You'll be glad to hear that such attempts actually happened with other micronations, and multiple times.

My favourite was the tiny Pacific island of Minerva (my only grief: they didn't call it 'Aynrandia'), which libertarians with too much money built up by pouring a few boatful of sand on top of the underlying reefs.
But being libertarians, the had no taxes. Having no taxes, they had no security forces. And having no security forces, a patrol boat from Tonga arrived, reclaimed the place, and told them in no uncertain terms to fuck off. The end.

There were other attempts, none as comical, but all of them equally doomed.

That's pretty cool

It looks like it would have saved them some grief if they had a checklist.

No.. that's a different argument entirely. Religion at least has a baseline of morality you can fall back upon and say that it can promote at least a modicum of good.

This broad, however, literally preys upon those who are in a grief spiral, offering promises of comfort through nothing more than deception.

Don't get me wrong, push comes to shove, I'll tear apart religions with the best of them.. but I can at least see a small merit in religion.

Definitely would.. if only she hadn't turned down the offer to take the Randi test.

From Wiki:

"In 2012, the James Randi Educational Foundation awarded Caputo a Pigasus Award for being, in its view, the "psychic" performer who fooled the greatest number of people with the least effort in the preceding year. A Pigasus award was also given to TLC for continuing to air the show.[59] In an article published by Wired Magazine the organization's founder James Randi explained why he believed shows like Long Island Medium were deceptive and potentially harmful to its participants:

Why do these pseudo-psychic spectacles bother those of us at the James Randi Educational Foundation? First, and foremost: They are not true. [...] But much more importantly to us, such performances seem to prey on people at their most vulnerable moments — those who have suffered the loss of loved ones — and these mediums use such grief to make a buck. Psychologists tell us this keeps the grieving stuck in their grief, rather than going through the natural stages of acceptance that are healthy.
—James Randi[1]

In June of that year, Caputo appeared in a commercial for Priceline.com in which she portrayed herself "connecting" with the late Priceline Negotiator character previously played by William Shatner.[60] However, this commercial has sparked controversy, since the commercial appears to make light of the Native American belief of smudging.[61] JREF President DJ Grothe issued a statement decrying Priceline.com: "It is difficult to watch the show and not feel heartbroken for those who are desperate to hear from the departed... and even more so if they are being manipulated by a charlatan." Grothe urged the organization to have their new spokeswoman take the James Randi Million Dollar Challenge and prove her paranormal claims."

It's a secret code that you need to use google converter to unlock - 16 u.s. fl oz to ml

Would be much easier if they just sold half litre cups.

Wait? The half litre cup was the SMALL one???? Good grief!

Don't be too hard on yourself.

As callous as it seems, what you are talking about is actually an evolved response and an important one too.

If humans took every tragedy as personally as we do when it happens to some one close to us, we would be paralysed by grief continuously.

Note: I'm not saying that you shouldn't care, simply explaining the reason behind the way most people think.

The funny thing about the 'Muhammad in a bear suit' is that they had an earlier episode a whole bunch of gods acting like super heroes and he was in it. Nobody made a fuss, nobody got death threats, nobody cared.

Such hypocracy has got to make you laugh. Though I think the episode that got the most grief was the episode were a statue of Mother Mary bled out the ass lol.

I don't really care about football. I'm watching the score by refreshing my computer and following Dan Savage's tweets, which are HIGHLY ENTERTAINING.

And my heart is pounding. Good grief. This town will EXPLODE if the Seahawks go to the Super Bowl.

I find it interesting how people are conflating the whole "was he in his right to not answer" issue and "was he a dick" issue into the same thing.. They are very much two separate things and if you can't see that, you've lost perspective.

Once again, we have another situation where people are being dicks to to their fellow citizens over a rule that neither of them came up with. You're just driving? Well they're just doing their job.

If you got a problem with the checkpoint, take it up with the mayor, councilperson, governor or whoever came up with the law. and your personal crusade to be a top uploader on Youtube isn't relevant.

I'm getting sick of this building up of this antagonism between our fellow citizens when the person who actually responsible with the rule gets much less grief or no grief.

You wonder why some cops are in a bad mood? maybe its because they catch all kinds of hell for rules that maybe even they think are stupid too.

