Hear, hear.

Really? I loved Wizard and Glass. I was a LITTLE put off by the whole Wizard of Oz thing, but the back story about Susan, Jonas and Rhea of the Coos was pretty awesome. It fell apart for me with Wolves of the Calla ... that's where the endless journey suddenly becomes a rush to the finish line. I found the end of the series immensely intriguing, but I expected MUCH MUCH more from the Crimson King ... and according to Insomnia, there were supposed to be TWO travellers that reached the tower ... not just Roland.

What the hell is it with the number 7 anyway? Dark Tower, 7 books. A Song of Ice and Fire, 7 books. Saga of the Seven Suns, 7 books ... Just write til the stories are done, stop deciding the number of books before you even begin writing so things don't get rushed when you find yourself at the end of book five with just 2,000 allotted pages to go. Blerg!

Apparently. When Spider can't answer a question, he "gets bored" or starts arguing semantics because wiki doesn't go in-depth.

No but Phil Collins was! \m/ hehehehe

Progressive anything. I like elements of classical music in my rock. Thrice, Tool, Opeth, etc.

Yeah, I read the first ten or so books of Pern and really enjoyed them before I started losing interest. The same happened with the Xanth series by Piers Anthony. I got to Golem in the Gears and lost interest the first time, then restarted years later and made it to Isle of View before stopping again.

Still, I'd rather see the work from when he's focused on it than rushing it to press. I had several problems with the last three books of the Dark Tower by Stephen King for that very reason.

I've yet to see how a Dance With Dragons pans out. Plan on grabbing that this weekend.

I rather like long series. There's much more that can be accomplished and lacking the luxury (or misfortune?) of stumbling upon the series after its already completed, I'm willing to wait. Dinked around, huh? Like any job, would you rather it be done quick and sloppy? Or would you rather have quality at the expense of time? Especially since, when all is said and done, you're not out any more money than you would have spent anyway ... and better spent now. So far, the books have been quality ... I refer to the series as my favorite fantasy series of all time thus far. So I'd rather wait six years to see it done right than to see him pump out the last two books with obvious and predictable results and endings.

As for cable, yeah I don't know what to tell you. If it weren't for my parents' having it, I probably wouldn't have caught the series myself. Hrm. Buy the DVDs or Blu-Rays! That should help the show's standing. :)



Its pretty interesting how he does that. Most of the characters I as well "trudged through" in the second book became characters I was anticipating in the third and fourth books. Hehehe. He does well with making you love or hate characters, but you can always love them all as solid characters and can see their motivations and agree with why they act the ways they do.

Too attached, hehehe. Yeah, Sean Bean ... every role ... But you also do that a lot with the books. Can't tell you how many times I wanted Eddard to step out of character and lay down the smack. lol

Other kids. Example, my daughter told me this evening "Daddy, angels watch over me." I replied, "no they don't, who told you that?" Her cousin mentioned it the night before during a sleepover (my sister is fairly religious, not a fundamentalist like my aunt, luckily).

With no desire to tell her that her little cousin and my sister were crazy (I actually get along well with my sister, since she's not one to preach) and I hesitated ... I ended up just saying that sometimes people believe in silly things because they don't know how things really work.

Notice from your own quote "in the usual way that people picture explosions" as well as the operative word "usually" from the definition I supplied. So as usual, you're arguing semantics instead of facts. I guess that's what will always occur when trying to inform you religions on anything outside "The Good Book". Oh well.



As a general practice due to personal preference, I don't spam responses. I put everything I want to say in a single response, if possible. I don't expect others to do it, just the way I do things. Its not sloppy ... I think people should be able recognize their own words. Apparently, I was wrong.

From your own source (Wikipedia): An explosion is a rapid increase in volume and release of energy in an extreme manner, usually with the generation of high temperatures and the release of gases.

So, actual scientists at the University of Michigan, as a source, suck on matters of science? Well played.



Didn't notice, don't care. You still had plenty of time to glance for "five seconds". I have no evidence whatsoever of your youTube experience nor your fudgesicle, just as you have no evidence of the state of the universe before the big bang as you've claimed. Nor do I make a habit of checking timestamps. Nor do I sit on this forum all day. Sorry.

BTW, the second half of my post was addressed to Peter, not you. If you would take the time to notice, it was HIS material I quoted. Now who's the moron?

Obviously, you bring up points and then reference your sources. That's how this works, otherwise you're just throwing insults. We can't very well just blindly agree he's loony without understanding why YOU think he's loony.



Where did you get this information?

1) Cut out the federal Department of Education and give the money directly to the states, cities and counties to use ... hmm.

2) Admittedly don't know much about the JBS.

3) I've seen nothing about withdrawal, but refusing to allow the UN to designate US troop deployment isn't a bad thing.

4) Elimination of income tax and the IRS, you mean? Replacing it with a flat sales tax added to already existent state sales taxes and advance refunds for purchases on basic necessities and for those on the poverty level? Sounds good to me.

5 - 7) Where'd you get your information? I'd like to see it.



