iNow

Is it even possible to describe the visible universe as shaped? I mean, there is nothing "outside" of the visible universe by which to compare said "shape." I know there are studies talking about saddle shapes and ovals and whatnot, and I recognize that you are asking why this discussion of shape is relevant and where it helps us, but I am sort of questioning the validity of assigning shape in the first place. Hmmm... Where's Martin when you need him?

I was so pissed off about being lumped into some ideological bucket that I forgot to even question the assertion itself, which it turns out was false anyway.

The false premise is that the earth is not static sized as you say. It is dynamic, flexing... but not growing or expanding.

Okay, well you guys provide some interesting points. You clearly define success as the reduction in violence whereas I define success in terms of political advancement. Looking at it a little differently after reading your responses, the military cannot be held responsible for political advancement. We all agree that the surge reduced violence. I just never saw the reduction in violence as the reason we put our troops in harms way. Of course sending in our well trained men and women will result in less violence, but the question now becomes, "What next?" We can't just keep sending in troops, so I see it as more of a displacement... an extension of the final solution being sought as opposed to a end in and of itself. I'll meet you half way. It met half of its objectives by giving breathing room. The other half is noticably lacking, but is less of a military issue and more of a political one (and the bigger of the two if you ask me).

Agreed. Agreed. Agreed. Agreed. Now, back to the point I actually made and which has yet to receive response, the criteria for success that were set before the surge started was to provide "breathing room" so they could work out a coalition government to end their "civil war." Yet, little to no political progress was/has been made among the major political factions. So, I say again, it has not "worked," it has just reduced violence (which is good, but was not the primary objective), and it's not partisan to want results, and to achieve our stated objectives, so shove it up your asses if you think I'm bowing to some religiously political mindset and "parsing my words" so as not to admit some greater truth. My comments are neither liberal nor conservative, leftie or rightie, democrat or republican... they are pragmatic.

Read online... I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight..... If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic, different." Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story. If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim. Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick. Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable. Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded. If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience. If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive. If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian. If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian. If you teach teach children about sexual predators, you are irresponsible and eroding the fiber of society. If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible. If your wife is a Harvard graduate laywer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America 's. If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that hates America and advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable. OK, much clearer now. line[/hr] They recently took down the viral video of her church and some of the crazies there who practice her form of kookiness. http://richarddawkins.net/article,3121,n,n Sarah Palin was baptized at Wasilla Assembly of God and attended the church for over two and a half decades, and she has been publicly blessed by a number of pastors and religious leaders employed by and associated with that church. Last Sunday our research team released a video, a ten-minute mini-documentary, focusing on the Wasilla Assemblies of God and the video seemed on the verge of a massive "viral" breakthrough when YouTube pulled it down, citing "inappropriate content". At the point the video was censored by YouTube it had been viewed by almost 160,000 people. The short of it is that YouTube has censored a video documentary that appeared to be close to having an effect on a hard fought and contentious American presidential election. Video at link.

Different topic, but the surge reduced violence. It didn't "work," as working prior to the surge had been defined by local political reconciliation and american troops being able to leave without causing chaos. Per the original milestones and objectives, it's failed, but not to reduce violence. What does the word "work" mean? Also, why is everybody forgetting to mention how important the Anbar Awakening was in the process? Whatever. Surge reduced violence. Nobody has failed to acknowledge that. The difference is that we all seem to define "worked" rather differently, and anyone who disagrees gets labelled as "leftie" or "religious followers" or "unpatriotic" and disregarded.

You just quoted yourself and asked for an explanation. Man. That's classic.

Never? Oh, the humanity.

Rubbish. Wrong. Pioneer - You SERIOUSLY need to spend some time learning about what evolution really is before you keep spouting your ridiculous, inaccurate, and completely speculative bullshit.

The economy is fracking jacked up beyond belief. Is "jacked up" more acceptable than "unraveling?" Did you have a bad experience with rope as a child or something, P?

You're wrong because the earth is not expanding. I'm sorry you're sick of hearing it, but it's true all the same.

Have you seen this thread yet? http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=34987 Maybe you could get some ideas there.

A lot of good data on fact checking at the below: http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2008/09/annals_of_mccainpalin_i_the_en.php Why would anyone believe anything these two fabricators say? Of course I know the answer. Because to a lot of people it doesn't matter if what they say is true or not. they just want to beat Obama and Biden. Whatever it takes. Haven't we just had 8 years of that?

The study showing cell phone issues was seriously flawed, has since been debunked and retracted, yet media is lagging behind on providing the update.

Oh for the love of Thor. Economy in bad place. Some hurting more than others. Super brilliant former Fed chairman says "worst crisis in a century." Link above in my post #49 to view for yourself and decide what was and was not said. line[/hr] GREENSPAN: First of all, let's recognize that this is a "once in a half century," probably "once in a century" type of event. STEPHANOPOULOS: Is this the worst you've ever seen in your career? GREENSPAN: Oh, by far. There's no question that this is in the process of outstripping anything I've seen, and it still is not resolved and it still has a way to go. ... and, indeed, it will continue to be a corosive force until the price of homes in the United States stabalizes. <...> STEPHANOPOULOS: <recounts several recent bank failings> Are we going to see more of these major financial institutions fail? GREENSPAN: I suspect we will. <...> STEPHANOPOULOS: So, the chances of escaping a recession now, greater than 50%? GREENSPAN: No. I think it's less than 50%, and I can't believe that we could have a "once in century" type of financial crisis without a significant impact on the real economy... globally... and I think that indeed is what is in the process of occurring.