Oh good grief this is the cutest damn thing.

So just to throw it straight out there; I'm a massive biker (though mostly solo so I can't really relate to the gang mindset here). You have no idea what this whole debacle does to my priorities!

So on the one hand provoking the man in the big metal cage (no matter how good the perceived reason) is basically never a good idea if your on a bike. And moreover beating someone to within an inch of his life and cutting him up is very very rarely a good or condonable solution to anything, even if he did just run over a couple of your buddies....

On the other hand......well (and this might only really find any sympathy from fellow motor-bicycleists)..........I can fill in some of the gaps that might explain why one biker felt the need to brake hard in front of him etc. from my own experiences.

Some (very few) drivers go out of their way to fuck with you sometimes over little shit, they get a big head tucked away safely inside their big metal cages and they take it upon themselves to cause you grief in some way or another.
On a regular basis for instance I have car drivers deliverately pull their cars out to try and stop me filtering (lane splitting) despite the fact that A. its totally legal and featured on my fucking licence test! and B. It actually speeds their miserable existence in the traffic flow up as we don't have to take up a car's space (and were fucking gone before most cars are even in gear when the lights change anyway)!

Fortunately I have the perfect solution to this problem, I ride a cheapish looking bike and don't show any signs of stopping for them as they veer over deliberately into my path! You'd be amazed how often they just back off :-D (if not I'm only ever doing 5-10mph so stopping is always an option for that odd psycho)

Not saying I remotely condone the bikers responses, but I do understand how this thing probably escalated. I suspect the bikers had a legit frustration but clearly they dealt with it very poorly. The biker side of the story seems to be that this guy had been deliberately blocking lanes and exchanging insults for a while leading up to when the braking biker escalated things,a situation I've witnessed myself before. Normally prudence makes you leave it alone and back off/accelerate away (or if they are being an extra special twatbag knock off a mirror and accelerate into the distance :-D (never actually done that, but it's seriously crossed my mind a couple of times, Kevlar knuckles are the shit!)). In this case the extra courage that only a 1000 or so fellow kinsmen stood at your side can bring had the usual effect..........Mobs will be the death of us all.

@newtboy is right though, bikers totally killed their own case reacting so aggressively. If they'd followed at a reasonable distance and waited for police to show up things would probably have gone completely the other way legally. Sure the dude that brakes in front of him might get charged but it'd be nothing on attempted vehicular murder/manslaughter running over a handful of bikers. Chasing down and then beating a man half to death in front of his family unfortunately rather overshadows your defence.


Sadly the only sensible conclusion I seem to be able to find is this was ultimately douche nozzles with no self control baiting other douche nozzles with no self control. But I do get it. I also totally get the drivers response once it escalated, I'd have shit bricks and maybe made a run for it through them by that stage too!

I really really really wish I could hear what was actually said between them oh well, back to the fence I go!


EDIT: I just wanted to come back and make it absolutely clear that I also acknowledge that bikes in groups (especially sports bikes and supermoto's as featured here) are just as capable of acting like power drunk fucknuts too. It's entirely possible the bikers started it a way's back and the driver was essentially an innocent man driven to extreme lengths by fear (though I'm still going with straight up hot douche on douche action for now)

DUI checkpoint are akin to the KGB or the SS demanding you produce your papers whenever asked-The police in the U.S. would NOT perform these fucked-up exercises if more citizens made it harder for them-OBSTRUCTING is bullshit: It's a free-ticket for cops to arrest someone for ANY reason.

(Perhaps the resident copper here on the VS can chime-in??)

If more people through this type of civil disobedience would protest they'd scrap the "checkpoint" bullshit for random drunks and maybe do something that benefits society???

MADD was created by busy-bodies who needed grief counseling instead of a soapbox. Prohibition is for herd animals.

We just started watched the X files from the beginning again, now that my crop of children includes two of X-files age.

She has aged well, especially considering the profound grief she must carry daily due to me being her soulmate but my already being taken.

Take a lesson from the dog. He'll go through all of the doggy stages of grief much faster and more efficiently than his human counterparts, and spring-back from his loss ready to imbue the world with hope and joy again soonish.....then he'll probably go make friends with a squirrel or otter, maybe pick up an addiction or two.