Well, the level of incompetence required for this to be 'accidental' is SOOO incredibly high that it's not reasonable to assume the police are that incompetent....but if they are, that's intentional on the part of their supervisors, no? So still the responsibility of the police as a whole.

There IS doubt that they could have killed him and made it look unintentional. He shot 3 times, and only hit once. Clearly, he's not a good enough shot to kill on the first shot, because cops ALWAYS shoot to kill, and he failed, no matter which target he was aiming at.

We can assume that because he said "I don't know" when asked why he shot the caregiver....not "I missed", or "I wasn't aiming at you" or any other mitigation. If, as you suggest, he was firing at the sitting, unarmed, severely mentally challenged man (also completely inexcusable, btw) then the negligence in discharging his firearm with an innocent victim between him and the target is not just gross negligence, it's intentional negligence. Shooting someone because you don't care that they are between you and your target makes you an attempted murderer. Period.

Um....if a cop was shot in the foot, medical care would be instant, there would be no handcuffing, much less TRIPPLE handcuffing. What was reported was they didn't call for medical attention for >15 minutes while the victim lay handcuffed bleeding in the street (probably with officers standing on top of him). Medical care was provided while the shootings were still happening in Dallas, so "the scene wasn't secured yet, we couldn't allow medics in safely" falls completely flat as an excuse anymore and won't even be considered by me.

That level of incompetence from a police officer MUST, by definition, be intentional. They are well trained and equipped to avoid exactly this kind of fiasco. Ignoring that training is intentional, and that must be prosecutable if there is to be any effect. I don't have to ascribe intent to murder to claim culpability. That is not the metric by which the law is applied. If your actions are grossly negligent and end in near death of another, which is the absolute least criminal possible interpretation of the actions of this officer, that's criminal attempted murder/manslaughter1. Because (inappropriately) using a firearm is not unintentional, and officers ONLY use them to kill, this was not attempted manslaughter, which only applies when the intent is NOT to kill, it was an attempted murder.
Either way, that's a question for a jury to answer, not his superior, not the DA that he works with daily.

Well said. Drive like an idiot and you increase your chances of dying like one.

I had a near death crash due to oil on the road. Something that's not your fault - now that'll make you respect driving. Knowing that even if you drive safely, you can still die.

Your video, Drone Captures Hikers' Near Death In Maui Flash Flood, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Unfortunately, I see this as a ploy to get people to buy their drugs. I see no way they could possibly get approval for the type of experiments they would have to do to prove their theory, that it could somehow at least slow the effects of oxygen deprivation to the brain.
Any study on near death medicine is going to be difficult and dangerous in the extreme. It takes a long hard fight to get the FDA to allow even limited trials on humans, even humans that agree to it, even humans that are almost dead and will certainly die without it. Even animal studies on something like this will be hard to get approved and will have PETA up his ass with a flamethrower. This is the kind of science that won't get done, unfortunately, because those willing to do it don't have the means, and those with the means won't touch it with a 10 foot pole.
Don't get me wrong, though, I do think it's a good idea to examine this, and other substances, both natural and man made, for unknown properties/effects they may have, I just don't believe for a moment that this guy, or his small crowdfunded group can get the kinds of legal approvals needed just to START such a study, much less the millions of dollars they cost to actually run, which means they will only be using the money to buy their drug of choice.
Contribute if you like, but I strongly suggest researching this guy and his team first, and investigating exactly what they intend to do with your money beyond what they said, which is just buying some high grade DMT, unless you don't mind just buying him a few hits for personal use. ;-)

I just took a closer look too; is that a spinnaker pole OR---was that part of some sort of awning support that went fore and aft? And why would you have that rigged?

Looks like they'd lost the job sheet and it was flogging; there's, what, three people in the cockpit? They don't seem to be doing anything at all while staring at their own near death.