When McCain heard that Obama was promising to push for broadband distribution across the country and network neutrality, he stated that he didn't much care for the music teenagers are into and said he'd prefer a small town hall with harmonicas any day of the week. Crumby jokes aside, here's a talk Obama gave to the folks at Google regarding his ideas for technological innovation in November 2007. <hmmm... I wonder if this would have been better in the CompSci forum....oh well.>

A great post over at Blog Around the Clock tonight that reminded me of this thread. http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2008/09/creationism_is_just_one_sympto_1.php Creationism Is Just One Symptom Of Conservative Pathology I am not an "evolutionist". I am not a "Darwinist". I am a biologist. Thus, by definition, I am an evolutionary biologist. As I am also interested in history and philosophy of biology, I consider myself a Darwinian. But not a "Darwinist" or "evolutionist" - those two words are Creationists' constructs. They arise from the basic misunderstanding of evolution. Being religious believers they cannot fathom that people can operate outside of the realm of belief, thus they assume that evolution is a belief, akin to and in competition with their belief. I do not believe in evolution. It is not something you believe in or not: it is something you understand or not. <more at link> line[/hr] I wanted to end this tangent of ours as it was taking us farther and farther away from the topic of trying to explain in a clear and accurate way what evolution is to Dennis, but I'm not following your logic and could use clarification if you'd be so kind. When and how have we disproved the existence of fairies, unicorns, dragons, and leprechauns? First, you asserted that we can disprove their existence, then you said flatly that they don't exist. Which is it? You've just asserted with certainty their non-existence, and I want to know what data you are using to support this.

Pangloss - You seem to be straining to parse words at this point. I understand your comments, but another thing Greenspan said this morning is that financial crisis will most certainly impact the greater economy, and that he wants to update his quote from last year ("there is about a 50/50 chance of recession") to show that now there is an even greater chance.

The independent variable usually goes on the X-axis, whereas the dependent variable goes on the Y-axis. Since the mass is dependent on the item being described, where will you put them?

Some are calling it a "death spiral." Greenspan on THIS WEEK this morning. Watch below: http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=5798760

I say again, exactly which point of my rebuttal above in post #51 and post #57 do you think is mistaken? This implies that parts of evolution are wrong. Which parts of evolution are you saying are wrong? Simply repeating a point does not provide it with accuracy. You were wrong the last time you said this and you are wrong again. First, survival of the fittest is not Darwin's idea. I guess you are not reading replies to you which are counter to your worldview because this has been discussed already. Second, evolution did not lead to anything. The loss of lives came from megalomaniacal crazy people who worked their way into positions of power. Third, evolution is an accurate description of nature. Lying to yourself will not change how nature operates, and I encourage you to bear this in mind as you move forward in life. Responsibiltiy for what, exactly? The fact that you even use the word "evolutionists" shows that you are seriously biased on this issue, and that you are working from half-facts and outright falsehoods. Who in your spiritual life has been lying to you about the truth of nature? What is wrong about evolution beside the fact that it makes your iron age fairy tales look even more silly?

Dennis' argument is akin to people saying bad things about Isaac Newton for describing gravity and then asserting that it's his fault people drop rocks on to others from tall buildings. It's now time for me to bow out of this conversation because people are trying to use Iron Age fairy tales as evidence in a scientific discussion.

We agree more than we do not on the issue that science cannot with certainty prove anything, but with that said, you need to look up what an ad hominem is. What I did contained invective, aggression, and I was also mocking, however, it was not an ad hom. Had I said, "Lucaspa is an idiot who believes in fairy tales, therefore his points can't be trusted and are all wrong,' then that would be ad hom. However, I respected your points, respected you, and mocked religious belief in general. My mocking of belief in religion and the fairy tales was not used in support of my argument, and was, in fact, peripheral to it. Therefore, my argument was made separate from my mocking and no ad hominems were made. You're well educated, and I respect your biological knowledge as it far surpasses my own. However, I did not ad hom you and wanted to set the record straight on that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Exactly which point of my rebuttal above in post #51 and post #57 do you think is mistaken? Actually, what I am saying is that it is not currently included and it works fine without it. We are in agreement that science cannot be used to disprove the hand of some god in the process, just like science cannot be used to disprove that fairies, unicorns, or dragons have some hand in the process of evolution. However, I flatly reject the god assertion with the same fervor and confidence, and also for the same reasons, that I reject the assertions of fairies, unicorns, and leprechauns, and countless other ridiculous fairy tales have some involvement in evolution. Finally, if the proported influence of some supernatural cosmic dictator cannot be measured, perceived, or detected then it can be fully ignored and disregarded with zero negative impact to our understanding.