid get killed in an office?

I don't think it works as a "strip". He already HAD something that worked. He should run with it. Newspapers?!? Does anyone still read those???

You definitely should have set the price higher, Scott. Ten points only knocks me down to somewhere in the 130's, so I would just miss officially qualifying as "genius". Big deal. Where do I sign?

We can be MORE SURE about the non-existence of any "god" than about the veracity of any experimental results because often religions depend upon believing in self-contradictions, which simply cannot be true. So it's not a matter of being certain or uncertain about the existence of anything. The high level of "certainty" for atheism comes from the fact that there's no believable definition of god.

Cochrane reviews data on vitamin C and the common cold. The Cochrane Collaboration has updated its review of studies of vitamin C for preventing and treating colds. [Douglas RM and others. Vitamin C for preventing and treating the common cold. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2007, Issue 3. Art. No.: CD000980. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD000980.pub3] http://www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD000980/frame.html The study looked at 30 controlled clinical trials involving a total of 11,350 participants. The reviewers concluded: "Regular ingestion of vitamin C has no effect on common cold incidence in the ordinary population. It reduced the duration and severity of common cold symptoms slightly, although the magnitude of the effect was so small its clinical usefulness is doubtful." Consumer Health Digest #07-28 July 24, 2007 http://www.quackwatch.org/00AboutQuackwatch/donations.html

A-HAHAHAHAHAHA! Accident?!? Sure. :D I love it. My only comment was, "Another religious dumpfest. How boring." I'm glad to see it all got wiped.

I pet animals because I want them to like me. Everyone likes to be liked.

Hmmm, if nice shoes can help someone get into a good mood, then I should be helping my wife get to the stores to replace some of her worn-out shoes. Gotta get her a pair of red pumps too, for special occasions.

Scott, For the benefit of your readers, you should have at least mentioned the classic "fuck me red pumps". Rick

The conclusions of the study didn't logically follow from the experimental results. The actual results were that people LEARNED ITEMS FASTER when presented with the angry face after those items. My first guess would be that the angry face would evoke a defensive reaction, since an angry person might physically attack you. It would tickle a reaction of FEAR. I'd speculate that FEAR, not pleasure, is the difference. Just because it takes place after the sequence doesn't mean it isn't being associated with it. Fear tells your brain to get in gear.

I think the name sucks too, but it looks like at least they were following some sort of naming scheme. If it turns out to be a popular vacation spot, I'm sure folks will come up with a nickname for it. Interplanetary seeding is an interesting question. It's perfectly reasonable to speculate that it could happen naturally if a planet with life already on it were involved in a collision with another large object.

You don't expect all auto mechanics to sing well, nor bank tellers to all write good novels. So why would you expect a women's basketball team to be examples of morality? Shouldn't "perfect" morality be the job for professional morality-mongers like Ted Haggard, Jim and Tammy Bakker, and Catholic priests?

"What if everyone did that?" "Am I deceiving myself in some way?" "Would someone whom I admire do such a thing?"

Finally! I was wondering why you kept flogging that dead horse. I think you could skip the bickering about "free will" though and just concentrate on the "we don't know as much as we think we do" idea.

Hmm... If I go around telling other people that my wife mistreats me, or worse, writing about it in a journal, I'll tend to believe that and maybe even ignore the good things she does. I thought that maybe keeping a journal and then burning it would be cathartic, but now I'm thinking otherwise. Time to start a new journal; a good one. Thanks for yet another clue, Scott.

Hey, this is a valuable thing to learn... not just for hotel staff but for husbands too!

At what point do you consider a comic to be "stolen"? If I buy the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal which carries Dilbert in the "Business" section, and I show it to my son (who did not buy the paper)... is that "theft"? What if I clip it out and put it on my cubie wall? How many people have to see it before it's "theft"? Then what if I think it's *so* cool that on my blog I post a link to the comic, just to the GIF file on dilbert.com. Is that theft?

I don't get much entertainment out of your posts on ineternational topics but this one reminded me of something that *is* kind of funny. Pick any country that has the word "democratic" in its official name and check it out. It probably isn't democratic at all.

Hell yeah. I learned tons of useful real-world stuff in 9 weeks of US Navy boot camp that I've tried to pass on to my kids. It's industrial safety and bullshit detection all in one! Navy boot camp teaches stuff like: - follow the directions (implies "read them first"), - be neat because messes become hazards and obstacles, - pay attention to details, - if you don't want people to mess with something, lock it up, - electricity, steam, rotating machinery and enclosed spaces are dangerous, - physical fitness is mandatory, - when in doubt, check it out, and - if someone is pushing a load of anything in your direction, it's probably crap.