Yahweh has NEVER given evidence of his existence. No more so than any other god anyhow. They all answer prayer equally and randomly well. They all claim to have made the universe/world, they all claim to be the true one... Near death experiences differ by culture expectations of that culture and don't all conform to the supposed Christian expectation... he has done nothing to make himself stand out from the rest of the gods that Christians dismiss. Heck, I've never seen a Frost Giant or evidence they ever existed, so clearly Odin has one up on Yahweh.

In the 4,000 years or so from Adam and Eve's time in the Garden to Jesus, Yahweh couldn't or wouldn't make himself known to the other races. He didn't reveal himself to those in Africa, Asia, the Americas or Europe, just to one tiny specific group of people in the Middle East. If couldn't then he's not the omnipotent, omnipresent god he claims, if he wouldn't that makes him a racist ass not worthy of following by picking one people to be his chosen people.

The only reason Europe became Christian was forced conversion when the Christian armies of Rome forced them to, which setup a tradition of most Europeans and later Americans being born into a faith. Were the exact same people born in Saudi Arabia they "would know that they know" that Islam is the true religion, or same in India but applying to Hinduism.

And saying that atheists have had supernatural experiences and can change to theism when talking about it, ignores the whole point of the video, especially the part when he talks about the linked Darren Brown video, which demonstrates that it is easy to make a spiritual experience happen that has no basis on any real god.

By way of example: I used to be a heavy evangelical Christian, I watched TBN and Fox News religiously (pun intended, see this old post of mine here on the sift from an old account that I couldn't recover http://videosift.com/usercomments/Charon... heck see my Revelations from the Word posts on my blog, http://www.brianathomas.com/archives/category/religion/revelations-from-the-word/ or more embarrassing my older political posts http://www.brianathomas.com/archives/category/politics/ which while progressive now, go to page 4 or so around June 2008 and back and you see a Libertarian and further back Republican with some crazy anti-vaccine paranoia , climate change denialism, science denaillism and other things I'm deeply ashamed of now)... I've had deep and meaningful spiritual experiences with god. After Republicans ruined Christianity for me (as the Republican party is clearly 100% against every teaching of Jesus... and yeah we can tick that off as being humans, but god does nothing to correct them, he may have spoke to my heart or whatever one wants to say to have more empathy, but over half the Christians in this nation still vote for a party 100% devoid of the teachings of the Jesus of the Bible while claiming to do it for Christian reasons) and I eventually lost faith (while Republicans are the reason I initially lost faith, they aren't the reason I stayed away, god is a dick is why I stayed away). After I lost faith in the Christian god, I gave paganism a try, and I've had just a meaningful spiritual experiences while worshiping at a Druid rite as I have at any Christian church. This is why people pick a religion, first by accident of birth (most people are Christian in the US because their parents were, and back to Europe where going back further they were forced to convert by invading Christian armies), second by choosing one that connects more personally with them... for many they see the hypocrisy of Christianity (and its general lack of empathy) but do connect with some form of paganism, and pagans generally have a patron god they serve above most others, and that god is the one they have a deep connection to, the same deep connection that Christians claim to have with Jesus/Yahweh... One doesn't drive a plane into a building killing 3,000 plus people without a deep and meaningful relationship with their god, and to dismiss t hat relationship as being deceived is naive and demonstrates a lack of empathy.

Now, I will allow the possibility that god does exist, but not in the form Christians propose, but perhaps closer to what the US Founding Fathers believed, but perhaps expanded a bit with more modern knowledge. A Deist like view. That this god somehow this god, created the energy and set into motion the laws of this physical universe that spun out from the big bang, but he's had nothing to do with anything since then. Perhaps all religions actually worship the same god but with their own culture's expectations and interpretations. However this would mean that all religions and lack there of are equally valid, which most faiths (aside from most modern paganism) doesn't allow for as their claim rests on being the true one.

I've rambled on far too long already so I'll leave it at that.

