Ambassadar

I guess my question is at what lvl do you not fail the new agility course and what is the exp per hour without failures?

If I remember correctly China doesn't even have time zones. Their entire country which is about the size of the US is all the same time. I would think that would make things kinda screwy if you lived in the far east or far west of the country.

Yeah because before wellfare the United States was a country of starving people. It's 150 year past before wellfare marked the deaths of millions dying from starvation and widespread crime due to that. /end sarcasm As to income tax the Supreme Court ruled income tax as unconstitutional in the 1890's. It wasn't until WWI that the politicians were able to try to sneak it back in and then it was only supposed to be a tax on the top 1% and wouldn't ever be something that would affect the average American citizen. As usual once the government got their foot in the door next thing that happens is they are taxing the crap out of everyone.

Ok, everyone wants a Christian to build a case for Noah's ark so I will give it a go. Keep in mind I am one guy so if I get bombarded with replies I doubt I will have the time or energy to respond to them all. The question I am going to address is "Is there evidence out there so support the idea of a global flood?" I am not trying to prove the flood happened without a shadow of a doubt. I am merely making the argument that rational scientifically minded people can believe in the flood because it is possible it happened due to evidence in existence. This first post is going to address similarities in human culture around the world in regards to the flood. I will hit other issues concerning the flood in some following posts. A popular theory is there was a large localized flood in the Mesopotamian region that has been accredited as what might have been "Noah's Great Flood." Let's look at human history to discredit this idea in support of some sort of global flood. Notice how many of these references were not in the Black Sea/Mediterranean Sea area. http://www.nwcreation.net/noahlegends.html There were more out there but this should be sufficient for showing the rational behind the first point for now. Just about every human civilization even if they were on opposite sides of the Earth from each other have very similar tales of a Great Flood that wiped out the Earth and the details of each story have some remarkable similarities. Mere coincidence?

I read a report by national geographic recently about how the ice caps on Mars were melting... I'm sure most people here will pick up on the implications of that. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html

Agreed. Homosexual marriage has never been legal in the US. For most of the history of the US homosexuality has been outlawed. In fact until recently most states had laws outlawing sodomy but many if not all of them have been overturned. You give these people too much credit. As of right now they do not have the power you claim they have. If they did abortion wouldn't be a mere debate. It would be outlawed. Controlling a government means you have the power to get your legislation passed. If issues they hold dear are merely in the debate phase instead of written law it means they do not control the government as people are trying to claim. I find it funny also because the government rammed abortion down the throats of the American people when it was legalized in Roe v. Wade. The majority of Americans did not want it legal yet a court said it was legal. The entire process of voting on it in a legislative assembly was sidestepped. What you claim the right to be attempting to do in abortion is exactly what the left did to legalize abortion in the first place. I agree with you on this. I focused on Iraq and Afghanistan because that is what everyone goes off about when they mention this topic. The US has no reason to be many of the places they are. I don't think we should have been in the majority of the smaller conflicts we have been in. Depends on the person. Every country has it's share of jerks. The US definitely isn't immune from this flaw. I think a lot of people in the US just express themselves poorly. I know people that may say stuff like what you are referring to but it's not like they hate other countries. It's more like how they talk about their favorite baseball team. Kinda like "The Redsocks are the best, we are way better than the Yankees." Yeah they may talk a bunch of crap but when it really comes down to it they don't hate New York. Those same people would fight and die alongside the people they talk baseball smack to if it came to that. Most people don't really mean anything by what they say. It basically comes down to the US is their "team" and they are proud of it so it is fun to do some smack talking with the other "teams" sometimes. Deep down most people do care for the other countries unless it is some country that wants to go to war with us... Then they are probably serious if they say anything.

