I just love your critique of women's emotional intelligence and its bearing on group I.Q. in today's strip. I have made up my mind to intend to believe it's a fact!

Re NOT HAMRLESS: I've never toked in my life, despite six years in college '68 - '74. Nor drank heavily. But I'll point out that if someone had used alcohol that much over the same period of time, they'd probably have experienced the same problems, plus liver and heart damage. Put marijuana under the same strictures as alcohol, including in the work place, and tax it. The war on this particular drug is a horrendous failure.

Re the current poll: Though being jailed for smoking pot is completely stupid, pot is not harmless. I smoked marijuana about 1,000 times over a 20-year period. I regret it extremely due to the lasting effects on short-term working memory. I have a high IQ, but I'm struggling in a career path that is based on a Biology Ph.D. Before the dope period, and five years after it ended, I could understood and learn statistics, learn parts of foreign languages, and write complex sentences and paragraphs. All these tasks were far harder during my pot period -- due to the impairment of my short-term memory. Being able to handle intellectual tasks is increasingly important for meaningful employment. The effects are worsened by social isolation and any other external causes of reversible depression and/or anxiety. I urge people to read Steve Winwood's opinions on it.

On the Grass Poll: I can't imagine anyone out there still believes that pot is more harmful than booze.

Thank you so much for the FAQ link to Andy Lippincott's R.I.P. He played a significant role in Joanie's life and in mine. Tears for this lovely man, love for his marvelous doctor, hugs for Joanie.

Re the third choice in the current Straw Poll on pot: Damn right there's a reason they call it dope. Alcohol supremacist bigots are demonizing it for all they are worth. Say no to the war on users of the 'wrong' drugs.

They are really just a normal family, aren't they. All kinds, different views, snark, fun, love. Just like any other family on a visit to Granny.

Speaking of "Sorkh Razil": linguists discuss the name here.

For those who might not have noticed it, I want to say that I followed the link to an FAQ about whether any characters in the stip have died. The reply includes a 1989 sequence about the last days of Joanie's friend with AIDS. She gave him the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album on CD (which was probably new then) which thrilled him. The last panel of the last strip is a view from behind him in bed, and he is obviously gone. Next to him, the CD player is playing "Wouldn't It Be Nice?" -- one of the happiest songs on the planet. Marvelous and timeless.

You blew me away today. War porn -- amazing and accurate.

"He writes war porn." My morning coffee is all over my keyboard. Great punchline.

Let me get this straight. Garry Trudeau and Jon Stewart go on summer vacation at the same time? Don't they communicate on stuff like this? How the heck am I going to know what's really going on in the world?

Wow. Watching the birth of a brand new One Percenter; Jeff "arriviste" Redfern. Twelve bedrooms and an indoor paint ball facility -- can a car elevator be far behind?

Certainly Garry Trudeau deserves to take as long a hiatus as he likes. But that doesn't make it any easier for the rest of us Doonesbury-addicted souls going cold turkey!

I can't believe how prescient your long form strip on the weekend (Mike watching Breaking Bad) was. On Saturday I spent hours watching a large number of back to back episodes of this programme, commencing from episode one (on a pay TV channel), while my much better half was completing many and varied necessary and productive tasks. To then be confronted by Mike falling asleep after doing pretty much the same thing I had been doing was was truly startling.

Well, now we need to wait until September to see if a newly-minted Ph.D. in Neuroscience, perhaps, can deliver twins? Quite a cliff-hanger...

The best part of the Dr./Ph.D. joke is that the set up was literally years in the making. MIT, meeting Toggle, doctoral program, marriage and pregnancy. All happened to make that one punchline and it was awesome!

As an academic I've heard today's (idiotic) joke so many times from pompous Ph.D.s. How marvelous to hear it from the other side. When you need a real doctor you know what a real doctor is. This Doonesbury is going onto the office wall!

Art imitates life. In 1972 my nine-months-pregnant friend was in the lineup to receive her Ph.D. (as was her husband) when her water broke. She waddled across the stage, got her diploma, and didn't return to her seat. Instead she went outside and got the University President's chauffeur to drive her home.

I just wanted to say thanks for all the great work you've done and continue to do. I love realizing that I haven't read the strip in a week or so (gasp) and then getting to binge away. Much love from Madison, Wisconsin.