Wingsuits have already been landed twice without a parachute: once into a giant pile of boxes and another French guy fell into some trees when he stalled out above a forest. Jeb Corliss skipped off a boulder and only broke his legs, which is close enough. However 76 people died - those are pretty shitty odds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEP8juRSBRo
http://vimeo.com/50817449
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFk6hxHIR0Q
http://www.blincmagazine.com/forum/wiki/Fatality_Statistics

So I stand by the notion that he was pretty darn close to dying - one might say that he was almost there.

But, if you guys really want to be the semantics police, here are some more illicit video titles for you guys to fix:

http://videosift.com/video/Almost-Died-Whoa-that-was-close-WHOA
http://videosift.com/video/Girl-nearly-gets-decapitated-for-a-photo
http://videosift.com/video/Day-9-Story-Time-How-I-Almost-Died
http://videosift.com/video/Near-death-trainspotter-47-secs

I agree that it's only a matter of time before someone survives another crash, particularly if it is into snow, but first keep in mind that those guys are in a dive and flying closer to 130-140mph and they are also flying head first. Taking a hit in that position would hardly ever be survivable.

*wheels near *death

Tags for this video have been changed from 'reckless, near death, dashcam' to 'reckless, near death, dashcam, truck, bus, pedestrian, crossing the road' - edited by kulpims

Near death experience... lol.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'almost died, whoa, that was close, WHOA, near death, road, cars, bike, motorcycle, crash' to 'near death, road, cars, bike, motorcycle, crash, accident, funeral procession' - edited by xxovercastxx

Not to say that Walmart treats its employees well, but you people are missing something here.
First why should Wal-Mart do anything beyond what is required by law? Minimum wage is minimum wage. The government set that rate and Walmart pays its employees over that wage. They do not have to give insurance to their associates, yet they do. Most states are "At Will" states which means you can be fired for any reason aside from sex, age or race. If you don't like what Walmart offers then there is a McDonald's on almost every corner. Or even a Starbucks.
As for manufacturing, while Walmart is BRUTAL on it's vendors, they also have one of the strictest social compliance programs in the world. They've also instituted a packaging reduction program that looks to reduce packaging waste and increase the amount of recycled material used.
It is not totally the fault of Walmart that everything is made China. They buy from Vendors, vendors moved manufacturing to China in order to be competitive. Everything could have stayed in the USA but with the increasing wages and government policies US manufacturers could not compete(At the same time restrictions on imports from Asia were loosened) Now if you wanted to make a plastic piece in the USA it would cost 4-6 times more than in China, generally speaking. Recently I have found some US manufacturers that can injection mold components at a reasonable cost, but due to the havoc wreaked by everything moving to China I lack the infrastructure to be able to do things like Paint Decoration (Again something so strictly regulated that it would be near impossible to do in the US).
As we continue to see the USD falter against the RMB and as the price of oil continues to increase we may reach a point of balance where manufacturing in the US could come back, but it would most likely be automated and would not result in near the number of jobs it had in the past. Of course at the same time, due to those same changes in Oil prices and the USD against the RMB we'll be seeing some pretty big price increases on product. Hang on to your pocket books everybody it's gonna be a rough ride.
On another note Sam Walton was a total skin flint, but he did it across the board. The guy didn't even get heat in his office until he was near death. Only then it was done because the engineer put it in with out him knowing. They feared him catching a pneumonia. He complained when he found out. No one could drive fancy cars, because if Sam saw them he'd figure he was paying them too much. After he died all kinds of sports cars popped up in the Walmart parking lot.

Yes, but you as well, are leaving out a key detail.
She wasn't killed instantaneously. (And nothing you can say will change that statement.) Regardless whether she was "declared" dead or not as she was still alive. Even though she was thought to be dead, clearly her brain was still functioning and was not dead. Her subconscious was still functioning.

Last night I dreamed I was chased by a dinosaur, this does not give evidence that dinosaurs are waiting for us in the afterlife. (poor example maybe - but my point is there.)

And no, in answer to your question, I have NEVER seen nor experienced anything in this existence that gives the possibility that a God exists - sorry. (all due respect.)

