The basis for the talk is good, but... geez. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse: "I felt like an asthmatic. Who had lost his glasses. In a hurricane."

... what??

Never drank, never smoked, never did illegal substances....and I don't feel superior to people who drink and some illegal substances. I actually admire them if they can balance it into their life and it brings them some happiness.

I can't stand smoking, I grew up around it, had all but one grandparent die because of smoking giving them lung issues that either ultimately killed them or prevented them from getting procedures done to stop heart problems. Weak lungs would have guaranteed their death during surgery and no one would operate. So, I don't feel superior to them, but I'm an asthmatic it smells horrible, so I just can't be around them. Hell as I got older I had to quit hanging around with a friend of mine until he quit smoking because he just smoked more and more and I couldn't take being around him. Allergies, etc. Plus anytime he smoked I had to be away from him, so the more he smoked the less point there was to trying to hang out.

Illegal substances, mixed bag. Marijuana, not really a huge deal to me...I know too many functional people who use it. However I have a brother who is absolutely obsessed with marijuana, and it's obviously not beneficial to him due to that control it has over him. Cocaine, meth, heroin, etc....just seems like pissing money away for health issues you'll have to deal with later...plus a lot of substances age you prematurely or make your teeth fall out, etc. And teeth falling is something I've had nightmares about, so why the hell would I want to do that.

And I *KNOW* I have an addictive personality, this is why I don't try these things. Not because I feel superior, in fact I don't like not being able to try alcohol in particularly. I just know I would slowly slide into over-use on it. Plus most of it smells horrible, so as long as it smells horrible to me and I don't develop a taste for it...Im set.


I don't like Penn yelling/ranting like that to make his point, but I do think that they need to re-examine their drug policies. Because they seem less about drug control and more about people control, especially non-influential and poor people control. If it were about drug control, I think they'd be telling you that if they catch you on substances while driving you are out of a license immediately. Or if you commit a crime while on them, it's worse punishment. While if you're just on them and not doing anything of note.......then that's what you choose to do. I do get the argument on having to treat people who use substances.....but it's similar to people who overdose on scripts or over the counter stuff.

Rehabilitation does not happen anymore AFAIK, not like it used to. Now they work them for pennies on the dollar instead of paying minimum wage to regular workers. It's more for profit now than anything else, which I think is the real issue...they will find any law to enforce to get their populations and numbers up for profits.

Thank you peggedbea--that's exactly the kind of quality post I wanted in the comments! I can only learn to sympathize by hearing about the hardships other people have face. Sorry it happened, but glad you shared it.

I bet it is not rare to avoid hiring single mothers. It is also not rare to have a breast pumping policy (Which, I am an avid supporter of women's right to breastfeed and pump milk at the workplace.)

>> ^peggedbea:

if you're looking for anecdotes of women passing up opportunities to take care of kids... or being fucked because they kids or a vagina... i got both.
I passed up a seemingly lucrative middle-management position in healthcare so that i could stay home during the week with my kids when they were both too young for school. I opted instead for the 40 hours in 2.5 days overnight on the weekend shift. Granted, I had no desire to be anyone's manager ever. But it would have been more money and improved job stability.
Also, at the exact same company... I was eventually promoted into CT scan... where I was systematically treated like horse shit. Mostly for having a young child-bearing vagina. All 3 single dads in my department were given 20% wage increases at some point or another because they had to "pay child support" ... as if, as a single mom, 100% of my fucking wages didn't go to the care of my children. And then, the CT department held monthly team meetings during the week. I had to miss one because my youngest, asthmatic child had pneumonia. My slag of a boss attempts to write me up for missing a meeting. and then I find out that one of my coworkers (a man) never ever has to attend meetings because he works nights and is home with his children during meeting hours. Well, so was I. When I brought this up to my boss, she tore up my write up. AND THEN, when my regular coworker would take a night off work, I'd always be scheduled to work with this one creep who would do creep things like... pin me up against the wall and tell me how he likes to be touched, talk about my tits, touch my ass every time i leaned across a counter and try to fuck me in break room when we didn't have any patients. He wouldn't quit so I finally told my boss if she scheduled him with me again, I was going to call in sick.... so that cunt calls me 2 weeks later and threatens me ... i recorded that phone call and turned it over to her bosses... then i found out that the creepy guy was pulling the same shit on the $9/hr file clerks and my boss also ignored their complaints. I brought this to the director of the department's attention... I was fired 3 weeks later. After 8 years with 0 write-ups, I was fired for insubordination.
guess who works my shift full time now?????

oh an that same boss would tell me things like "i had 4 days a week to be a mother" when i had to call in an on call tech ONE TIME IN 8 YEARS because my kid had pneumonia.
also, it is extremely rare for a company to provide child care... your wife is very fortunate. it is not at all rare on the other hand for companies to avoid hiring single mothers.

if you're looking for anecdotes of women passing up opportunities to take care of kids... or being fucked because they kids or a vagina... i got both.

