Why is someone putting sharp spikes in park ponds?

Mondoreb says: "Sharpened steel spikes, hidden in pits and water, have begun turning up in parks and lakes on two continents."

A man wading in the water at the Green Lake Boating Center in Seattle felt a “sharp jab in his foot” Sunday while wading with his family. Pat Boltz reached down and found a metal rod. The rod was sharpened by a machine on the end and it hadn’t gotten there by accident. Nor were the other 38 “spikes”, 2-3 ft. long, found by Seattle police divers.
Much to the park police’s horror, someone had planted 39 metal rods in the bottom of the lake near the center and southern docks of the boating center.

This reminds me of something that happened to me about 10 years ago on a train from Greenwich, CT to NYC. When I sat down in my seat, I felt a sharp sting in my butt. I inspected the plastic upholstery and discovered several small slits had been cut into it. Each slit was hiding an X-Acto knife blade pointing upward.
Spate of Hidden Sharpened Spikes Found in Lake, Parks (Death By 1000 Paper Cuts)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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The Snowden Principle

Wingo

#40: I mean, really, think about that. If you picked 4 random people off the street, one of them still thinks Bush is doing a good job.

I think this certainly depends on what part of the country you are in, pulling the people off the street. I can’t imagine the odds would necessarily go that way in a place like Seattle.
ob1quixote

Three words: Stand on Zanzibar.
Custodian of the Two Holy Balls

#64: you got a point. What I initially described as the environment for someone seeing as a normal resolve to settle a dispute in his favour and what then developed into a cultural “discussion” is focussed on what is perceived to be THE American culture. Of course, you are right, it is just the predominant culture, maybe of the majority, maybe just of the dominant minority. But it is what the world perceives as American culture.

Interestingly, despite the growing share of Spanish speakers in the US, the “country” doesn’t seem to get closer to the Vatican, i.e. show more catholic behaviour and values. The immigrants partly kept their power structures and traditions and food and language in their communities, but as soon as they leave their community, how do they behave? And how and to what extent do they influence how America is behaving in the world and thus is perceived by others? And how are they represented in your parliaments?

Interestingly none of you reacted to the cluster bomb argument. You find them less dangerous than these spikes? You don’t know the official American position to their ban? Or to reducing CO2 emissions? Or to whatever is beneficial to a few in the US and harmful to many in the world?

You think one can discriminate the cultures of different US states when (short spontaneous selection, I could go on writing hours)

- when being forced to open your markets to US companies, even though it destroys your own economic structures,
- when your leaders are killed if they dare to contradict the representatives of these companies,
- when being swamped with a fast food culture,
- when being ripped off by the entertainment empires and then
- criminalised and prosecuted when making illegal copies
- being forced to chose inferior technology (just one example: CDMA vs. GMS in India) instead of something better from somewhere else,
- being invaded by American soldiers who destroy lives and social structures and infrastructure and installations to “bring democracy” and then to find out that democracy is not good if the population votes for the wrong guys supporting the enemy of the US
- when finding out that US intelligence is routinely spying for plenty of years in Western Europe and helps American companies to compete,
- when being exposed to American intelligence on the internet, even if you haven’t got the intention to deal in any way with this country ever in your life,
- when you find out that your personal and flight data is sent to the US even though you go from Switzerland to Austria and that airlines are being forced to do so by the US government,
- same for financial transactions,
- same for biometric data,
- when seeing that the US puts themselves above any international law or organisation?

It all goes back to the same culture and values of “we can do everything, because we have the power and the money and we are the masters, we destroy everyone who does not let us do as we please, we force you if you don’t follow or we trick you into doing as we like, there is no control for us, we do not care for the rights of the others, no sympathy for nature, which is just a big self-service shop even if it is global and belongs to all of us, we do not stop wasting resources because we can.”

This can be applied to international as well as to interpersonal relations and is what I mean with the “American” culture, even though I hope that many of you feel and behave differently.

I am so fed up with this and I have not even political or religious reasons to be against you. Christian, European Union, liberal to censervative political opinions. Just a normal middle class guy on a business trip bored in his hotel. No intentions to throw any bombs or kill anyone, juts so fed up with all this and observing the world going down the drain.

You create your own monsters, worldwide, and inflict so much pain on others and then you get shocked when this happens in your backyard. This is absurd.