And you are wrong about me not looking for anything past the "world view" as you put it. I am spiritual, I'd love for a representation of the mystical to give evidence to itself. I'd love to live in that make believe world, honestly. I just learned early that it isn't there. I don't explain things away but I've never seen anything that could prove it existed. You are not privileged to my experiences so you shouldn't make assumptions - only I know what I give belief to. My reality lays on a solid foundation while yours lays somewhere else.

You are correct in that I don't give myself freely to the unprovable, purely for the reason of faith, that it exists. That, to me, would be more than foolish. If I was to do so, I would fall prey to every word, any person said to me. I would have to join all religions and believe in them all even though they contradict one another. And what is to stop me there, why shouldn't I believe every person who has ever tried to swindle me. Faith is something earned and not given freely and so far religion has swindled me far more in life than it has proven itself to have any basis in reality.

Call me an Atheist if you like, but I prefer the term Realist. I am a Realist who likes to play at fantasy but in the end, I always land with my feat back on solid ground knowing which way is up.




>> ^shinyblurry:

You're leaving at a few key details in your analysis here. Number one, according to her testimony she was declared dead at the hospital. You're saying this was all the result of a subconscious mind on guilt overload, but she didn't know that she was dead until after she experienced the NDE. When she got hit by the car, she was killed instantaneously. She believed that she was dead because, at the moment of impact, she was flung out of her body into a dark tunnel with demons gnashing at her. For her to be influenced by guilt would necessitate that she already knew what was going on, but she didn't until after the experience had already began. It wasn't as if she was laying there for a time, knowing she was about to die. It all happened in a moments time.
Second, she came back to life at the moment that Jesus saved her. When she called upon His name, He came and lifted her back into the light, and it was then that she regained consciousness in the hospital. Do you believe this is a coincidence?
Your explanation is plausible if your underlying presupposition is correct, that Jesus Christ is not alive, but you have no way of confirming that. There is no instrumentation which is going to confirm your explanation either. You really have no basis for ruling out the possibility that her testimony is true, in actuality. So why do you? Have you never experienced anything in all your life which tells you there could be a God out there?
To note, we're both looking at the same evidence, but we're interpreting it different. The reason we interpret it differently is because we both have certain presuppositions about reality, which you could call a worldview. A worldview is like a pair of glasses that you look through to view reality. Your presuppositions are like the prescription for those glasses, and if your presuppositions are faulty, your interpretation of what you see will lead you to faulty conclusions.
The main presupposition of atheists is that of atheistic naturalism. To an atheist, the things of the spirit are ruled out apriori, so therefore there must be a naturalistic explanation for everything. So, an atheist will completely miss any explanation which doesn't fit into naturalistic assumptions, because they are interpreting every evidence through a naturalistic lens. Your explanation here is that this woman is simply a victim of her own lifelong conditioning, which as I pointed out doesn't quite line up with the facts. If what she described is 100 percent true, you would never once reach that conclusion, because of those presuppositions. How do you know you're not simply the victim of lifelong conditioning towards naturalistic assumptions about reality? This is after all what we are taught in school, and which is reinforced in the culture, popular media, books, music, and the like.
>> ^Sagemind:
This sounds like a person who believed in God but didn't stand by the principles of religion. Then she had a close call/ near death experience which forced her to have a guilt overload.
During that overload, she experienced everything she knew in her sub-conscience, everything she had been taught about heaven and hell as she focused on her fears and guilt over the life she had lead.
I'll guarantee she she was brought up in a religious home and religion was a large part of her life, so that when this experience came, her fear of death, caused her to remember everything she had been indoctrinated with. Everything she is saying is true for her and is a sentimental retelling of her experience but this just shows you how fragile and influential the human brain is to ideas if the ideologies are ingrained enough.
I believe she saw and felt what she did, but I also believe what she experienced was a manifestation of indoctrination and fear influenced by guilt which had been ingrained into her during her years of upbringing.
This is why religion is a dangerous tool. It's very powerful and influential and can be used to as a tool to over-power a person's natural abilities to discern the differences between reality and fantasy.

