Aye but the guy did say the Progressive lawyer in the courtroom did more than give a little assistance:



"At the beginning of the trial on Monday, August 6th, an attorney identified himself as Jeffrey R. Moffat and stated that he worked for Progressive Advanced Insurance Company. He then sat next to the defendant. During the trial, both in and out of the courtroom, he conferred with the defendant. He gave an opening statement to the jury, in which he proposed the idea that the defendant should not be found negligent in the case. He cross-examined the plaintiff’s witnesses. On direct examination, he questioned all of the defense’s witnesses. He made objections on behalf of the defendant, and he was a party to the argument of all of the objections heard in the case. After all of the witnesses had been called, he stood before the jury and gave a closing argument, in which he argued that my sister was responsible for the accident that killed her, and that the jury should not decide that the defendant was negligent.

I am comfortable characterizing this as a legal defense. "

>> ^entr0py:

The good news is the Fisher family won the case regardless. There were also a few factual errors in TYTs reporting, as porksandwich mentioned the other driver had insurance which had already paid out to it's maximum, and progressive didn't represent him legally. But what they actually did do was bad enough to deserve the condemnation; a progressive lawyer contacted the defendant's lawyer and gave him assistance, so they could ultimately avoid liability.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-progressive-campaign-
20120816,0,5322264.story

Eve was tempted by Satan, not a talking snake.

Why isn't this mentioned in the original text?

How and why did people suddenly realize the serpent was actually Satan a few thousand years later?

God works by progressive revelation. However, you can find something about it in Ezekiel 28.

Why didn't God recognize Satan in the form of a serpent? It seems God's omniscence was on the fritz that day; he didn't know where Adam was hiding and didn't know he and Eve had eaten the fruit.

God did recognize Satan, which is why He pronounced this judgment, which is also a prophecy of the Messiah:

Genesis 3:15

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

It's a prophecy about Jesus defeating Satan on the cross.

Have you ever asked a question you knew the answer to? Then you can understand why God asked Adam where he was.

If God did recognize Satan, why did he punish all serpents to crawl on their bellies and eat dust and all that?

Can you see how those words would have a deeper meaning to an angelic being who is condemned to stay on Earth?

And why did they continue to do business together for the next few thousand years until the Fall? If Satan was just doing his original job (tempting humans), why was he punished at all?

The fall was when Adam and Eve disobeyed God. Satans original job was the worship leader in Heaven. Since falling from grace, he has attempted to corrupt and destroy Gods creation. He tempted Adam and Eve to gain power over them, and because Adam has dominion over the Earth, he would become the defacto ruler.

Satan has played a role as a prosecuting attorney against God creations. God allowed him to serve in this capacity, but it wasn't a "job". It was Satans delight to do so, and part of his determination to ruin the creation.

Why was this required? Why can't God just change the rules if that's what he wants? Why does he need to jump through all these hoops?

I answered this question in messangers reply if you want to look there..

>> ^xxovercastxx

"This is a stop motion video I made to document my process of crocheting one of my larger than life portraits in yarn from start to finish. In my work I use a traditional basic crochet technique taught to me at an early age by my Gran. I work one knot at a time, from the inside out, row by row. I always begin my crochet portraits in the middle with the eyes and work out from there until the piece is completed. I work directly from photographs, using no sketches, graphs or computer imaging. Each piece is handmade, labour-intensive, instinctively composed. Nothing is planned ahead; I make it up as I go along. I spend a lot of time simply looking, unraveling, and reworking until I get it right. To make this video I photographed the work after each new yarn colour or two was added, and edited the photos into a sequence. This 30 second sequence contains over 300 photos of the work in progress. The portrait is of my dear friend Arthur Cheesman, who is sadly no longer with us. Website johamiltonart.com. Music by Aikamusic/Goldcard." vimeo

>> ^criticalthud:

>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^criticalthud:
just out of curiosity, in the midst of global warming doubters promoting the theory that the earth is warming through solar/cosmic/natural means... has there been much consideration into the idea that the earth is currently in a cooling phase -- enormously offset by what we're doing to it?
second,
one large concern i have with global warming is "system adaption" - that being that it generally takes the ecosystem a bit of time to adjust to whatever is happening to it (ie: glaciers don't melt immediately). Meaning that the damage we caused 10 years ago is being felt now. Meaning also that even if we were to cease mucking about right now, we could expect continued and possibly even escalating ecosystem problems in the years to come.
so, is it time to panic? dunno. could be.

