olyclimber

he friends were silent. Neither cared to begin talking. Pierre continually glanced at Prince Andrew; Prince Andrew rubbed his forehead with his small hand. "Let us go and have supper," he said with a sigh, going to the door. They entered the elegant, newly decorated, and luxurious dining room. Everything from the table napkins to the silver, china, and glass bore that imprint of newness found in the households of the newly married. Halfway through supper Prince Andrew leaned his elbows on the table and, with a look of nervous agitation such as Pierre had never before seen on his face, began to talk- as one who has long had something on his mind and suddenly determines to speak out. "Never, never marry, my dear fellow! That's my advice: never marry till you can say to yourself that you have done all you are capable of, and until you have ceased to love the woman of your choice and have seen her plainly as she is, or else you will make a cruel and irrevocable mistake. Marry when you are old and good for nothing- or all that is good and noble in you will be lost. It will all be wasted on trifles. Yes! Yes! Yes! Don't look at me with such surprise. If you marry expecting anything from yourself in the future, you will feel at every step that for you all is ended, all is closed except the drawing room, where you will be ranged side by side with a court lackey and an idiot!... But what's the good?..." and he waved his arm. Pierre took off his spectacles, which made his face seem different and the good-natured expression still more apparent, and gazed at his friend in amazement. "My wife," continued Prince Andrew, "is an excellent woman, one of those rare women with whom a man's honor is safe; but, O God, what would I not give now to be unmarried! You are the first and only one to whom I mention this, because I like you." As he said this Prince Andrew was less than ever like that Bolkonski who had lolled in Anna Pavlovna's easy chairs and with half-closed eyes had uttered French phrases between his teeth. Every muscle of his thin face was now quivering with nervous excitement; his eyes, in which the fire of life had seemed extinguished, now flashed with brilliant light. It was evident that the more lifeless he seemed at ordinary times, the more impassioned he became in these moments of almost morbid irritation. "You don't understand why I say this," he continued, "but it is the whole story of life. You talk of Bonaparte and his career," said he (though Pierre had not mentioned Bonaparte), "but Bonaparte when he worked went step by step toward his goal. He was free, he had nothing but his aim to consider, and he reached it. But tie yourself up with a woman and, like a chained convict, you lose all freedom! And all you have of hope and strength merely weighs you down and torments you with regret. Drawing rooms, gossip, balls, vanity, and triviality- these are the enchanted circle I cannot escape from. I am now going to the war, the greatest war there ever was, and I know nothing and am fit for nothing. I am very amiable and have a caustic wit," continued Prince Andrew, "and at Anna Pavlovna's they listen to me. And that stupid set without whom my wife cannot exist, and those women... If you only knew what those society women are, and women in general! My father is right. Selfish, vain, stupid, trivial in everything- that's what women are when you see them in their true colors! When you meet them in society it seems as if there were something in them, but there's nothing, nothing, nothing! No, don't marry, my dear fellow; don't marry!" concluded Prince Andrew. "It seems funny to me," said Pierre, "that you, you should consider yourself incapable and your life a spoiled life. You have everything before you, everything. And you..." He did not finish his sentence, but his tone showed how highly he thought of his friend and how much he expected of him in the future. "How can he talk like that?" thought Pierre. He considered his friend a model of perfection because Prince Andrew possessed in the highest degree just the very qualities Pierre lacked, and which might be best described as strength of will. Pierre was always astonished at Prince Andrew's calm manner of treating everybody, his extraordinary memory, his extensive reading (he had read everything, knew everything, and had an opinion about everything), but above all at his capacity for work and study. And if Pierre was often struck by Andrew's lack of capacity for philosophical meditation (to which he himself was particularly addicted), he regarded even this not as a defect but as a sign of strength. Even in the best, most friendly and simplest relations of life, praise and commendation are essential, just as grease is necessary to wheels that they may run smoothly. "My part is played out," said Prince Andrew. "What's the use of talking about me? Let us talk about you," he added after a silence, smiling at his reassuring thoughts. That smile was immediately reflected on Pierre's face. "But what is there to say about me?" said Pierre, his face relaxing into a careless, merry smile. "What am I? An illegitimate son!" He suddenly blushed crimson, and it was plain that he had made a great effort to say this. "Without a name and without means... And it really..." But he did not say what "it really" was. "For the present I am free and am all right. Only I haven't the least idea what I am to do; I wanted to consult you seriously." Prince Andrew looked kindly at him, yet his glance- friendly and affectionate as it was- expressed a sense of his own superiority. "I am fond of you, especially as you are the one live man among our whole set. Yes, you're all right! Choose what you will; it's all the same. You'll be all right anywhere. But look here: give up visiting those Kuragins and leading that sort of life. It suits you so badly- all this debauchery, dissipation, and the rest of it!" "What would you have, my dear fellow?" answered Pierre, shrugging his shoulders. "Women, my dear fellow; women!" "I don't understand it," replied Prince Andrew. "Women who are comme il faut, that's a different matter; but the Kuragins' set of women, 'women and wine' I don't understand!" Pierre was staying at Prince Vasili Kuragin's and sharing the dissipated life of his son Anatole, the son whom they were planning to reform by marrying him to Prince Andrew's sister. "Do you know?" said Pierre, as if suddenly struck by a happy thought, "seriously, I have long been thinking of it.... Leading such a life I can't decide or think properly about anything. One's head aches, and one spends all one's money. He asked me for tonight, but I won't go." "You give me your word of honor not to go?" "On my honor!"