So you say, and so does everyone else. But NO ONE has a reason to lie, right? Everyone's telling the truth, so we should just take everyone's word for fact, right? Isn't that always what you're speaking against?

I'll skip that part since it doesn't apply to me.



Schooled? No, sorry. You can't just pop on Wikipedia for five seconds and claim to know better than anyone else. From the University of Michigan:

"About 15 billion years ago a tremendous explosion started the expansion of the universe. This explosion is known as the Big Bang. At the point of this event all of the matter and energy of space was contained at one point. What exisisted prior to this event is completely unknown and is a matter of pure speculation. This occurance was not a conventional explosion but rather an event filling all of space with all of the particles of the embryonic universe rushing away from each other."

Hmm, no matter the argument ... a) if matter formed from the energy contained within the singularity, then b) the singularity contained all matter. More importantly, all matter, condensed within any such tiny space would be superheated, yes, and just like with a black hole, the gravity involved would be massive.

Sorry, double post due to internet problems ... see previous page.

But that's exactly what you're saying and I ...



Peter claimed the same:



Who said anything about the universe not being eternal? Just because it may continue to expand and the galaxies and solar systems all go dim and die cold deaths doesn't mean the intermediary space (and therefore the universe as a whole) ceases to exist. Eternity in darkness is still eternity.



How do you know? Are you this eternal imaginary friend you keep talking about? You sit here and tell us that we can't know what caused the big bang and you're claiming to know the conditions prior to it. That's a bit sanctimonious, don't you think?



The expansion of the universe (observed) is proof enough of the big bang whether or not we know its cause.



He's a smart guy, you should listen to him. Since all matter displays gravity (however minute and difficult to detect for objects without a great amount of mass) and all matter was contained within the singularity that gave birth to the universe by means of the big bang, then gravity was plentiful and therefore the big bang was possible.



All matter was present in the singularity. It would have had the strongest gravity field ever since it contained all the matter in the universe.

He's right, you know. I have actually respected what you have to say in some of threads because you often actually back it up with sound reasoning ... I may not always agree, but I respect. However, here, you sound like my grandmother's bird. "Ron Paul is bad. Squawk! Ron Paul is bad." "Why?" "Squawk! Ron Paul is bad."

Saying "if you just read what he says, its obvious" is the exact same as the religions saying the same about the Bible. Back up your opinion, or be no better than they are.

It doesn't defy reason if the scientific community holds the Big Bang Theory as the most plausible cause for the creation of the universe. The idea that religion has no place in science is purely scientific, not atheistic. You cannot assume some great fictional creator did everything first because at that point you're not looking for "what happened here", you're looking at "how did this fictional creator do this" ... its not scientific and it doesn't get unbiased or repetitive results.



From what I remember, Isaac Newton was only "religious" because of his association with the Masons. Einstein was an atheist, though he did use the word God to describe the mystery, beauty and vastness of the universe ... he, himself, explained this when asked and also stated that he did not believe in any kind of sentient creator.

"How did God do this" may have driven science for over a thousand years, but where was it driven? Most of the time scientists were being paid to drive science in specific directions and results to appease the church (who was paying them) to continually prove God's existence. This is not science. If you don't believe scientific progress has greatly accelerated over the past hundred years or so after religion was mostly dropped from the equation, you need to open up a science book or two.

That's a horrible way to go about it and here's why ...

The more people that watch a show when it airs, the higher the probability that it WON'T GET CANCELLED.

You've already read the first book at least (I'm assuming here), so why WOULDN'T you watch the series? Granted, you're not dealing with Fox here, so I'm sure we won't have another Firefly situation, but if the number of people who are unfamiliar with the book series begin to wane, then those who ARE familiar or the random people they picked up this season who maintain interest (its hard to run a serial series ... attention spans are just too short, that's why sitcoms are so popular) are the only patronage they have to go on. Therefore, if you're a fan of the books, WATCH THE SERIES. If you don't like how its done, fine, do something else, but if you want it to continue, you HAVE to watch when it airs.

If you haven't read A Clash of Kings, you have 9 months to get through it before Season 2 begins. Read! Watch! Weeeeeeeee!

Hehehe.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that its still racism to vote for color, whether for or against ... and I knew several people who voted against for that reason.

What I'm saying is that many people vote based on any number of superficial reasons rather than real issues in every election. How is voting race much different than on the basis of sex (Hilary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann)? What about faithfully voting Republican or Democrat even if you agree with the message from the other side (how many times I heard 'I like John Kerry, but I have to vote Republican' back in 2004 ...)?

And now you ... stating that Ron Paul is "looney" without highlighting any reason why you think so leaves me to guess you don't like him because the rest of the GOP tells you you shouldn't ... making that just as superficial a reason as any.

So, hopefully this brings us back to the topic YOU STARTED and you can tell us exactly why you think Ron Paul is loony ... or was that just your way of attempting to discredit a valid candidate so you can advocate Michelle Bachmann?

I knew a guy who voted for Bush over Kerry because his dad was paying him $100 to do so. I also knew a girl three years ago who was voting for McCain because her dad was a Republican and told her in every election who she should vote for. It happens everywhere and for every candidate, not just Obama.