Native Americans: I would like to exempt you from all this, but I don’t know how much you are already assimilated and absorbed by this. I just don’t know enough about you guys.
Robotech_Master

Link is broken, needs fixing.
KWillets

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Mark Frauenfelder

Fixed. Thanks.
PeterNBiddle

Custodian –

America has been a proper super power for less than a century. Based on the past performance of world and regional super powers, the current state of the American economoy, the general attitudes of American citizens, and the truly massive potential of other countires to be dominant powers, we can assume that the mantle of imperialism will be handed off by America at some point in the relatively near future.

Who or what picks that mantle up is the most interesting question.

You won’t make American less powerful by complaining about it – fortunately for you, America is doing that all by itself.

If you want the world to be a better place I suggest that you focus less on American now and more on who and what come next.
chromal

Wow. Now that is seriously sociopathic. What could possibly motivate someone to ‘booby trap’ public parks?
spazzm

@#25:
Self defence != invading countries half-way around the world.

A lot of countries get by fine without invading others – some haven’t invaded anyone for centuries.
Bibliog

I don’t get people. What’s their appeal, precisely? They waddle around with their haircuts on, cluttering the pavement like gormless, farting skittles. They’re awful. – Charlie Brooker
Orchestra Spy

That is really terrible. Here in Toronto is a dog walking park that had a poison scare. It turned out to be inconsequential, fortunately, but the media jumped on it like a pandemic as a dog died the previous year from eating a poison weenie or something like that. It’s a distress.
ephcee

There were some incidents not long ago where people were finding dirty needles sticking point up out of park benches in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. There’s a huge drug problem there, despite it being a rural area. I haven’t heard of any issues lately… but definitely disturbing…
MarlboroTestMonkey7

I found similar accoutrements while playing the first level of Lego Indiana Jones Last Crusade.
HEYHEYHEY

So maybe it’s a hype? Or maybe it’s that thing that Carl Jung called synchronity? Since a couple of months there have been turning up Vietnam-boobytrap-style pits in several forests in The Netherlands; they’re dug in relatively crowded places, covering the width of the track people are usually walking on. Police have already found two or three of them.

http://www.nieuwsfront.com/images/blok_met_pinnen_in_valkuil_gevonden.jpg
BCJ

These are the kind of stories that make you want to lock yourself in your house and never leave. HeyHeyHey’s picture is even more frightening.
catbeller

I’ve been expecting something like this for a while. I don’t curl my fingers around stairway railings on subway stations — a place where people would carelessly run their hands when they are in a hurry. I usually grab ornamentation to steady myself.

Remember Frederik Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth’s The Space Merchants? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Merchants A great statement by the antagonist was made roughly thusly: when psychos are 1 in a million, and you only have a billion people, the odds of finding one are rare. Now increase the population by an order of magnitude, and they are as common as cookies. And they concentrate in cities.

As population increases, the density goes up and the conditions that create psychosis arguably increase and intensify as well. With that cheery thought, I bid you good evening.
catbeller

And oh yes, “tolerance” and punishment neither deter nor increase psychosis. Since they can’t get caught – you can’t anticipate every possible attack, (paging DHS) — your opinion of their actions doesn’t matter and neither does the punishment you wish to deal out.
Anonymous

Terrorism? That works.

Camouflaged, low-key, time-delayed, like the set-and-forget missiles the IRA set along airline routes.
HEYHEYHEY

To be quite honest, I never think about this stuff when I go for a walk in the forest near my house. I guess the normal reaction is that this stuff always happens somewhere else. Fortunately, that has been the case so far.
Anyway, I find these things simply strange, like for some reason kids here tend to throw heavy stuff like bricks and pieces of asphalt down from viaducts onto cars on the highway. The kids that they’ve caught all say they were bored and they didn’t see any harm in doing it, eventhough it actually killed a couple of people that had a brick entering their car at 120 km’s an hour.

I’m more worried that giving things like this loads of attention sparks the interest of other people in doing crazy stuff like this. Or doesn’t that make sense?
ulor

I live in Seattle. And has swam near there several times. Yikes.
Dead Robot

Toronto has had similar implements of doom: double sided, old style razors embedded into wood blocks, left in an upright position around playsets and beaches. Not to mention poisoning dogs in dog parks with spiked hot dogs.

I say we close all the parks and put up condos.
Custodian of the Two Holy Balls

For someone growing up in a society that tolerates violence as a way of communication and conflict solving and gives (almost) everyone the right to buy and use guns and exercises foreign politics that has the constructive power of a bush fire and demonstrates its citizens that it is okay to lie at and spy friends and cheat and steal if it has a benefit, your reactions actually do surprise me.