I'll be having a three-way with your old roommate and old boyfriend, showing them how to do it.

Arcateryx clearly makes an evolutionary garment. Too bad the price doesn't evolve downward while maintaining a high level of quality.

the growth of this bone clearly suggest evolution:

those modem decades were a bitch. thank baby jesus for broadband.

I love rock and roll, so put another dime in the jukebox baby

Dream, when you're feeling blue Dream, that's the thing to do Just watch the smoke rings rise in the air You'll find your share of memories there So dream when the day is through Dream, and they might come true Things never are as bad as they seem So dream, dream, dream

Dude...get real. There was very little fun here...this "conversation" hits a new low for cc.com...and that's saying something. Dude...you're speaking for yourself. Reread the first ugly responses and then some....bitterness towards you and your faith was expressed abundantly, to the very end. The moderators should have kept your announcement in the "Climbing Partners" forum and locked it or halted the responses when it got ugly. Your perfectly legitimate original post didn't deserve what it got. I suggest that you be very selective. Not everyone is safe nor fun. Shalom and good luck! Amen.

GLAD WE'RE HAVING THIS DISGUSTION SO WE CAN GET THINGS ALL WORKED OUT WITH OUR THINKTANK HERE.

You are totally delusional! There is not one credible scientist in the world who does not believe that evolution is a good theory and there is little chance of that ever changing. I'd love to write a long diatribe arguing the point but I know it will fall on deaf ears. I actually had some sympathy for you in the first 9 pages I read but I had to skip to the end and see that you are insulting what I hold dear and that is scientific research. I thought "Hey, maybe he does just want to find some climbing buddies interested in Christ." but arguing Intelligent Design in your own thread removes whatever credibility you had when JosephH launched the first attack. You want facts about evolution? Here is a website devoted entirely to those who think just like yourself. http://www.talkorigins.org/ in particular http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-evolution.html There are many Christians that think that evolution is a good theory and that literal interpretations of the Bible are foolish. How can one selectively declare what is literal and what isn't in the Bible? It's all or nothing because otherwise it isn't the true word of god, it's an interpretation by man. There I go. I said I wouldn't argue but I just couldn't help myself. You are correct. There are some people who don't believe in a literal translation of the Bible, and they are usually labeled liberals, but you are incorrect to say many Christians believe in Evolution, there is a group that believes the possibility of seven million year earth, as opposed to 7 day earth, but I have to say, it doesn't matter, nor was anybody there to watch. God did it. That's what matters. I believe in 7 day, not just because it's says in Genesis "Day", and not just that the context there supports it by saying "there was a morning and and an evening, and there was the next day," but the fact that Jesus in the new testament refers to it as a 7-day period (and since He is God in flesh,) that pretty much to me affirms that it was 7-days literally. But again, I wasn't there, so I don't truly know, nor do Scientist because they can't test it. They weren't there. Science used to date the earth by carbon dating, but that only works up to something like 50,000 years (and since water taints the testing, speeds up the life) that version of dating the earth is ill-equipped to measure the age of the earth. Bottom line, we're all going to find out later what happens. Even though some people believe differently, that is perfectly fine for me. We can differ and still be good friends. I had to chime in here with a minor point about the testability of scientific theories. There some theories that you can test by observation, others that you can't. Those theories that can't be tested by direct observation and measurement can still be tested by the extent to which they make useful, verifiable predictions. One of the many predictions of evolutionary theory was that evolutionary relationships should persist at the molecular level. For instance - the hemoglobin molecules generated by humans should more closely resemble the hemoglobin molecules of lemurs than, say - lampreys. These predictions were made several decades before scientists had the technology necessary to test them directly, and well before DNA had been identified as the agent of heredity. The fact that this prediction was borne out by empirical evidence several decades later provides one of many strong lines of evidence in support of the original theory. The case is even stronger when one considers the evidence provided by DNA sequencing. Speaking of DNA - were you aware of the fact that nearly one-half of the human genome is composed of ancient retroviruses (or similar self-repicating elements) that integrated into our genetic material millions of years before the arrival of modern humans? That they splice themselves into a new locale in the genome something like every 30-250 live births? That when these endogenous retroviruses replicate and insert themselves into the genome, they quite often damage the hosts by cripling and turning off necessary genes, or activating quiescent genes in a way that can give rise to cancer and other disorders? That the reason that primates can't synthesize their own vitamin C is because one of these retroelements spliced itself into the middle of a gene that encodes an enzyme required for the biosynthesis of this vitamin? Is any of this consistent with the notion of intelligent design? "The eukaryotic genome has undergone a series of epidemics of amplification of mobile elements that have resulted in most eukaryotic genomes