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Er, no.  Quite unlike hair colour.  Much more like a more complex version of height.  MUCH more complex.  There is undoubtedly a genetic component.  But height is also determined by nutrition, and nutrition at certain stages of development.

Families MAY share general 'intelligence' levels.  But they also share religion and language.  And these are in no way determined genetically.

And then we have the complexity of 'intelligence'.  The genetic component will be determined by many, many genes (one assumes).  These are highly unlikely to be simply cumulative.  It is much more likely that they will their effects will determined by the rest of the gene complementation.  For example, allele X of gene A will make you smarter when it is present with allele M of gene B.  But if you have allele O of gene B then allele X of gene A will be disadvantageous.  We see these effects in the relatively simple genetic resistance to disease - indeed in nearly all 'many gene' complex characteristics.  

So while the above is probably the best description of the likely relationship between genes and intelligence - it is not a simple clever + clever = clever equation.  

+'its a good thing really brains = money = smart kids'+

lol.  If that were true then I'd be one of the most stupid people in Britain.  But it isn't.

btw: Before anyone gets Daily Mail eugenicist on this thread the genetic heritability of intelligence is a topic of considerable uncertainty.  

There's one round the back of the Merrion Centre (I think).  I can't remember what it's called, but it is up that end of town.  It isn't as big as Travelling Man in the Corn Exchange, but probably still has a few boxes full of tatty 2000AD back issues - each about 50p.

Yes, but Hellblazer isn't an American comic really, is it.  Neither is the majority of the Vertigo line - by British writers with British sensibilities - moral ambiguity in the protagonists being one.

Ecky thump, that's not t'North, that's t'arctic.  

++A dissection of Revelations and recurrence of it's themes through the ages, from the Plague to the Iraq War? With illustrations?++

I'd buy that for a dollar.

btw:  I wasn't advertising the Left Behind books (Hell no!), just pointing the board towards a link to a very popular apocalyptic ideology in the country that has the biggest voice in our cultural landscape.  No discussion of the apocalyse could take place without considering this - just look at the bestseller lists.  There's even two films!

 

Get someone to review Left Behind.

http://www.leftbehind.com/

No - that is (based on) a real letter to the Punisher from the early 90s(?).  I've got a run with some corking letters in, especially the issue when the Punisher didn't kill a flag burning black performance artist (nay, he saved him from the redneck mob - how dare he!).

I'm an Australian Democrat senator who played rubgy for Queensland in his youth.

Not in mine either.  Sandman book and Star Trek magazine in mine.

In a completely unconnected event, the world blows up.

Oh, to live in London...

You'll be getting yourself an semi-autobiographical Solar Wind series after these adventures, no doubt?

I put 'Jedi' down on the census form.  I felt that I had to after I overheard workmates describing why they were going to put down Church of England, ranging from the not very sensible 'I was Christened', to the mildly stupid, 'well, I'm English ain't I?' to the abhorrent, 'I'm white'.  As all these three counted as CoE in the census I am appalled that those claiming to be Jedi were discounted.

No, but it is men who claim to ostensibly be followers of Christ which have propped up repressive regimes, prevented adequate AIDS policies being enacted in Africa through through a moral objection to condoms and have maintained a level of poverty both at home and abroad through a rigorous defence of property rights over rights to food, healthcare or shelter.  As one who could be described as an atheistic, secular Christian, I do not beleive that these men are reaing the book properly, but then neither do I believe that the Islamic wackos are either.  The difference is one of scale and the ubiquitous nature of this 'Christian' thought in western societies.  We think it alien when we see abuses carried out in the name of Allah, but do not baulk at far grander degrees of suffering and misery inflicted by men who invoke God and Jesus at every turn, as we have come to beleive that this should be the natural order of things.