Bird's Incredibles managed to tell a superhero-based story without any origins at all. Everybody just had their powers, from the start.

Not just a simple sugar. The simplest sugar.

Taking the Death Star crew estimate of 31,622,963 from The Technical Book of Science Fiction Films, if you tried to feed the entire Death Star with this 500lb cake, each crew member would get 7mg of cake. That's approximately 1/1000 of a crumb each.

"In the style of Tim Burton," yet not one of them is played by Johnny Depp?

It's not dissing him to point out that "signed while standing next to a smart guy" is a pretty meaningless statement.

If it was for lack of ability, I think they'd say "signed on behalf of Stephen Hawking", or even just "signed by Stephen Hawking" (since all his books are "written by Stephen Hawking"). I think he just had no intention or desire to sign it, but he was in the room at the same time so just write it anyway and hope some…

I think it's partially George Dvorsky who's overplaying their hand . . . reading the actual statement, they never say "to the degree that humans do" (that extremely unlikely determination seems to have been added by him) and they never say anything about self-awareness, which I understand to be separate from conscious…

"The declaration was signed in the presence of Stephen Hawking"

When early European and Chinese traders made contact, the Europeans tried to convince the Chinese to switch to letters ("look, you can sound out each other's writing!") and the Chinese tried to convince the Europeans to switch to characters ("look, you can understand each other's writing!") but, not surprisingly,…

Indeed, well played.

I mean really.

John Allison's The Case of the Fire Inside is another recent selkie story. It just wrapped up. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Ha ha ha!

An "optical orb", of sorts. You see the same thing in certain hedgehogs.

"You can shank either one."

Crisis on Infinite Earths was a DC "event" that acted like a big continuity-reset button for pretty much every DC character. Pre-Crisis, Wonder Woman was an Amazonian woman, stronger than other humans but still very much human. She couldn't fly, although a few iterations of her almost could.

That's what the Invisible Jet was for, pre-post-Crisis.

No way! Believe it or not, I experienced the exact same thing at a Lasertag place in Spokane. Except I didn't see it until after I sat down. I had to wash my clothes in the bathroom sink (and I did not mind at all that they had antibacterial soap.)

Having once been responsible for cleaning gas station restrooms after-hours, I am, quite unfortunately, well aware.

"I could lift the seat, but instead I'll pee all over it."