Free Republic

God bless and Semper Fi!!

This should be a message to Bowles.

Don't ever..ever ..EVER, run in this state again, y'hear?

Don't go away mad. Just go away.

Good luck Jay. You'll be in our prayers.

I'm sorry you went through this, but honestly, I'm kinda enjoying it.

I agree, they are in full meltdown mode. They are useing everything in the book against Bush and it doesn't seem to be really hurting him.

Think about it; Soro's millions, Moveon.org's ads, Gore's speech, bias in the media, the daily --sometimes hourly-display of photo's from the Iraqi prison, not to mention Moore's new movie and 'The Day After Tomorrow'. They control the media, the colleges, the schools, and the entire entertainment industry. Not to mention--to many, Kerry is a certified war hero.

But the best they can seem to manage is, in some areas at least, Kerry has a 3%-6% lead on Bush.

Heck, if I were a leftist, I'd be in meltdown mode, too. If I were an elitest leftist I'd be screaming at the top of my lungs everyday, everywhere.

Bush connects to the same people these leftists are trying to drag towards socialism--for their own good, of course. And they hate him for it. And they hate us for liking him.

Tell them 'Bush is a f+*&ing moron' and be done with it. If it makes their ego feel better, so be it. I'm beyond saving them. They'll know better in November.

"That is called "Community Standards". When did that become a "bad thing" ??"

Photographing people's cars in adult stores isn't 'community standards', it's called being a busy body. If the local community decided that this business owner could operate his business in this area, who are you--or this misguided pastor--to embaress it's patrons?

It's always a 'bad thing' when individual liberty and freedom is intimadated by a small, narrow-minded minority bent on imposing thier views on the majority.

Who cares if these legal adults are purchasing a perfectly legal item in a properly zoned area?

So, Bush knows everything ahead of time eh? Well, then why did 3000 people die on september 11

Psst, hey genius, I think that's the point. The leading idiots from the left have been charging that Bush knew all along that September 11th was going to happen--down to the day and hour--but didn't do anything to prevent it.

600 mile radius, also with a potential building crushing, animal choking kill zone from ashfall, is the area within I-35, I-40, to California's Central Valley, to the Pacific including all of Oregon and Washington, Vancouver, Edmonton, and southeast to Manitoba.

Psst, Mexico, have I got a DEAL for you on California! Still want it back? Why are you looking at me that way? It's just a little ash, it can be cleaned off. Look--it blows away!

One national warning system for terrorist attacks and now another one for volcano eruptions.

YELLOWSTONE IS NOW AT CODE ORANGE!

But PLEASE, go about your daily routine, as if you weren't going to be covered by 5 feet of lava any day now.

That is all.

In other words, at two miles away the energy is 1/4 of that at one mile. At 10 miles, it's 1/100th etc. So by the time you get 600 miles away, the energy is much less than at ground zero. It'd have to be pretty damn impressive to kill something 600 miles away.

What does the inverse law say about 5 feet of lava flowing at 20 MPH all over the US?

It took 9 months to clean up the World Trade Center rubble. Imagine how long it would take to clear Kansas from 10 feet of ash.

But hiring Rush Limbaugh is wrong for another, more fundamental, reason: Politics, no matter the slant, simply has no place in our sports arenas.

Funny, when they fined Detroit Lions President Matt Millen $200,000 for not at least INTERVIEWING a black person for the position left vacant after the firing of Coach Marty Mornhinweg, no black columinists I've read stated this was an injustice. But suddenly, NOW, when Rush Limbaugh is hired for a brief, once a week opinion it's an outrage??

The hypocrisy of the left is simply amazing.

"The Democrats would wail about the Republicans breaking down a door of a local crack house because they thought a young women was being raped inside, only to find that it was just a 4 year old child that was getting raped.

Of course they would. Because to them, beating and raping a child who only four years ago could have been murdered while still in the womb, does not give Ashcroft the right to intervene without regard to the civil rights of the so-called 'accused'.

