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Thanks Nigel, me too! This certainly seems to exemplify your thoughtfulness and sincerity that many here have attested to recently, so thanks again. I think this is the idea that you were attempting to convey in a post back in October, albeit in a much more verbally barbed manner. I think it was there where I began harboring much of my resentment for your posts, culminating in my acting out in the solstice thread and maybe even some others. When we were discussing the whole Proverbs 26 thing, I asked if I had deceived you - but what I've come to realize with further reflection of those verses was that the only person I was deceiving was myself in the sense that I was pretty much convinced that I was moreso joking than I was angry - and yes I realize that others in that thread were trying to point that out as well. Anyway wrt your you quote above, for me it's more about how it helps to endure through it, rather than making sense of it. And btw, I can also understand your concerns for all the negatives of organized religion as well. I have many myself, but I'm not going to go into them right now. We're getting ready for the big celebration of 2020 - hopefully the year of clarity for us all. Everyone please have a Happy new year whether you want to or not, be safe, and thanks for putting up with me. Cheers. . .

Do you find it risible when I say the name Biggus, Dickus?

I wonder how many people were killed in church shootings last week in Canada, UK, Australia, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Italy and Spain COMBINED? They all have one thing in common that Texas doesn't have.

I don't think any law should ban qualified personnel from carrying a firearm. The establishment should be able to immediately identify those people so that they can take action towards someone carrying a firearm who isn't allowed to. This church appears to have had a good system in place. What I would like to see is more stringent checks on the people who have access to firearms and I think things like military or police service would be defacto qualifications. Further requirements shouldn't take any more than a safety course at a local range. We put much greater effort into ensuring the safe use of much less lethal things. There had to be people immediately in front of the shooter to keep this to two deaths. That's still not acceptable. But again, it'll take 100 years before the number of guns on the street goes down so in the meantime I'm good with qualified people being there. I don't think teachers should carry, there's simply too much going on with a teacher to add the task of keeping a weapon holstered on every work day. But I also don't think they should be barred if a school system finds a way to do it.

I'm thankful for the rest of the humans on the planet, that only America has this problem.

The man used a shotgun, a shotgun. A ban on AR15s and high capacity magazines would have had no impact on the outcome. However a law banning the carrying of a firearm in a place of worship would have made things much worse. Classic case of a "good guy with a gun"

Wait. You left out some very key part of the text you copied and pasted:L "The findings, published in the journal Biogeosciences, suggest that forests are growing more vigorously, and therefore, locking away more carbon. Even so, the concentration of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is still on the rise. "Every decade, Earth's forests are taking up carbon faster than the previous decade," said Britton Stephens, a co-author of the study and a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), which is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). "The same is true of the oceans," said Stephens. "Even together, the ocean and the land are not keeping up with industrial carbon emissions, and the global concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising at an accelerating rate." The increased plant growth in global forests could be due to several factors, including higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, warmer temperatures and increased availability of nitrogen." Again, we don't care about the upside of increased plant growth as it pales in comparison to the effects of rising global temperatures.

It was race. There were a number of settlements of Native Americans in the area, but this one was distinguished by being populated by white people.

I hear you. This whole thing is nothing short of fucking mind boggling and the crossroads of guns and Jesus makes you just throw your hands up in despair. I get your train of thought. As for the event itself I've seen people celebrating it as a win for lessening gun control. There's no win here. Two victims dead and there's still nothing stopping two more from getting killed tomorrow.

Let's stop this train of commentary.

The advantage of diversity is not the rainbow, it’s the questioning of assumptions that a good leader welcomes. People with widely divergent backgrounds are more likely to have different backgrounds, and therefore make different assumptions. A “strong” leader sees his (or her) vision of both the goal and path as the goal; it confirms their “strength.” However, that singular goal may not, in fact, be a particularly valuable one in any greater context. Consider the Edsel; all the long-entrenched successful execs thought it was great. A better body of advisers can identify things that a leader might not even be aware of. And now it’s not necessarily OK to ignore them simply because they pertain mainly to women or former minorities. Wendy P.

And that is why I don't browse real estate listings in bumfuck N. Georgia.

I disagree. There are societies with higher gun ownership than the USA. As someone whose travelled a fair bit, USA television is far more violent than any of the other countries I’ve visited. Americans glorify violence in a manner that many others do not. From the excessive violence on TV, the preferential treatment at airports to military personnel I think it runs deep in the American psych. By the age of 14 the average American child has apparently seen in excess of 11000 murders on tv. It is NOT guns. I grew up in Africa and a very large hunting culture. You were taught that you killed to eat, guns were dangerous and you NEVER pointed a gun at another human being. I suspect a fairly large part of rural USA has similar values. I’ve never looked at the stats, but I would guess most gun crime happens in urban rather than country areas, even if you do it per capita or whatever measure levels it out. If course Bubba and his moonshine contributes to accidental gun accidents, but that’s pretty universal the world over

Do you want to flip for it? Heads I win. Tails you Lose. Bill no response is needed, I just wanted to point out the obvious. Back to our regular scheduled program. Brent, I think this could go a long way in our Idiocracy, Regardless of Party. It has a Russian fable at the end, but you'll have to watch the whole thing No spoilers. I was wondering if you recall it being said.

Hypocrisy. If someone went to a foreign country made up of little brown people dominate in catholicism and said how much they hated it - the left would call them "hater" and encourage them to be more diverse and understanding of others. If someone went to a city that happened to have a gay pride rally and said how much they hated it - the left would call them "Trans or Homo phobic" and encourage them to be more diverse and understanding of others. You find yourself in a country that is predominantly Christian and it suddenly becomes "forced down the throats of succeeding generations or have it crammed in our faces from every direction." Or, Gowlerk says "Snowflake Christians" but, no one encourages him to be more diverse and understanding of others. The billboards made me do it. "What is very odd is that I have a couple of friends whom I value intensely and trust beyond measure who are firm believers." "But, I have friends who are black?"

Ya know, for a rich old guy he sure engenders a lot of concern. Ron, you should try visiting this (liberal, diversity-loving) part of the country. Just because we don’t hate doesn’t make us crime-infested. Crime tends to go where there’s poverty and a lack of clear paths out of it. Wendy P.

Exactly like this, and normally I only have those dreams during the off season

Yes Gowlerk, I have had similar dreams many times. They started with pulling my main handle lower than normal, then a really slow opening. I usually impact at line-stretch, stand up, dust myself off and hope that nobody saw my landing.

You can't live without insulting people can you? I'll have a bit of class, right after you do.

Thanks for making it clear the answer is actually No, it's not illegal to walk to the border and request asylum.

When you think you're ready to downsize invest in a weight belt and strap on enough lead(within reason like under 35 lbs) to get to the same wingloading you will be under the new canopy. Jump it a few times and decide if you're comfortable enough with the canopy speed and flight characteristics to land crosswind, downwind, half brakes, no brakes(ie land with rears). Remember this will be your new wingloading IN ALL CONDITIONS!!! Find a wingloading you're comfortable with and use that as your base. If you want to target a specific wingloading above 2:1 to focus on canopy piloting or on occasion just go faster simply strap on the lead.