But new bigots will rise in their place. I gotta go with V on this one. The best way to kill bigotry is to expose it.

I find this works even in small more personal situations. When I hear veiled bigotry, I repeat it back, but explicitly. "Are you saying you think that [veiled bigotry made explicit]?".

People will often backpedal when their opinions are brought out into the open.

I was being sarcastic - see the "right" smilie.

OTOH I think that exposing bigots has worked really well, for example WBC.

Wow.
You sure do things in a funny way over there.

Extortion isn't funny. :mad2:

People in rural areas have strong opinions about the role of government. They would be pissed if you forced them to pay taxes that would cover fire protection. But this is the other side of that position.

South Fulton, TN is about 5 miles from my ancestor's homesteads
and my summer stomping grounds, so I took an interest in this article.

For me, it does not pass the sniff (Snopes) test.
This looks to me more like a political ploy that was picked up
and spread across the nation by the news media.
Here is a 2010 article with the same story, but with different names.

Yahoo News
Oct 5, 2010
Rural Tennessee fire sparks conservative ideological debate
P.S. The embedded video of this incident is "no longer available"
-----------------

This is from a 2008 report presented to the Obion County Study Committee
A Presentation Regarding The Establishment And Implementation of a County-Wide Fire Department

:eyebrow:

I think you're off base on this one, spexx. This is just how it works in the country. You probably get fire coverage through your taxes. You pay in case the fire department needs to come out to your home.

If you live in unincorporated areas of the boonies, you can choose to pay a yearly fee to the fire department or not. Everyone understands this and knows what the risks are.

Ever see "Gangs of New York"? If it's not extortion, it's still a shitty way to treat your fellow human beings, let alone your neighbors and those in your community. We have volunteer fire departments here. They ask for donations. If you don't donate, they still put out your fire.

: stares at you guys in amazement :


Man that's crazier than your health care thingy. Enjoy your feedom.


LMAO, just noticed that I typed feedom not freedom. Imma leave that one.

How is it done there?

Cities have a metropolitan fire service, funded by the state government, with fully professional firefighters. All fires are dealt with for free. A system false alarm - your shopping centre computer keeps calling the fire brigade when there isn't a fire - cost (last I heard) $600.

Rural areas have a volunteer fire service funded by the state government with volunteer firefighters who train two to four evenings a week. They do a bit of fundraising, but again all fires are dealt with for free. I think they also charge for system false alarms.

A malicious false alarm is a criminal offence.

The country firies are supposed to deal with local structure fires, car crashes and bushfires. For the latter, having a large number of firies to call on in emergencies is crucial.
The metro firies deal with city stuctures, high-rises, industrial fires, and help with bush fires, although (at least in South Australia) their help with bush fires is limited - their insurance does not cover their firetrucks unless all wheels of the truck are on a sealed road. Otherwise, the truck officer is personally liable for the truck. [/brother of a firefighter in both services]

General rule is that if it is burning and it shouldn't be, we put it the #$%& out ASAP.

That is basically how it works here as well. This situation in TN is by far an exception tot he rule, and seems like would only happen in an incredibly rural area. Lives first, property second. And it seems that in that particular area, residents have no choice (well, besides not living in the middle of nowhere) but to rely on another town's fire dept. Mutual aid is what we call it when one area's dept has to cover for another's. In those cases you are pretty much guaranteed a large bill for services provided, since you pay no taxes to the town of the service that responded.

A cloaked Enterprise spotted near Mercury.


http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow...154443870.html

They're on their way. I'll wave bye bye to the rich folks who don't impress the aliens.

I'll be here until Dec 24th. After that, I will be somewhere else.

Then it's not for free, is it? Someone pays those taxes. In this case, they're just giving the people the option of not paying the tax. Personally, I think they shouldn't give people that option, because someone's always dumb enough to take it.

I wonder if your homeowner's insurance refuses to pay out if your house burns down because you didn't pay the firefighters' tax.

Another shooter at Virginia Tech. So far two dead, killer at large.

May be isolated incidents. Or may be another 30+ dead.

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/08...virginia-tech/

The second time it happens you start to think, "What's the matter with Virginia Tech?"

The people I know who admit to having gone to Virginia Tech talk about it fairly often and with pride. They love the place.

Guns on campus

okay, Australian constitution time.

Only the Federal government has the power to charge taxes, which we do mostly with income tax and a goods and services (sales) tax. The federal government spends much of this on social security, defense, tertiary education, and primary health care (your local GP) and divvies the rest up among the states, who spend it on hospitals, schools, police, firefighters and medium sized roads*. And probably a lot of other BS we don't really need :right: . Local councils collect "rates" based on property values, collect garbage, fix pot-holes and regulate development/building approvals.

So calling the fire brigade is as free as calling the police. They attend based on need and are funded by the taxpayer. There is no option of paying or not paying a firefighter levy.


*IMHO this is a massively inefficient arrangement and the state governments should be pretty much abolished. Never gonna happen.

They have too many cans.

Woops
 

Smart is smart.

