The man was driving through a 700 foot tunnel. Unless there was heavy traffic it should have taken 10 seconds.

Why the fuck would someone hold their breath while driving?

There was a giant mudslide on the west slope of the Rockies, between the town of Collbran, CO and Vega Reservoir.

Says the Denver Post:

The slide was more than 3 miles long, a half-mile wide and as deep as 250 feet. It dwarfs the mudslide that buried a subdivision and killed 41 people in Oso, Wash., in March.

At present three people are missing, all men who went to check on an irrigation ditch blocked by a small preceding slide who were then apparently caught in the larger one. Photos here: http://photos.denverpost.com/2014/05/26/…

In February, forty one Republican senators voted against a bill, supported across the board by veterans groups, that would have boosted spending to reduce wait times at veterans hospitals. If this isn't a disgrace enough to run them from office, I don't know what is.

“White House Accidentally Releases Name of CIA Chief in Afghanistan”

I’m sure that the media will follow this with all of the furor it prosecuted the Valerie Plame leak… Ha. Right!

Thanks 6

@6
Malfeasance that resulted in a minor disclosure (she was hardly Chief of CIA operations in a highly sensitive region) vs. Incompetence that results in a major disclosure…

Frankly, I find incompetence every bit, if not more, disturbing.

Either way… They are both very damning stories.

You find some clerk's incompetence more disturbing than the intentional actions of decision makers in the pursuit of manufacturing a case for an illegal war?

You have no morals.

@8: Wait, so you would claim that a person who accidently hits the gas instead of the brake and kills someone is worse than someone who got in their car and intentionally went out to run someone down?

Or does this incredibly stupid line of thought only exist when you can score fake political points on a blog?

@6: It was Richard Armitage, a former #2 head at the State Department who leaked Valerie to Bob Novak. Not the Bush White House.

@3: Rob! Note how that slide was so massive that it filled up a valley and continued over its that ridge.

#4

Now that we have Obamacare, why do we need Veteran's Hospitals? (I asked the same question about school nurses.)

From the Department of the Petty and Picayune, I wanted to follow up the commenter who denied my observation that Seattle is a laptop town, and not a tablet town.

I went to the Angels-M's game yesterday and started off the day with a walk from Sounder to Zeitgeist Coffee. While inside (can someone tell me why they all sit inside even when it's sunny) awaiting my latte, I did an impromptu survey of what devices people were using.

The east side of the room seemed to be the computing-ish area. Of the twenty or so people there working away at the great american homework assignment, the number using tablets or Kindles was exactly none. All laptops.

The west side of the room was the conversation area, people in groups speaking to each other. But of course there were devices present...all smart phones, no tablets.

@15- Gods you're an idiot.

School nurses provide on-site care so kids don't need to leave school for minor medical issues and little public health tasks. They're there to keep the education going.

Obamacare isn't a robust socialized medicine system, so veterans still get cheaper treatment than non-veterans. Iif we'd actually gotten socialized medicine instead of mandatory healthcare we could get rid of the VA. We'd still have school nurses.

#17

What specialized treatment would a vet need, that say a victim of the Boston Marathon bombing wouldn't? And certainly whatever insurance and health network that provides for the Marathon victims could provide for vets as well.

As far as a school nurse, they would provide nothing more than a parent would -- band-aids and eye drops. Any thing more serious and you'd call in the pros. Pre-Obamacare, the nurse might have been there to help with the costs for poor parents, but post-Obamacare, everyone has insurance especially the poor who get subsidized plans.

Fox News: Latent Homosexuality to blame for Isla Vista?

@18- You obviously have no idea how Obamacare works or the benefits that veterans are entitled to (they're much better than mandatory insurance).

You obviously have no idea what school nurses do. None. Did you have a brain injury that erased your memories of school?

@20 - Thank you.

Anna,

The link to the White Center shooting is wrong. You've got a link to an article on Fircrest looking to end 'dry' status there.

