The first premise is axiomatically true, and the second is nearly self-evident. The third point, I would argue, will be a matter of degree or severity.
The awesomeness of all this is that these privately provided goods, by virtue of being subject to market forces, will gradually improve and will sooner or later surpass the utility of the goods presently state-provided.
Until two days ago, Blitz USA was the largest manufacturer of gasoline cans in the country. Blitz employed 117 people, and provided benefits like health insurance to their families, in a town of about 13,600 people in the rural town of Miami, Oklahoma. (Yeah, yeah, no math, but…given that about 25% of Miami’s population is under 18 and 20% who are 65 and older, that means Blitz employed about 1.5% of the town’s adult population.)
Blitz USA shut down two days ago due to overwhelming lawsuits from people who, despite warnings on the cans and despite the common sense God gave a 5-year-old, used their cans to pour gasoline directly on a fire and got burned. One rocket scientist in 2005 managed to burn himself and kill his two-year-old daughter by putting the nozzle of the gas can directly into a lit wood-burning stove and pouring. Another Einstein left a full gas can in their backyard and then was surprised when his two-year-old son (who was unsupervised for just a minute, he promises!) carried off the can and poured gasoline on himself and the vapors caught on fire.
I’m seeing a pattern here…is there a redneck trend of setting your Terrible Twos on fire to get rid of them?
The cans were sold at WalMart, so we might assume that the IQs and educations of the users prevent them from being able to read the warning labels on the gas can instructing users to keep the cans away from flames.
The plaintiffs in these cases are arguing that flame arresters and a more childproof cap would have prevented these accidents. As of 2007, no standard for flame arresters had been established by the CPSC (yes, the same agency that just went overboard by banning Buckyballs), but there was concern that adding a flame arrester could cause gas to spill out of the can if the can was filled too quickly. On hot pavement near a bunch of gas pumps is exactly where you want a puddle of highly flammable liquid.
UPDATE: That rocket scientist I mentioned above, David Calder…he put the flames on his daughter out, then left her in the trailer while he ran outside. He was outside long enough for the entire trailer to catch fire.
Carreon demanded [$20,000] as penance for a blog post that Inman wrote stating that humor site FunnyJunk was stealing content from The Oatmeal, Inman’s website. Inman responded by pledging to raise the money Carreon requested, and then to donate it in equal parts to the National Wildlife Foundation and the American Cancer Society (also known as “Operation BearLove Good, Cancer Bad“).
The entire Oatmeal rant for Bearlove Good, Cancer Bad is here. Fans of The Oatmeal have donated $170,000 so far, to be split between the American Cancer Society and the National Wildlife Federation. Donations are being accepted for the next ten days or so.
For that matter, why are you using valuable global resources and creating more emissions by staging a protest in Denver instead of staying in Boulder?
Unfortunately, this is another case of parents hanging protest signs on indoctrinated children – the article states that
Xiuhtezcatl Roske-Martinez, 11, of Boulder, is a leader of the Colorado-based Earth Guardian group and one of the plaintiffs named in the suit against the state of Colorado, Gov. John Hickenlooper, the Colorado Department of Health and Environment, the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission and the Colorado Department of Natural Resources.
This child with a tongue-twister name is actually the son (yes, son) of the woman who founded Earth Guardian. He’s only a leader in that he’s been passing out cookies since the group’s inception. He’s obviously not much of a leader or he’d be speaking for himself instead of having a white-man mouthpiece do the job for him.
And in other “Let’s smack Al Gore around news”…
The Boulder County lawsuit identifies specific environmental concerns as being tied to global warming and climate change, including reduced water flows, pine beetle destruction, massive wildfires, shortened ski seasons, frequent heat waves and more illness from insect-borne diseases. Xiuhtezcatl, in the lawsuit, states that climate change has affected his life.
Arapahoe Basin is STILL OPEN. They just announced that spring skiing conditions had arrived last week. Loveland had a near-record 567 inches of snow this season – their average is 400, and they were only five inches short of setting a record.
And don’t get me started on the pine beetles and wildfires. If we’d allowed forest fires to naturally thin the forests, the way nature intended, there would be good mixed growth and a variety of tree ages, which is the best way to combat a pine beetle infestation. Instead, we’ve stopped forest fires in favor of protecting housing developments that have cropped up in the midst of wilderness – the Gold Hill development that Xiuhtezcatl Roske-Martinez lives in is a classic example of this.
I know false rape accusations happen, and I’m sure that a number of cases that never go to trial do so because the prosecutor just doesn’t believe the victim is telling the truth. But in this case, I’m thinking the victim’s family should be allowed to line up and take turns kicking the officers and prosecutors involved in the case in their naughty bits.
The victim in a Washington state sex assault now linked to a 32-year-old Lakewood man was charged with false reporting and paid a $500 fine in 2008 because police didn’t believe her story.
The rapist has been in jail here in Colorado since February. I can’t help but wonder if the victim has been scouring the Internet for the past two years for cases like hers, hoping that she’d find some answers.
The courts in Washington state have reimbursed the victim her $500 but she apparently has to retain a lawyer to get her record expunged.
He described her as “just a really nice girl” and said she was on her way to a weeks-long trial run at an Illinois convent to see whether she wanted to eventually become a nun.
Ringleader of the troupe Sophia St Villier, 26, said: ‘There is the initial shock and novelty factor of women being naked. We use burlesque performers because they are just more comfortable with nudity. But it is not a burlesque show because there is no striptease element.
‘The women come on, disrobe so that they are totally naked apart from their shoes and jewellery, and then pick up a book.
‘After a few minutes a lot of the audience ends up forgetting that the women are naked and they just enjoy the readings.
‘If anyone is not interested in a particular story, they have still got beautiful women to look at, so there is something for everyone.’
I really wish the Aspen Times would get a copy editor. It’s not “douche bag”, it’s “douchebag”. Douchebag appears five times as much as douche bag on the Intarwebs, despite all efforts on behalf of this case (29,600 approximately) to make douche bag the common spelling. But I digress.
Here’s a brief rundown of the case: douchebag* decides to get in the way of a cop responding to a call, calls the cop a douchebag. Cop gets butthurt, arrests douchebag for disorderly conduct. Which may not be out of line, except that a perfectly good charge of obstructing a police officer could have been used and then the douchebag wouldn’t have been able to sue claiming his first amendment rights were violated. The oddest part of this whole mess is the lawyer, though – I thought she’d either be a sleazy criminal defense attorney who’s used to pulling every trick in the book to get her clients off, or an ACLU shill, but she’s…a real estate lawyer. Where the FUCK does that fit into all this?
*who may also be the town drunk – note that he was on probation when this event occurred, and wasn’t bright enough to realize that doing this sort of thing might attract unwanted attention.
Do laundry with a side of meth? Ten years. Sexually assault a 14-year-old? Six years.
Is there some sort of fucked-up sentencing guideline thingy I’m missing here? Yeah, the laundry and meth were in someone else’s house, hell, that was in someone else’s boxers, but since when does sexually assaulting a 14-year-old not rate a teeny bit worse than that?
My training and upbringing taught me to accept an apology when someone slanders and maligns me. My training and upbringing taught me to turn the other cheek when someone slaps me. My upbringing has taught me to be the “better man” and not let words get to me. And my upbringing has taught me to forgive and forget. And normally, I try my best to do follow those words.
But I was at best a poor student in those lessons. And now that the fucknozzle who shouted death threats at some political opponent in Tucson had a companion issue an “apology”, I recalled my training, and issue this response: (more…)
doubleplusundead 