Fairweather

Our company has two classifications re vehicle accidents in corporate vehicles: 1) "Avoidable" 2) "Unavoidable". The only type of accident that qualifies for this classification is sitting at a complete stop and getting hit from behind. ....So it sounds like your accident was "Avoidable". Stop making excuses for your own inattentiveness. Glad you're OK, though.

I can make them all stop!

I think we agree. I was merely trying to make the tunnel-visionist k.a. Billygoat understand that conservatives aren't any more guilty of this than liberals.

...yea, and liberals like Christine Gregoire trying to regulate smoking out of existence, and forcing grown adults to wear seatbelts and bike helmets.

A co-worker sent me this email. Good stuff ....... People over 35 should be dead by now. According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40's, 50's, 60's, or even maybe the early 70's probably shouldn't have survived. Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, . and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.) As children, we would ride in cars with no seatbelts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors! We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. NO CELL PHONES!!!!! Unthinkable! We did not have Play stations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms. We had friends! We went outside and found them. We played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball would really hurt. We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents? We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it. We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rang the bell or just walked in and talked to them. Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Some students weren't as smart as others, so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade. Horrors! Tests were not adjusted for any reason. Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that! This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. And you're one of them! Congratulations! Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good !!!!!

I'm considering a Honda Element, but they aren't very....uh, manly. None the less, they seem a good compromise between fuel consumption and interior room.

I drive a Toyota. It was final-assembled in Ohio. I know this because that is what that white sticker inside the door tells me. Last I read, Saturn autos were the only "almost all American-made" cars on the road. The tires and wiper-blades being the exception. This may no longer be true. Subaru's are still pieces of shit, IMO.

My children will train in military-style camps, practice martial arts, march at night in the rain, learn purse-seine tactics. They will never submit to your evil shark masters.

Actually, if schools taught sodomy-only (heterosexual, of course) sex-ed, the pregnancy rate would rapidly fall to....zero!

Dru, your link is amusing, but why would a public school teacher have any more right to present a gay lifestyle than she would creationism? This is where your side runs into a wall. The same liberals who scream bloody murder at the thought of creationism being taught in schools are the same ones who want to push homosexual doctrine on 3rd graders and cite fictitious statistics about 10% of the population being gay. Maybe if you kept your agenda out of public schools, the religious right would be more inclined to moderate their own as it relates to education. Maybe they would even stop pulling their kids out of public schools!

Can you cite any studies that demonstrate a primary focus on abstinance-only is harmful? Or just anecdote put forth by those with an agenda like yours? I think telling minors that the only sure way to avoid pregnancy and STD's is to abstain from sex is a good thing.

You must drive it like a pussy.

Subaru makes the Legacy, Outback and Baja in Lafayette, IN It was intended a a humorous play on words, numbnuts.

Subaru's are pieces of shit. Just ask The Car Guys on your favorite... NPR! Their horizontally-opposed boxer type engines belong on a hang-glider...not in a car! Additionally, they are WAY overpriced. Face it! You buy the Subaru because it fits a certain image you want to portray to others. Nothing wrong with that, but just admit it. My old company car Ford Escort went for 200,000 miles and got 30mpg. My Toyota pickup will likely go 200k. I would love to see tha data on Subaru. I suspect you won't find too many with their orig engines @ 150k.

Fair enough, Fairweather. Not only are creation beliefs and evolution compatible, you simply cannot believe in the Good Book's account of Noah's flood unless you acknowledge evolution. It was explained to me that if one male and one female representative of each species of beetle on Earth today were placed on Noah's arc, there would have been no room for even one grasshopper. However many species of beetle actually were on the arc, they must have undergone many mutations since the Fountains of the Deep ceased to flow. I'm not all that religious, frankly, so your Noah's Ark analogy seems somewhat bizarre. It would seem to me, however, that one male and female representative of a given speices does not an adequate gene-pool make. I really don't buy the whole flood-thing. Maybe it was a story intended as a parable millenia ago.

No. You're thinking of Suburbans.

But most of you are snivelling, Subaru-driving, sucking-at-the-teat-of-government, anti-gun, socialist, peacenik, America-hating, lazy bastards. I write a long-winded, pro-your-position post...and that's all you have to reply with?

In the third century BC, Greeks were contemplating the existence of other worlds. Science and intellectual thought were flourishing in the western world and middle east. Yet more than 1500 years later "heretics" were being burned at the stake for blasphemy. What went wrong? Where would we be today if we had not taken a nearly 2000 year vacation from logic? Who is to blame for this disaster? IMO, not Jesus Christ, not Buddah,...or even Mohammed...but rather the zealots who took the beauty and hope of religion and turned it into a dark quest for power and wealth. And while some hard-core Judeo-Christian holdouts force us to take small steps backward on occassion, still the logic-train moves forward. IMO, such is not the case in the Muslim world. It remains regressive in the extreme and is almost universally intolerant of progressive ideals. The western world has spent the last 200+ years in a frantic quest to reawaken reason and catch up to our human destiny. While some adherents to Christianity and Judaism try to slow down the inevitable, it is undeniable that overall they have (some grudgingly) submitted to reforms and accepted scientific and western political ideals. Again, Islam, IMO, is an exception. The fact that is evolution is not incompatible with religion. And one need not "invent" goofy theologies to make this so. Teaching evolution in our schools is essential. We evolve still. It would be nice to allow creationist teaching as a counter-balance, but the opinions therein are so diverse that it is not practical... such teachings must ultimately resort to faith and throw (existing) science out the window. Many here like to pigeonhole all conservatives into the religious zealot column. You have no idea how wrong you are.

