I am a Christian, but I really don't know, nor do I believe I ever will know how the universe began. I think these questions tend to divide and distract us from the real work of God. I also agree that God is the God of science and reason. Anything we learn that does not conform to our preconceived notions does not negate God. It proves that we did not understand properly. However, I do not think the question of the age of the earth and universe has been settled. I think it is dangerous to think like that. What if Einstein, Stephen Hawking or Max Planck or any of the other great modern scientists had just believed that physics was settled? We wouldn't have quantum theory (which provides a basis for many who argue that the universe is billions of years old.) My point is that science doesn't prove anything. It merely guides us and gives us best guesses based on current data. Euclid thought he was spot on and for ages everyone KNEW he was. But...he wasn't. He was close, but not really right. The same can be said about our knowledge today. I firmly believe that our current scientific beliefs will be shown to be lacking in several major areas as we develop better techniques, equipment, theories, etc. Most of science is controversial and that is exactly what spurs future developments. It is good for science to have people question, debate and never agree that something that cannot be proven (like evolution, the age of the universe, etc.) is settled.

Help. Several people I respect have recommended that I start my 3yo in piano lessons. Evidently he is showing a good deal of aptitude in this area. My older boys did not have interest- music class and some piano lessons and that was all she wrote. My dh plays violin, but has no idea about piano, esp. at this age. He didn't start til K. The best price I can find for a piano lesson for my son is a bit high for us - esp. for a 3 year old. Is there a dvd or other type curriculum that anyone could recommend? (He loves to do the MUS curriculum which made me think of a dvd. Don't even know if that exists.) Has anyone put their three year old in a formal music lesson and have any advice? Worth it? Just a frustration? If it's worth it, we will invest in the lessons, but I'd sure like to hear some BTDT advice from y'all.

I completely agree with PPs. Gift cards!! If you want a more tangible gift: Run this by his folks first, but we bought our nephew a leatherman multi-tool and he loved it. We have also given all sorts of cool outdoor hiking/camping/hunting gear and he's enjoyed and used them. Can his folks tell you if he needs anything for his sports or anything else - e.g. under armor athletic shirts for older nephews to wear underneath jerseys, cool sports bag to hold all the equipment, gift card for sports store.

Sherwin Williams Duration paint. I don't use anything else anymore. Goes on smoothly and I haven't needed primer. Gives a professional finish and lasts. Have used Behr with fine results - but more coats needed. Still, though, it is a good paint. HATE Lowe's Valspar. Ugh - drippy, streaky, just plain bad.

My good friend just started an organization to help pediatric oncology patients at the hospital near her - CHINS-Children in Need of Smiles. She is a cancer survivor herself and is a nurse at this hospital. She saw a need and figured out a way she could fill it. I love this idea and wanted to share it. It is such an easy, low cost idea to have a true impact on people. CHINS (Children in Need of Smiles) is a new organization created to replenish new items needed for sick children and their families at Inova Fairfax Children’s Hospital. Our mission is to provide comfort, support, and smiles to these children with the help of your donations and your time. http://www.childreninneedofsmiles.com/default.html Wanted to share to inspire anyone else who may just want to do something similar or see if it sparks some other fantastic idea for you. If you've ever started a ministry or organization, I'd love if you could post your story, too.

:iagree: Pictures and routines are huge. My boys did not clean up well until we put pictures of toys on the bins. Car on the car bin, lego on the lego bin, etc. They also loved chore charts for routines - dltk.com has some free, customizable ones with popular cartoon characters. You're setting up habits and routines for their entire lives. Keep it light and fun and just an every day thing that you do.

I didn't read anyone who said they'd be ok with people dying. I've read people mention medicare and other ways of fixing health care. Just because some of us don't think the gov't should be in charge of our medical care doesn't mean that we think people should die on the streets.

LOL! Raising my -second and final or Monday will be really bad- glass to you, fellow mother of three boys. :cheers2: Drat, we need a wine toasting emoticon.

