Geez, splint, would you eat a baby, too? I mean, this isn't about starvation, which isn't going to be cured by eating the last known specimen of an almost extinct animal. Give a man a fish and all that.

Anyway, I always find these kinds of things funnier in theory than in practice. Everyone wonders what it would have been like to have dinosaurs around. I wonder how cool it would be to see a Tasmanian Tiger padding around.

Trees grow back, abdulhamid. Chances are good he didn't cut it out of a healthy forest.

That said, I'm a firm believer in fake trees myself and I've been embroiled in an ongoing argument with my boyfriend about the relative carbon footprint of cutting and hauling fresh trees every year as opposed to the one time manufacture (out of metal and petroleum) and transportation of a tree that may last more than a decade.

Mine is fantastic looking and I couldn't be more happy with it personally.

Woohoo! The atheists can't be blamed for this one! *high fives all around*

If it was Improv Everywhere, it would be on their website. They're typically very prompt about these sorts of things.

http://improveverywhere.com/

Oh no, Alex! Don't invoke the wrath of the secret rulers of the universe!!!1! The scientists will kill us with their secret psychokinesis for stepping out of line!!!

Sorry I keep posting under my boyfriend's name on his computer. Anyway, my best friend was born at home. He just came too fast for his parents to reach the hospital. The first emergency services to reach him was the fire department, and because he was born with a hole in his heart, they had to stick a balloon in it to save his life. Or something like that.

It happens, especially with later pregnancies (my mother's third child was born within two hours of the onset of labour). I would be surprised to hear about this story again.

Alfalfa, do you understand things like metaphor and sarcasm? Such a thing is currently impossible. Even if all the world leaders wanted to get into bed together because they're the bestest of best friends, there are so many sore feelings between different groups of people that this will NEVER HAPPEN. Human are tribalistic, and they think in terms of groups. My ultimate group is humanity, but every group is trumped by the next smallest group. My country, my ethic group, my religion, my state, my town, my family. We want to control our resources, just like a child doesn't want to share her legos, to serve the needs and interests of our group. The way that huge groups of people completely dehumanise whole other groups of people should be evidence enough for you that this is complete nonsense. Even if someone goes, "hey, wouldn't it be great if we could all just get along for the sake of our entire species?" it doesn't matter! He or she is one among billions who are too self interested and tribalistic to make it work.

As it stands, look at how ineffectual a body like the UN proves to be. Member nations use its influence and money to serve their own needs and screw over their rivals routinely. Look at how the American government manipulated them to get the political clout to invade Iraq for just a minor example.

Like it or not, nations have to work together, but none of them like each other enough to want to actually give up their sovereignty to merge. Nations are more likely to split, a la Pakistan and India or Chekoslavakia (sp?) in spite of crap like the UN or the League of Nations.

There's your freaking "fresh taste of reality." Could you sound more like a tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy crank?

I'm not exactly sure how it would contradict that claim, (if I remember correctly, the claim is only that the egg only contains X chromosomes, because everyone has them) but I guess I'd have to read the research. I'd think it'd be pretty easy to determine which chromosomes exist in eggs, though, since they are visible under intense magnification.

What the hell is up with the one world order nonsense? That's like saying that the PTA is an agency for brainwashing because a group of individuals is trying to come up with solutions that will work best by listening to the suggestions of other individuals. There has been no proposal to unite the world under one government. If the U.S. adopted a policy of population control, that wouldn't mean China was our sovereign (although it would be awful and inhumane).

As a feminist and a progressive, I whole heartedly endorse family planning, but not legal guidelines for reproduction. China is not a role model for the rest of the world. Although, Rocky, their program had more to do with slowing growth than stopping it completely, the real issue that China faces is the imbalance of the sexes.

Anyway, I'm not really worried about it, because unlike some of the loons here, I know that the Western world would not seriously consider that level of infringement on personal liberty. We simply wouldn't tolerate it and any government that adopted it would be committing political suicide.

There are not bad dogs, only bad owners...same goes with kids.

What about kids with ADD? Other disorders that affect behaviour and interpersonal communication? Dogs can be born with a temperament that veers toward aggressive, no matter what you do. This is why many breeds are not only bred for their physical abilities, but for their manners.

As for the tendency of little dogs to be more aggressive, I think this is largely because, at least with breeds like dachshunds, their bites don't do enough damage for their poor temperaments to be isolated and bred out.

While I love pit bulls (never met a bad one yet) I know that just by virtue of their physical design they are incredibly dangerous. My biggest wish is that people stopped heaping all of their fears on the breed and focused on a more positive push to breed out aggressiveness, as was done with great danes.

And although I was attacked by a doberman in my youth, I still think they are majestic and beautiful dogs. I never learned to hate the breed because of one dog.

As my boyfriend points out, the reason we don't live in a nuclear wasteland as is that no radioactive materials were kicked up into the atmosphere during these tests. But it is alarming and sobering to see how many bombs have been exploded. Just think about how many haven't been.

This is the same thing that led cats and dogs into our lives, too. The members of their wild species that could tolerate people were welcomed in and became domesticated, which if you think about it is a huge evolutionary benefit to them.

Although they still aren't terribly good pets at the moment, it's possible domestication is the next logical step for some of these wild species whose habitat is being encroached on.

Oooh, and let me add, new electronics. I'm not sure what that smell is. I've heard it's some kind of glue, but it wears off as you use the electronics. The first thing I do with a new DVD is open up the case and fold it over my nose. I've always been fond of electronics.

I LOVE the smell of matches. It's the red phosphorous, I think (yellow phosphorous melts faces), and it's the same smell as on July 4th after everyone has lit their fireworks. It's a very nice smell.

I can't account for petrol or the smell of rubber tires, however. I don't really care for those smells.

And I would put bacon above vanilla (even as a vegetarian!).

I think all that Edward is saying is that --at the time-- Rockwell's work was considered attractive but disposable (like magazines). A fair point. Much of what we consider art these days was not so well revered at the time of its making. Rockwell, though, is undeniably relevant to America's history and culture.