So thats what driving home during an ICBM attack might look like. D:

So that's what driving home during an ICBM attack might look like. o.o

>> ^Hive13:
I was driving home from breakfast with my wife and three kids in the car on Sunday morning last year. In front of us was a big, white Ford pick-up. Suddenly a beagle darted out into the road and that big truck clipped the dog's hindquarters with his back tire. I know he saw the dog because I say him apply his brakes, yet, in true asshole form, he just kept on driving. The dog darted off into the side of the road, but I could tell it was badly hurt. This wasn't a highway, but was a four lane major thoroughfare into a very large neighborhood with lots of traffic.
I slammed on the brakes, did a u-turn over the grass median and went back around to find that poor dog. I jumped out of the car and ran over to her. Her back legs were shattered and he pelvis was broken. She was in incredible pain. I approached her slowly as I was concerned she may be aggressive in fight or flight mode, but she began crawling over to me with her front legs whimpering and wagging her broken tail. I carefully picked her up and she began licking my face, as if she was thanking me for stopping. I gently gave her to my wife and we brought her home. My kids got her a snack and some water and I wrapped her in a blanket and she was trembling from shock and fear.
She had a collar, so I called her owner and got a voicemail. I called our vet, who happens to live about a mile from us, and explained what happened. He called a local vet emergency room and arranged for a staff to be available. About 45 minutes after we picked her up, her owners finally called us back. She was about 5 miles from home and were overjoyed that we had her. I explained that she was badly injured and that we were about to take he to the vet emergency room, but they insisted on seeing her first, so we waited for them. The owners got out of the car, I could see their kids and another beagle in the car. Those kids were visibly upset.
When the owners arrived, this poor dog tried to jump up and see them, but immediately fell to the ground due to her injuries. As this was happening, our vet had come over to the house, diagnosed that both legs and pelvis were broken and that emergency surgery was needed. He got in his car and actually led them to the emergency room. Remember, this is all on Sunday morning at about 9am.
The owner tried to give us a $200 cash reward. I scoffed and said that money needed to go to getting their poor dog taken care of and that she deserved a big treat after all she had been through. He kept insisting, but there is no way I was taking money from them. He finally realized that we didn't do this for money or notoriety, we did it because it was the right thing to do.
Three months later, the owner called us and asked if she could come by and thank us. She brought her dog over and she looked amazing. She has some scars and a little bit of a skewed walk, but otherwise had recovered well. When the dog got out of the car, I sat down in the grass. She walked right over to me, climbed in my lap, looked up and gave me one, big lick right on my chin. It brought tears to my eyes. After all she had been through, she remembered me and those 45 minutes we spent helping her.
I got an email from her owners a few months ago. She is pregnant. Her owners offered us the pick of the litter. The kids don't know it yet, but we are getting a new puppy from a sweet girl that they helped save.
That is a pretty solid moment in our family.


What a wonderful person you are to go to such lengths to help that poor injured dog! I'm so glad you shared this story with us. This had the best ending too! You will be adopting one of her puppies!!!

I was driving home from breakfast with my wife and three kids in the car on a Sunday morning last year. In front of us was a big, white Ford pick-up. Suddenly a beagle darted out into the road and that big truck clipped the dog's hindquarters with his back tire. I know he saw the dog because I saw him apply his brakes, yet, in true asshole form, he just kept on driving. The dog darted off into the side of the road, but I could tell it was badly hurt. This wasn't a highway, but was a four lane major thoroughfare into a very large neighborhood with lots of traffic.

I slammed on the brakes, did a u-turn over the grass median and went back around to find that poor dog. I jumped out of the car and ran over to her. Her back legs were shattered and he pelvis was broken. She was in incredible pain. I approached her slowly as I was concerned she may be aggressive in fight or flight mode, but she began crawling over to me with her front legs whimpering and wagging her broken tail. I carefully picked her up and she began licking my face, as if she was thanking me for stopping. I gently gave her to my wife and we brought her home. My kids got her a snack and some water and I wrapped her in a blanket and she was trembling from shock and fear.

She had a collar, so I called her owner and got a voicemail. I called our vet, who happens to live about a mile from us, and explained what happened. He called a local vet emergency room and arranged for a staff to be available. About 45 minutes after we picked her up, her owners finally called us back. She was about 5 miles from home and were overjoyed that we had her. I explained that she was badly injured and that we were about to take her to the vet emergency room, but they insisted on seeing her first, so we waited for them. The owners got out of the car, I could see their kids and another beagle in the car. Those kids were visibly upset.