We have become a society that doesn't regard the reality of the situation as being immoral or wrong, but rather who needs the protection from the bad Republicans. The leftists will say, almost as if they were in a trance, that Saddam was a bad guy--BUT, that doesn't mean we should have taken him out the way we did.

My question is --'Why NOT???'. Give me a reason why murder, rape and torture are to be ignored. Tell me exactly why it's ok to make this last one moment longer!

The leftists have convinced themselves that they must oppose everything Pres. Bush does. Everything. And that is what's tearing them apart from the mainstream of America--and why President Bush will be overwhelmingly re-elected.

We are watching the left come apart at the seams, and no one is rejoicing as much as I am!

The outspoken critics of the War in Iraq have to come to terms with what they supported--more rapes, murders and tortures. Period. They must understand their stand against President Bush and the War in Iraq was not a principled stand, as they would like us to believe. Because their opposition, if successful, would have had REAL results-more death.

Every person, who believes in freedom and loves liberty must pronounce the War in Iraq as righteous and not soon enough. Or truly they are hypocrites.

I AM CRUSHED!!

I was really pulling for Rev. Al.

Darn it all!! Darn it all to HELL!

Why wouldn't He write the laws of physics and chemistry so that they would automatically allow for such things in the first place?

Precisely for the reasons of modern science today. I hope you know I was speaking figuratively about God's 'Hand' touching a few molecules.

Let's suppose that God created a system so elaborate as to design itself into Life. He designed the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, etc.--not to mention molecular laws, which are opposed to physics, to allow life to form. What would stop His supreme creations, you and I, from becoming gods ourselves? He must have supposed that we would eventually covet this process and turn out life like some mad "Brave New World'.

Instead, as I believe, He kept this last secret for Himself. That we might not create life, as He created it, so that we might become gods ourselves.

But, of course, then you could argue that if we would offend God with such a creation, why would he allow homosexuality, abortion, and Ted Kennedy, surely things that offend God as much, or more, then creating life, I suppose.

The ability of a rogue prion protein, without a genetic code, to become infectious and reproduce is a dramatic and revolutionary medical concept,"

Bob, Prion Protein is still a protein, made up of Amino Acids, the same as you and I. A prion protein is simply a protein that evolved to be a 'parasite', if you will, on life. It's as if you and I had the same father, only you turned to a life of crime and robbed me. If the Prion Protein had a different "FATHER", as in my example, I'd be impressed, but a prion protein, while amazing, isn't another life form alien to our own. It is, rather, derived from Amino Acids that randomly coagulated, as atheist's insist must have happen.

What is a protein? Proteins are long chains of smaller molecules called amino acids, linked together. Much of the work on the origin of life has focused on the question of how amino acids came into being and how they got linked into proteins. Amino acids contain primarily carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen atoms. All of these would have been present in some form in the atmosphere of the young Earth: unlike today's atmosphere, it was not a mixture of mostly oxygen and nitrogen gas, but may instead have contained nitrogen along with carbon monoxide or dioxide (emitted from volcanoes), or perhaps methane (a compound of carbon and hydrogen). Although the molecules of amino acids are small and simple in comparison with proteins, they are elaborate when compared with the molecules of these gases.

If amino acids are the ONLY building blocks of life, as I have supposed in every post I've made, and together they form proteins, which has been proven to turn "rogue", then they are still part of the same genetic family of life on Earth, no matter how big or small.

Show me a protein that formed on another planet, and I'll be impressed.

Well, I must admit that that probability is zero. ;^)

You got me good, with that one!! LOL!

Here I was, pretty sure I'd need all the wits I could gather to argue the complexities of everything I wrote, and you give in!! That's just not FAIR!

Thanks for educating and teaching me so much. Have a great day.

If you want to call that "design"--and I am very sympathetic to that point of view--then I'm willing to accept that the universe was designed.

Well, wait a minute; If you're willing to 'LEAN', if you will, towards GRAND DESIGN, then WHY would you argue with me that somethings could have happen by chance?

