doG

The big bang theory makes no attempt to theorize or predict what did or did not exist prior to that event. It makes no claim that matter or energy came from nowhere. There very well could have been an existing universe that went through a big crunch that caused the event we label as a big bang. We have no observable evidence of anything prior to the big bang to make any hypothesis of the state of matter or energy before that so science draws no conclusions on where the big bang came from. Evolution is a fact. The fact that we need to create a new flu vaccine every year shows evolution in process. There are plenty of transitional species alive today to support the evolution of species. Evolution is not a theory on the origin of life or abiogenesis. It makes no assertion or predictions on where life came from. Science does not have an answer for this, it is still exploring the observable evidence available as it looks for an answer to the question of where life came from. Science does not just give up the search though and make up an answer like "God did it". It only draws conclusions based on evidence and the lack of evidence to support any particular theory A is not support for theory B so the fact that we have no evidence on the beginning of life is not evidence to support any 'God' theory. There is no evidence of any deities and no reason to conclude they exist at all.

If we just hang in there until Yellowstone erupts the problem will be fixed.

Doesn't this belong in the unsupported fanatical bullsh*t forum?

But we are not a democracy and were never intended to be. The founders established a republic to avoid being a democracy. Like social security?

I understand that it's your opinion that it played no part in it. I posted a supporting opinion that demonstrates a contribution to the whole affair. Regardless of the root cause it is my opinion that the subprime crisis is a big part of the current budget problem and that government is partly to blame.

Are any other causes of the current shutdown off limits? One reason we are currently faced with the magnitude of government spending that has contributed to the current need to raise the debt ceiling again is the extra spending that was caused by the subprime bailouts and related financial repercussions throughout the economy. I really don't care about the cause of that issue, only that poor and irresponsible government regulations are a contributor to the current budget problem.

As I said before. The government should have kept their nose out of it. The government put pressure on lenders to make loans available to people that couldn't afford them and never would have been offered them if it wasn't for the irresponsible legislation that pressured lenders to do so.

Actually it was ultimately the Community Reinvestment Act that caused the subprime crisis. Before that law was passed there were no bad loans backed by the government. Had the government kept its nose out of it, never given birth to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the framework for the subprime crisis would have never evolved in an industry that previously restricted loans to fully qualified borrowers.

Today's languages are not the procedural languages that QBasic is, now they are object oriented so you'll be learning a new language and methodology than was common in that era. For today's machines object oriented languages offer a lot more flexibility and power but program flow is very different. As pointed out by others, Visual Studio Express supports current versions of Visual Basic, C++ and C Sharp for Windows and it's free. These are all object oriented. FreeBasic supports QBasic and allows one to access C libraries with Basic. It is probably one of the closest languages to what you were used to. GCC is another free compiler that can be used with support for many languages like C, C++ and Fortran, which was designed for math. I believe Fortran95 was the last iteration that was procedural oriented though. SilverFrost offers a free version that is integrated with Visual Studio Express that you may find useful.

Look at the hockey stick. Under democratically controlled congress' they've had to make bigger increases and bigger in the debt ceiling to cover the budgets they've written but yes, Bush signed a few of those.so both sides are plainly guilty. The increases are now bigger than ever before and that's why I labeled them exponential. What really gets in my crawl though is the fact that I've suffered the same economic downturn as everyone else. I've had to cut back on my budget and do with a whole lot less 'wants' and restrict it more to my needs so I've got a lot less to give to others. Now that I have less the government wants more instead of cutting the budget the way I've had to. If I have to live within my means I expect the government to do so as well. I have a family to take care of and it's not my job to take care of someone else's family. If they need to close a park to give someone food stamps then so be it. Quit asking me for more, I don't have it and I'm tired of them increasing my social debt. You can't count that way. You have to assign blame to each congress that passed the budget AND the president that signed it. Both parties are to blame...

So you disagree with the chart above...

No, you're right....dems vs dems hasn't threatened any shutdowns, just exponential increases in spending. The country is living beyond its means...

It's not draconian. Our civil service people face such accountability in their jobs and congressmen are no better. The debt ceiling quarrel happens every year. You're saying it's always the republicans? Open your eyes, both sides play this game.

To add to this. It is the job of congressmen to represent their constituents, regardless of what the President wants or the leader of either house. We do not know what individual legislators are hearing from their constituents but if any are being prodded one way or another it is their place to represent what their constituents want regardless of how the rest of us feel about this. If that results in a stalemate then it is because that is how our system works. There is another point I think worthy of acknowledgement. Two election cycles ago a democrat majority passed law they felt their constituents wanted so it is understandable that they steadfastly hold their ground in support of that legislation. At the same time that majority has been replaced with republicans over the last two election cycles where the constituents were unhappy with the actions of their democrat allied representatives that wrote and passed that legislation. It is thus understandable that those republicans represent the very constituents that voted them in to replace the democrats they were unhappy with. This again is how our system works, when your government doesn't make the constituents happy they get voted out. This said I cannot blame either side for any particular wrongdoing at this time. I will add that I do not think it is ethically or professionally the time to fight this battle at budget time. In my opinion a congress that gambles with the nations credit in this way is derelict of duty and should be held legally accountable. It would not bother me in the least to see Boehner and Reid spending their off time in jail until a budget is passed.

What central black hole? Many galaxies have a central black hole but I've never heard of any central black hole for the universe.

Yes, normally so. I saw one of those documentary type shows on this guy and another in Illinois. The guy in Illionois lived for 11 years with it before he died. At the time of the documentary the gut in Vietnam was alleged to have been awake for 33 years at that time. He had been to all kinds of doctors and they couldn't understand it. As an aside, i successfully functioned as a polyphasic sleeper for a couple of years taking two 2 hour naps a day for 4 days a week as I was working 19 hours a day.

At least its not as bad as Ngoc Thai's insomnia. He's been awake for around 40 years because of some fever he had in the early 70s.

Because it will make you burn in hell for all eternity if you don't believe its word......because it loves you.

Just thinking out loud here..... If people like soldiers and policeman can be legally charged with 'Dereliction Of Duty' for not performing the required responsibilities of their job then why can't congressmen? There should be more accountability for not doing their job than simply facing the possibility of not getting reelected. They are derelict of duty and they should be held legally accountable for that.

Religion is about belief, regardless of the facts and science is about the facts, regardless of belief. Since there is no credible science to conclude that a soul exists at all then this seems to be more about belief in one and religion seems an appropriate category.

Here's a long term graph for you: We are certainly on an uptick naturally. Thinking that man is not contributing to some extent is not admitting man's contribution to the greenhouse effect though. I question the subjectivity of anyone that says the additional gases caused by mankind is not adding to the natural cycle.

When the group of books is full of contradictions between them then it makes the accuracy of each questionable at best.

If other beliefs show that person to have questionable judgement then it makes sense to question all of their claims.

Adding to John's point is man's indirect contribution of methane which is 25 times as potent as CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Mankind farms livestock the world over to support the dietary needs of our exponentially growing population and that livestock emits a noticeable percentage of the methane in our atmosphere.