They are mainly young men and live in southern states, according to a paper, published in the American Journal of Public Health.
Researchers say these young men tend to have grown up in gun-owning households, are politically conservative (Republican) and own more than one type of firearm. Some of these homes own up to seven different types of weapon.
It comes less than three weeks since gunman killed 56 people and injured more than 500 others in an attack at a Las Vegas music festival.
The massacre was the deadliest in the history of the US, which has the highest rate of murder or manslaughter by firearm in the developed world.
The study, compiled by researchers from the University of Washington School of Public Health, the University of Colorado, the Harvard School of Public Health, and North-eastern University, looked at the handgun-carrying behaviour of 1,444 gun owners using data from a 2015 national survey.
Two-thirds of them said they carried their handguns concealed, while 10 percent did so in an open manner.
The research is the first in more than 20 years to scrutinise how and in what manner US adults carry loaded handguns.
Researchers said state laws on handgun carrying have eased since the 1980s and that some respondents to the survey admitted openly carrying a firearm even in regions where it was illegal.
“They do it because they want to get a reaction. They want to see me lash out and it all feeds into this sick and twisted entertainment value to them.” Blogger
The digital revolution has transformed our world. Never in human history have we been more connected to each other in ways that would have seemed unimaginable only a decade ago. But with the rise of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and a smartphone in virtually every pocket, the internet bullies known as trolls are only ever a click, tap or swipe away.
“We want to make them cry. We love to make them cry.” Troll
Instead of bringing people together, trolls use the internet to target those they disagree with by provoking, harassing and threatening them.
“It may be that the internet has unleashed a kind of dark demon, within millions of people out there in the general public.” Psychiatrist
On Monday night Four Corners takes you into the dark side of the internet to explore the rise of cyber trolls.
“They send things to my home. It terrifies me to think what they could do, if they wanted to, knowing exactly where I live, knowing where my children go to school.” Blogger
Many trolls go to great lengths to try and hide their identity and as the program explores, psychiatrists believe this is helping to propel the appalling behaviour.
“Anonymity seems to be a very important factor on the internet, in that it seems to make people less inhibited about doing nasty things.” Psychiatrist
One self-proclaimed hard core troll outlines the trolling landscape and boasts about his extensive conquests, all while hiding behind a cloak of anonymity.
“I’ve been associated with all kinds of organised trolling groups…The Internet presented something that was never available to us before.” Troll
And some of the trolls are not who you’d expect.
“The trolls and the really dangerous people that they attract are, themselves, mothers and have small children at home.” Blogger
We meet Britain’s most notorious troll, jailed for sending threatening tweets, and a campaigner in Canada as he goes on trial after a confrontation on Twitter.
“If you’re hurt, if the truth hurts you, it’s not my problem, because I’m just telling the truth.” Canadian Activist
The prosecution of trolls raises uncomfortable questions about how far our commitment to freedom of expression goes. Activists are warning of an Orwellian future of thought police.
“Trolling is a free speech issue and if you aren’t free to hate someone then you’re not free… If we are serious about freedom of speech, then we have to allow people to say hateful, obnoxious, racist, sexist things.” Magazine Editor
RISE OF THE TROLLS, from Canadian film-maker Jonathan Baltrusaitis and presented by Sarah Ferguson, ABC TV (Australia) 19th June 2017
I noticed this proposal on Facebook (for what that’s worth!). It takes the form of a change.org petition by Cody Orlando to be presented to the federal government. I don’t support concealed firearm possession or handgun possession in any form, but I’m interested to know the thoughts of others.
This will be a tough sell as most people have never handled a pistol, don’t understand the safety features, and have been brainwashed by the media and politicians for decades – creating a society that has an irrational fear of firearms. Jeff Cooper coined the term ‘Hoplophobia’ back in 1962, describing it as a “mental disturbance characterised by irrational aversion to weapons”.
I want you to put aside your irrational fear of firearms for a moment while I present you with some facts:
It is not possible to ban guns from a society
Violent crime in Australia is up and comparable in many ways to the United States. The media and our politicians love to hide this fact from you. In Australia, a woman is three times more likely to be raped than in America.