Some non-mountain pron for anyone interested: Went for a bike ride today to check out the progress on the new Tacoma Narrows... This is the west tower taken today. The east tower is progressing at the same rate.

And humans are? Especially partisan King County election officials? And a canvassing board therein dominated by....Democrats? Machines have no agenda. Humans do. Me thinks Yngve makes poor argument and smokes pot with AlpineK.

Once again AK, you are the one who is uninformed. The Dems will ask for a recount in selected King County precincts only. (Likely Freemont, Capitol Hill areas) They will have to pay for this portion of the recount. Once they have "mined out" enough votes to overturn the result of the outcome, THE STATE (ie: taxpayers) will be forced to pay for a statewide recount by law. Once again, as you seem to be especially slow with this concept: The Democrats will likely not request a statewide recount that they would have to pay for. They will request a recount in a precinct most likely to overturn the statewide result thereby forcing us to pay for the vast remainder of this monumental task. I would put this into a numeric formula for you, but I lack the proper DeVry/University of Phoenix credentials that you possess. ...and unless you're a Brit, that's G-R-A-Y matter.

It was born and raised in captivity. I've thought about releasing him but the airfare to the South Pacific is a bit too pricey right now... and I don't think he would submit to a TSA pat-down at the airport.

My parrot deeply resents such cheap slander... You should be ashamed keeping an endangered Parrot species captive for your selfish human amusement. Have you planted any Lynx hair in the Gifford Pinchot lately?

How about citing the RCW for this? ...if you even know... Try this: (are you worried now??) http://www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/voterguide/faq2.aspx Frequently asked Questions about Residency and Voting Rights To be eligible to register to vote in Washington, you must be a resident of the state. The term residence is used differently for a variety of legal situations. For example, residency for tuition at a state college is defined by statutes dealing with state institutions of higher learning. Residency for unemployment benefit eligibility or financial assistance is defined by statutes dealing with those topics. Similarly, residency is defined for the purposes of voting in the State Constitution and in the laws and regulations related to voting. The Washington State Constitution states the following qualifications for voters, “All persons of the age of eighteen years or over who are citizens of the United States and who have lived in the state, county and precinct thirty days immediately preceding the election at which they offer to vote…”(Art. VI sec. 1) . RCW 29.01.140 defines residence for the purpose of registering and voting as a person’s address where he physically resides and maintains his abode. What does residence mean for purposes of voter registration and voting? When applied to voter registration, the term residence usually means the place where you physically maintain your home and where you spend the majority of your time. You must have a residence. Once that residence is established, it exists until a new residence is established. You may not have more than one residence. How do I change my residence? You must physically leave the previous residence with the intention of establishing a new residence at another location. You do not lose residence for voting purposes simply because you are no longer residing at the physical location where you are registered. For example, if you leave to begin a job in a new location with the intent of returning you will not lose residency. If, however, you choose to make the new location your residence then the previous residence is lost and you must change your registration. Intention to reside in a particular place - permanently or for an unspecified period of time - is an important factor in determining your residence for voting purposes. Your declarations or testimony, with respect to your intention, must be evidenced by your conduct and the factual circumstances surrounding his or her claim to a particular residence. What if I’m in the military, a student or traveling outside the state or country? These rules also apply to you if you’re in the military, a student or traveling outside the state and country. It is your responsibility to know whether you are eligible to register and vote. In addition to meeting the residency requirements listed above, you must be at least 18 years of age, a citizen of the United States of America, and have your full civil rights to be eligible to participate in elections. Is it legal for people to use my address for their voter registration even though they don’t live here anymore? Yes. In many circumstances, it is the only address they can use for voter registration. For example, a member of the armed services stationed overseas or out of state, or a student attending school abroad whose formerly resided at your address, may use that address for voter registration and voting purposes. What are the penalties for voting or registering to vote if I am ineligible? These crimes are Class C felonies punishable by imprisonment for up to five years and/or a fine up to $10,000. What can I do if I know someone isn’t eligible to vote but is still registered to vote? Suggest the person contact his/her county elections department right away to have the (or his/her) registration canceled. If the person is not willing to accept this responsibility, you may contact the County Auditor yourself. You can also provide proof of his/her ineligibility to the County Prosecuting Attorney. What should I do if I want to file a report about a person who I suspect is not eligible to be a registered voter?

So you can't win through logic so you resort to personal attacks. BTW it's well known that Carl Sagan loved to smoke pot, and he had a PhD in Physics. AK, you are the master of the personal attack, so don't cry when someone comes back at you in kind. Carl Sagan, while certainly adept at translating astro-physics into laymans terms, wasn't that highly regarded by his peers. (Maybe because they could see the dulling effect of his habit?)