See I knew we had something in common. I'm on my second glass of wine, too! You know, we'd be so much hipper if we were having this debate in a cool winery. WTM Board field trip!!! ;)

You call it gambling, I call it investing. You invested in real estate, paid property taxes, took ultimate responsibility for it. Plus, unless you took that money and reinvested it in another home in another community, you would be taxed on those gains. Guess what? I did the same thing you did and lost money on our house sale? Does that mean you owe me some of the money you made? Absolutely not. Do you consider investing gambling? I don't. I spend time researching each of my funds, cds, advisors, etc. Plus, that money is going to companies that use it to encourage economic growth (or make bad choices and I'll lose money on those stocks. No guarantees.) I don't put it on the same par at all with going to Vegas and putting it all on red. BTW, how did you earn the money to pay for that house? By working hard. It didn't just fall into your lap and get paid for by the mortgage fairy. Ask yourself, would you invest in stocks if you didn't have a chance of making a return on your investment? Would you buy a home if you knew you had no chance of making any money on it? Probably not. That interest (or capital gains) is a payment for your time and your risk and your opportunity cost - all of which are valuable economic assets. "To me, it seems much fairer to reward hard work with lower taxes" I couldn't agree more. That's why I don't think a progressive tax structure is fair. I totally agree with you that hard work is more noble than gambling. I also think that when people work hard and save hard, they shouldn't be expected to be piggy banks for everyone else.

ROFL!! All of that without passing the bean dip once!

Don't forget about tax credits though. "The result is a tax system that exempts almost half the country from paying for programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure and education. It is a system in which the top 10 percent of earners -- households making an average of $366,400 in 2006 -- paid about 73 percent of the income taxes collected by the federal government. The bottom 40 percent, on average, make a profit from the federal income tax, meaning they get more money in tax credits than they would otherwise owe in taxes. For those people, the government sends them a payment." http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly-half-of-US-households-apf-1105567323.html?x=0&.v=1 And I disagree that a progressive tax rate is not about sticking it to the rich. It is. As was previously mentioned, if we all pay 20%, then the rich are paying far more dollar sum than the middle class. I am a trained economist - not that it matters, but since you mentioned it I had to bring it up. ;) Progressive taxes hit small business hardest which does not expand the middle class. True - in a sense. You were lucky because you sold at a good time. Many did not. What happened was that you assumed risk and it turned out lucky. Many people did not. If people do not have the chance of getting rewarded for risk, they won't take it. The higher the tax on capital gains, the less investment there will be. Less investment = less economic growth = fewer jobs...

Nope, they'd leave. That's what happened in the UK they tried to get the rich to pay more. The top income bracket already pays an enormous amount of the taxes in this country. The top 1% pays 25% of the taxes. That is a huge amount to ask one percent of the country to pay. 47% of American households pay 0% - nada. Does that really sound fair? Would you think it was fair if the bank decided that you would pay 25% of the mortgages for your neighborhood, while half your neighbors got to live mortgage free? It's easy to be generous with other people's money. Doesn't make it right or constitutional. FYI - the top 1% already do give a lot outside of taxes. Already, the Top 50 donors, over the course of their lifetimes, have thrown a dizzying $65 billion at charitable causes. - Business Week

I agree. It is sad that many small businesses cannot make it today. The SBA had a fascinating study on one reason why - the crushing cost of regulation. The cost of regulation in CA alone is one third of the total GNP of Italy. Yikes. http://sba.ca.gov/Cost%20of%20Regulation%20Study%20-%20Final.pdf The study finds that the total cost of regulation to the State of California is $492.994 billion which is almost five times the State’s general fund budget, and almost a third of the State’s gross product. The cost of regulation results in an employment loss of 3.8 million jobs which is a tenth of the State’s population. Since small business constitute 99.2% of all employer businesses in California, and all of non-employer business, the regulatory cost is borne almost completely by small business. The total cost of regulation was $134,122.48 per small business in California in 2007.

Actually, a gallup poll shows that only 39% of Americans are dissatisfied with their health care. These polls can be confusing though. Similar to the polls about gov't satisfaction. If I vote no I'm not satisfied is that because the gov't is too liberal or conservative or not enough, kwim. They are vague and don't necessarily tell us a lot about the actual situation on the ground. Here is my biggest problem with the health care debate: I have no confidence that the government (same one that brings us the helpful and efficient IRS, DMV SSA, TARP, bailouts, etc.) will make our health care system better. Government is not efficient. I used to subcontract for the Fed. Gov't and these are not the institutions you want in charge of your health care. Plus, health care will turn into another Social Security debacle. Required changes will be impossible to implement because politicians will make it "political" and try to score points, appeal to their base, appease their main contributors, etc. We've known for over 20 years that social security was going to be out of money and yet nothing happened because it was political. I've lived under two socialized medicine systems and found them to be unsatisfactory - e.g. 6 month wait for an emergency cancer treatment. There are problems with US health system, but putting politicians in charge of health care just is not the way to fix those problems.