Defender... I am a Christian and what you said about you will never get sick again sounds quite odd. I have never heard anything like that in the Bible. Why do you believe this? I don't think Jesus or anyone making a claim that Christians wouldn't get sick. Just wanted to give you a chance to explain your point because it struck me as rather an odd thing to say. On to the Noah's Ark discussion. Theory: So all the Earth was covered in water in the flood... Where is the water now? How could the Earth have been covered? A couple of possibilities(just tossing some stuff out there)... It is underground. Recently a huge volume of water was found under Eastern China. I think they said it might have the volume of the arctic ocean or something. It has been a few days since I read the article so my memory is a little fuzzy but the quantity of water was massive. We have no clue how much more water may deep in the crust of the Earth. Another possibility could be geologists are correct about pangea. Maybe Pangea is the Earth as Noah knew it. That would explain how he collected all the animals. The water from Noah's flood could still be in existence today in the form of existing oceans. "But that's not enough water to cover everything!" Correct. But what if God ripped pangea apart and in the process lowered the level of all the land at the same time as raining water down from the heavens? If he lowered the elevation of the land the seas could burst up from below and flood the land with existing water amounts on Earth. It says in the Bible that not only did it rain but the waters burst forth from the deep which sounds kinda like the land tumbling into the seas and Earth's plates ripping apart. Towards the end of the flood which the shift in the plates could have been completed and the pressure of the plates colliding could have driven the land back up again while at the same time water drained into the Earth's crust to lower ocean levels at the same time. The only other two options I can think of would be that a lot of the water was lost into space through the ages or God just created it from scratch and made it disappear. I personally don't think it was these latter two. I'm not saying any of this is scientific proof. It is just a few ideas I am tossing out there to mull over. One other cool thing is the dimensions listed in the Bible of Noah's Ark are pretty darn close to the dimensions of a battleship. It's pretty darn cool if you study the engineering behind those dimensions because with advanced engineering it was determined that was one of the best and most stable ratios of dimensions a ship could be made in and they were determined thousands of years ago in the Bible.

Here are a few fun facts about Sudan. It has natural resources. Pretty big deposits of oil and natural gas as well as some other stuff. A big reason no country wants to go in there with troops is the Sudan is about the size of western Europe. It is a huge country. To pacify a country that large would take tons and tons of troops. The roads are very poor so supporting those troops would be a huge difficulty as well. Anyone up for a draft? Those troops would have to come from somewhere... If we went in with a smaller concentration of troops it would look all nice for the newspapers but nothing would get accomplished because there is no way a few troops could control that country the way it would need to be controlled to stop this crazyness. Read up on the background of the Sudan on the CIA website if you want some interesting info. https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/su.html

Best colleges in the world? Down the toilet? Ermm.... Umm... not really. If they were in control abortion wouldn't still be legal would it? Yeah... those darn Americans for getting involved in wars because 3000 of them got killed in a terrorist attack. They should just sit there like sheep and take it. How dare they retaliate. Hating fat people for the win! Nothing says maturity like hating someone for their body type. What is wrong with being proud of where you are from? Every little kid thinks their father is the best. Is that bad? Why would it be bad for people to think their country is the best? The people are free. The people have jobs. The people feel safe. What's wrong with someone feeling they are blessed and have it better than most? They may or may not be wrong but either way why burst their bubble? This world could use a little more contentment and joy.

Earlier there were a lot of people throwing out the Crusades and the inquisition as reasons Christians were supposedly bad dangerous people as well. To truly understand what is a religion and what is people warping a religion for their own selfish ambitions and desires and using that religion as an excuse to do it you have to look at the foundational texts of said religion. Here is how you tell if a religion if violent or not. What would Jesus have said about the Inquisition? He would have been absolutely against it. It goes against everything in the Bible about how people are supposed to be treated and talked with about Christianity. Any person claiming to kill in the name of Jesus is not a Christian because they are going against everything Jesus ever said. Don't fall for their lies. On the flip side I can look in the Quoran and see where it says admonish the infidels until they submit. All those terrorist acts can be backed up by their foundational texts. I know many *moderate* Muslims don't adhere to the parts that say to do this but the fact remains their texts actually support "admonishing infidels". In terms of violence and history of the two religions Christians are supposed to be willing to die for their faith. Muslims are supposed to be willing to kill for their faith. This is backed up by foundational texts. Please don't lump them together.