What if a (sick) bird lover felt angry at people wading through ponds and lakes disturbing his beloved ducklings and just wants them to stop doing this? It looks to me just like applying good old American problem solving techniques to a new field of dispute. You know the American position towards cluster bombs and what they do to the hands and feet of kids playing with them? Wake up guys, nothing new in this article.
Anonymous

This reminds me of 9th grade Biology. One time we had a substitute, and when I went to sit down I felt something cool slide between my buttcheaks.

I got up and looked, and someone had taped a sewing needle vertically on the seat. Thank god it didn’t stick me in the buttcheak!
backload

>I say we close all the parks and put up condos.

Could we go for an intermediate stage and just fence the parks off?

Maybe have a few CCTV cameras and monitors at the fences so people can see how parks look but keep them safe (if you shove in a few solar collectors it can even be carbon neutral…. just a thought, it could save lives….. save children from harm etc etc
Stiv

In April of last year, some bastard spread muriatic acid around a playground in Leander, Texas, including the slide and park benches. A little 2 year-old ended up with burns.
mdhatter

Sounds like the work of a Ninja.

A real jackass Ninja.
Anonymous

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caltrop
Anonymous

Those look like the quills that street sweeping machines use to abrade a road surface (and which many pond cleaning devices, as well as dock-scrubbers, also use).
folkclarinet

For decades there have been rumors of razor blades hidden by jealous classmates in between the keys on the pianos at Juilliard. I have heard also via rumor that it’s not true.

Whether from competitive pianists, bored teenagers, or weirdos…Man…it’s just messed up!
folkclarinet

And FWIW I think there are already too many CCTVs “monitoring” daily life in the US. We’ve just gotta get people to be NICE!
jenjen

Yes! Cameras everywhere! That is the answer!
ill lich

I’m not sure this is new, even for Seattle. I haven’t lived there in a long time, but back in 1990 you used to be able to jump into Lake Washington from an unused overpass near the University, and someone warned me at the time that people had been putting sharpened spikes and rebar in the bottom to impale bathers. We never experienced any but the thought stuck with me.
ThinkPositive

The trouble is that the cause of this is tolerance. Tolerance and dysgenics. We are filling our society up with people who should not be alive – and they are showing their appreciation by threatening the lives of the rest of us. When will it stop?
Perhaps the scariest thing is when manufactured food is spiked. In some ways it is a case of things having to get worse before they get better. If the result is that people form their own communities where only those they know and trust live, and go back to making their own food.
It’s a shame that it should come to this – but looks inevitable.
Billistic

No the trouble is these freaks want media attention and they get it.
Trvth

Another alternative fix would be in addition to cameras, fence in the parks and place guarded metal detectors at the entrances.

Mondoreb says: “Sharpened steel spikes, hidden in pits and water, have begun turning up in parks and lakes on two continents.”

If these traps are turning up in on two continents – there must be some collusion between groups to set up these sort of traps. (duh) Maybe the US should add “spike trap” to their list of key words on wire taps.
Jake0748

People… they’re the worst.
bobbytables

“…a dog died the previous year from eating a poison weenie…”

is there any other kind?

And to #11: Its not just the American way. How many pacifist countries do you know? I know of one..oops..nm, it was just taken over in a military coup.
Anonymous

These look like the types of stakes that would hold bales of barley straw down in the bottom of a pond. Barley straw can be sunk into ponds and lake because the bacteria that eat the straw use the same nutrients that lead to masssive algae blooms. Perhaps someone staked down bales at one time and either forgot about them (completely), or forgot to pull the spikes when they sunk fresh bales. If it was a pilot project they abandoned, the responsible parties may not even know how the bales were sunk.

[BTW--I tried to reset my password to post as a logged-in user, but it failed because my eddress had not yet been confirmed]

~HikingStick
a_user

of course it could be a black op to keep people worrying about terrorism
padster123

It’s a big world. Many billions of people. Weird shit will happen at the ends of the bell curve.

I suspect anything that looks like a trend is just down to increased reporting.
Scuba SM

Hmmm…. Maybe I should create a business card…

“Security Diver. Will dive to locate and remove various underwater obstacles. You pay room, board, travel, and air expenses in addition to normal pay.”

I could probably make a nice living diving in municipal parks if the media hypes this up some more….