Which is why it's so important to understand things better. Rapidly cutting CO2 emissions before we have the replacement technology in place would be costly, not just financially but world history shows big financial impacts generally spill over into violent impacts. Battery technology is getting very close to making electric cars that are superior in every way to their gas guzzling brethren. I truly do believe that the enormous CO2 contribution made by burning gasoline is rapidly on it's way out for purely economic rather than environmental reasons. Another reason I don't feel the need for panic.
As I stated above, I am NOT being a skeptic in declaring that H2O dominates the greenhouse effect. It is the uncontested scientific fact.
I am NOT being a skeptic in declaring that H2O's role in climate models and forcing/feedbacks is very poorly understood. It is an uncontested scientific fact, some models even disagree on whether to assign it as a positive or negative feedback.
Think about those two for a good long while before thinking everything Al Gore said should trump peer reviewed science.

you seem to mistake me as someone who is arguing with you. i'm really only interested in insights.
I'm certainly not a climatologist. I work with spines. But in answer to your proposition that it would be chaotic if we cut back, I think the strength of the human species is in their ability to adapt, and as far as i'm concerned, the ballooning world population combined with a worldwide contracture in resources makes this inevitable (not to mention the growing climate change issue) - but it's up to us on how painful we want it to be.
Our entire economic system and our culture of consumerism needs to be revised. We are mindless automatons, with little awareness to our impact on the earth as a species. Our daily lives are almost entirely self-centered.
Secondly, as to "the" question of human contribution, I would offer the microcosm of the forest fire, in which carbon is suddenly released into the atmosphere. The overall effect is, clearly, very warming, almost suffocating. On a grander scale, the species is continually burning and releasing carbon into the atmoshphere all over the planet. How that would fail to warm the planet escapes me. but, like i said, it's not my field. peace out.


Sorry if my tone comes off as combative, it's not really my intent so please don't take my vehemence on issues personally. Maybe I'm just getting older but I'm of the mindset that the fastest way to know where I'm right and wrong is to be forward and assertive with how I understand things and allow the opportunity to be corrected where I'm wrong.

My thoughts on the human contribution are tempered by a few things. From the very top, that CO2's contribution is small compared to H2O(I count this an uncontested fact). Annual CO2 emissions are small(5%) compared to natural CO2 emissions(I again count this an uncontested fact). The experts do insist that the human CO2 emissions are building up and still driving the natural CO2 levels significantly higher each year. We don't understand the natural CO2 emission and absorption processes very well, so poorly in fact our margins of error on them are larger than the human contribution. There is evidence that CO2 levels are rising in the last 100 years, and there is a correlation there to human emissions. What we don't have strong evidence for yet is what impact that has on climate. We DO know it is warming effect, but the magnitude of it is still poorly understood. As I've outlined above the understanding of temperature trends over the last 2k years is still a work in progress with large margins of error(even systematic ones that are being worked out). The computer models we have by definition are no more reliable than that data, which places us without a strong correlation or confidence in what magnitude of change the CO2 will have when all other variables are considered.

As a side point, if you look at the IPCC or listen to certain climatologists, you may hear it sounding like they disagree and believe my last statement is disproven. What they have studied is the impact CO2 increases should have overall with the assumption of all other variables being equal. It's a useful figure to have, and the confidence in it is better than my last statement described. That is because I was talking about something different, I stated that CO2's impact, with all other variables being considered NOT equal, is still poorly known and has very low confidence levels. In the real world the impact of one climate variable impacts the role of all the others, and often significantly. The IPCC and a select few climatologists talk about CO2 projections that ignore that interaction as a base assumption and somewhere along the line between them and the public or them and Al Gore, that base assumption gets dropped off. That base assumption is central and vital, and it's why as our climate models improve we will see predictions for CO2 that fall outside the error margins of the IPCC models with that assumption. That doesn't invalidate the IPCC's work, it is an advancement of it and improvement upon it. Remembering the base assumptions is vital for the public to maintain faith in the integrity and reliability of scientific research. People need to know WHY the predictions they were told by the IPCC a few years back have changed so much and yet the IPCC insists they weren't wrong. The truth is simply that they were misunderstood.