When the owners arrived, this poor dog tried to jump up and see them, but immediately fell to the ground due to her injuries. As this was happening, our vet had come over to the house, diagnosed that both legs and pelvis were broken and that emergency surgery was needed. He got in his car and actually led them to the emergency room. Remember, this is all on Sunday morning at about 9am.

The owner tried to give us a $200 cash reward. I scoffed and said that money needed to go to getting their poor dog taken care of and that she deserved a big treat after all she had been through. He kept insisting, but there is no way I was taking money from them. He finally realized that we didn't do this for money or notoriety, we did it because it was the right thing to do.

Three months later, the owner called us and asked if she could come by and thank us. She brought her dog over and she looked amazing. She has some scars and a little bit of a skewed walk, but otherwise had recovered well. When the dog got out of the car, I sat down in the grass. She walked right over to me, climbed in my lap, looked up and gave me one, big lick right on my chin. It brought tears to my eyes. After all she had been through, she remembered me and those 45 minutes we spent helping her.

I got an email from her owners a few months ago. She is pregnant. Her owners offered us the pick of the litter. The kids don't know it yet, but we are getting a new puppy from a sweet girl that they helped save.

That is a pretty solid moment in our family.

while driving home last night i heard a 3 minute version of this. whoa!

the repubs/conservatives have a well-oiled propaganda machine and know how to drive home a univocal singular message in a comprehensive way.

the only thing the demos/liberals have on their side is, well.. the facts.

The problem with this quote for Romney is that ultimately it's a Freudian slip.

Yes, he was trying to make some sort of point about consumers being able to choose to take their business elsewhere, but the way he chose to frame that was in terms of taking joy in firing people for not pleasing him.

That reveals a lot that's ugly about his character. It also really drives home the whole "he looks like the guy who just laid off your dad" vibe that has been dogging him throughout his whole political career.

Oh, and the in-context argument is fucking hilarious, because basically he's extolling the virtues of how awesome Obamacare is. If people get fucked over by their insurance company after they get sick, thanks to Obamacare they can just switch insurance companies without fear of being rejected over a preexisting condition. But Romney lies and says Obamacare means the opposite, because Republicans lie about everything all the time.

Well, unless they make a Freudian slip and accidentally tell the truth.

You continue to miss my point. All I'm saying is that there should be a more thorough investigation. I'm not a conspiracy theorist. If an independent agency conducts a thorough bit of research that isn't ham strung by secrecy as the NIST investigation is (Right there my alarm bells go off since why is there a need to keep evidence secret? It makes things seem conspiratorial ) then I will happily accept that the building collapsed due to fire.

So far I have seen zero evidence that fire damage caused the collapse. Why are you so zealous about defending a hypothesis anyway?>> ^shponglefan:

Like I already said, the WTC 7 collapse is a relatively unique event. You can't go with historical prescedent because AFAIK, there is no other case of a similar building being hit by debris then burning for 7 hours. And even if there was, another building not collapsing does not prove that buildings can't collapse from these types of events. No two events are completely identical. Your entire line reasoning here is one giant fallacy.
Second, the controlled demo, as I've also already said, is considerably more complex as you are adding many speculative, unknown factors. That's what makes it more complicated. If you don't understand that, then I suggest looking up "complex" vs "simple" in the dictionary, because I think you have those terms confused.
Third, "governments lie about everything" is just a cop-out to ignore things you don't like (like the NIST report). And this is what conspiracy theoriests do. Whenever the evidence doesn't support you, claim it's a conspiracy. In fact, if there was a 3rd party who did the investigation and concluded the same thing as NIST, you'd just turn around and claim it's still part of the conspiracy. Basically, facts are irrelevant to you.
So yeah, you got nothing.
>> ^Fade:
The controlled demolition claim is the simplest explanation of the event. The claim that it collapsed due to office fires is the extraordinary one. This is something that has NEVER happened before. Therefore, by definition it is extraordinary. There is ZERO evidence that fires caused the collapse. NIST refuses to release the data it used to model the collapse and all the evidence was destroyed. Forget the conspiracy theory. Just look at what is in front of you.I used the analogy to drive home the point that we need to establish that a crime has been committed before we look at HOW the crime was committed.
Governments lie about everything. This is a fact. Why should this be any different? NIST is a government agency, therefore their report is biased. The investigation needs to be independent and transparent. That is all.

Like I already said, the WTC 7 collapse is a relatively unique event. You can't go with historical prescedent because AFAIK, there is no other case of a similar building being hit by debris then burning for 7 hours. And even if there was, another building not collapsing does not prove that buildings can't collapse from these types of events. No two events are completely identical. Your entire line reasoning here is one giant fallacy.

