Caleb and Sophia video game at Bethel, Madrid

John Houston said: Sure it was. Read any decent books on geology and paleontology. The earth formed about 4.7 billion years ago, the earliest traces of life are at least 3.5 billion years old, macroscopic life with hard parts first appeared about 550 million years ago. Within a short time predators appeared. Do you not accept this? Ah, you're a young-earth creationist. No wonder you say such things. So if scripture said the moon is made of cheddar cheese, would you believe it? So you think the Bible trumps science and the fossil record. Most predators are both scavengers and active hunters. Problem solved. Predators that also scavenged. The fossil record records plenty of examples of predator/prey interaction. For example, many trilobites, up to 520 million years old, exhibit bites taken out of their shells. A few of these exhibit partially healed bite marks, showing that they survived an attack and lived on. That is not possible in a young-earth creationist view. So again, which do you accept? The fossil record and science, or the fallible biblical interpretations of a few religious leaders?

I would like to say this... when I read about the creation, life was not created as "red in tooth and claw" as you put it. Life was not eating each other to exist. At death maybe, but no life form was hunting another for food in the beginning. Things have to make sense if one believes in scripture. Can't believe in one concept and not another. If it is written that life was to eat, and that was ALL LIFE, green vegetation, then common sense would tell me, the only meateating was going on at death, scavengering a carcass. No, wild ferocious dinosaurs as science think they know from bones. But ask yourself, what cleaned away these massive bodies after they died? We have sharks in the seas, what is left over it settles on the bottom for scavenging. And we see that today. Animals not created to live forever had to be removed, cleaned up after, who,did that Adam? Come on think about it.

And yet the Prism and South of Baghdad says otherwise.

Yes. But with no change to the meaning or interpretation of the term "high crimes and misdemeanors" as we can see by every example of those officials who were impeached during the years when that phrase still held the British meaning. And we can also compare every example of those officials who were impeached in Britain during the centuries and decades leading up to the US Constitution, and beyond. I should also add that I think Trump is guilty of many abuses of power. If he was right about the way that he says Obama was guilty of abuses of power (and I think he was) then Trump must be guilty by his own admission. I also think that Trump definitely had in mind a quid pro quo with Ukraine. This doesn't mean that he got his way, however. The people around him often tend to reel him in, or just end up doing the more politically legal thing, even if Trump is ready and proud to do something illegal or unethical. Even if Trump only did the right thing after he was "caught" as Democrats would like to say, it doesn't make the desire to do the wrong thing, or even the request "impeachable" on its own. Trying to do the wrong thing, is not the same as doing it. One can point out the fact that aid was held up, and even that it was held up so that he would get something he wanted of personal benefit. But if the other side did not give him what he wanted, then we don't have the crux of the quid pro quo anyway. Personally, I don't even think it's the right thing to give aid to Ukraine. The whole point is to paint Russia as an evil adversary or enemy when we are not at war, or shouldn't be. We keep a proxy war going through Ukraine only because we (and especially Democrats) love the idea of a powerful bullying empirical power that shows it wants to stand up to Putin, even if this teases out a WWIII. The Democrats want to look even stronger against Putin, because they are still stuck on this missed chance to make it look like Trump is weak on Putin, or somehow in cahoots with Putin. Trump actually tends, most of the time, toward a foreign policy that is less hawkish than Democrats. Of course, that probably doesn't sit well with several of the military agencies and contractors who "need" more war. Many of Trump's "walkbacks" have been over times when he wanted to scale back military operations and expenditures, but came back the next day to show that it wasn't a real scaling back. Some say they can see a pattern which was especially predictable with Bolton, Pompeo, etc. As his advisors and cabinets change personnel, his own statements will still always be unpredictable, but his "walkbacks" are less so.  After listening carefully to a few minutes of the testimony today, I'm thinking that Biden's son was picked by Burisma for the same reason that a corrupt company like Theranos put Reagan-era George Schultz on its board. It is a way to pay for some credibility or even protect from too much inquiry or investigation. And after watching him become the most hated mayor in America, Giuliani is just about the kind of person I would expect to be looking for these same kinds of deals for his friends and relatives. Also I got the impression that the phone transcript of Trump's "perfect" call is not the full transcript. There was too much legal activity going on immediately after the call to make sure that transcript would become legal. There were some hints in the way legal-savvy people word their answers that raised some flags for me.  

And, as I remember, the Colonists thought the British Interpretation of how things should be handled that was an onerous burden to them ... sufficient enough to go to war against the mightiest  army and navy of that time period.