When people mention dissatisfaction with Canadian health care, this is the info that we are hearing on our side of the border. I found a couple of sites that said approx 17K Canadians come to the US each year for medical procedures. I could not find official counts on that, though. However, several top Canadian officials have come to the US for care in the past few years. From Wikipedia: According to a September 14, 2007, article from CTV News, Canadian Liberal MP Belinda Stronach went to the United States for breast cancer surgery in June 2007. Stronach's spokesperson Greg MacEachern was quoted in the article saying that the US was the best place to have this type of surgery done. Stronach paid for the surgery out of her own pocket.[73] Prior to this incident, Stronach had stated in an interview that she was against two-tiered health care.[74] When Robert Bourassa, the premier of Quebec, needed cancer treatment, he went to the US to get it.[75] In 2007, it was reported that Canada sent scores of pregnant women to the US to give birth.[76] In 2007 a woman from Calgary who was pregnant with quadruplets was sent to Great Falls, Montana to give birth. An article on this incident states there were no Canadian hospitals with enough neo-natal intensive beds to accommodate the extremely rare quadruple birth.[77] A January 19, 2008, article in The Globe And Mail states, "More than 150 critically ill Canadians – many with life-threatening cerebral hemorrhages – have been rushed to the United States since the spring of 2006 because they could not obtain intensive-care beds here. Before patients with bleeding in or outside the brain have been whisked through U.S. operating-room doors, some have languished for as long as eight hours in Canadian emergency wards while health-care workers scrambled to locate care." [78] In 2010, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams traveled to the US for heart surgery The median wait time in Canada to see a special physician is a little over four weeks with 89.5% waiting less than 90 days.[50] The median wait time for diagnostic services such as MRI and CAT scans [51] is two weeks with 86.4% waiting less than 90 days.[50] The median wait time for surgery is four weeks with 82.2% waiting less than 90 days.[50] Another study by the Commonwealth Fund found that 57% of Canadians reported waiting 30 days (4 weeks) or more to see a specialist, broadly in line with the current official statistics. A quarter (24%) of all Canadians waited 4 hours or more in the emergency room

These are great ideas. Thanks for taking the time to help me. I'm starting to feel a smidge less panicked. :)

Then why not call social security "welfare", rather than a retirement plan? PP was correct - you pay tens to hundreds of thousands into it and the gov't decides if and when and how much you get, if any. If you die before you collect, the gov't keeps it, rather than your family. This system doesn't strike me as fair or wise. (Plus, the gov't is massively in debt and cannot meet its current promised obligations. Not the people I trust with my retirement or my health.) If people need care and can't afford it, there is medicaid. If it needs to be reformed, let's talk about that. Why try to force everyone into a gov't plan as a way to help those who can't afford regular plans? Seems to me if we're trying to address the problem of low income people having access to quality health care, let address that.

