A Nation of Cowards

You should read this-

Whale trainer’s death jars safe world of adventure

By TAMARA LUSH, Associated Press Writer

Sun Feb 28, 1:22 pm ET

ORLANDO, Fla. – It is billed as a leisurely boat tour. The shark surfaces, its fin slicing through the water.

The boat’s captain, armed with a grenade launcher, blasts away at the bloodthirsty monster. Nearby gas lines explode and a column of fire erupts into the blue sky. We feel the heat from the flames, hear the shark’s body churning in the water. A child hides her face in the crook of her mother’s arm and whimpers as chilly water sprays everyone on the boat.

Of course, it isn’t real. It’s the “Jaws” ride at Universal Studios in Orlando, an attraction that runs hundreds of times a day.

The DOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated that 37, 313 people were killed in motor vehicle traffic crashes in 2008. It’s the lowest number of deaths on U.S. roads since 1961, when 36,285 lives were lost. The nation also saw the lowest fatality rate ever recorded in 2008 at 1.28 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, down from 1.36 in 2007.

37,000 a year.

10 times those who perished in the World Trade Center.

And yet we don’t outlaw cars, declare war against Detroit, or waterboard Automotive Executives.

9 comments

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    • TMC on March 1, 2010 at 09:39

    driving a car is an adventure, a thrill. I know. I’ve pronounced dead the end results. For most, we expect to get in out cars, obey traffic rules and arrive safely at our destinations. We buy safe vehicles that we expect to be safe to operate. The tears shed by Mr.Toyada will not compensate for the lives that were lost by his greed. Crocodiles.

  1. as a culture we love some scary ‘thrillers’ as entertainment. As a kid my parents read me the Grimm brothers unedited at bedtime. When the Bushies came in st I noticed that the ‘entertainment’ started getting darker and darker. Every body said hey were ‘a violent country’ always have been like that was a good thing. We have been ‘softening’ up the population for years with the marketing of fear of and violence. Look at the  really nasty video games for boys and girls alike. Get them when their young. It all becomes a game wherein life is pulled between cheap and unaffordable. Easy to kill for profit and revenge but the cowards will spend a fortune devises and drugs that keep you safe and alive, not to mention trade away their birthrights for ‘security’ from the barbarians.  

    Lot’s of nasty ass soccer grannies out there. Torture came into it’s own in our response to the evil  barbaric Goldstien and his band of box cutter wielding fiends strait from the Crucsades, threatening our ‘life styles. The right and the left all seem to get it upside down as far as fear goes they never fear the things that are obvious and actually threatening us all, they won’t go to that show. Tllikum was not willing to play to the trills of the crowd. He was sick of being tortured for the show. However the show will go on his opinion having been overridden by his captors. He’s invaluable, he’s a killer.

    SeaWorld’s Orca Show Resumes With Tribute to Killed Trainer

    By ASSOCIATED PRESS

    Employees wept and audience members grew silent at SeaWorld as the theme park’s popular killer whale show resumed over the weekend with a photo montage memorial for a trainer who had been killed days earlier by an orca in front of horrified spectators.

    The show had been shut down since the trainer, Dawn Brancheau, died Wednesday after a 12,000-pound, or 5,400- kilogram, killer whale named Tilikum grabbed her and pulled her into the water in front of about 20 spectators. The medical examiner says she probably died of traumatic injuries and drowning.

    The whale trainers received a standing ovation Saturday from the crowd of more than 2,000. But the trainers did not enter the water. SeaWorld officials have said trainers would not swim with the orcas until a review of what happened to Ms. Brancheau is complete.

    The SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment president, Jim Atchison, has said that Tilikum would remain an ”active, contributing member of the team.” But the whale did not perform Saturday.

    Lordy            

  2. used to average 50,000 a year.  Airbags, seatbelts and traffic jams all responsible for that decline.  Smiling at 2 bomb threats to Jim Bunning’s offices.  Watching daily wearechange.org for relevant news of the world and feeding the Apocalyptic horses, for as long as I can.

    Waterboarding Ben Bernanke does sound like a stellar idea, don’t it.

  3. hospital acquired infections that cause or contribute to the deaths.   Rising Threat of Infections Unfazed by Antibiotics:

    But for a combination of business reasons and scientific challenges, the pharmaceuticals industry is pursuing very few drugs for Acinetobacter and other organisms of its type, known as Gram-negative bacteria. Meanwhile, the germs are evolving and becoming ever more immune to existing antibiotics.

    If TPTB put the same amount of resources into developing antibiotics to fight these very real and easily located bacteria, that they put into closing the barn door after 9/11, they could save almost 100,000 lives per year.

    But the teabagging politicos couldn’t use that to inspire fear and score political points, so it looks like 100,000 or more people a year will continue to die because developing antibiotics is too expensive, and not fear-generating enough–and the defense contractors wouldn’t be able to sell weapons to fight that enemy.

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