You might say you don’t want an American gun culture. I don’t either and I’m not proposing that. I don’t support the idea of self-regulation and the private sale of firearms and ammunition to anybody and everybody. Background checks, licensing and training are essential for anyone who wishes to use a firearm in Australia.
Because Americans have guns they are more likely to shoot each other. You will often see statistics of gun deaths in America compared with other countries claiming this is the case. What they fail to mention is that most of those deaths are attributed to suicide and because firearms are so readily available, they are the tool of choice for suicide in the US. Suicide is just as concerning in Australia, it’s just that we choose instead to jump at the gap or gas ourselves in the garage. The population of America is 14 times greater than that of Australia, so a per capita comparison is more like 715 America / 60 Australia deaths by firearms. I have included a graph below that shows how much more likely you are to die by other means in the US.
In the last two decades, the UK has introduced the most restrictive gun laws in the developed world, banning many types of firearms. During this time crime has skyrocketed and criminals are the only ones with guns.
As a law abiding Australian citizen who goes to work and pays his taxes, don’t you feel the Government should be doing more to protect you from violent criminals? I’m sure they believe they are doing the best they can, but the problem is their strategy is wrong. Criminals get too much of a free ride these days. Violent offenders brazenly rob, rape and beat people with little fear that a good citizen will step in to put a stop to the attack.
Police cannot be everywhere to protect everyone. There is about one police officer per 500 citizens and each officer works 40 hours during a 24/7, 168 hour week, reducing the ratio to 1:2100. Then you need to factor in how much time they actually spend on the beat, rather than doing paperwork, time in court etc.
Policing is not a proactive business with respect to violent crime. It’s impossible to tell when and where a rapist might attack and potentially give you a nasty disease. There’s not much you can do about that disease after the fact either. You can’t sue AIDS or Hepatitis C in a court of law.
Now I’m not suggesting for a moment that you or your daughter carry a concealed weapon to protect yourselves, but what I am proposing is that those good citizens who are trained and licensed to use pistols should be legally allowed to carry in public in their own personal time.
Why can’t an off-duty police officer choose to carry a pistol when he is doing his grocery shopping, or an armed security guard or sporting pistol shooter for that matter? Approximately 0.5% of Australians are trained and licensed to use pistols. How brazen would a criminal be knowing that 1 in 200 citizens would be only too happy to step in and assist another good citizen like yourself in distress?
You have a choice. You can continue to believe the media, political spin, lies and fear-mongering, or you can choose to believe that authorities recognise they cannot control criminals, so they control the law abiding. Lobby your government to allow licensed people to carry and remind them Article 3 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person”.
The ‘Big Maple Leaf’ was stolen in an overnight heist, authorities believe. Photo: Getty
A Canadian gold coin named “Big Maple Leaf” which bears the image of Queen Elizabeth II was stolen in the early hours of Monday morning from Berlin’s Bode Museum.
The coin is made out of pure gold, weighs about 100 kilos and has a face value of around $US1 million ($A1.3 million).
“The coin was stolen last night, it’s gone,” museum spokesman Markus Farr said.
It’s gone alright! It’s unlikely the coin will be seen again. It will be melted down into gold ingots and sold on!
Given the high purity of the gold used in the coin, its material value is estimated to be $US4 million.
The museum said on its website that the coin was issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007 and that it was featured in the Guinness Book of Records for its “unmatched” degree of purity.
Police said it was probably stolen by a group of thieves who entered the museum undetected through a window, possibly with the help of a ladder.
“Based on the information we have so far we believe that the thief, maybe thieves, broke open a window in the back of the museum next to the railway tracks,” police spokesman Winfrid Wenzel said. “They then managed to enter the building and went to the coin exhibition.
You think? I can’t see one thief carrying off a 100kg coin on his own!
“The coin was secured with bullet-proof glass inside the building. That much I can say,” Wenzel added.
That’s very good, but bullets were not used in the robbery. Lifting the glass cover is so much easier and a lot less noisy!
“Neither I nor the Bode Museum can go into detail regarding personnel inside the building, the alarm system or security installations.”
Can’t go into the details of alarms and security systems? That’s because there weren’t any!
The Bode Museum has one of the world’s largest coin collections with more than 540,000 items.
The death toll in the Berlin Christmas market attack has risen to 12, with around 48 seriously injured.
Meanwhile, the Berliner Zeitung has reported that the driver was, according to security agencies, an Afghan national who arrived in Germany as a refugeein February.
I have always stated that with such wholesale, unchecked migration, there would be terrorists disguised in their midst.
The name of the offender has yet to be confirmed, as it was understood the man had used several different names since his arrival in Germany.
Police confirmed that a 7.5-tonne truck with Polish plates drove into the market, travelling, according to witnesses, 60km/h-65km/h for around 80 metres, killing nine and injuring at least 50.
The Berliner Zeitung reported a scene of “devastation” with several of the injured so seriously hurt that they had to be resuscitated by paramedics at the scene.
The recent arrest of an Australian 60 Minutes TV crew in Lebanon, has had (Australian) media outlets outraged that a TV crew could be arrested for reporting the news.
What they gloss over in their outrage is that the crew were filming a kidnapping and abduction of two children of an Australian woman who was in Beirut with their Lebanese father. True, the father had failed to return the children after an access visit, but still a kidnap and abduction has occurred.
The TV crew was not just there filming the abduction. No, it is alleged that the 60 Minutes producers had actually financed the abduction by hiring a professional company to carry out the grab. it is alleged that AU$115,000 was paid by Channel 9.
That makes the TV crew complicit in the action, and an accessory to kidnapping and abduction, assault and conspiracy, all serious crime in the Lebanon.
The mother and the TV crew could find themselves in detention in Lebanon for some time to come.
If found guilty, they could face up to 20 years in jail.
Dr Denis Muller, a media ethics expert at University of Melbourne, believes Channel 9 did the story because they thought it would “rate its socks off”.
“An Australian mum was rescuing children, bringing them back to a great life in Australia, that’s what it was all about,” he said.
“I can’t imagine Channel 9 looked into the risk and I can’t imagine they would have knowingly put their staff at risk like this”. But it appears they did just that.
However, the reporter at the heart of the issue, Tara Brown, has maintained a level of integrity stating, “I cannot talk, I don’t want to jeopardise anything. It has been fortifying to get messages of support, support from my family, friends and colleagues. I am being treated extremely well and the other women here are incredibly generous and kind.”
Will this action receive unbiased reporting from the Australian media?
Norton explores the secret world of bulletproof hosting that’s hidden deep in underground bunkers. You make your own decision/conclusion on this interesting subject
Speed kills. Speed cameras save lives. We have heard it all before. But, two-hundred and forty-nine people people died in fatal traffic accidents on Victoria’s roads last year — a 2.5 per cent increase from 2013’s figure.
This is despite a record number of fixed and mobile speed cameras deployed on roads in Victoria, and around Australia.
For years, the governments have been claiming that speed cameras save lives and that speed is the greatest common factor in fatal car accidents.
But with road deaths on the rise, could it be that speed cameras actually don’t save lives and in fact are contributing to our road toll by breeding poor driving practises?
Since Saab introduced seat belts as standard in 1958, occupant safety has been improving every year, and the sedans, wagons, utilities and SUVs we drive today are safer than ever. And safer cars will undoubtedly go further in reducing the road toll than speed cameras.
Speed cameras certainly have their place in society, but not with the draconian enforcement of low-level speeding and covert tactics, such as hiding in bushes and unmarked mobile speed cameras, as occurs in Victoria, at least, more needs to be done.
The proof is in the numbers. People are still crashing, they are just safer doing so.
The figures show that revenue from speed cameras alone — on the spot police fines are not included in this figure — in 2010 was around $236 million. Fast forward to 2013 and that figures jumps a whopping $57 million to $293 million. Imagine ripping almost $300 million from government coffers; speed cameras have become like a drug addiction that governments can’t help but feed off.
Included below is a graph (click here to see larger version) that shows the relationship between hospital stays shorter than 14 days, longer than 14 days, fatalities and revenue from speed cameras. The graph shows that the increase in revenue from speed cameras isn’t commensurate with a reduction in hospital stays. Hospital stays of fewer than 14 days and more than 14 days during this period trended steady.
When asked about speed cameras and levels of enforcement, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice and Regulation told CarAdvice:
“Broadly speaking the rate of people being fined by cameras is not changing, but as the population grows, so too does the number of fines issued.
“The overall number of infringements issued annually is increasing as Victoria’s population grows and there are more cars on the road.
“Over 99 per cent of vehicles passing fixed cameras and over 98 per cent of vehicles passing mobile cameras comply with the speed limit.
That’s because people know that they are there. Drivers slow down for the cameras, and then once past them, they resume their normal driving habits – Ed.
“Fixed and mobile road safety cameras reduce speeds and cut road trauma because they are placed in high-risk or high-speed areas, areas with history of road trauma, or areas that will provide a road safety benefit.
This is not always so! In 2011 a NSW review of the placement of speed cameras was carried out by the Auditor-Generals Department, and a large number of cameras, 38 in fact, were identified as being placed to interrogate the speed of a large number of passing vehicles, or where the speed limit had been reduced from a higher limit; e.g. passing from a 90kmh zone into a 70kmh zone, with no identified high risk factors or adverse trauma history – Ed.
“100 per cent of the money from camera fines is allocated to the Better Roads Victoria Trust Account. The funds from this account are used to improve road safety for all road users.”
With an enforcement focus skewed on speed, ask yourself this question: how many speed cameras did you travel through (whether it be a fixed or mobile one) in the past month? Now, ask yourself how many times were you stopped to be tested for drugs or alcohol over the same period?
Similarly, in the past 10 years, how many times did you undertake driver training to improve your skills?
The unfortunate reality of speed camera-biased enforcement can be demonstrated with the tragic death of pedestrian Anthony Parsons and husband and wife Savva and Ismini Menelaou, who were passengers in a Ford Falcon struck at the intersection of Warrigal and Dandenong roads in Oakleigh, Victoria last year.
Brazilian national Nei Lima DaCosta was high on ice and drove through one fixed speed camera at 30km/h over the speed limit minutes before careering through the intersection of Warrigal and Dandenong roads at 120km/h (40km/h over the speed limit) through another speed and red light camera. He killed three innocent people. These two cameras did nothing to help save the lives of three innocent people.
This particular example illustrates why so much more needs to be done on enforcing and dealing with poor driving, whether it be due to drugs, lack of skills or visible policing.
There seems to be a reluctance, at least in Australia for police to perform in a pro-active role. Whenever police are seen on highways, it is always in the role of enforcement, speed checking, number plate recognition activities and the like, revenue raising activities – Ed.
Speed cameras alone will never be a useful immediate enforcement or protection tool against drivers excessively speeding, or people who don’t know how to drive to start with.
Those people that use the idiom “don’t speed and you won’t get caught” simply don’t understand the reality of driving safely. If I had the preference of watching the road or my speedometer, I know which one I would choose.
What is needed is an overhaul of driver training, the proper blitzing of drink and drug driving testing, along with the removal of low level speed enforcement. Who would have an issue with being stopped twice a day for drug or alcohol testing if it meant impaired drivers were taken off the road more promptly?
We also need more transparency on where the money generated from speed cameras goes and where it should be spent.
With all the roads around NSW in such poor condition, serious doubt has to raised as just where income from fines is actually spent on – Ed.
Primarily, the Russian people have only been driving for a short time. Prior to the fall of communism in 1989, private ownership of motor vehicles was severely restricted by cost, but more importantly, to restrict the free movement of the population within the former Soviet Union. Access to motor vehicle ownership in the last 27 years has increased exponentially! What has not increased however is the skill, ability, psyche and consideration that goes with the operation of a motor vehicle. Accompanied by this, is a distinct lack of experience, discipline and courtesy needed when driving on a public road.
There also appears to be no concept of consequence in Russia. This results from a lack of lateral thinking which is not nurtured in Russian society as well as their education. So they drive like aggressively without regard for road rules believing they’re not causing any harm. Russians believe the bigger the car they drive, the safer they are. Hence why drivers of 4x4s tend to be even more aggressive then drivers of a Fiat Punto.
Russia: The only place where you can be rear-ended whilst overtaking, driving the wrong way up a one way street!
Corruption
Corruption is rife in Russian which means that money can buy anything, including a driver’s licence. Russian get drivers licences with no knowledge of road rules or even the ability to drive a car! As a result there is little reason to learn the highway code. Thus everyone has their own view as to what the laws of the road really are. Continuing with corruption, if you drive like a idiot and get stopped, you can generally bribe your way our of being punished. Thus there is basically no fear of punishment which reinforces the belief that Russian drivers can behave at the wheel as they wish with impunity. Police are generally nowhere to be seen. They might occasionally pull you over nearer the centre of a city by being flagged down but a police car pulling someone over? Never! There are no cameras, except around the city centre but even if you are sent a fine, there is no system in place to actually guarantee payment of that fine. Many Russians who have been sent a fine have never paid it. So again, you can act without fear of punishment,
“There are only two types of Russians – those who give bribes and those who take them.”
So all in all, this theme finds its way into the Russian psyche. The Russians are not stupid because, if you are stupid, you still know the difference between right and wrong. 80 years of communism has lead Russians to be disillusioned and somewhat primitive. There is a big difference.
Driving in Russia is hazardous: Last year, 200,000 traffic accidents killed 27.025 people in Russia in 2013. Addressing those high levels, President Dmitry Medvedev blamed the “undisciplined, criminally careless behaviour of our drivers,” along with poor road conditions. However, Medvedev made no mention of the totally dysfunctional Russian traffic police!
Russians consistently ignore red lights, overtake on the inside, overtake on the outside when unsafe or blind, speed and couple this with little or no technical expertise or driving ability, this is a recipe for disaster!
While accepting that drivers certainly play a role, Medvedev did not mention Russia’s traffic police, which, “is known throughout their land for brutality, corruption, extortion and making an income on bribes.”
According to information published by New Times(2009), one day’s corrupt income for a traffic policeman is $1000. Everyone regards the law enforcement agencies, chiefly the police, as extortioners in uniform and it is generally recognised that a policeman’s official salary is only part of his income. Medvedev’s police reform, carried out by the police establishment itself, has failed. The overwhelming majority of Russians have no more faith in the police than they did in the Soviet past.
Russia ranks 133rd among the world’s nations in corruption (where number one is the least corrupt), according to Transparency International. So going to the police with a legitimate complaint is far from sure to produce a good result.
In addition to authorities they deem untrustworthy, Russian drivers must contend with the possibility of being attacked by another driver. The below video compiles fights between drivers that feature crowbars, slapping, punching, and worse.
Then there are pedestrians who get themselves hit by cars on purpose, for a payoff. A video compilation (below) of failed scams offers a few examples.
Overall, in a country where traffic conditions are horrible, insurance scams and roadside fights are always a possibility, and the police are widely viewed as corrupt, video evidence of one’s innocence can be a very valuable thing.
There are are number of things which also contribute to this situation:
Harsh climate. It means foggy mornings in the summer, rainy autumns, snowy winters notorious of its blizzards and ice, springs with huge lots of wet dirt.
Poor road conditions. Yes, that is no secret, that the bigger part of roads in Russia are not good. Perestroika, the crisis of 90’s and other economic problems including theft and corruption inside the Road construction department resulted in poor roads conditions
Large distances. It is much more easy and convenient to build and service roads in a small country, neither in Russia where distances between settlements sometimes can be counted in hundreds of km. Living in Siberia, one can take a ride from one city to another and not see civilisation for hours with only taiga forest around. In Australia, large distances are also an issue, but Australians do not have the poor driver behaviour as exhibited in Russia!
The Russian government did not expect people to have so many cars. The number rose dramatically over the last 25 years. In the west, the culture of proper driving was formed over a longer period, while in Russia it just boomed. The problem is much worse for big cities of 1 million citizens or more. Here we see too many cars on tiny roads and a lack of parking spaces. It makes people nervous while driving.
The other factor is culture. Russian people today haven’t learned to respect each other. And they won’t until the economic situation improves.
Vehicles and Vodka
Russia has a long history of alcohol consumption. The average Russian drinks 20 litres of pure alcohol per annum, nearly twice as much as their nearest rival. This of course carries onto the streets of Russia.
According to data, the number of drunk drivers has been steadily increasing in the past few years. In the last eight months of 2012, the number of accidents caused by drunk drivers rose by 3.5%. In that time, there were 152 alcohol related accidents in Moscow, which caused 15 deaths. And Moscow is far from being the worst city in Russia: in the Krasnoyarsk region there were 433 drunk driving accidents over the same period.
Some worry that stricter laws will mean serious punishment even for drivers who don’t drink, since Russia’s laws don’t specify a blood alcohol level at which one is considered drunk. United Russia lawmakers think that establishing specific criteria for drunk drivers is essential to the success of a stricter law. A threshold is important because human blood will always contain some alcohol, which could be detected in blood tests. Russia had an alcohol limit until 2010, but then-President Medvedev thought drivers interpreted the law to mean they could drink up to that point, and changed the law to zero-tolerance.
On the other hand, people who knowingly drink and drive might not be deterred by the new law at all. The police say people who regularly drive under the influence and accumulate suspended licenses for years simply ignore the sanctions (such as the driver in the recent accident in Moscow, whose license had been suspended in 2010 for drunk driving).
In the past two years, more than 18,000 drivers have had their license suspended for drunk driving. Among those drivers, some had been punished for drunk driving 100 times or put in administrative arrest 16 times for driving without a license. The law has no effect on this type of person, so a completely different approach is needed with them. It has been suggested that if they can’t stop themselves from drinking and driving, they need to be under the strict control of the courts and medical staff.”
The Russian Dash-Cam
In Russia, everyone should (and does) have a camera on their dashboard. It’s better than keeping a lead pipe under your seat for protection (but you might still want that lead pipe).
The conditions of Russian roads are perilous, with an insane gridlock in the city and gigantic ditches, endless swamps and severe wintry emptiness of the back roads and highways. Then there are large, lawless areas you don’t just ride into, the police with a penchant for extortion and deeply frustrated drivers who want to smash your face.
Psychopaths are abundant on Russian roads. You best not cut anyone off or undertake some other type of maneuver that might inconvenience the 200-pound, six-foot-five brawling children you see on YouTube hopping out of their SUVs with their dukes up. They will go ballistic in a snap, drive in front of you, brake suddenly, block you off, jump out and run towards your vehicle. Next thing you start getting punches in your face because your didn’t roll up your windows, or getting pulled out of the car and beaten because you didn’t lock the doors. These fights happen all the time and you can’t really press charges. Point to your broken nose or smashed windows all you want. The Russian courts don’t like verbal claims. They do, however, like to send people to jail for battery and property destruction if there’s definite video proof. That is why there’s a new, growing crop of dash-cam videos featuring would-be face-beaters backing away to the shouts of “You’re on camera, fucker! I’m calling the cops!”
Dash-cam footage is the only real way to substantiate your claims in the court of law. Forget witnesses. Hit and runs are very common and insurance companies notoriously specialize in denying claims. Two-way insurance coverage is very expensive and almost completely unavailable for vehicles over ten years old–the drivers can only get basic liability. Get into a minor or major accident and expect the other party to lie to the police or better yet, flee after rear-ending you. Since your insurance won’t pay unless the offender is found and sued, you’ll see dash-cam videos of post hit and run pursuits for plate numbers.
And sometimes drivers back up or bump their pre-dented car into yours. It used to be a mob thing, with the accident-staging specialists working in groups. After the “accident,” the offending driver–often an elderly lady–is confronted by a crowd of “witnesses,” psychologically pressured and intimidated to pay up cash on the spot. Since the Age of the Dash-cam, hustle has withered from a flourishing enterprise to a dying trade, mainly thriving in the provinces where dash-cams are less prevalent.
And then, sometimes, someone will jump under your car at a crossing, laying on the asphalt, simulating a badly hurt pedestrian waiting for that cop conveniently parked nearby. This dramatic extortion scheme was common, until the Age of the Dash-cam. Oh, and there are such juicy, triumphant tales about of would-be extortion victims turning the scheme around and telling the cast members to pay them money or they’re going to jail for this little performance! Don’t try it.
While those lucky enough to traverse the Russian roads with an American or other Western passport are hassled less, the Russian Highway Patrol is notorious throughout their land for brutality, corruption, extortion and making an income on bribes.
Russian websites go for the uncut, the horrible accidents–trucks flipping over, people being smashed into pieces and sedans flying up in the air and exploding. Given that television programing is mostly vacuous and heavily censored, dash-cam videos are very popular in Russia. It’s uncensored–drama, comedy, tragedy, horror, thriller and educational genres fused into one super-genre of “dash-cam.” Who needs Klitschko when you can watch to tough guys box in the street?
To better understand and navigate this “community service”, here’s a Russian Dash-cam Video Thesaurus for the blog tag cloud. It is comprised of purposely misspelled hick and thug slang and phrases used sarcastically…while people die. Ah, Russian humour.
поциент – “Patient.” The poor bastard, the dumb idiot in the video getting pulverized, run over or smashed into. A wordplay of “potz,” the Russian translation of the Yiddish “schmuck.”
летчик – “Pilot.” The idiot who zooms by and crashes in the grand finale of a video.
слабоумие и отвага – “Courage and dementia.”
последние секунды жизни – “Last seconds of life.” Videos featuring persons before and after fatal accidents.
кетай как всегда пиздец – “China is always fucked.” Clips from China that feature severe crashes and frequently feature passersby ignoring the bodies and car debris.
кирпичи – “Bricks” (as in “shitting bricks.”) The audio track often features the driver panting or shouting the entire Russian vocabulary of swears at the top of their lungs. Used for videos with near misses or close shaves.
железобетонное очко – “Anus of Concrete.” Honorific given to drivers who, faced with sudden danger like a huge truck coming head-on, remain calm, only saying “shoot” or “darn” quietly in the background, and efficiently steer away from danger, displaying some seriously fucking great driving skills.
наварра – The infamous video featuring a black Nissan Navarra SUV swerving to the oncoming freight liner and being smashed into a cloud of small pieces. It is the metaphor for a gruesome, intense, fatal accident.
But there are moments of humanity among the Russian people,. At a city accident scene, you could see as many as twenty cars pulling over, drivers running out to the scene. This comes from the recognition of the fact that on a 300-mile stretch of uninhabited territory, help can only come from passing vehicles and not emergency services. Most Russian long-distance routes East of the Ural Mountains are that way. There is really only one highway like that in North America: the Western Canadian to Alaskan Stretch of the Pan-American Highway. The camaraderie between strangers, shoveling the snow and hailing a freight truck or tractor to pull the car out. The kudos. The cheers. The knowledge that you could be very well be next.
And don’t you forget it. Aside from the kindness of strangers, it’s just you and that little gadget versus the hell that is the Russian people on the road.
George Brown is a decorated soldier and health professional and 40 year veteran in the field of emergency nursing and paramedical practice, both military and civilian areas. He has senior management positions in the delivery of paramedical services. Opinions expressed in these columns are solely those of the author and should not be construed as being those of any organization to which he may be connected.
He was born in the UK of Scottish ancestry from Aberdeen and a member of the Clan MacDougall. He is a member of the Macedonian community in Newcastle, and speaks fluent Macedonian. While this may seem a contradiction, it is his wife who is Macedonian, and as a result he embraced the Macedonian language and the Orthodox faith.
His interests include aviation and digital photography, and he always enjoys the opportunity to combine the two. Navigate to his Flickr site to see recent additions to his photo library.
Џорџ Браун е украсени војник и професионално здравствено лице и 40 годишен ветеран во областа на за итни случаи старечки и парамедицински пракса, двете воени и цивилни области. Тој има високи менаџерски позиции во испораката на парамедицински услуги. Мислењата изразени во овие колумни се исклучиво на авторот и не треба да се толкува како оние на било која организација тој може да биде поврзан.
Тој е роден во Велика Британија на шкотскиот потекло од Абердин и член на Kланот MacDougall. Тој е член на македонската заедница во Њукасл, и зборува течно македонски. Иако ова можеби изгледа контрадикција, тоа е неговата сопруга кој е македонски, и како резултат научил македонскиот јазик и ја примија православната вера.
Неговите интереси вклучуваат авијација и дигитална фотографија, и тој секогаш ужива во можност да се комбинираат двете. Отиди до неговиот Фликр сајт да видите последните дополнувања на неговата слика библиотека.
Discussion on the law that applies to or affects Australia's emergency services and emergency management, by Michael Eburn, PhD, Australian Lawyer. Email: meburn@australianemergencylaw.com
Oh, let's see...distinguished Gen-X'er, frustrated writer and mom living in the confines of a small town that thinks it's a big deal. And have I mentioned Walmart yet?