containing much more of this `junk' DNA than actual coding DNA. The majority of these elements utilize an RNA intermediate and are termed retroelements. Most of these retroelements appear to amplify in evolutionary waves that insert in the genome and then gradually diverge. In humans, almost half of the genome is recognizably derived from retroelements, with the two elements that are currently actively amplifying, L1 and Alu, making up about 25% of the genome and contributing extensively to disease. The mechanisms of this amplification process are beginning to be understood, although there are still more questions than answers. Insertion of new retroelements may directly damage the genome, and the presence of multiple copies of these elements throughout the genome has longer-term influences on recombination events in the genome and more subtle influences on gene expression." Read the whole thing. http://www.genome.org/cgi/content/full/12/10/1455 yes, I understand most of what you said, although, I know that style of writing, you didn't necessarily need to show off in order to prove yourself, though it did sound cool. You bring this before a jury, and they won't buy into it, not enough evidence. You had me for a while until you said retroelements and millions of years. That's the problem. Scientists cannot put together a theory like this and with a non-empirical interpretation throw in millions of years ago, when there are too many problems and questions with this research, since there's so much still to discover about the human body, and the viruses are so unpredictable on how it will treat the body, how the body will react. I'll research that more though. VH: In case you are still reading, if not necessarily responding, to this thread, I thought that I'd respond briefly. Even though the theory of evolution was formulated long before people understood the biochemical basis by which genetic information is passed from one generation to the next, and roughly 130 years before we had the capacity to sequence DNA and begin to glimpse at the structure of the genome - their discovery in the genome and data that they provide are completely consistent with the theory of evolution, and provide a more complete picture of how it works. More specifically, you can compare the number, type, and location of retroelement insertion sites and determine important information about when species diverged from one another. The fact that all primates, but no other mammals, have the same retroelement in the middle of the gene that encodes an enzyme required for biosynthesis of vitamin C tells us that this modification of the genome occured sometime after our common ancestor diverged from mammals, but before all modern primates diverged from one another. Since this retroelement DNA doesn't encode for useful genes, it's not subject to the same selective pressures as genes that species need to survive. Therefore it can accumulate mutations with a much lower probability that the mutations will affect the individual organism's survival. Consequently, mutations accumulate in retroelement DNA at a fairly constant rate over time, and we can examine the number of mutations in a given section of retroelement DNA in order to determine roughly how long it's been in the genome. Since these retroelements are so potentially destructive, primates (and some other species) have evolved an elaborate set of mechanisms to disrupt the processes by which retroelements make additional copies of themselves and splice themselves into our DNA. These have only been discovered in the past few years, because of their activity against contagious retroviruses like HIV. The same proteins that protect the genome against the viruses that spliced themselves into our genome long ago are also active against viruses in the environment that use similar mechanisms to splice into our DNA and hijack the cell to make many more copies of themselves. In this single piece of biology you have a set of empirically verifiable biochemical and genetic data and phenomena that simply can't be rationally be accounted for by any other mechanism other than evolution. Even if you are tempted to believe in say, intelligent design, it's difficult to conceive of someone accounting for these phenomena - a genome racked with parasitic, destructive, self-replicating elements that hijack the mechanisms cells normally use to survive to reproduce themselves, which result in defects that are passed down from one generation to the next for all of eternity - by recourse to an intelligent design with a strait face. You seem like a nice guy, I appreciate the way you've borne the onslaught here, and I hope that you will continue to read in an effort to understand as much modern biology as you have time for, so that you're thinking about these questions will be informed by the most accurate information we have about the natural world. I'd suggest reading the paper that I linked, and then getting yourself a copy of "The Cell" and devoting a year to reading it, then returning to these questions. but that isn't to say that GOD didn't pull the strings on this evolution thing. HIS WISDOM IS INFINITE, YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND IT. So explain away, but GOD is just messing with your head. You are BUT hiz lil toy soldier.

Leave to you to be Californian lover. Portland is more Californicated so its better???? You're a stupid turd burglar.

#123123123 Hugh is an assclown.

you wish you had some, castrato

this is the stupidest thread evar you wankjobs

I want you to know when i look in your eyes with every blow comes another lie

McKlitKunt does love me. Its true. But i'm just toying with him, leading him on.

divot

sometime you should try tops. it isn't your natural position, but a little variety is good for you from time to time

did you spend 4 hours shading the upper lip?

pillock

tis better to give then to receive

hell, lets have a hullabaloo

window licker

I'M HER BABIES DADDY