For instance, lets assume God used Choas to create LIFE. If he used ORDER to create the world so that CHOAS could degenerate it into life, then God still created Life. All you're doing is argueing that He did it from the Big Bang forward, whereas I'm saying that he touched a few molecules on Earth and made the Universes best 'Wedding Cake'.

You've even put forth the idea that a SALT DOME is a work of incredible odds. Heck, I don't disagree. He certainly was a master. So if the chances of SALT coming together to make a SALT DOME seems a bit rare, imagine if it could walk, breath, communicate and reproduce. NOW that's something to behold!!

I'll accept that God's grand design was mathematically based, but as the Creator of the Universe, He also gave the insight to learn and master the Mathematics to see his work, to His most perfect beings, you and I.

Maybe RadioAstronomer can give us some measured limits on the probability of life on other worlds, and tell us just how thoroughly we've checked our solar system.

Speaking of our solar system, it reminds me of a funny story of Sir Isaac Newton.

Sir Isaac had an accomplished artisan fashion for him a small scale model of our solar system which was to be put in a room in Newton’s home when completed. The assignment was finished and installed on a large table. The workman had done a very commendable job, simulating not only the various sizes of the planets and their relative proximities, but also so constructing the model that everything rotated and orbited when a crank was turned. It was an interesting, even fascinating work, as you can image, particularly to anyone schooled in the sciences.

Newton’s atheist-scientist friend came by for a visit. Seeing the model, he was naturally intrigued, and proceeded to examine it with undisguised admiration for the high quality of the workmanship. ‘My! What an exquisite thing this is!’ he exclaimed. ‘Who made it?’ Paying little attention to him, Sir Isaac answered, ‘Nobody.’

Stopping his inspection, the visitor turned and said: ‘Evidently you did not understand my question. I asked who made this.' Newton, enjoying himself immensely no doubt, replied in a still more serious tone. ‘Nobody. What you see just happened to assume the form it now has.’ ‘You must think I am a fool!’ the visitor retorted heatedly, ‘Of course somebody made it, and he is a genius, and I would like to know who he is.’

Newton then spoke to his friend in a polite yet firm way: ‘This thing is but a puny imitation of a much grander system whose laws you know, and I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a designer and maker; yet you profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken has come into being without either designer or maker! Now tell me by what sort of reasoning do you reach such an incongruous conclusion?’

As I've said before, I admire atheists. The faith they hold is much stronger, by far, then my own, being a Christen.

"Let's start building our salt dome atom by atom, just as your ghost writer started assembling his life molecule."

Not quite.

First of all, you're taking two basic elements of Earth, sodium and chlorine, and then juxtaposing it with life, and saying it's far more unlikely that SALT came about then life. The problem with this is elemental; both sodium, which makes up 2.5% of our crust, and chlorine, are elements that make up are our own body. In other words, if salt is really that unlikely, and salt makes up a portion of our own body, then our Body, with it's numerous other elements in it, is far, far more unlikely. It would have to form with other basic elements to form us, after it assembled itself, assumably by random.

Secondly, let's just take TWO of the 20 basic amino acids that make up Life: Lysine and Asparagine. The molecular formula for these amino acids is C6H14N2O2 and C4H8N2O3, respectively. If you say the chances that "a sodium atom would show up at the right place (our starting point) is 0.02" and that "Next we need a chlorine atom; nothing else will do. There's another factor of 0.01."--then what are the chances that Carbon, Helium, Nitrogen, and Oxygen would come together in such a way as to form just TWO of the basic Amino Acids needed for life? THEN, multiply that by 10 because there are 20 basic Amino Acids. NOW, what are the chances that those 20 Amino Acids would form together in such a perfect way as to make a Protein? NOW, what are the chances that the Protein would form with the DNA, to enable itself to reproduce??

It would seem as if all the ingredients in our kitchen got together--in perfect quantities, and baked itself into a cake. Not just any cake, mind you, but a cake that could reproduce itself. AND THEN, this cake started to evolve into a wedding cake, complete with a miniature bachelor and bride at the top.

