This week, Washingtonian.com featured Cosmopolitan Conservative on The Blogger Beat. Check it out if you want to see my thoughts on a GOP cocktail, the best/worst dressed Republicans and my final opinion on Meghan McCain.

Since the Washingtonian rarely covers political blogs, I was really honored to be considered. To my knowledge, the only other conservative included has been Rob Bluey.

Lately, I’ve gotten a lot of inappropriate comments and hate mail. Rather than just deleting those, I’m setting up a comment policy. As long as a comment is clean and fair, I’ll always post it. I’m not going to delete a comment simply because I don’t like what someone has written, or you disagree with me.

1. Don’t use profanity.

If you use foul language in your comment or name, your comment goes directly to trash. I don’t care what else you’ve written. I try to maintain standards here.

2. No anonymous comments.

If you leave an anonymous comment, it goes straight to trash.

3. No fake email addresses.

Recently, someone named “usuck” left a comment and used at@yahoo.com as their email address. Yeah, no cigar.

I invite debate and discussion. Keep it polite and fair, and I’ll post your comment. Don’t spam me. A few weeks ago,  someone left 7 different comments with different thoughts. That was just annoying.

I always view comments as someone visiting another person’s home. Just because we’re not sitting down face-to-face, you shouldn’t be rude. If you came over to my house for a dinner party or event, would you address me as “usuck?”  My blog is my property. When you leave a comment, you are commenting on something I own. If you want to be rude or crass, go create your own blog.

Update: To highlight how immature people are, below is an updated comment that my friend, “usuck” wrote tonight. I know that civility has never been present in the political world but grow up. If the actions of one individual blogger bother you that much, stop reading. I might also add that you may be taken more seriously if you don’t sound like a text message that a 14-year-old girl wrote. I may try to pull his/her previous comment from trash. Trust me. It definitely didn’t “destroy my entire logic.” Oh, the hubris of liberals!

Author : UStillSuck (IP: 98.122.61.163 , cpe-098-122-061-163.sc.res.rr.com)
E-mail : at@yahoo.com
URL    :
Whois  : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=98.122.61.163
Comment:
Nice. My comment completely destroyed your entire logic, so what do you do? Complain about about a username.

Update II: Usuck/UStillSuck’s comment was still in the trash folder, so I added it to the post, “Celebrating Abortion.” Please tell me if you are as blown away as me by his/her logic as I am. Suddenly, the blinders have been lifted, and I’m not pro-life! </sarcasm>.

One of my new year’s resolutions was to read the Bible in one year. My best friend, Beka, sent me a link on how to read the Bible chronologically in one year. As a history buff, I thought sounded fun. I read the first 11 chapters of Genesis and then started reading Job. I think it’s dangerous to read the book of Job.

On Monday, I got a temporary job offer to be a “mock passenger” for TSA and test new security measures. It sounded so bizarre that I decided to take it. Yesterday, I was driving back to Northern Virginia and trying to get there by 5:30 p.m. in order to get my paper work completed.

I was making good time and was halfway there by 12:30 p.m. Since it was snowing lightly, I was concentrating and driving the speeding limit. I was listening to Mark Steyn on the radio and oddly enough thinking about a potential blog post.

Suddenly a trucker changed lanes directly in front of me without signaling. I slammed on my brakes to avoid hitting him and my car swerved into the median. From there, I lost control and my car cross over into the next lane and plowed into the rear of a tractor trailer. Everything is still fuzzy since it happened so fast.

I read somewhere that in an emergency, your brain is flooded with adrenaline (or something) and tries to remember every detail about your surroundings in order to be processed later. I remember clutching my steering wheel and seeing my car slam into the back of a 18-wheeler. I remember my windshield collapsing into me and seeing my Garmin fly off. Then I remember stopping. The first thing that crossed my mind was, “I totaled my car!!! I didn’t notice until later that my airbags had deployed and I was extremely lucky to be alive.

Oddly enough, my brain then switched into first aid mode. I’ve been CPR/First Aid/AED trained a number of times, and I went through a mental checklist to see if I was hurt. I was fine. I somehow found my cell phone, which I always leave on the console between the driver and passenger seats, and opened my car door.

The trucker (that I hit not the one that caused the accident) and a passenger were running towards me. I got out and realized that the front part of my car was under the tractor trailer. Had my car gone under it a few more I would have been trapped or decapitated.

Someone else stopped behind us to see if I was ok. The trucker called 911, and I scrambled to remember how to use my cell phone and call my dad. I got through to him and tearfully told him what happened. By that point, a volunteer firefighter had stopped and also called in the accident.

A police officer arrived and asked if I was ok. I assured them that I was fine and tried to recall what had happened. They insisted on calling an ambulance. The ambulance and fire truck arrived around the same time. I vaguely recall a firefighter loudly asking, “Where’s the victim?” I raised my hand and he looked at me in shock that I was still alive.

The EMT’s made me go into the ambulance to be checked over. My blood pressure, which is normally extremely low, was extremely elevated, but I was fine. Despite the sea of glass in my car, only my arm was scraped. I had been wearing sunglasses, which likely protected my eyes. There was glass all over me. I had on my parka and a cardigan over a sleeveless sweater. The EMT’s helped me shake all the glass off off my clothes and shoes. My face was gritty from the airbag and the glass. Even after I got back to Chattanooga last night and took a shower, I still found shards of glass in my hair.

By a coincidence that could only be orchestrated by God, my college roommate, Southern Jezebelle, was driving in the area. She was returning from visiting friends in Wake Forest. Since Hwy. 64 was closed due to the rock slides, she was detouring through the same area. We had chatted an hour earlier, and I put in a panicked call to see if she could get me.   She immediately started heading my way. Thank God for friends! Otherwise, it would have been hours before someone could get to me.

The ambulance brought me to the mechanic shop where my car was towed. I spent the next hour and half calling my parents, the former DC Roomie, and my insurance company. At some point, I looked down into my handbag and noticed a 1″ layer of glass shards on the bottom and realized how close I had come. When  Southern Jezebelle saw my car, she exclaimed, “Honey, I don’t know how you’re alive or not in the hospital attached to all kinds of monitors. God looked after you.” I had to agree.

We emptied out my car, which was completely loaded down. My family sent me back with lots of food and staples so that I wouldn’t have to spend much money on groceries while I job hunt. Thankfully, Southern Jezebelle just got a fancy new-to-her Mercedes SUV that managed to hold all my stuff. As I finished unloading my car, the tow truck driver looked at me and said, “Young lady, You need to be in church this Sunday.” I also agreed with him.

We headed back to Knoxville, and the events of the afternoon started to hit me. I’m upset that I lost my incredibly awesome Honda Accord, but cars are replaceable. I may have lost my job and totaled my car, but I emerged from a serious head-on collision with a tractor trailer alive and unhurt. That straightens out priorities.

I debated all day about writing this post. Yesterday was traumatic, and I’d prefer to not be reminded of this event whenever I scroll through my archives. My mother still hasn’t had the heart to look at the pictures. However, I wanted to post this and include pictures just to show how much God protected me. After looking at them, there’s no other way to explain why I’m still alive. Pixs are after the jump.

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Since I have time this week, I decided to play with the CosmoCon template. The text area of the previous one was too narrow and required readers to keep scrolling. Since studies show that people won’t scroll “below the fold,” I did this for all of you.

I’m not sure about the pink links, so please provide feedback. Is it too hard to read? I like love pink, but it’s not the most readable color.

Any questions or suggestions– cosmocon at gmail dot com!