As yet another rabbit warren, there is an even smaller set of people within the climate community who actively encourage that misunderstanding. They do it firmly believing that the impact of CO2 with all else ignored is still indicative of CO2 with all else considered. Which is even a reasonable and normal expectation. The trouble is it falsely communicates the level confidence and margin of error of current known facts. I can't abide that kind of thinking, it's what is supposed to differentiate scientists from priests and politicians, they are supposed to refuse to make that kind of compromise when presenting what they do and do not know is demonstrably true.

yup thats me bro, me on guitar, and awesome that it reminds you of deftones. Thats kind of what we're goin for: a deftones meets radiohead sort of thing. The heavy, sexy edge of deftones with the ambient, experimental electronica of radiohead.

i dont sing but im kind of the opposite when it comes to originals and covers. I was never really all that good at playing covers (especially memorizing em) but my talent shines when im playing original stuff. Glad you like it mate =)

In reply to this comment by Duckman33:
Wow that's some good shit! Seriously. That's your brother singing that? Kind of reminds me of The Deftones. At least he can sing originals, something I never could get the knack for. I'm just a imitator unfortunately. Never could find my voice. Mostly due to me being overly critical of my own singing I was just never happy with any original stuff I did.

And yes /handshake. I can pretty much be a prick myself when I want to be as you no doubt have figured out, LOL. I hate arguing with musicians. We are all brothers and sisters in my eyes.

In reply to this comment by smooman:
In reply to this comment by Duckman33:
>> ^smooman:

and whats funny about karaoke? its fun (usually more so if you CANT sing like me), derp derp derp, ......and probably stuck up


Exactly, which is why I don't take it seriously when someone refers to a karaoke star as proof of talent. And yes if that makes me stuck up then so be it. I'm stuck up.

more than just a "karaoke star" i assure you: http://soundcloud.com/sphiralstudios (our bands works in progress page)
http://soundcloud.com/wolvestulsa (the full page, mixed and mastered. A few are being redone, namely Under Cover of Night and Some Kind of Bird, mainly because the songs have evolved from when we first wrote and recorded em (whats on there now) to what they are currently)

its in my nature to be an asshole, it takes some getting used to i suppose, so apologies for that. Put in another way, i was merely pointing out that i had four other "professional grade" singers listen to it and they flatly disagreed with your position, namely that there were plenty of "sour notes" and just an overall lack of pitch control (a talent rarely seen in today's pop stars, as opposed to say, maynard james keenan).

Guess thats just what i was trying to say, but in a dickish manner =P

/handshake?

Wow that's some good shit! Seriously. That's your brother singing that? Kind of reminds me of The Deftones. At least he can sing originals, something I never could get the knack for. I'm just a imitator unfortunately. Never could find my voice. Mostly due to me being overly critical of my own singing I was just never happy with any original stuff I did.

And yes /handshake. I can pretty much be a prick myself when I want to be as you no doubt have figured out, LOL. I hate arguing with musicians. We are all brothers and sisters in my eyes.

In reply to this comment by smooman:
In reply to this comment by Duckman33:
>> ^smooman:

and whats funny about karaoke? its fun (usually more so if you CANT sing like me), derp derp derp, ......and probably stuck up


Exactly, which is why I don't take it seriously when someone refers to a karaoke star as proof of talent. And yes if that makes me stuck up then so be it. I'm stuck up.

more than just a "karaoke star" i assure you: http://soundcloud.com/sphiralstudios (our bands works in progress page)
http://soundcloud.com/wolvestulsa (the full page, mixed and mastered. A few are being redone, namely Under Cover of Night and Some Kind of Bird, mainly because the songs have evolved from when we first wrote and recorded em (whats on there now) to what they are currently)

its in my nature to be an asshole, it takes some getting used to i suppose, so apologies for that. Put in another way, i was merely pointing out that i had four other "professional grade" singers listen to it and they flatly disagreed with your position, namely that there were plenty of "sour notes" and just an overall lack of pitch control (a talent rarely seen in today's pop stars, as opposed to say, maynard james keenan).