Runaway golf cart runs over people at high school football game at Cowboy stadium
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/9...-football-game

Bullshit it "got loose." Those two orange rectangles have been deliberately leaned against the gas pedal. As soon as the guy throws them off at 28 seconds, the cart stops driving.

Some dumbass high school students are going to be brought up on charges for this, if they can only figure out which ones did it.

omg that is so funny!

Except for the people who died.

I'm with clod, its the only plausible explanation.

Barney Frank offers a lesson for the Youth Of America:

Rep. Frank's Moobs

Fat old Democrats just can't rock the silk tee.

This seems less Politics than a Current Event.

You meant "mean, murderous suicides from off-campus, on campus."

They had a system in place, they implemented it, and it worked well. They should keep it. Only thing they could do better is acquire the reputation of being able to take the bad guy out by shooting him first. This kinda redirects them...

Why they hell would he do this?

NUKE SCIENTIST EXCHANGE PLANNED

Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel B. Poneman is working on a major Obama administration initiative that would renew scientist exchanges between U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories and Chinese nuclear facilities.

The idea is aimed at promoting openness and transparency by China’s military about its secret, large-scale buildup of nuclear weapons, according to U.S. officials.

Critics say the plan is similar to an exchange program in the 1990s that sent U.S. nuclear scientists to China and produced one of the worst cases of nuclear espionage. Secrets about every deployed warhead in the U.S. arsenal were compromised, including the W-88 small nuclear warhead deployed on submarine-launched missiles.

“We’ve seen this movie before, and it has a bad ending,” one official said.



http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/20...ing-105581724/

Are you opposed to arms control negotiations, mercy?

No.

The first steps of such negotiations include exchanges like this. The whole slander about Wu is stupid fearmongering. You're smart enough to ignore it for a much more important goal such as a nuclear arms control treaty.

v - Didn't we do something like this already and get royally screwed?

So I read a little story about that California arsonist, Harry Burkhart, this morning. This is the guy who burned dozens of cars in California, and cursed out the USA in the courtroom during his mom's fraud trial. Your typical unhinged nut.

Apparently, the local cops sent security footage to the feds, and they were able to ID him from that footage. It's all anonymous sources, but did the the Feds just recognize him the way we recognize people, or is facial recognition technology advanced to the point now that he was identified by computer?

Especially as bad as security footage is. Any local footage I've seen (if you recognize this man) is so crappy it could be ME and I wouldn't know it.

Yes. The nuclear weapon does not go around the squirrel

I think this is pretty hot topic in security, I've seen TV shows where thay can follow an individual around town as they appear on different security cameras, the eye - eye - mouth triangle spacing is apparently quite distinctive, even from a blurry picture, could certainly be used to narrow a search to a reasonable number of people.

I suppose that part is possible and likely true.

But if the squirrel turns it's head and looks at the hunter out of the corner of it's eyes,
wouldn't the triangles have different ratios of sides and angles as it moves around the tree ?

Given the millions of faces and the limited number of pixels in a screen display,
this technology could be misused the same way "fiber analysis" and "tooth marks"
in flesh wounds have been in the past.

Computerized recognition might well be sufficient to point to
an individual from a relatively small group of known arsonists.
But it makes for good PR for the FBI and TV programming.

No. Technology CAN pick you out of a crowd. That tech was pioneered by the casinos, who use it to enforce blacklists of cheaters. If you get tossed out of a casino, you are banned from the rest by the time you get to the next one. Even with disguises, they can find you.

I can only assume that the government has even better technology available.

I saw that movie... wasn't Denzel Washington in it? He had to make a great show of staying under roofs/awnings etc. And there was a master tech geek located in a dance club/strip club etc that got him... some slack... what the hell movie was that??

This, except that after 9/11 the govt turned to the casinos to learn how to do it.

The casinos are using clear pictures, not half-assed video.

For $50, anyone can get clear, color video these days. That grainy footage you see? Either older equipment or improperly installed. Many places now offer you a monitor so you can see yourself. Check out the video quality for yourself.

That would be "Enemy of the state" with Will Smith an Gene Hackman.

Damm. Are you sure. I thought it head lined Obama as the Enemy of the State.

I was referring to the footage, they showed on the news, that the feds used to nail that guy.

probably it had been down-res'd a bunch of times, you know a copy of a copy of a bad xerox of a photostat of a copy of a copy of a copy.

Vietnam surgery removes tumor twice man's weight
CNN

yeah, I saw that too. My WTF meter has redlined

Excuse me, I'm going to go puke until my face falls off. Then I might dig into my brain through my ear and try to remove that image. Because O.M.G.

just when you though it was safe.....he said "hay wilbur, i want hay not tube steak!"

that is a weird bunch down there in south texas. i was down there for 8 months. unfortunately.

here's the link

Politicians from Darwin (think, Crocodile Dundee territory) are far more manly than those from down south.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-0...arrest/3762880

Legend!

Bad link Zen.

worked for me - just in case
try this one
ETA - sorry, same link as his.

Now they both work. :rolleyes:

wanna just delete my post then?

No, it makes it double good.