That is a misleading statement. 50% does not go to war. War implies expenditures in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you claim the number of 50% the copied article below is what you are claiming which is not all direct money going to war. A lot of these are indirect costs. As to 3% of taxes go to education... I assume you are talking about federal tax dollars... I find this kinda funny because the cost of education is payed for by STATE tax dollars so quoting federal education dollars is kinda pointless and very manipulative to the people of this forum. I was glancing over some articles and the state of Indiana spends over 50% of their budget on education each year. I'm sure you will find that most states spend a large percentage of their budgets on education.

Most politically stable country? I would have to say the United States. The reason? It has to my knowledge the oldest fundamentally unchanged living government in existence. I would give the UK second place in this instead of first merely because although they have an older government it has had a fundamental change to the point the monarch is pretty much the leader in name alone. Since the question was most politically stable I have to go with the US as the answer. The most economically stable country would either be Switzerland or the US. It is difficult to argue against the past economic successes of these two powerhouses. One is the banking leader of the world. One has the best track record in the world over the past 100-150 years in new businesses and scientific breakthroughs. Granted things may change for either of these countries but as of right now it is hard to argue against either of their track records.

In Chemistry lab I never had anything more than a little diluated spilled Sulphuric acid on my hand. No big deal. One thing that was funny though is in one of my Freshman level Chemistries our lab TA was Chinese and must have been pretty new to the country. For a class of 50 students he tries to read the roll, gives up on the names after about 1 or 2 since he can't pronounce them and starts reading our Social Security numbers out loud to the entire class!!! Thankfully one guy sitting up front immediately got up and pulled the roll out of his hands and read it out. That class could have been a identity thief's paradise.

I *think* that most winnings from lotteries get paid out in smaller chunks over the period of many years. If you won a 20 million lottery they might pay you 1 million a year for 20 years or something. It's still not shabby but I would think a ton of the money would be lost through inflation during that time. Someone correct me if I am wrong since I don't know this to be totally true everywhere.

I recently saw Amazing Grace. It had a different feel to it than most movies made recently. I enjoyed it. I also watched Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow... it had parts that were cool and parts that were way overdone and cheesy. It was a renter... good thing I rented it. :P

lol... when I was 11 all the girls were bigger than me. It used to drive me crazy. Don't worry about it. You will be fine. Just have some patience. In the meantime take these other guys advice and stay away from weights until you get older.

I had typed up my response earlier and forgot to post it so when I was looking through my open tabs I noticed I had an unsubmitted message up. I submitted it and it turns out what I said had already been mentioned already. *shrug*

I don't entirely agree with any point raised yet. I would say it should be something along the lines of this. If your parents support you then they should have the right to have influence in your life. If a person is mature enough to completely govern their own life then they are mature enough to go get a real job and quit living off mommy and daddy. What my father did was to say I wasn't allowed to date until I was 16. Heck Madonna has said her daughter can't date until she is 18! Parents are there to love, nurture,guide and train their children. To say parents should butt out of all aspects of their children's lives is crazy. Children need discipline. I would be a hellraiser now if I had never been disciplined when I was younger. There is a point where parents need to cut the strings of authority and transition into a friendship status with their kids and that age probably depends on a situational basis.

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/omniscient Being omniscient has nothing to do with free will. Being omniscient is a state of awareness. Free will is a matter of control. They are two different topics. Just because God knows what we are going to do before we do it doesn't mean he is ordering us to do every action. It just means he is aware of those actions before they are acted upon.

One quick note. Don't get hardcore into weightlifting if you are still very young. I think it can mess with your growth plates. I started lifting a lot(5 times a week) when I was 15. Before that most of what I did was sprints, pushups, situps, weighted jumprope, box jumps and some lighter lifting 1 time a week or so. If you aren't done with your growth spurts and haven't reached your full height I wouldn't do too much powerlifting. Another thing to note is for me personally I didn't put on my weight until my body was done growing taller. When I was 14 I was 5'9 145 lbs. When I was 15 I was 6'3 155 lbs(talk about being skinny and undersized for my height!!!). When I was 16 I was 6'3 195 lbs. A lot of it is just when your hormones and stuff kick in and when your body is ready to turn into a man. Granted I was lifting weights when I put on my weight gain but a lot is genetic because for the rest of highschool I couldn't gain a pound even though I kept working out extremely hard and eating tons of food. If you are trying to gain weight the only running I would do is maybe some sprints preferably uphill(to give you resistance). Anyone saying to do distance running misunderstood what your goals are or something... Use resistance training(lift weights). If you don't have weights improvise at home. Eat lots of calories. Eat enough carbs to cover your basic fuel needs and enough protein to rebuild your muscle. Don't eat junk food to get your calories. Eat good solid food like chicken, nuts, fish etc to get your protein.