Artichoke stuffing -a tradition in dh's family. No need to actually stuff it in the bird, I don't. I serve it as a side veg. Ingredients 1 pound mushrooms, rinsed, ends trimmed, and sliced 1 tablespoon butter 2 onions (3/4 lb. total), chopped 1 cup chopped celery 2 tablespoons minced garlic About 2 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth 1 loaf (1 lb.) sourdough bread, cut into 1/2-in. cubes 2 pkgs frozen artichoke hearts, drained and chopped 1 cup grated parmesan cheese 1 1/2 teaspoons poultry seasoning 1 1/2 tablespoons minced fresh rosemary leaves or 3/4 tsp. crumbled dried rosemary Salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 large egg Preparation 1. In a 12-in. frying pan over high heat, cook mushrooms, butter, onions, celery, and garlic, stirring often, until vegetables are lightly browned, about 15 minutes. Pour into a large bowl. Add a bit of broth to pan and stir to scrape up browned bits. Add to bowl. 2. Pour 2 cups broth into bowl and add bread, artichoke hearts, parmesan, poultry seasoning, and rosemary; mix well. Add salt and pepper to taste. Make a well in stuffing. Add egg and beat with a fork to blend; mix egg with stuffing. 3. Preheat oven to 325° to 350° (use temperature turkey requires; see Note below). Spoon stuffing into a shallow 3-qt. (9- by 13-in.) casserole. For moist stuffing, cover with foil; for crusty stuffing, do not cover. Bake until hot (at least 150° in center) or lightly browned, about 50 minutes. Make ahead: Up to 1 day ahead, make stuffing, put in casserole, cover, and chill. Allow about 1 hour to bake. Note: For turkeys 10-13 lbs., oven/bbq temperature should be 350°; for turkeys 14 lbs. and over, oven/bbq temperature should be 325°. MIL's awesome rolls Ingredients 2 cups milk 2 eggs room temp 1 cup butter, softened 1/3 cup white sugar 1 teaspoon salt 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast Place milk and butter in microwave safe container and heat til butter is melted. Crack in eggs while stirring. Meanwhile pour yeast and sugar in large bowl. Pour milk mixture over it. Stir. Add a cup of flour at a time. After the first cup, add salt. Keep adding dough til soft but holds shape. Knead til smooth. Allow to rise - approx. 1 hr. Shape into rolls. Place on greased pan and quick and lightly spray tops with pam (gross, I know, but it works). Bake 400 til golden. MIL makes them better than I do, but even I can't mess these up.

Hive, I need your help. My inlaws are coming for over a week for Thanksgiving. What do you do to prepare for overnight guests for that length of time? Recipes, entertaining tips, strategies, planning/cleaning tips, random tips... They are big foodies so I know food will be a big part of the visit, but I can't spend all that time cooking and cleaning - so any advanced prep ideas that you have are doubly appreciated. Thanks!!

Fantastic article. Reminds me of a friend who would ask her son "what is this?" He would answer "a spoon." Then she'd say "yes, but what else could it be?" Brilliant family. The kid's teachers did NOT appreciate his creativity at all! sigh. One curriculum I've enjoyed that helps foster these kinds of discussions is Science:The Search by David Quine (Cornerstone curriculum) Haven't tried Making Math Meaningful, but heard good things about it, too. I also think FLL robotics is great for this (but, I'm a little biased on that front.) ;)

"We don't consider spanking abuse, but we do encourage some parents to use alternative methods," said Marleigh Meisner, public information officer for CPS

I was a happy and lonely voter. I showed up to the polling place expecting crowds but was the only voter there. Yikes. It was my first time voting in the state. I had all sorts of i.d. forms - driver's license (with temp. housing address), utility bill and pay stub with current address and SS card. The volunteers laughed at me and said as long as my name was in the printout they didn't need all that "other stuff." Are you kidding me? Shouldn't you check my DL? Verify my address? Something. So I guess I should change my response to a lonely and somewhat bewildered voter.

I think it's sad but has a grain of truth. Here's the dilemma as I see it. The schools were failing. What's the solution? Well,we threw a bunch of money at schools and they still failed. Ok, so now we'll try NCLB and lots more money. Now the schools teach to the test rather than allowing the test to evaluate how much the kids are learning in the course of their year. So what is the solution? I don't know. I think more freedom of school choice would help, but that would be a band aid on the larger problem. Thoughts?

We only spend 2 hours a week in team time here. That doesn't include homework - which varies. We also have a few weekend 3 hour sessions throughout the season. We have two more planned before competition. We still have lots of challenges to program, but thankfully our presentation is 90% done. Funny that you mentioned the segregated teams. My mom has one all girl team and one mixed team. The mixed team is far ahead of the girl team. Way too much time on the girl team spent chatting. ;) It all depends on the kids. The schedule seems really early this year - especially for robotics heavy states. Last year our competition was a week before Christmas. I could sure use those weeks now!!! Don't know why they changed the schedule. I know that some states just have a LOT of robotics teams and I guess that was just how they could accomodate them all. Just a guess. I'd love to hear the real reason. Anyone going to int'l competition this year? We went to ATL last year and it was amazing!! My two year old even had a good time. If you're feeling burned out, that is the place to go get recharged. Seeing the fantastic kids, great attitudes and amazing science there will fire you up again. Good luck to all of you with early regionals!!!