Second, the controlled demo, as I've also already said, is considerably more complex as you are adding many speculative, unknown factors. That's what makes it more complicated. If you don't understand that, then I suggest looking up "complex" vs "simple" in the dictionary, because I think you have those terms confused.

Third, "governments lie about everything" is just a cop-out to ignore things you don't like (like the NIST report). And this is what conspiracy theoriests do. Whenever the evidence doesn't support you, claim it's a conspiracy. In fact, if there was a 3rd party who did the investigation and concluded the same thing as NIST, you'd just turn around and claim it's still part of the conspiracy. Basically, facts are irrelevant to you.

So yeah, you got nothing.

>> ^Fade:
The controlled demolition claim is the simplest explanation of the event. The claim that it collapsed due to office fires is the extraordinary one. This is something that has NEVER happened before. Therefore, by definition it is extraordinary. There is ZERO evidence that fires caused the collapse. NIST refuses to release the data it used to model the collapse and all the evidence was destroyed. Forget the conspiracy theory. Just look at what is in front of you.I used the analogy to drive home the point that we need to establish that a crime has been committed before we look at HOW the crime was committed.
Governments lie about everything. This is a fact. Why should this be any different? NIST is a government agency, therefore their report is biased. The investigation needs to be independent and transparent. That is all.

The controlled demolition claim is the simplest explanation of the event. The claim that it collapsed due to office fires is the extraordinary one. This is something that has NEVER happened before. Therefore, by definition it is extraordinary. There is ZERO evidence that fires caused the collapse. NIST refuses to release the data it used to model the collapse and all the evidence was destroyed. Forget the conspiracy theory. Just look at what is in front of you.I used the analogy to drive home the point that we need to establish that a crime has been committed before we look at HOW the crime was committed.

Governments lie about everything. This is a fact. Why should this be any different? NIST is a government agency, therefore their report is biased. The investigation needs to be independent and transparent. That is all.>> ^shponglefan:

You need to provide some real evidence to support your claim. You've heard the phrase "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Claiming a pre-planned controlled demo and a resulting cover-up conspiracy is an extraordinary claim. So where's the extraordinary evidence to support it?
>> ^Fade:
You say it doesn't look like a controlled demolition. Fine, I think it does. How will we come to a consensus?

I see this crap at least once a week driving home. There's a section of the highway where you're driving south and it merges with an east/west highway. To go east, you must exit on the right (west) side and to go west you must exit on the left (east) side. The signs informing you of the upcoming interchange begin about 2 miles out. At one mile out the highway widens 4 lanes with double white lines dividing the exit lanes. Every time I go through this area, there is always some dumb ass not paying attention, realizing at the last minute that they're in the wrong lane and shooting across 4 lanes of traffic to get to their exit. There's at least one wreck at this spot every week.

I'm on book three of the Song of Ice and Fire series. It's good stuff, even if you aren't a big fantasy fan.

I cleaned out a Borders that was going out of business, so Carthy McCormic (Blood Meridian and others), Dan Ariely (whatever his newest book is) and Chris Hedges (Death of the Liberal Class) are in the queue.

Other notealble read this year were Naomi Klein's brilliant 'Shock Doctrine' and Dan Ariely's fun 'Predictably Irrational'. 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull' was a quick but cool vintage read too.

On the TV front, I also finally got around to watching Eastbound and Down, Tim and Eric's Awesome Show (behind the times, yes, I know) and the Walking Dead. All cool shows.

Got to sleep now, driving home from MT tomorrow morning with isserkitter.

>> ^chilaxe:

The 10% unemployment rate is a fiction... it doesn't include hidden unemployment that doesn't get counted in the official government statistics: people who want work but have stopped looking, and people who have part-time jobs but want full-time jobs.

True, but I didn't wanna pad my argument by citing the U6 unemployment numbers. 10% is significant enough for driving home the point that we're nowhere near full employment.

I got a piece of 8 x 4 lattice into my car once by bending it in the front and back. I had to look THROUGH the lattice while I was driving home since I had to run it through the center of my car and bend it across the front windshield to fit

That's all well and good, @Yogi, but it can't be done overnight. In the meantime, kids are still killing themselves. This "It Gets Better" campaign is at -least- as important as any gay rights campaign I've ever heard of.

And frankly, publicizing these efforts to help the youngest and weakest victims of hatred may well be the most effective means of making things better. Even most bigots don't actually want kids dieing...driving home the fact that they are, and -why- they are, can't help but make some of the hateful reconsider.