As Isaac Newton, a man who's intelligence exceeds ours by far, once stated "In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God's existence."

No, but they are subject to the same laws of probability you outlined. Life or not, why doesn't the same analysis work?

Why is this so difficult for you to comprehend? Life is different from nonlife. Organic is different from non-organic. The conditions that create coal or salt dome are not even CLOSE to the conditions that create life. Coal was here millions of years before we were. And this doesn't even take into consideration COMPLEX life--which coal or salt dome isn't even CLOSE to achieving last I checked, COAL hasn't come up with a way to communicate or travel on it's own.

Your equations say that.

No, actually my equations say life is far more unlikely to happen. Coal or salt-dome might have had a slight chance in coming to be, but it's not life, save for a few people on this board. Maybe it's me, but why can't you comprehend that a lump of coal is infinitely simpler--and therefore more likely, then a wiggling bacteria?? The difference is amazingly obvious.

Randomness plays a role in evolution, but it's biased selection that does the work.

No, actually it's randomness that begins life, and that's what I'm talking about. The calculations I gave you was for one of the simplest creatures on Earth. The chances of the simplest and first signs of life evolving to someone like yourself are almost infinitely greater, if you take into account all the probabilities at any point that something could go wrong-Asteroid, Super Volcano's, meteors, etc. etc. Please, pay attention.

You can't talk about the probability that life happened in this way, and pretend that that's the probability that life happened at all. Until you can provably enumerate all the myriad ways, you have no basis for making that calculation.

ROFL!! You people are too funny. If life COULD evolve any other way, as you have supposed, why don't we see evidence anywhere else? Asteroids, Meteors, other planets, etc. Heck, why don't we see it anywhere here on Earth. Biologically speaking life happen only ONCE, here on Earth. Genetically speaking, we can trace life back to one single source, some 3.8 billion years ago. If, as you suppose, there is a basis for OTHER life forms, made of entirely different processes, why don't we see it here.

No, YOU do the calculations, and YOU figure out if it's YOUR theory. If you have knowledge on how other life forms could come about, then by means share it with the Noble Prize committee.

ROFL!! I guess what's so funny about you, is that you're so ARROGANT to think this is an original idea. That somehow, in between slouching off to flip burgers at the nearby Denny's, you've come up with the secret on how life might have formed elsewhere.

Again, I know of only ONE possible way for life to exist in the universe. If you know or think you know of another way, don't waste your time convincing me of it, ROFL!!, run it over to Cambridge University, Harvard or Stanford. I guarantee you a Noble Prize will be awarded to you!!!

No, the possibilities are YOUR problem, not mine. ROFL!!

Put that into your calculations, or they're wrong.

But all the MATTER in the Universe, ISN'T Infinite. Keep saying it is, and you'll look ignorant.

Besides of all the matter IN the universe, very, very few of them can make life. and the chances of them all coming together, in such a fantastically complex way.

If you would like to know how scientists calculate the mass of the Universe, go here: http://science.howstuffworks.com/framed.htm?parent=question221.htm&url=http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980114d.html

Nowhere did I make that argument.

ROFL!! You are hilarious!! You're NOT making the assumption that life "Just wants To Be", by implying, without scientific reason of course, that life could have begun differently then it did here on Earth? You're not implying that fighting huge amounts of almost impossible odds, life just popped up one day some 3.8 billion years ago?

IF, as you have proposed, life is possible without the impossible odds I've proposed here, then we should see it in different forms everywhere else. On different planets, in meteors, asteroids, etc. Heck, if life is so viable in the universe, it should be overflowing with aliens.

You are the results of decades of science fiction movies, books and TV shows pelting you everyday that life must exist elsewhere, but your logic is flawed. You forget--or never learned--that life is fragile, so nearly impossible to come together, and in a universe so hostile to it--it can't possibly exist anywhere else.

If you're so convinced life COULD exist, from anything else, YOU do the calculations and prove me wrong. Don't be so lazy.