On a side note, I’ve noticed a lot of discussions about various cultures make the point that every culture must be respected and protected from those vile Americans who are trying to dominate the globe culturally and militarily. The thing that always gets me (and we’re not quite there yet in this thread) is the insistence that all cultures must be respected while demonizing American culture. In my mind, that argument mirrors the “it’s not racist if it’s against white people” argument. That being said, I realize that there are a lot of people outside of the US that are very unhappy with our current administration. I’d say that’s fair. What I don’t think is fair is saying that American culture is any one single set of characteristics, such as gun toting, violent bible thumpers. That is no more accurate than saying everybody in England has horrible teeth and is incredibly stuck up. The comment threads on this blog provide a great way to get to see other people’s points of view and engage them in discussion; take advantage of it, and talk and listen. Try not to throw down the gauntlet at the drop of a hat.

I sense a disemvoweling. Sorry.
- Antinous
  
  Scuba,
  
  You should read more carefully. Americans and the UK draw a lot of flak because this is an English language blog and because those two nations are involved in multiple foreign interventions resulting in a staggering loss of life. China also gets pilloried quite a bit here.
  
  You’ve created a false parallel. The aforementioned countries are not vilified for their cultures. They are vilified for their crimes against their own people and on the international stage. I would prefer that the niqab not be mandatory in Saudi Arabia, but it’s something that they have to work out for themselves. Dropping bombs on Iraq and Afghanistan is not a comparable issue.
Custodian of the Two Holy Balls

#21: Actually, it IS the American way. Canadians are different, Mexicans are different, British are different, all are different. Fancy some cultural studies? Know any other cultures?

Interesting jump from mischievous to bellicose to pacifist. But it misses absolutely the point: your people do what they acquire to be right way to act. And lost of any inhibitions to hurt or even kill others, they find practical solutions like the ones described, which I naturally find just as sick as most of you’ll do.

People are the worst. Indeed. But such people don’t pop up from nowhere.
krex

@11: “What if a (sick) bird lover felt angry at people wading through ponds and lakes disturbing his beloved ducklings and just wants them to stop doing this? It looks to me just like applying good old American problem solving techniques to a new field of dispute.”

interesting point – I remember hearing that hikers were stretching wire across single-track trails in parks where there were mountain bike/hiker disputes, (I’ve no idea if that ever happened.. could be pure fiction); but I do wonder if this could be some kind of insane version of same.
nprnncbl

@Chromal #3: Maybe they’re protecting their Reborn Doll on the lake bottom? (sorry, couldn’t resist)
Zan

Mystery solved? From http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008074408_spikes26m.html:

Turns out, the dozens of spikes plucked from the lake bottom probably were put there not out of malice but with the best of intentions as part of a campaign launched more than two decades ago to rid the lake of milfoil, a pesky weed that clogs the lake.

Kathy Whitman, city aquatics director, confirmed Friday that looped metal spikes were used in the early stages of milfoil control in the 1980s to hold down plastic sheeting, and the spikes found this month may be those devices. The metal spikes were replaced later with plastic ones, she said.
chromal

@29: :P
Takuan

well, actually such people do pop up from nowhere. It’s when this kind of stuff becomes commonplace that you have a problem. Excess coverage exacerbates.
arkizzle

Jeebus, is it really so hard to gauge a disemvowelling?

It is sooo rarely the one’s who write a heartfelt (or petulant) “i guess this is going to be disemvowelled” line at the bottom of some reasonable, but differently opinioned rant, who actually get dv’ed (I can’t think of an occasion, but I know if I write “never” I’ll be proved wrong by a better commenter).

I mean, if you haven’t been dv’ed in the thread already, and are calmly typing an opinion, with the common politeness due the situation, regardless of who you are disagreeing with you probably aren’t gonna get dv’ed..

It just reads so misguidedly self-pitying to write “i’m probably gonna get dv’ed for this”.

“Woe is I, who can’t even raise an whisper without the dread BBeast destroying mine vowels”

pft.

/RANT
Takuan

we need a noble, self-imolator thread. Auto disemvowel for those needing to make that statement.
arkizzle

What, and give them honour?

hmm.. maybe, if it’ll keep them outta my hair.
phillamb168

Custodian of the Two Holy Balls, I thought about not responding, seeing as your comments are verging on Troll-ish, but oh well: you know, “America” isn’t all gun-toting cluster bomb war fanatics. Painting us all with the same brush is the same sort of extremism that our (soon to be out of office, thank God) leaders exercise when deciding to invade countries that have done nothing other than having the bad luck to have a bloody dictator for a president.
Chang

Well, that’s Greenwich for you.

