Just last week a woman crossed over the double yellow line into the oncoming lanes, jump the curb and the sidewalk in front of my nextdoor neighbor's house, took out our mailbox and wrought iron fence, finally wrapping around a tree on the other side of our lawn. They had to cut her out with the jaws of life.
I don't know how fast she was going but she jumpped the curb at least 200 feet before hitting the tree.
We got real lucky. I had just left with my daughter a few minutes eariler. My wife was getting ready to take my other daughter. Both of us would have been right in the path of that car.
I used to ride a motorcycle but no longer do. The drivers around here are absolutely bat-shit insane. I now have a big-assed pickup truck because a trash truck driver decided he needed to back up in a hurry without looking - right over my smaller one. I had slammed it into reverse and floored it to get out of the way but wasn't fast enough. After the impact the trash truck kept going for another 20 feet before stopping. If I hadn't slammed it into reverse, I would have ate the thing.
In the process of setting electoral districts, gerrymandering is a practice that attempts to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district boundaries to create partisan advantaged districts. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering).
This practice is well established among both Democrats and Republicans. Sometimes they even cooperate, so that a Republican has a nice safe district, while the parts that would have normally been in his district now make up an equally safe district for the Democrat. You pat my back, I'll pat yours. All you have to do is follow the money.
Anyone who thinks either party gives a shit about regular people or America is clueless. They are all in it for themselves. SSDP, same shit, different party
Politicians are like diapers. They need to be changed often, and for the same reasons. Next time when you vote, vote for the first person that isn't a Democrat or Republican. An remember to change them too when they get shitty.
In the 1980's, I got my first SLR after owning a bunch of crappy 110's. It was a basic Pentax and cost a little over $100. It had no flash and manual everything, including threading the film, but was the best camera I ever owned. 35mm film was expensive on an Army salary, so I had to plan every shot I took. I could take shots with that camera that I have never been able to take with any other. Went down into the dimly-lit tunnels of the Maginot Line and took some perfect pictures there, with no flash. The simple expedient of setting the camera on something solid and having a long exposure time does wonders.
I now have a DSLR, but it doesn't work nearly as well as my old Pentax. I am get another one if I can find it.
Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the Sun.