Guess thats just what i was trying to say, but in a dickish manner =P

/handshake?

In reply to this comment by Duckman33:
>> ^smooman:

and whats funny about karaoke? its fun (usually more so if you CANT sing like me), derp derp derp, ......and probably stuck up


Exactly, which is why I don't take it seriously when someone refers to a karaoke star as proof of talent. And yes if that makes me stuck up then so be it. I'm stuck up.

more than just a "karaoke star" i assure you: http://soundcloud.com/sphiralstudios (our bands works in progress page)
http://soundcloud.com/wolvestulsa (the full page, mixed and mastered. A few are being redone, namely Under Cover of Night and Some Kind of Bird, mainly because the songs have evolved from when we first wrote and recorded em (whats on there now) to what they are currently)

its in my nature to be an asshole, it takes some getting used to i suppose, so apologies for that. Put in another way, i was merely pointing out that i had four other "professional grade" singers listen to it and they flatly disagreed with your position, namely that there were plenty of "sour notes" and just an overall lack of pitch control (a talent rarely seen in today's pop stars, as opposed to say, maynard james keenan).

Guess thats just what i was trying to say, but in a dickish manner =P

/handshake?

Nah, you can quite easily make open space with Unreal, doesn't bloody occlude though, but hey!looks pretty Be interesting to see what they do with this >> ^kceaton1:

I hope this is a HEAVILY modified Unreal tech, because unfortunately their engine is a large hallway or open room with really pretty sky boxes.
Which again, I'd rather have Crysis (Crytek engine)...

I have a surprise for you:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/MechWarrior_%28reboot%29

In reply to this comment by Zonbie:
Couldn't agree more - it is more action orientated, however I miss Mechwarrior

>> ^AeroMechanical:

With all the circle strafing and jumping around, it looks more like an fps with robots more than a Mechwarrior kind of game. Mechwarrior was closer to a simulator than a shoot-em-up action game.
Comparisons aside, it does look very, very cool though.

No need to buy it anymore. That stuff is free, until you actually make money. Enormous opportunities for indie devs, these days.
>> ^EMPIRE:

oh I had no idead they were using unreal engine, but now that you mention it, it kinda looks like the Unreal engine.
But yeah, buying an already existing engine cuts a lost of development time.

I recall, maybe a year or two ago, seeing a *really* cool looking in-game trailer for a new official Mechwarrior game, then I heard some random rumor snipits abouts legal troubles with FASA, and then that was it. Nothing else.

Anyone know anything about that? Because, without a doubt, along with space sims like Tie Fighter, Mechwarrior-style games are something you just don't see anymore but that could be insanely, unbelievably, ridiculously awesome with modern hardware.

>> ^Zonbie:

Couldn't agree more - it is more action orientated, however I miss Mechwarrior
>> ^AeroMechanical:
With all the circle strafing and jumping around, it looks more like an fps with robots more than a Mechwarrior kind of game. Mechwarrior was closer to a simulator than a shoot-em-up action game.
Comparisons aside, it does look very, very cool though.

Couldn't agree more - it is more action orientated, however I miss Mechwarrior

>> ^AeroMechanical:

With all the circle strafing and jumping around, it looks more like an fps with robots more than a Mechwarrior kind of game. Mechwarrior was closer to a simulator than a shoot-em-up action game.
Comparisons aside, it does look very, very cool though.

Well it's being made with UDK (Unreal Engine 3), so they wouldn't have needed to spend time writing their own engine. Gameplay wise, you're basically looking at Unreal Tournament on a different visual scale. So yeah, a small, hard-working team could very easily make this quickly.

The artstyle is fantastic!>> ^EMPIRE:

I wonder what's the size of the team that is making the game. They're supposed to be an indie developer, and from what I read somewhere this was done in less than a year.

>> ^NetRunner:

It's a Christmas miracle!


God bless us, every one!

Wouldn't that be awesome if Christians became the new hippies and started living on little farms, growing marijuana?? I would love to buy Jesus weed. There would be Christians on sidewalks in cities doing tarot card reading and henna and working on progressive hard rock and blues albums with lyrics about Jesus fighting hordes of demons during the apocalypse.

God, I am really high.