Seriously, that is some messed up stuff.
standard user

“@21: Actually, it IS the American way. Canadians are different, Mexicans are different, British are different, all are different. Fancy some cultural studies? Know any other cultures?

Interesting jump from mischievous to bellicose to pacifist. But it misses absolutely the point: your people do what they acquire to be right way to act. And lost of any inhibitions to hurt or even kill others, they find practical solutions like the ones described, which I naturally find just as sick as most of you’ll do.”

…nice bit of specific-to-general there…And am I to take it that all of “your” people are egomaniacs, who enjoy making vast, sweeping generalizations about people in a specific geographical area. Cultures are indeed different from each other(brilliant).. Do you really suggest that violence is not used by individuals in societies to “get their way”? I’m sure the people in the favellas of Sao Paulo use flowers and honey to settle their problems.(or is Brazil not a good enough culture for you) There are a near infinite amount of other examples. (India, China, all of Africa, England(yes), France(riots in the streets), Indonesia, on and on and on.. For goodness sakes, put down the remote and pick up a history book. Or maybe travel. But Im sure its more fun just to judge.
Scuba SM

Antinous,

I agree with you about the deplorable acts that my nation has committed. What I was hoping to point out and head off is the assertion that because our government acts that way, every citizen agrees and acts that way themselves. While the citizens of a country are to a degree complicit in the actions of their government, it doesn’t make every one of us violent sociopaths as was stated by #12 in this paragraph:

“For someone growing up in a society that tolerates violence as a way of communication and conflict solving and gives (almost) everyone the right to buy and use guns and exercises foreign politics that has the constructive power of a bush fire and demonstrates its citizens that it is okay to lie at and spy friends and cheat and steal if it has a benefit, your reactions actually do surprise me.”

Criticizing current and past foreign relations moves/wars and offering information is good. Assuming that someone acts a certain way based on geographical location/citizenship is crossing a line to me. I would argue that making statements such as the above requires a certain amount of blindness to the demographic that reads BB. BBer’s don’t seem to be all that violent or vengeful, and a fair proportion of us are from the US. Saying that all US citizens are violent and destructive would require the person to exclude or ignore 99% of the US readers/commenters on BB.

In short, what I’m trying to point out in both of my posts is that people shouldn’t be quick to judge the citizenry of a country based on its political leadership. Saying all Americans are violent because Bush started several wars is no more accurate than saying all Americans are Republicans because Bush is a Republican (This also applies to other countries, obviously. They say write what you know). As long as that’s kept in mind, I think we can all get along.

Arkizzle,

I was expecting disemvoweling because my post was rather off topic and could be construed as trolling. Check my post log sometime and see how frequently I cry wolf. I do see what you’re saying though. I ‘spose I’m not cool enough to say it ironically.
Anonymous

Funny, the first thing I thought of was an incident that occurred to me on that very same dock last summer. The boat dock at that end of Greenlake is a fishing only dock. NO SWIMMING, NO DIVING. I was there one late afternoon last summer fishing with my two daughters when along came a group of three young men with a ramp that they proceeded to place at the junction of the “T” and which they proceeded to haul ass down the dock with their BMX style bikes and launch themselves into the lake, effectively ruining our experience. I pointed out the effects of their actions and that it was specifically a fishing dock but all I got was a big f*ck you in front of my kids from these three. If it happened to me, it happened to others I’m sure…I was very angry and can understand another acting upon it and doing such a thing. Not condoning it, but understanding it.

Whether it’s related to other such acts…I dunno.
virgil

Custodian:
did you happen to overlook the ones in Amsterdam that someone referred to in this thread? It doesn’t really fit your theory about American culture of violence. So what caused it? America has a pretty bizarre culture, but we don’t have a monopoly on lunatics, by a long shot. There are crazy people everywhere.
Custodian of the Two Holy Balls

#31: I don’t agree, but hey, it is enough for today. I’ll leave you and go to bed.

You might want to reflect on what the meaning of the word Americanization (specifically: ~ of societies) might be. I bet you had a totally different idea.

