Why is the sky blue?

Donna Long: …was caught by surprise with this question, so I’ll go to a textbook answer. A brilliant blue sky with the sun shining bright and all the trees green and the sky is a light blue. It is oxygen. And outside the the atmosphere the oxygen and light just “fade away” into space. You can still breathe up an alititude of 1.9 miles. The whole atmosphere is 7 miles. With less O2 and more CO2, the atmosphere has decreased. Hence global warming.
Put water into the mixture on a sunny day and you get to see the full spectrum of light in a rainbow.

Where Do babies come from?

Dave: Did you notice that mommy was fat for a while, then suddenly she wasn’t? Then she came back with your newborn baby sister?
Little Baby Amy grew inside mommy. And due to the miracle of life, when she was ready to come out, she did.
Thats the way God made things and when you get a little older, we’ll talk more about it and it’s a good story.

What’s a lawyer?

Patsy: Has anyone seen the movie that Jim Carey’s in, Liar Liar where the kids get up and tell what their father’s do.
This kid doesn’t want to tell what his father does. The father gets so busy and so caught up in his work, that he misses the kids birthday party and his game.
In the movie Jim Carey is given this gift, or maybe curse, that he can’t lie. So when he goes to court and has this person he is defending, he starts blurting out the truth to the judge.
We all know that, quite realistically though, attorney’s are someone we hope we never have to count on in our lives. But we’re at the point in our lives where we have something come up, we’re awfully glad they are there.

Tami: Next I have an actual question that I asked my own father and you should have seen his mouth drop when he heard it. So I’m going to call on Matt because he’s the only one whose probably comfortable enough to try to answer this.

Why do they call Mary a virgin?

Matt (winner): Well Junior, Mary’s a virgin because she was a special person chosen by God to bear his child in a way that we don’t comprehend. God did not make Jesus the way your mom and I made you, which is a story we’ll talk about when you’re sixteen.
God reached into Mary’s womb, tickled it and made Jesus Christ. So next time you hear me tickling your mom. . . (laughter and applause)

Sahra asks: What does the word courage mean to you?

Patsy:  Reaching deep within myself and coming up with something,
sometimes, that I didn’t realize was there.
There are people that do courageous things  that they wouldn’t do in
everyday life, like soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters from 911 by
the virtue of their positions. They have to reach deeper inside and
say I’m willing to give it all for something I believe.
Courage for me? When I was young, I never took aspirin because I
couldn’t swallow pills. So my mother would grind the orange tablets up
into strawberry preserves or bananas, and if I didn’t want to eat them
that way, she’d tell me she’d just have to force them down my throat
as she would a dog.
I didn’t have the courage to go through with that!

David (new member): Courage is doing what you ought to do, what you
know you should do, in spite of how afraid you are.
You have an opportunity, pretty much every day, to do something in a
courageous way, to push yourself beyond the boundaries of where you
were the day before.
Because of my own social fears, having courage and developing
confidence is the most important thing in my life right now.
It’s important to be book smart, but people who have confidence tend
to realize their potential.
That’s why I’m here. So thanks.

Jim:
Courage is to keep pushing yourself in situations where it might be
uncomfortable or require a lot of discipline. Courage is basically
controlling your emotions and your fear.

Everybody has fears and doubts but if you can act appropriately in
times of crisis or peril, then you can preserve your life and maybe
someone else’s.
This comes from the military, of course. But through experience you
can develop techniques for survival. Everybody is afraid.
If you freeze, your buzzard bait, as they say.

Dave Weber:

I like courageous movies, like westerns or crime thrillers.
Like Clint Eastwood, taking on all the bad guys and taking them out
with quick and deadly aim, I feel that table topics is like that. It
requires courage if you are to be given serious consideration in the
vote.
But I mention a movie because I’ve gotten all my visions of courage
from the movies or tv shows, none of it from personal experience.
So its hard for me personally to talk about courage. But I have
learned something valuable from table topics, that it has given me a
chance to be courageous in the real world.

Jim (winner):  I was sitting in front of my computer and a friend
called me on the phone and said: “Turn on the television!”
I turned it on just in time to see the second plane hit and I was shocked.
This was a common reaction around the country. I finally watched the
towers crumble and it was surreal. This is something that cannot
happen, I told myself. But it was happening!
First I was dumbfounded. Then I became angry. who did this? And why?
Today I have a feeling of concern, because to paraphrase Abraham
Lincoln, “a house divided cannot stand!” And we are under attack.
Do not ignore the risk to us! We are complacent! We have sunk back
into the comfort zone!
But there are people who would, without any compunction, destroy a
great city to bring us to our knees.
And they are beyond reason!
Be warned, be careful and God bless you.

