Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Next thing, this guy will learn that water is wet.
Well, at least the court ruled against him:
Man Burned at Burning Man Assumed Risk of Being Burned by Burning Man, Says Court
On June 30, the California Court of Appeal held that a man who was burned by the huge bonfire that ends the Burning Man festival each year could not sue the festival organizers. Anthony Beninati admitted he had intentionally walked into the fire, and that he had previously known fire was hot. But he argued, basically, that the organizers were negligent because they should not have let him approach the fire so closely.He did not win.
Seemed like the perfect item to post for the Fourth of July holiday weekend, as a cautionary tale. Here's a bit more Schadenfreude:
Beninati's complaint stated that when he approached the bonfire, the flames were still roughly 40 feet high. He walked around the bonfire three times, each time "circl[ing] a little closer to the fire." Eventually, he walked still closer, into what was variously described as an area of "embers," "low flames," "burning remnants," and "a spot where there was fire on either side of him." Basically, he had walked inside a huge bonfire. Then, as you might have expected, he tripped on something and fell into the actual fiery part of the bonfire, burning his hands.
In his deposition, Beninati admitted he knew "fire was dangerous and caused burns" before he walked into one. He knew there was some possibility of falling into said fire. He admitted no one affiliated with the defendants asked him to walk into the fire or told him it would be safe to do so. But he testified that he did not think it would be dangerous to walk into the fire, although he knew it "was not 'absolutely safe, because there [was] a fire present.'" And, as noted, fire is hot.
One suspects that some really good drugs and/or alcohol was involved.
Happy Fourth!
Jim Downey
(Via BB. Cross posted to my blog.)
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atheist manifesto
Wow! I just read the greatest atheist manifesto ever written. Seriously. It's called the Real Messiah:
http://www.amazon.com/Real-Messiah-Throne-Origi...
I was turned on to the book by Robert Price. It's written by a Jewish writer who found proof in a number of ancient sources that Jesus never claimed to be the messiah. It was all made up by later Christians in Rome to distract from the truth that threatened to overtake the whole Empire.
You see there was this Jewish king named Marcus Julius Agrippa. He was the St. Mark who wrote the gospel. He wrote the gospel secretly to have Jesus announce HIM as the messiah. Then the Roman authorities caught wind of what was going on and then cut Agrippa out of the gospel.
Don't you see!!! It's all a big lie - even the biggest lie in history. Jesus never claimed to be what all these people now say he was. They have been fooled by a second century editorial effort that still goes undetected.
How is Huller so sure of this conspiracy? He found an ancient throne in Venice which Italian sailors stole from the most ancient Church of St. Mark in Alexandria in the ninth century. The author proves that the throne goes back much further than that - i.e. all the way to the beginning of Christianity in Egypt.
In any event the throne has Hebrew letters and symbols which prove the real story of Christianity and how the modern Church is one big fake.
The throne is real. Here are pictures of the throne:
http://www.therealmessiahbook.blogspot.com
You can look it up with Google. It's a real object. But now the game is up. Christianity is proved to be a big lie and the world will never be the same again.
It's so great to be on the winning side at last! I've got to tell everyone.
All I got to say is that you got to read this book. This is the straw that breaks the back of the Church.
Oh, right.
That's the one that'll do it. Nothing like a little archeology to get Christians to admit their error. That's why we never hear about things like global floods or the garden of Eden or bodily ressurection any more.
Oh, wait...
Sorry, I forgot. The devil planted those things to discredit Jesus. QED.
good drugs?
I racked up a pretty impressive amount of experience with this sort of thing in my younger days, and based upon my extensive research back then I think it's safe to say that any drug that makes you stupid enough to walk into a fire is definitely NOT a good drug!
Four miles uphill in the snow. Both ways.
When I was a kid, I can't tell you how many times I stepped on nails or glass, burned myself, had fireworks explode in or near my hands, all kinds of darned painful little accidents.
I juxtapose that against a recent local story in which a mother accompanied her son to school on their bikes, and the principal confiscated the kid's bike. The mother wasn't allowed to have it until she went home and got the car to pick it up. The principal's point was that kids could not ride bikes (or walk) to school, even if accompanied by a parent, because it was too dangerous. Children (right here, anyway) aren't allowed to travel to school in anything other than a parent's car or a schoolbus ... even if they live across the street.
I've wondered more than once if this extreme cosseting prevents some young people from learning about the painful dangers of the world when they're very small, and the lesson of "I can't get hurt" carries over into adult or near-adult life (when we're physically tougher), so that they dare things someone like me simply wouldn't dare.
The whole "Jackass" phenomenon springs to mind in relation to the point. From outside, it looks like plain old stupidity, but like I say, I wonder every once in a while if it's just an ignorant response to being overprotected.
Is that story available
Is that story available online Hank? Some of our local political involvement here concerns walking and biking to school programs. There has been some reticence on the part of the schools based in liability fears but this goes quite a bit further than that.
Online Resource
I can't seem to find the original article, but here are a few links ABOUT the story:
http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2009/may/29/0529_bikes/
http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2009/may/27/527_prrint/
And this is not exactly about that story, but it's a local view on the same issue:
http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2008/may/07/0507_edit2/
Hope that helps.
Thanks Hank.
Thanks Hank.
Over-protection.
Yeah, I've harped on this before (here and on my blog), but I really think that kids are being stunted in their development by this mindset of over-protection. Studies done have demonstrated just how limited the range is for kids to travel around their neighborhood now - something like 1/10th as far as their grandparents did. And it makes the kids less prepared to be adults - and makes adults more accepting of limits on their own personal freedom. Neither is good for us.
Jim Downey
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Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
Losing the exploratory gene
This from a guy whose childhood stories come with a disclaimer.....
Seriously, I would agree. The freedome to explore and try things piques curiosity and IMHO leads to the kinds of mental explotations that create discovery. It seems to me that whenever you read about someone exploring some weird corner of the world, or going off into space, they seem to have a childhood of freedome and adventure instead of being locked into videogames and scrubbed with antibiotic gel nine times a day.