Evil is IMHO the perception of a deed deviating from the currently accepted. Tomorrow we got used to it, we saw idols successfully applying it and call it aggressive. Sooner or later it is plain normal. Evolution, incremental steps, dropping inhibitions, not popping up from nowhere!
Antinous

Well, I would be quite happy if everyone thought about their comment before hitting the Post button. Unfortunately, the spleen frequently reacts more rapidly than the brain. I try to remind people that all Republicans don’t eat babies, TSA workers aren’t universally possessed by demons and the police can sometimes be helpful. Demonizing whole classes of people generally worsens things.
MichaelRN

I should have my eyes examined. I initially read comment #1 as, “Life is broken, needs fixing.”
Deidzoeb

They use spikes on fences and ledges to keep birds off, spikes on top of fire hydrants and some horizontal surfaces in NYC to keep hobos from sitting or lying on them. Something in the water wants to keep humans out? Or the city wants to keep hobos from lying on the lakebed?
Takuan

guess what’s up

Chertoff: European terrorists trying to enter US
Jul 17, 9:07 PM (ET)

By EILEEN SULLIVAN

WASHINGTON (AP) – European terrorists are trying to enter the United States with European Union passports, and there is no guarantee officials will catch them every time, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday.

Chertoff’s comments on Capitol Hill comes as the country is entering a potentially vulnerable period with the presidential nominating conventions coming up next month; the presidential election in November; and the transition to a new administration in January – all of which may be attractive targets for terrorists.
GASPACHO

Seeing as how this incident is getting so much coverage(I’m probably exaggerating btw), I wonder if this is some type of scheme to get cameras in parks. I think some of the other comments suggest the same. Spikes in the lake; Solution: cameras! Graffiti on the street; Solution: cameras! Running a stop light; Solution: cameras! Bombs on a bus and in twin towers; cameras! Cameras may be the new hotness in the 08.
Custodian of the Two Holy Balls

I have the feeling, nobody will read a comment to yesterday’s discussion so any more words on this will be waste of time.

I’ll be back another time as this blog gives a lot of opportunities to talk about culture, cultural imperialism, lack and degeneration of culture and things like that.

Just briefly: a culture of a country can be one way while the value set of individuals in that country can be different. Even if talking about traits of a culture is unfair to the ones behaving differently, it stays “their” culture. And having grown up in a culture also means that the culture is in you, whether you like it or not.
Takuan

culture’s skin,to be shed as required
Antinous

a culture of a country can be one way while the value set of individuals in that country can be different.

That might be applicable to a small country in the Old World. Maybe. Certainly not to the US or most Western European countries. The cultural similarities between Massachusetts and California are not much greater than their differences. Louisiana and Wyoming? Half the people that I interact with are primarily Spanish speaking. I live and work on sovereign tribal land. There is a US culture, but it’s no more monolithic than European culture or East Asian culture, maybe less so.
Antinous

It’s a fine line between pranking and terrorism.

A great prank should induce an explosion of bodily fluids, but blood should not be one of them.
Bazilisk

Re: living in the most evilist country ever

Woops, guess I should have chosen my parents better, when I was in the pre-zygote stage selecting which country I wanted to be born into. Come on.

America just happens to be where evil idiocies are concentrated right now. Give it a few decades, it’s staggering downhill right now. People will be ranting against China and Indian evil in a few decades, once they get cocky enough. Not like something about being born on this chunk of this continent makes people violent. It has to do with being too damn powerful in the international stage, which is beginning to fade away for us…

And I really, really want to move to a country that is more sane than this one. But something stops me: my family’s and my friends’ location. Am I wrong to feel like I am doing something useful getting into activism here, though, choosing trying to fix a broken place over finding a place that already works?
dderidex

#32: “you know, “America” isn’t all gun-toting cluster bomb war fanatics. Painting us all with the same brush is the same sort of extremism that our (soon to be out of office, thank God) leaders exercise when deciding to invade countries that have done nothing other than having the bad luck to have a bloody dictator for a president.”

It’s a fair complaint, though. Bush still has an approval rating of 25%, after all.

I mean, really, think about that. If you picked 4 random people off the street, one of them still thinks Bush is doing a good job.

I honestly can’t argue with foreign opinions on ‘Americans’ based on that kind of data. Any sane and rational nation should have had this maniac at a 0% approval rating YEARS ago, but that we still have 1/4 of our population who think he’s doing just fine?!? *shudders*
defuser

they’re pungee sticks.
E0157H7

The thing that’s really creepy about this sort of behavior is that being stuck with some mysterious smaller sharp that’s is one of the more terrifying accidents that can happen to you. There’s no way of telling initially what you may have gotten into your system, from tetanus to HIV. If it’s not small then it’s a Punji stick, which can kill someone. Either way it’s pretty sick and I can’t wrap my head around it.