I passed up a seemingly lucrative middle-management position in healthcare so that i could stay home during the week with my kids when they were both too young for school. I opted instead for the 40 hours in 2.5 days overnight on the weekend shift. Granted, I had no desire to be anyone's manager ever. But it would have been more money and improved job stability.

Also, at the exact same company... I was eventually promoted into CT scan... where I was systematically treated like horse shit. Mostly for having a young child-bearing vagina. All 3 single dads in my department were given 20% wage increases at some point or another because they had to "pay child support" ... as if, as a single mom, 100% of my fucking wages didn't go to the care of my children. And then, the CT department held monthly team meetings during the week. I had to miss one because my youngest, asthmatic child had pneumonia. My slag of a boss attempts to write me up for missing a meeting. and then I find out that one of my coworkers (a man) never ever has to attend meetings because he works nights and is home with his children during meeting hours. Well, so was I. When I brought this up to my boss, she tore up my write up. AND THEN, when my regular coworker would take a night off work, I'd always be scheduled to work with this one creep who would do creep things like... pin me up against the wall and tell me how he likes to be touched, talk about my tits, touch my ass every time i leaned across a counter and try to fuck me in break room when we didn't have any patients. He wouldn't quit so I finally told my boss if she scheduled him with me again, I was going to call in sick.... so that cunt calls me 2 weeks later and threatens me ... i recorded that phone call and turned it over to her bosses... then i found out that the creepy guy was pulling the same shit on the $9/hr file clerks and my boss also ignored their complaints. I brought this to the director of the department's attention... I was fired 3 weeks later. After 8 years with 0 write-ups, I was fired for insubordination.
guess who works my shift full time now?????


oh an that same boss would tell me things like "i had 4 days a week to be a mother" when i had to call in an on call tech ONE TIME IN 8 YEARS because my kid had pneumonia.

also, it is extremely rare for a company to provide child care... your wife is very fortunate. it is not at all rare on the other hand for companies to avoid hiring single mothers.

my house was built in 1956, its in fantastic condition and i have been slowly updating to make it more energy efficient. one thing i have yet to replace, because they are so fucking expensive and my house has so many of them, is the windows. when i had the inspection done the dude even told me not to open them because they are so old he thought the panes would crumble if handled too roughly. where i live its not uncommon for it to be 106F + in the summer and currently its 10F right now and dropping. so... we experience a bit of extremes and my energy bills are always high. (though much much lower than any apartment i ever lived in)

tell me more about this plastic. i think the plan i had originally was to slowly replace a window or two at time with solar windows. but theyre horribly expensive and i decided i dont really like how dark they look from the outside. kind of an eyesore. especially on a yellow house.

for my birthday a few years ago my stepdad came over and installed some insulation in the attic, which is great. and i bought a new AC and furnace with all kinds of extra fancy filters after i found out my asthmatic son is also allergic to everything in existence. that seems to have cut my energy bills by about a 1/4 and seriously reduced the amount of trouble he has with his asthma which has also saved me money on medicine. i dont even want to think about what kind of grossities were hanging out in a 50+ year old AC unit.

i also discovered some awesomeness last winter. i put electric blankets underneath the fitted sheet on all of our beds in the winter. turn them on about 5 minutes before we lay down and the bed is toasty warm when you get in. and most of the fall and winter you can shut the heater off at night. our blankets have timers on them, so they stay on for about 30 minutes. the bed stays warm all night and the hot air isnt blowing into the house all night making us all stuffy nosed and dry in the morning.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Hmmmmm... a bunch of probies sign up on the same day and all just happen to vote up this fairly lame video that just so happened to have been posted to youtube today. Coincidence? or Conspiracy!?!


I was going to comment on how similar these probies profiles looked as well as the common incep dates but they all literally were being banned before my eyes. Also video is annoying crap. That being said "Get your damn vaccine" All this conspiracy theory crap convinced my 20 year old asthmatic daughter to not get vaccinated and now her and her boyfriend both have the flu. No word yet but probably H1N1

I don't like to be down on other folks' fetishes. The labored breathing, though... That made the asthmatic in me ready to panic.

I love how helium soaked and possibly asthmatic his voice sounded back then. Did he have some work done, or is it just age that caused that tinge to be lost from his voice?