Madeline:  I heard about it when we were up in Sand Point. My son had
turned his television on just after a plane had hit the second tower.
We turned ours on and I think we sat in front of it all day.
I get terribly disturbed that we’re not united behind this president,
whether you are Republican or Democrat. He is our war-time president
and we must stand together. We cannot destroy what he is trying to do.
We’ve got an election coming up. It’s your chance to say how you feel about it.

Hunter (new member): I heard about the attacks as I in Wisconsin
working on a friends barn.
She came out and said that something bad had happened in New York
City.  I remember feeling numb. Not angry, just numb.
I want to be supportive of our government and of the troops but

growing up in the Vietnam War and seeing families argue and fight, I
think as a country we only have so many resources. Personally, I’d
rather see our national resources spent toward education and
healthcare, problems we have at home, rather than missiles and bombs.
So I’m conflicted. I want to be supportive, but I question whether
it’s the best use of our resources.

Patsy: Unfortunately I remember that day very well. I was at work when
I heard the news. What I thought I’d heard was that a plane had taken
off from Dallas Airport. I have family in Dallas and a sister who
travels quite frequently.
I had a little Shitzu had to be put to sleep that day, and as it
closed it’s innocent little eyes and went to sleep forever, on the tv
in the room I watched the towers fall. (brushes away tears)

Will the cease-fire hold between Hezbollah and Israel?

Vern:
Is there anybody here that believes that the cease-fire will hold when there is a group of people who object so much to Jews, Christians and anyone who isn’t a Muslim!
Do you think these people are really going to be held back? Absolutely not.
They’ll come back stronger than they were before when they attack again.
I don’t know whether we should have brokered a cease-fire or if we should have just let Israel go and finish the job and wipe Hezbollah out.
They don’t want peace. They haven’t wanted peace for centuries. Their whole purpose is: if you’re not a Muslim, you’re not worth being alive.
Like in an old western, when the cowboys talked about the Indians, they now believe: “the only good Christian, Jew, Hindu or Buddhist are the dead ones!”
I hope that all Muslims do not share that same philosophy. I’m afraid a lot of them do, even some that were born in England and the United States and have had all the privileges of our society. They still want to kill us.
So ladies and gentlemen, I hate to tell you: the peace will not last.
The only way to ensure peace is to eliminate the enemy.

What did you think of the debate between incumbent Nelson and challenger Ricketts?
Jim Simmons:
I watched the August 11 debate between Pete Ricketts and our-used-to-be-esteemed Senator Ben Nelson and all the circumnavigation of elocution to avoid making a specific statement by which he might be held accountable. He used the standard technique of not giving you the whole story, but giving you part of the story.
For instance, Ben Nelson said: as governor the state of Nebraska had a balanced budget. Well, that’s by law that you have to have a balanced budget.
I also happen to be one of the proponents of changing the (sic) infernal revenue service, so he hit my hot button when he trashed the whole issue of scrapping the income tax in favor of a sales tax, incorrectly saying that it would be an additional 30% sales tax.
It is not. It was never designed to be an additional tax, but a replacement tax.
Either he didn’t read the book or doesn’t understand it, or he’s lying.

Question (Randy)
There is a young man, twenty-five years old who was dating a woman who said she had no interest in marriage or having a child and that she was on the pill. She gave birth to a child and now wants this young man to pay child support. Do you think he should be required to pay child support?

Dawn: If she wasn’t interested and was taking the pill, then you’ve got to wonder: how could this happen?
Before anything, there should be some testing done to see if he’s the dad.

Walt: It’s difficult for me to be a judge in other people’s lives, especially when I lack all the pertinent information.
I have no idea whether there was a DNA test, so I don’t know for sure if this young man is the father.
While it appears is that he was involved with her, I’m not sure he even knew that she had gotten pregnant or given birth. I don’t know whether he was told about it when the child was seven, ten, twelve years old, or only three months.
Does this young man and women care for each other? Can the man learn to love the child?
And barring that? (sharp gavel rap) DNA test!

Evelyn: (the winner) Quite a conundrum. I have a very difficult time with the idea of being a child coming into the world without support.
We haven’t had the immaculate conception since Jesus! So both of them should be responsible.
But maybe there should be another concern. When this child grows up and learns of this court case, this child might not appreciate either the mother or father!
So maybe there should be an alternative plan and arrange for adoption by some loving parents.
I think that there is a lot more to being a parent than sex and definitely more than financial support!

Matt: Yes. When you consent to sex, you are consenting to all the obligations that go along with it. One of them is that you might become a parent!
And at the point where you say yes to having sex, having a child is also your obligation.