@1- Yes, I find it really difficult to believe a healthy young person can't hold his (or her) breath for ten seconds. Those of us with asthma or other lung diseases routinely do that and more when using our inhalers and taking tests, and we don't pass out. There has to be something else involved than just that he was holding his breath for about 750 feet.

@23
There's been speculation that he was in the middle of a bong hit or something, but if that were the case he'd have been arrested for DUI.

Also, good point about asthma. And if he has a respiratory issue so severe that passing out is a risk, then why would he hold his breath?

Maybe there was a serious passenger fart in the vehicle?

@14, and re: 3, I've been able to pinpoint the Colorado landslide location through photos and maps—

https://maps.google.com/maps?f=t&t=p&ll=…

The headscarp is at bottom center (down and to the right from Sugarloaf Peak), with the slide flowing northward toward the valley containing "60½ Road." Part of Vega Reservoir is at the upper right; the town of Collbran, CO is out-of-frame to the upper left. Partway down, @14, the slide struck an angled canyon wall (itself the runout of a much older slide). Some of it sloshed over, but most was redirected on down the canyon.

Photo #9 in the Denver Post photo gallery (linked @3) shows the full length of the slide from the side, looking east toward the crest of the Rockies on the horizon with Vega Reservoir in the middle distance on the left. Sugarloaf Peak blocks the view of part of the slide; the slosh-over is visible just to the left.

A couple of interesting things: Just as with Oso, when you look for it the evidence of an earlier slide (probably well before living memory) is obvious in the form of a slumped terrace just below the headscarp area. And incidentally, this area is part of the Piceance Basin, where fracking for gas extraction has been going on for decades—if you switch the map from topographic to satellite view and zoom/pan, you'll see evidence of gas wells, some right near the bottom of the slide (I say "incidentally" because the proximate cause is likely heavy rains in the preceding days, though as with Oso, past logging, land disturbance, and other factors probably contributed).

#20

Tell me how a VA benefits package differs from a Gold Obamacare program.

Tell me what service a VA hospital would offer, that the complex of hospitals on First Hill would not.

@26 Secret waiting lists?

@26 I'll tell you, since I use it. It's called veteran's hospital. It can't be used to rob people like your type wants.

Losing a child is devastating. Losing a truck with all of your shit in it is a pain in the ass.

@26- A gold Obamacare package costs a bunch of money. A VA benefits package costs years of your life.

You really don't understand what Obamacare is. So go do some fucking reading on wikipedia or something. Just shut up until you've gotten a bit of a handle on reality.

@29

But thankfully, there's a thriving music scene of great local bands.

The reports I heard suggested that people hold their breath in tunnels as part of some dumb-ass superstition. And then maybe younger folks do so as part of a similarly dumb-assed dare.

#30

So if I gave you a Gold Obamacare package, fully subsidized, no cost to you, for your service, instead of a "VA plan" -- would you complain?

(Re: 25, if anybody's interested, the numbering of the photos is changing, so the one I describe is no longer #9. Weirdly, they're adding newer photos to the beginning of the gallery, so it bumps all the subsequent ones. If that continues, the total number of photos at the time you open the gallery, minus 20, should give you the right number [32-20=12 at the moment] for the sideways view of the slide. Or just start at 9 and click to the right until the image matches my description.)

Thanks for the link to feministing. Not seeing how this latest shooting has anything to do with white male privilege. Most the victims were men, his 150page rant is more against men than women. Why the media acting like this is an attack by the white elite targeting women only and focusing only on that? Isn't this guy half asian as well? #culturalmarxism #criticaltheory #thefrankfurtschool

@6
@10
@12
Let’s remember that what occurred this past week was far worse than anything that happened to Plame. Plame was, after all, serving in an office in Virginia and, while classified, was no secret. By contrast, the CIA station chief whose name was released is in peril every day in Kabul. He is serving on the front lines of a shooting war and the release of his name in this indiscriminate manner may well have compromised his effectiveness if not his safety.

@10: Actually: I would claim that a person who, having no idea how to drive a car, pulls out into traffic and accidentally mows down a dozen children waiting for a school bus is worse than someone who got in their car and intentionally swerved to hit a rat in the road.