Long time lurker (2 years maybe?) but not a frequent commenter.
I have to say I agree with Gorillaman for the most part (even if his comments may seem kind of jerkish, but really, if we stop and think bout it objectively that should be irrelevant to logical discourse).

Even if America was 98% made up of overweight hydrophobic asthmatics, the result of this would have been the same as long as the Olympians came from the remaining 2%. THAT'S what his comment 'The US is not competing in the Olympics' means to me anyways. No Olympians from ANY country really represent their home. That being said though, if you ever dreamed of being an Olympic athlete (even if you're as out of shape and athletically challenged as I am), pride is due here because the bar has been raised for Olympic athletes everywhere. With that aside though, unless you came to America because of our Olympic teams, I don't see the point in pride in happening to be born in the country that has a couple dozen really skilled athletes competing right now.

Maybe it's just how I've been raised. My mother taught me well : be proud in what YOU do and don't do, feel shame for other things YOU don't, and do.

he sounds like an asthmatic couple having sex.

Upvote, because the Lord Of Terror is asthmatic!

Wow, that shows Blizzards first forey in Pre-rendered CG

I LOVED that game!
awesome find

totally possible. there's not much air in each ring. he's not exercising (burning oxygen) he's just laid back. lung capacity can be trained and increased like most other physical attributes. i was a swimming teacher btw. 25m underwater is no problem, and I'm asthmatic.

Anyway, it would be... oh, about 30 times as hard to fake that with CGI or compositing. And it would be really lame.

if it was SQUARE bubbles, then yeah, i would call fake

Ok Rembar, I thought my previous post might be misconstrued as an attack on MMA Judo BJJ police etc.

First I don't need to lay out my credentials, my points have to stand on their own merits, as well as do yours. The validity of a claim does not follow from the credibility of the source. But I will give my credentials anyway. 4 years of Judo, 2 while in HS, 2 in college, I have competed in several USJA tournaments in San Francisco, lost most of the matches, but I did win a few. My highest rank was a brown belt, and some would say I needed more time in to get that far. I know my way around a choke, from both ends. Beat time? None. Club security, 2 years. And you can get shot, stomped, and stabbed as easily as a cop.

That Said, I did not mean to criticise anything about fighting arts and competitions, just the application of chokes and strangles in subduing citizens. I will attempt to clarify my previous arguments.

1. The Health of persons being choked. The problem is not with the ease of choking, it is the ability to withstand and recover. Your average victim of a police incident is not an athlete, and in many instances is intoxicated. It is unequivocally more dangerous to cause an intoxicated person to go unconscious. In addition for most people, being choked can cause panic, which causes struggling that can lead to injuries not associated with the actual choke to both officers and suspects.

2. Excess adrenaline. I'll concede the point. Both cause much adrenaline to be spent. Although a good MMA fighter can control their emotions, and control the adrenaline to some extent.

3. Malice. What happens in a match when a guy is choked out, knocked out, or his joint is manipulated causing pain and damage? The ref stops the fight or someone taps out. In a police incident, the cop is the Ref. If the cop has malice, lookout, if the suspect gets the cops gun, or has a knife, bloodshed and death may follow. I'll take the malice evident in a controlled sporting event over the malice in a "real world" encounter any day. MMA guys just don't get stabbed, bitten, or shot, eye gouged, fishhooked etc. (ok maybe there has been some biting and fishhooking)

4. Poor Training. Duh right back at ya. The operative word here is POOR. Everyone reading this is not stupid. We know that cops need training in order to do their jobs without causing physical harm unnecessarily. It's a given. When training is inadequate, bad stuff happens. I think that was clear enough without additional comment.

I would like to comment on your points as well.

"I know the approximate times that my opponent will lose consciousness, will suffer permanent damage, and regain consciousness after the chokehold is released."

Really! Okay, the guys you practice with or fight ought to be similar, weight, age fitness. But how quickly will a 190 pound asthmatic college student who snorted meth all week take to pass out, and when will he wake up? Does he have a heart condition, suffer from panic attacks, have schizophrenia? These unknowns caused a french tourist in las vegas to die from a choke applied by metro several years back. By all accounts, the choke was applied properly. The taser is safer for the cop, as far as the suspect, I wouldn't guess that it is any safer.

"The Taser was developed to reduce the number of FIREARM-related deaths. FIREARM-RELATED DEATHS."

It was developed in response to a murder of 2 of the inventors friends as a non lethal weapon that did not classify as a fire arm and thus could be manufactured without the red tape the BATF would require. It was not actively marketed to police departments by taser int. until 1998. It was adopted by police departments as a non lethal weapon to be used to reduce officer injuries AND reduce shootings.

I do not have any arguments with your conclusion.