I find what happened yesterday in the stock market kinda funny. I love when people get scared over stuff like this because it gives a good opportunity to find some nice bargains to buy. I actually bought some calls this morning on some nice blue chips that got hammered yesterday to try to catch the bounce back when everyone realizes nothing fundamentally changed in these companies. Hopefully I will get a good 2-5 dollar jump when people buy back in. I guess only time will tell if I am making a good decision or not. Ok. Here is proof. Take any person that ever started their own company. They did this because they wanted to make more money than they could working for someone else. They figured out a need people had and created a solution to that need in the form of their product. Helping meet people's needs means more business which means more money made. It also means more employees are needed to make more product which helps people as well by giving them jobs. The more people you can help and serve the more successful a business you will have. In effect greed helps people and makes the world a better place in terms of people starting their own companies. People can be short term greedy by screwing over their own company or other people but in the long run this is completely foolish because it hurts you and your company which means in the long run less money overall is made. People that resort to doing this are pretty stupid because they hurt themselves and others in the long run to merely help themselves not as much in the short run.

Off the top of my head I believe 1 kilogram is 2.56 pounds.

I live in a city of about a million people. My scariest experience in the city is I was on a walk down my street late at night and it was really dark. As I am walking along I suddenly hear this thrashing crackling noise coming right at me out of a huge oak tree I was under. I can make out a large dark object coming right down on top of me. It scared me so bad I actually yelled a little as I ran out from under it. I was about 5 or 10 feet away when it lands with a thud in the road exactly where I had been standing and stays perfectly still. I am frozen solid trying to analyze what on the heck it is. After probably 20 seconds it flies into a nearby tree and turns out to be a big owl. I can still make out something in the road where it was so I stay frozen. After a few more moments it flies away as well and is another owl. It takes off into the tree the first owl flew to. After some more waiting I hear a crashing noise and some "interesting" sounding hooting going on. Yep... I almost had two owls mating land on my head as they tumbled out of the tree while mating. The other scary encounter I had with a wild animal was back in the day in Boy Scouts we went to Yellowstone. One morning we woke up and stepped out of the tent only to realize we were face to face with a female moose and her calf that had wandered into our campsite. We looked at it, she looked at us, we thought "Oh crud!", she thought "Protect my baby!", she charged, we ran and scattered. After about 20 yards of being chased she went back to her baby. Moose are HUGE!!!!!! You don't realize how gigantic they are until one is 5 feet from you trying to kill you. It had to be 7 or 8 feet tall at least. It's like being charged by a deer the height of a kid's league basketball goal. Walked up on a black bear once as well on a hike but it was fat, happy, and munching away on something in a dead log so we just kept on our way.

Before a few ankle injuries I could knock down a 360 dunk(barely) in my jumping prime as well as take off from the box in the lane and hit my elbow on the rim. A between your legs dunk was much harder than a freethrow line dunk in my opinion. I tried to see how close I could get to both of them and I wasn't even close on the between the legs dunk. The freethrow line dunk I couldn't do but I could at least complete the dunk even if I cheating and was taking off three feet after the free throw line when I did it. I am a two foot jumper and for me what made the between the legs dunk so difficult is the action of moving your arms down to put the ball between the legs and the way you have to move your body in the air just kills your upward momentum. There may be some special technique he did for this but for me it just absolutely destroyed my upward momentum trying to go between the legs with it in the air. If he didn't have some special technique that made it easier it is absolutely amazing to be able to pull off that dunk. It took a good 1 or 2 feet off my jumping ability trying to do it. Vince is the man at dunking...

4.4 Earths with a footprint of 20.