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Recent Comments by LordOderus
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Self Healing Bio-Concrete
They love to live and grow in extreme conditions. Like your lungs.
Our lungs are an awesome place for things to grow. It's hot, wet, and oxygen rich. That's why so many infectious bacteria love to live there.
Michael Moore Helps the NYPD Distinguish Wallets from Guns
Michael Moore is such a simpleton. He exemplifies everything I hate about television and mass media and socio-political discussions. And no, I'm not a conservative, I used to like Michael Moore. I bought his "The Awful Truth" series on VHS when it came out. But I now see his movies as cheap, manipulative, over-edited 4-panel comic strips, just like so much of modern mass media.
It was a tragic mistake when the police shot and killed Amadou Diallo. From what I understand his English wasn't all that great and was probably confused with what the cops were telling him to do. He pulls out his wallet and the cop nearest to him starts back-pedaling in panic, as he doesn't know what it is. And the cop trips as he is retreating and falls down violently. The next cop reacts instinctively, thinking the retreating cop sees a gun and is in danger. And he starts firing at Amadou. The other cops respond in kind, thinking that "these guys know something I don't, that this guy is a threat" and they start firing too. It all happened very quickly. Then when they find out it's a wallet and they misread the whole thing they are traumatized and shaken. Quite a different picture than that which I've heard described, which is a comic book image of grinning, evil, trigger-happy racist cops, standing over Amadou in a semi-circle, gleefully pumping bullets into his body and reloading and firing more and giving high-fives and smoking cigars and saying to each other "he got what he deserved for not obeying our orders".
But all these details I've just included wouldn't easily fit on a picket sign or be boiled down to a simple-minded protest chant.
They fired 41 one rounds at him. That's an average to 10.25 rounds per officer. Obviously you can't fire 1/4 of a bullet, but still, that mean each officer had to almost empty his firearm while firing at one suspect. Now we all know he wasn't hit 41 times, and I understand the need to fire until the target has "gone down" but 41 shots is super excessive. Either these cops were trigger happy, or horrible, horrible shots and shouldn't be allowed to carry firearms because they are far more likely to hit an innocent bystander than anything they are aiming at.
Boy Won't Say Pledge of Allegiance Until Gays Can Marry
lib⋅er⋅ty
/ˈlɪbərti/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [lib-er-tee] Show IPA
–noun, plural -ties.
1. freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.
2. freedom from external or foreign rule; independence.
3. freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice.
4. freedom from captivity, confinement, or physical restraint: The prisoner soon regained his liberty.
5. permission granted to a sailor, esp. in the navy, to go ashore.
6. freedom or right to frequent or use a place: The visitors were given the liberty of the city.
7. unwarranted or impertinent freedom in action or speech, or a form or instance of it: to take liberties.
Too me, not being afforded the same rights heterosexuals are given, is interference by the government. And while gays getting married might offend people with hardcore religious views, it certainly wouldn't violate their liberty.
NASA's UFO Footage [10:11]
First: Why is the video quality always crappy. This is NASA we're talking about. They have access to the best technology in the whole world! But for some reason, any video they take of "unidentified objects" always looks like it was shot with a god damn cell phone.
Second: Most of the time, you have nothing to use as a reference point for size or distance. The background is often the moon or the earth and it is hundreds of miles away (if its the earth) or thousands of miles away if its the moon. That object passing in front of the camera could be 2 cm from the lens and the size of a pin head, or it could be miles away and the size of a football stadium, there's just no way to tell.
Third: Why is it that most of the footage just looks like crap floating past the camera. Isn't the most likely explanation because crap is floating past the camera? Space is filled with crap. Dust, little bits of meteorites and such. Some estimates suggest that 37,000-78,000 tons of space crap hit the earth every year. That's not counting all the garbage us humans have tossed into Low Earth orbit. A study in 1999 suggests that there is 4 million pounds of shit we left floating in orbit around earth. Some of these debris are whipping around the planet at 17,500 mph.
I find the possibility of life outside our own planet intriguing, and I really hope it's true. I also really hope that if life does exist out there, I live long enough for us to discover it. But as it stands now, I'm still pretty skeptical that they've ever been here.
Kick-Ass - a superhero movie (trailer)
House Passes Health Care Bill
Congressman Alan Grayson Lists Number Of Dead Per District
When I was about 16, my mother was on leave from the post office after getting injured. My father worked at a school as maintenance. His insurance didn't cover me, and my mothers was suspended while she was out of work, so I was left uninsured. I was goofing off in the woods and tripped on some old lumber and get a rusy nail in my calf. Nothing serious, just a small wound that needed 3 stitches and a tetanus shot. We went down, waited several hours, and then was taken care of. (the wait time is due to the fact that my local hospital is terrible, not my lack of insurance) After a week, my mother got the outrageous bill for something around $1100. There were all kinds of insane fees tacked on. There was even a fee for it being a Sunday when I went to the emergency room. With my mother out of work at the time, money was pretty tight and this was a big problem for the family. I was supposed to return about 2 weeks later to have the stitches removed. This was going to cost another $200 or so, and we just couldn't afford it. My mother and I ended up waiting till I was supposed to return and have them taken out, and just did it ourselves. Now, removing 3 stitches from a healed up leg wound isn't a big deal. We did it no problem. However what if something had gone terribly wrong. Or what if it wasn't just 3 simple stitches but something much more intricate. Having to spend another $200 would have forced us to cut back on things like FOOD. These are the decisions uninsured people have to make. Getting treatment or paying rent. Getting your prescription filled or eating that week. I'm sorry, but those are not decisions people should have to make. I'd also like to point out, my family wasn't poor. We were lower middle class. There are a lot of people that were worse off than we were.
Another example was only a few years ago. My father was at work, he tends bar now, and randomly passed out. (No he was not drunk, his blood sugar was very low, and they told him he may be hypoglycemic) He woke up a few seconds later, but was put in an ambulance and taken to the ER. He was admitted, they drew some blood, did some tests, and told him to eat a candy bar and sent him home. Fast forward a week or so and he gets the bill. Over $5000. Roughly $700 of it was for the ambulance ride, from the volunteer ambulance core in our town to the hospital, about a 10 mile, all highway. Luckily for my father, he doesn't have a mortgage or rent to pay as the house he lives in is paid for. Never the less, he would send in a payment each month. As much as he could spare, and it still took him well over a year to pay if all off.
I understand that treatment costs money. I understand there are supplies, utilities, payroll, and other costs required to run a hospital or doctors office. I just feel, that people should be able to go to the doctor without having to worry about if and how they are going to pay for it. In a modern country, with all the money and power we have, no one should ever have to choose between food and care. It's insane.