You're leaving at a few key details in your analysis here. Number one, according to her testimony she was declared dead at the hospital. You're saying this was all the result of a subconscious mind on guilt overload, but she didn't know that she was dead until after she experienced the NDE. When she got hit by the car, she was killed instantaneously. She believed that she was dead because, at the moment of impact, she was flung out of her body into a dark tunnel with demons gnashing at her. For her to be influenced by guilt would necessitate that she already knew what was going on, but she didn't until after the experience had already began. It wasn't as if she was laying there for a time, knowing she was about to die. It all happened in a moments time.

Second, she came back to life at the moment that Jesus saved her. When she called upon His name, He came and lifted her back into the light, and it was then that she regained consciousness in the hospital. Do you believe this is a coincidence?

Your explanation is plausible if your underlying presupposition is correct, that Jesus Christ is not alive, but you have no way of confirming that. There is no instrumentation which is going to confirm your explanation either. You really have no basis for ruling out the possibility that her testimony is true, in actuality. So why do you? Have you never experienced anything in all your life which tells you there could be a God out there?

To note, we're both looking at the same evidence, but we're interpreting it different. The reason we interpret it differently is because we both have certain presuppositions about reality, which you could call a worldview. A worldview is like a pair of glasses that you look through to view reality. Your presuppositions are like the prescription for those glasses, and if your presuppositions are faulty, your interpretation of what you see will lead you to faulty conclusions.

The main presupposition of atheists is that of atheistic naturalism. To an atheist, the things of the spirit are ruled out apriori, so therefore there *must* be a naturalistic explanation for everything. So, an atheist will completely miss any explanation which doesn't fit into naturalistic assumptions, because they are interpreting every evidence through a naturalistic lens. Your explanation here is that this woman is simply a victim of her own lifelong conditioning, which as I pointed out doesn't quite line up with the facts. If what she described is 100 percent true, you would never once reach that conclusion, because of those presuppositions. How do you know you're not simply the victim of lifelong conditioning towards naturalistic assumptions about reality? This is after all what we are taught in school, and which is reinforced in the culture, popular media, books, music, and the like.

>> ^Sagemind:

This sounds like a person who believed in God but didn't stand by the principles of religion. Then she had a close call/ near death experience which forced her to have a guilt overload.
During that overload, she experienced everything she knew in her sub-conscience, everything she had been taught about heaven and hell as she focused on her fears and guilt over the life she had lead.
I'll guarantee she she was brought up in a religious home and religion was a large part of her life, so that when this experience came, her fear of death, caused her to remember everything she had been indoctrinated with. Everything she is saying is true for her and is a sentimental retelling of her experience but this just shows you how fragile and influential the human brain is to ideas if the ideologies are ingrained enough.
I believe she saw and felt what she did, but I also believe what she experienced was a manifestation of indoctrination and fear influenced by guilt which had been ingrained into her during her years of upbringing.
This is why religion is a dangerous tool. It's very powerful and influential and can be used to as a tool to over-power a person's natural abilities to discern the differences between reality and fantasy.

This sounds like a person who believed in God but didn't stand by the principles of religion. Then she had a close call/ near death experience which forced her to have a guilt overload.

During that overload, she experienced everything she knew in her sub-conscience, everything she had been taught about heaven and hell as she focused on her fears and guilt over the life she had lead.

I'll guarantee she she was brought up in a religious home and religion was a large part of her life, so that when this experience came, her fear of death, caused her to remember everything she had been indoctrinated with. Everything she is saying is true for her and is a sentimental retelling of her experience but this just shows you how fragile and influential the human brain is to ideas if the ideologies are ingrained enough.

I believe she saw and felt what she did, but I also believe what she experienced was a manifestation of indoctrination and fear influenced by guilt which had been ingrained into her during her years of upbringing.

This is why religion is a dangerous tool. It's very powerful and influential and can be used to as a tool to over-power a person's natural abilities to discern the differences between reality and fantasy.