Firefighters refuse to help man who didn't pay his fee

This has to be the most ridiculous story I've read recently.

Let me set up the story for you. Every year, residents living in the rural area of Obion County must pay a $75 fee for fire fighter service from South Fulton. As you'd expect, this family did not pay the fee that year, for reasons I don't know.

Well, as you can probably assume at this point, their house caught fire and they called 911. "Didn't pay your fee? Whoops, talk to you later!" That's basically the response he got.

This fire went on for hours because garden hoses just wouldn't put it out. It wasn't until that fire spread to a neighbor's property, that anyone would respond.

Turns out, the neighbor had paid the fee.

"I thought they'd come out and put it out, even if you hadn't paid your $75, but I was wrong," said Gene Cranick.

...

It was only when a neighbor's field caught fire, a neighbor who had paid the county fire service fee, that the department responded. Gene Cranick asked the fire chief to make an exception and save his home, the chief wouldn't. 

So, let's get this straight. They denied coming to help him because he didn't pay the fee. Harsh. A short while later, the fire spread to the neighbors house. Then they came to the neighbors house to put out the fire, and continued to ignore the Cranicks' burning house.

Their response seems so ridiculously morally incorrect that it honestly upsets me. Over $75 measly dollars, they refused to come and save a man's residence from burning down. Then, even after they arrived on the scene to help the neighbors' houses, they still refused to help him. Are you shitting me? What happened to civic duty? How about instead of making it optional, you just tax them $75 a year so we don't have these situations? How about instead of refusing to put out a fire, you fine someone $300 if they didn't pay the $75 fee? How about instead of letting a family's residence and possessions get destroyed in a fire over $75, you just help them out because it's the right thing to do? How important is $75 to you that you are willing to risk the obvious media, community, and political backlash? It's so stupid that I can't fathom their thought process.

To give you an idea of just how intense the feelings got in this situation, soon after the fire department returned to the station, the Obion County Sheriff's Department said someone went there and assaulted one of the firefighters.

Good for you.

[Full story via WPSD]

French senate approves the "burqa ban"

Something about this ban rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's the fact that it's completely hypocritical.

The French claim that burqas represent a society in which women have no rights, and they want to separate themselves from that. And yet, they feel that the solution to this is take away a woman's right to wear a burqa. Am I the only one that thinks this is crazy? Apparently I'm a minority in France:

The ban has strong public support, but critics point out that only a tiny minority of French Muslims wear the full veil.

That's nice, but if it's only a tiny minority to begin with, then why are they so gung-ho to ban it outright? What if a woman wants to wear a burqa? I cannot claim to understand why they would, but I'm also not a Muslim woman so I can't say that it isn't possible. I'm sure there is a fair percentage of full veil-wearing women in France who are doing so out of choice. In fact, many people do things that make sense to them and few others because of their faith. There are Mormons in America that refuse to see rated R movies. What does that have to do with your faith? Since I'm not Mormon, I can't understand. Yet, you don't see anyone moving to ban any Mormon practices.

However, if the law passes, women who choose to wear a burqa will have this to look forward to:

It envisages fines of 150 euros (£119) for women who break the law

Well done, France.

[BBC - French senate votes to ban Islamic full veil in public]

bad news in Coppell

Quite a sad story in Coppell today. The mayor was part of an apparent murder/suicide, where she killed her daughter and then turned the gun on herself.

Read more:

• http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20010539-504083.html
• http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Stunned-friends-neighbors-mourn-deaths-of-Coppell-mayor-and-daughter-98453999.html
• http://www.wfaa.com/news/crime/jayne-peters-98389809.html

bp new logo

I thought this was pretty funny.. 

The good news is that the top kill seems to be working.  If you're curious about how the top kill works, you can find that out here.  

The oil spill

Check out these pictures here to see the oil spill.

Nothing like some great pictures to really show you what's going on out there...

Is being a good Samaritan worth it?

New York passers-by leave good Samaritan to die

I've read some similar stories, and it makes me both sad and angry at how seemingly selfish some people can be.  If you're walking down the street and see a man keeled over in his own blood, how can you just ignore him? Does this kind of stuff happen in NYC so often that people just ignore it now? I can't imagine, but I also can't rationalize their actions anyways.

The story tells of a homeless man who saved a woman from an attack, and got stabbed in the process. My immediate reaction is, what happened to the woman? Did she not notice that he got stabbed several times, so she didn't bother to call 911?

My only guess is that the passer-by's just didn't notice he was stabbed, and assumed he was a passed out homeless guy, even though he was apparently lying in a pool of blood. I would hope that here in Austin we have a bit more remorse for homeless people, given that we have famous ones.

World opinion of US increases

This is mostly a test post, I'm trying to figure out what this link stuff is all about.

But it's interesting that according to a BBC World poll (which I think I've linked?), the opinion of the US has gone up a lot the last year.  I say that it's interesting because living here in the US, I feel like it's the opposite.  I think that's a testament to what the media chooses to broadcast.

edit: I figured it out.  The link is the post title, which is confusing because how can you really tell unless you happen to highlight over it?