Zixar

Thanks, everyone!

Now, George Aar and I could probably argue over the color of a stop sign, but he's right on the money with this. Don't waste any time over HOW something was accomplished. If you're a believer, then the exact origin and meaning of the giants in the earth phrase in Genesis got exactly as much theopneustos-type mention as the Creator wanted--zero. If you're not a believer, then speculating over genetic mutations millennia ago with no tissue samples in hand to compare is like speculating who's going to win the World Series in the year 3000--completely devoid of any concrete basis from which to judge. It makes just as much sense to say Satan miracled evil humans out of thin air as it does to try to explain some tiny DNA manipulation on his part. How did Christ feed five thousand people with one kid's lunch? "Well, perhaps Jesus reached into the fourth-dimensional hypersolid that underlay the 3-D manifestation in our physical world of the loaves and fishes. broke parts of it off, which would of course have been identical 3-D slices off its 4-D entity, and distributed those among the crowd." Flashy, scientific, plausible...and utterly devoid of any evidence either for or against it. Trying to explain supernature through nature is like dividing by zero. Keep perspective! If you want to believe, (like I do), why not just accept that the Supreme Being of the Universe is not bound by our physical laws--having written them Himself. If you don't, then you won't even give such matters the tiniest bit of thought anyway. Miracles happen, QED. God bless! Zix

Never been to Ireland, but from what I hear, it could definitely qualify as one of the wondrous things for this thread... Have a whiskey for me as well! God bless, Zix

Rascal! (((too many hugs back atcha))) How's life with your tribe?

For some reason, this just brings to mind a parallel between TWI and Monty Python's Life of Brian: BRIAN You're all individuals! CROWD (in unison) YES! WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS! BRIAN You're all different! CROWD YES! WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT! MAN IN FRONT I'm not... BRIAN NOW F--- OFF! Crowd looks puzzled... MAN#2 How shall we f--- off, O Lord? BRIAN Oh, I don't know, JUST GO AWAY!!!! I totally agree with mudflaps--if the talent wasn't controlled by TWI, it was Eeeeeevil! I still remember LCM's intro to a "Christian comedy" tape that TWI put out in the early 80s. It was just such utter hypocrisy. Instead of ministering to those who might struggle with different religions or lifestyles, it just made fun of them, put them down, or insulted them. Yet somehow that was "godly" (which god, Craig?) and other comedians doing similar things--even against the same people--were "possessed". Sam Kinnison insults homosexuals=devil spirit. TWI does it=good clean family fun! To me (and this is just my opinion) it makes the most sense if the "no respecter of persons" bit doesn't mean we're all supposed to be identical--any fool can see that we're not. Maybe it means we were all built on the same number of "points". Most of the kids in school could run faster than I could, but I usually did better on tests. Maybe I got ten points moved from Running to IQ. Maybe the people who are both brain surgeons and Olympic athletes pulled some sort of crippling mental problem to balance them out (-15 points Irrational Attraction to Overachievement, or some such.) I don't know. I just think that our differences are what makes the social bond that much stronger and more important. Not everyone has to do everything--that's frightfully redundant!

Yup, a two-parter with the Silurians, then they meet Vincent van Gogh the next week, then it's James Corden (Smithy from Gavin & Stacey fame), and I believe River Song returns in the two-part season finale, where the cracks in time plotline should finally get resolved.

I thought I was going to hate Matt Smith as the new Doctor, but he's turned out to be absolutely brilliant in the role, thanks in no small part to the switch in producers from Russell T Davies to Steven Moffat. Moffat is a far, far better writer than Davies ever was, and he has given a real humanity and vulnerability to the Eleventh Doctor. And I absolutely LOVE Karen Gillan as Amy Pond. I liked Rose, but Amy is just wonderful. I think she's the most "real" companion the Doctor has ever had, and I'd almost say he cares for her more than the 9th and 10th Doctors cared for Rose. Moffat, Smith, and Gillan have turned Doctor Who from one of my "shows I really like" into "why isn't next Saturday here yet????" Too bad the US is about 3 episodes behind the UK, but at least it's not several years behind like it used to be. Moffat has promised that this season's two-part finale will have fans crying at the end of BOTH parts--for different reasons. I believe him. Can't wait!

Thanks, Gen! Love that song! (Been a Python fan for way too many years...) Yes, Scorpius is one of those cool constellations that actually look like what they're supposed to be. It's even cooler when Mars passes through and battles it out with Antares for the "who's redder" contest. With binoculars, you can see the clusters M6 and M7 down near the "cat's eyes" in the tail. Florida, eh? Well, I'm in middle Georgia now. Let me know if you ever want to take a good look at Scorpius, and I'll set up the telescopes! God bless! Zix

Hi Gen, Just got back on GSC after a prolonged absence, and found this thread. As an amateur astronomer, and all-around science buff in general, the Universe itself is so amazingly and mind-bogglingly full of wonder that (to me, anyway) anyone who thinks that it all just somehow randomly happened hasn't fully grasped the complexities of what's going on. I was watching a BBC program on Invisible Worlds tonight, and the presenter was showing all the marvelous things we'd see if we could see into other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, like x-rays, ultraviolet, and so on. All sorts of fascinating things were shown, like, with a high-speed hi-definition x-ray camera, we can actually see how a cat can easily withstand a fall from ten times its own height without any injury at all, while a human being is lucky if it can withstand a fall from twice its own height. (Has to do with the shock-absorbing qualities of cat shoulders and feet versus the relative inflexibility of human knee joints, but I digress...) The most mind-boggling bit they showed was an infrared picture of the inner workings of a beehive. On the face of it, you'd think there isn't a ton of difference between any two bugs. Horseflies and honeybees are about the same size, yet ten thousand flies can't do a fraction of the amazing things ten thousand honeybees can do, all with a speck of a brain the size of a pinhead. That certain bees keep their wings going to circulate and cool the air in the hive has been known for a while now, but the IR camera shows something startling--there are actually "heater" bees that shiver their flight muscles constantly to precise temperatures in order to incubate bee larvae in the wax cells of the nursery. Heater bees of a certain temperature incubate in-hive workers, while heater bees who generate higher temperatures incubate the flying workers--and it's solely the temperature of incubation that determines the larval bees' final development. So these bees shiver constantly--and other bees go bring them honey to "refuel" them. Thousands of times over, in millions of beehives around the world, and all from bugs with barely enough brain to keep their skulls full. That there are so many ridiculously-specific tasks these little blighters all perform to perfection is just wondrous beyond belief. At least it is to me, anyway... God bless! Zix

You got that right! How's it going, Paw?

Galen: Broken mirror? Harrumph! Do I look like the sort who would go for such superstitious nonsense? I chased a black cat under a ladder after I spilled the salt on a cracked sidewalk. Everyone knows THAT... God bless! Zix

No, actually things are going REALLY bad for me, truth be told. In the past seventeen months I've lost pretty much everything I had. Lost my job, then my house, then my pets, then my new job, then my apartment, then my car, and now my second wife is divorcing me. Hopefully no one else is that bad off here!

Wow, GSC is still around? You were all supposed to be greasespots by midnight! Quit procrastinating! :wacko: