Have you educated your kids on how DANGEROUS hot coffee is? Have you told them about the hospitalization, loss of body “parts”, skin grafts, disability, painful therapy, and permanent scarring?

Fortunately, you don’t have to — Liebeck’s jury convinced McD’s to serve coffee at a safer temperature, that doesn’t cause 3rd degree burns in a few seconds.

As usual, you are misinformed. The judge, a conservative Republican, reduced the punitive award. He also called McD’s conduct reckless, callous and willful.

There were about 700 McD’s hot coffee lawsuits the decade prior to Stella Liebeck’s.

One woman had burns similar to Liebeck’s, after the “employee did the spilling”. Children were also burned.

You CANNOT assume “responsibility for your own actions”, if you are NOT AWARE of the risks you are taking.

Most people assume hot coffee only causes MINOR burns.

POLL TIME:

How many people on this blog are aware that McD’s coffee could do to them what it did to Liebeck, and many other people, including children?

When they hand you the coffee, do you WORRY that if it spills, it could do to you what it did to her?Fortunately, McD’s lowered their coffee temperature after Liebeck “won”.

http://www.atla.org/pressroom/FACTS/frivolous/McdonaldsCoffeecase.aspx

But, the person to whom Sol is referring (unless I’m mistaken) is Stella Liebeck, the woman that sued McDonalds (and won) for serving hot coffee that she later spilled on herself. Fortunately, that monetary award was later greatly reduced on appeal.

” No matter how freakin ignorant you are (spilling coffee on yourself and sue because it was hot)”

Your hand covers an area roughly equal to one percent of your total skin area.

Measure 6 “hands” of your skin, on your crotch, thighs, and rear end. Imagine that skin completely GONE, exposing the fat, muscle, ligaments, etc underneath.

Spend 8 days in the hospital, $11,000 bill (1992 $’s).

Have another 10 “hands” of your skin surgically removed to make skin grafts.

Be immobile, and have someone lose $9,000 in wages because they stay home to take care of you.

Be disabled for 2 years, undergo horribly painful therapy to stretch the (contracting) skin grafts.

Wear adult diapers the rest of your life, because you’ve lost bladder control.

Yeah… EVERYONE “knows” that’s what happens if you accidently spill coffee on yourself. Or the employee at the drive-thru window accidently spills it on your lap. /sarcasm

She has seen the light. She is mostly moderate now, but far right leaning on some key topics.

About 100 posts ago you pointed out my, shall I say ‘lack of grammar courtesy’. Fair enough. I suppose I react poorly when people keep telling me that I need to be either a democrat or a republican to matter, like the original post to this thread.

Once upon a time, MrsGolfnut was a liberal.

She also thought we could love our enemies, embrace them with affection and care, sing kum-bah-yah…and we’d all live happily ever after.

Then she finished her PhD, tripled her income, saw what the libs wanted to do to her income taxes…

She also saw that no matter how much we show empathy and compassion to our enemies – they’ll still hate us and our ways of life. And they’ll still try to destroy us. They see our “reaching out” as weakness, and they rally around it.

A few years ago, we were hiking up Longs Peak in Colorado and saw a sign about feeding the animals. It explained how chipmunks and other mountain creatures become dependent on humans for food if we feed them. They lose the drive to find their own food, etc, etc, etc. While we were hiking (it’s a 16 hour round trip, and I highly recommend it to anyone), we talked about how this same principle applies to people and the government. The more that is handed out, the less likely the recipients are to become self-sufficient.

And those that TRULY need help, are best served via charitiable organizations – United Way, Red Cross, Catholic charities.

Oh yeah, CHURCH organizations. At the time, I was volunteering as business manager for our church. We had about a million dollars a year in operating budget – all funded by donations. About half of the budget paid the salaries of the church staff; 30% went to pay for the building, utilities, insurance; 10% went to educational materials and programs; and 10% went to charity. TEN PERCENT of the church’s operating budget went to charities like Hunter Health Clinic, GraceMed, Urban Ministries Food Bank…the list went on and on.

And, many church members donated funds specifically to charaties via the church that didn’t go into the church budget. This was easily another $50k.

Charitable donations from a church. $150k+ annually. From a church filled with conservatives.

So, MrsGolfnut came around. Like the old saying: if you’re under 30 and not a liberal, you have no heart. If you’re over 30 and not conservative, you have no brain. She was about 35. Stubborn. But now, she sees the light with great clarity.

Next challenge: my 14 yr old daughter. She’s brighter than both of us – I taught her calculus before she turned 10.

Not even a good try.

If you’re going to lie, lie so that it’s believable.

“A bad lie is no better than telling the truth.” Mark Twain

I’m watching it now. =)

Who is it? I’d love to come see you play.

Feel free to email me. (My email is live – hehe)

Jimmy Buffett Uncut

I’ve been to a dozen JB concerts, although not so many in recent years. We went to Dallas a couple of years ago, and took all three kids. My son was 5 and singing along to almost all the songs. That’s pure joy right there.

Oh, the humanity! The wailing and the gnashing of teeth!

The American people are speaking to the CONservatives and they’re saying, “screw you!”

Bonilla Loses House Seat After 7 Terms

Wednesday December 13, 2006 3:01 AM

By ELIZABETH WHITE

Associated Press Writer

SAN ANTONIO (AP) – Former Congressman Ciro Rodriguez defeated seven-term RepublicanHenry Bonilla in a runoff election Tuesday, adding another Democrat to Congress.

With more than half the precincts reporting in the state’s largest district, Rodriguezhad 57 percent to Bonilla’s 43 percent.

They were the top vote-getters in a special election held Nov. 7, but neither got 50percent, prompting the runoff.

Bonilla was seeking an eighth term in Washington, while Rodriguez was hoping to returnafter a two-year absence. He served from 1997-2005 in another district but was oustedin the March 2004 Democratic primary by Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat. Rodriguezlost again to Cuellar in this year’s primary.

I have chalked up many a mile

Read dozens of books about heroes and crooks

And I learned much from both of their styles

I’m a parrothead too!

O’Reilly is faaaaaaar from being far right. If you say he’s a fundamental conservative, you don’t listen.

If you ever bother to check out the stories he talks about, most are embellished or twisted to leave out anything that doesn’t agree with his hostile agenda.

He just plays up that whole innocent ‘no spin’ crap, so once in awhile when the right’s crap stinks so bad that it’s incredibly obvious, he has to say so.