Fi-Yah (Or the Story of How My Car Blew Up) 11-20-12

Alright so by now, some who follow this blogger are aware that Tuesday evening, October 20, 2012 between 6:45-6:50pm, my PT Cruiser was totally destroyed by fire as it was engulfed in flames on the Interstate in Florida. I was taking my son for Thanksgiving festivities with the family. I had last texted via voice at 6:40pm. A few minutes later while driving in the center lane, I noticed my car began to smoke slightly and found it strange that the Sheriff in the fast lane next to me was speeding by me so quickly. My car soon started to stall & the engine light came on so I shifted and lightly applied the breaks as best I could and made it through the fast lane into the grassy left shoulder of the Interstate. I knew it was bad, got out with my keys, unbuckled the baby and took him out of the car while calling his Mother to come get him. Thick gray smoke began to billow from under the hood, and I knew it was best to get as far away from the car as possible as I knew what was going to happen. Fire was coming soon. No time to panic or try to gather valuables, I ran with him as far away from the car as possible.

My 2004 PT Cruiser caught fire after the engine stalled, 11-20-12.

Eventually while on the phone with roadside assistance from my insurance company, I was at enough of an angle that I could see the undercarriage of the car start to spark, and within a few minutes the entire car was engulfed in flames. My thoughts now that my son & I were safe was that I'd better a) post on Facebook immediately so my family & friends would know that there was a problem but that we were alright as well as alerting my business partners that obviously I would not be making it to photograph our event and b) take pictures of the car for insurance purposes.

At some point, a volunteer firefighter heading in the opposite direction came over with his wife & baby in their truck, gave me a blanket for my son & checked to see what he could do to help. I called 9-1-1, but emergency vehicles were already on very close by, and soon arrived. It took a few minutes for firefighters to extinguish the blaze and I hoped that my son's favorite bike and new clothes could be extracted from the rear hatch. No such luck.  I confirmed that a tow truck would be there in 40 minutes or so to tow my car the 15 miles or less limit to the dealership where I bought the car last June 2011. The Sheriff then gave me a ride to a restaurant nearby where I ordered 2 biscuits and gravy with 1 scrambled egg. I ate the $2.00 dinner while waiting for  my friend & business partner to come pick me up from South Tampa. There are some other minor details to the story, but I'm no longer interested in writing.

POSITIVES:

• We are in perfect health.
• I was scheduled to make my car payment that week. I procrastinated while waiting for a check to be deposited into my bank account. I would have felt sick had I spent all that money on a car I no longer had.
• All is well that ends well.

Jim Greer, Ex-Florida GOP Chair, Claims Republican Voting Laws Focused On Suppression, Racism

So in other news of the obvious...the pope is really really White. It's as the Florida GOP expected that normal people couldn't see through the blatant "I'm shortening voting days from 14 to 8 in the 5th largest state knowing that 300,000 MORE people would vote in 2012 than in 2008 because I'd like to cut down on the [non-existent] voting fraud in a state that Republicans have completely controlled for years" ruse. My home state of Florida gets what it paid for in voting for a criminal whose company received the largest fine in history for defrauding the fed while providing healthcare. But ironically "this guy" is against Obamacare. Priceless. www.thegreatblogofketo.blogspot.com
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Republican Reckoning Begins After Revealing Defeat

I hope my Republican friends consider the facts about how the majority of America feels about the values and corresponding actions of the Democratic party and consequently why we voted for Barack Obama (again). If the GOP continues to operate in it's own echo chamber and ignores the trends of this election, it will be a long time before they control anything again other than Congress for a few more years and some state governments. Unfortunately if Post-Clinton GOP ideology continues to prevail, Republicans STILL won't get it! They will continue to assume blindly and unintelligently that not only ignoring the Black & Hispanic vote which is now solidly Democratic, but also actively ALIENATING these groups with anti-immigrant mentality is still the key to winning elections particularly in the South. They will also continue to stereotype "OTHERS" and say that Obama won because poor Americans on welfare want to continue to get government handouts. THEY couldn't be more wrong on both fronts, and the numbers prove it. Even the Cuban population is no longer Republican in Fla! Unfortunately, I guarantee that the BLIND will continue to lead the BLIND, and Tea Partying, war-mongering GOP Party leadership will stupidly assume that they lost this election BECAUSE their candidates were not MORE extreme. For their sakes they should get it right because the number of old White men in America is shrinking and you CANNOT win with just their vote. Duh. www.thegreatblogofketo.blogspot.com
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

James Holmes Identified As Alleged Aurora, Colorado Theater Shooter That Left 12 Dead (PHOTOS, LIVEBLOG)

All I can say is "God help us all!". My heart goes out to the victims & their families, even to the rest of the people in the theater. I hope everyone puts themselves in those people's shoes for a moment and imagine how it would feel to wake up knowing that 12-14 people around you were murdered last night and 30-50 wounded.



And no, I don't think that banning violent video games or TV shows & movies with gratuitous violence is the answer at all. Hundreds of millions of people view this type of material and those of us who are "normal" wouldn't think of replicating these actions because we understand that certain things have their place and should stay in books, video games, movies, etc. We know that those types of behavior should not be emulated in everyday life. Even banning guns is not the answer. If someone is crazy enough or skilled enough there are a number of weapons that can be constructed or used in killing large numbers of people.



It does seem interesting to note though that in the world's richest country, the more educated and intellectual we become and with the world's collective knowledge doubling every so many years, the more savagely we behave towards each other. What mental & emotional issues could a well-educated Ph.D. student have that would "make" him premeditate the ending of multiple innocent lives?!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost