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Bill is an odd name for a whole duck though rather than just a part of one.

How fucking rich is it that you're taking a minor diversion from your thread defending the actions of Rittenhouse to school somebody on being a member of society.

If you arm yourself and enter a fray knowing that other armed and angry individuals are there and involved I think it's a fair argument to make that by doing so you should lose any claim of self defense. The court found otherwise.

Which, as I pointed out earlier, happens to exactly match your serious views on the topic. Yeah, such a great demonstration of a sense of humour that is. That's what grownups call a lie.

You'll have to take it up with Britannica.... https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/proper-noun Your constitution says all powers shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, it doesn't say Congress. Hence, US Congress is most certainly a proper noun, with a definition. Please let me know when you expect it to change and what the new name will be.

I was mocking up some data for work and saw an option to use Facebook's gender selections for a gender field, so finally decided to see what the list actually contained. For some reason I thought it was going to be all neo-pronouns and random shit like people choosing to be trans-cats or something, based on the reactions to it. Colour me surprised when it is actually as plain as you said - it's just minor variations on trans-X. So you might have: Trans-man Transsexual-man Transsexual-male Transgender male Transgender man Trans male Female to Male ...and a few others that would fit here, even though they might not really appear to be any different. I would argue sure, there's not a scientific basis for this delineation, but there doesn't need to be. These appear to be more personal/refined expressions of something that's broadly the same, but can have slightly different meanings to an individual - you know, like on a spectrum? It's to let people use words they are comfortable with to describe themselves, while still sitting within pretty stock standard English language variations. To interpret this as trans-people changing genders like they change their clothes (aka for "funsies") is a wilfully obtuse reading of the service Facebook are providing. It's barely any different to offering a preferred name or nickname option - my name is Christopher Wood, but I go by Chris or Woody depending on social context (never Christopher), however they're still all me. I just have a preference for which ones I use. As per usual, this just sounds like another generic conservative media beat-up topic.

Yep. To most conservatives:

Calling a shapeless cluster of cells a ‘baby’ or ‘person’ is redefining the language.

My point regarding various groups comes from observing Americans overseas. If you asked your average 19 year old kid in Vietnam who he saw, the answer would likely be 'a bunch of gooks.' Some of the more experienced people would say "those guys are Viet, but those are Annamese, while that group over there are Hmong, those guys are Korean and that group is ethnic Chinese. Some of them are Buddhist, while a lot of those are Roman Catholic, some are Animist, and others are hard core Communist." Failure to understand who's who and what to expect of them often proved fatal. Cultural differences amongst groups of identical ethnicity can be remarkable, and quite a few wars have resulted thereby. FWIW the cultural differences where I work are basically occupational. It's more a matter of PhD vs MD, Biologists, Chemists, Electrical, Mechanical, or Chemical Engineers, Operators, HR, Accounting and Maintenance than of Country ABC or Ethnicity XYZ. If someone ever talks about 'back home,' it could turn out to be Alabama or Sierra Leone, Puerto Rico or Peru, but if they don't bring it up, it's immaterial. The primary line of demarcation is either you are competent and reliable or you are not. That's it. The key to getting past all the racist nonsense is to actively get over it. All the staring at your navel and wallowing in 'the conversation' does nothing but perpetuate the lines of division, which is unacceptable. BSBD, Winsor

Wouldn't know - never met any of them. IIRC, Douglass and Tubman had skin in the game from the standpoint of having been slaves. The institutional racism against which they fought was a matter of record. Believe it or not, much has changed since then. As I recall, Dr. King was a proponent of equality, not 'equity.' I'm all for the former and recoil at the latter. My point is that someone to whom everything is all about race is a racist. Someone who makes decisions regardless of race isn't. There, that was easy, wasn't it? BSBD, Winsor

You've got to love the Frenchies in that picture. I jumped with Larry in Valley Mills, TX in the summer of 1972. He and I lived on the DZ in our VW vans for a few months. Larry had the pop-up camper VW and mine was just a plain van with the center seat removed. He had just completed his night 8-man in Z-Hills before he got to V-Mills. He came to V-Mills because we had a DC-3 and a twin Beech and were making what were big attempts in those days. We never made a night jump together but we did lots of great RW that summer. He was a cool guy and I'm sorry to hear he is gone.

Very sorry to hear the news. I hadn't seen Larry since 1976. We're getting to the age where these kinds of announcements come too frequently. DZGone.com B-4600, C-3615, D-1814, Gold Wings #326, Diamond Wings #152. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room!

Larry was a good friend and he will be missed. He stopped by some years ago, after his travels in the Pacific, to say he was setteling down. I am posting the photo of the "10 High Bunch" after a Turkey meet. That's Larry in the lower right: [inline Ten_High_Bunch_small.jpg ]

Larry Gossler was the person responsible for introducing me to Skydiving. He was a member of the Ten High Bunch when I first met him at a job site in Tampa. We both worked in the Telecom industry installing new equipment. Larry took me to lunch one day in his Van (VW In think) and all of his skydiving gear was in the back. I remember asking "what's all that stuff?". I met him at Z-Hills that weekend and watched the Ten High Bunch make practice jumps. I was hooked.. But I was only seventeen and had to get Mom and Dad to sign a waiver. Larry kept a watchful eye on me while jumping and on the job. I will always be grateful to Larry for being the kind person he was to me and many other fellow jumpers and telecom workers.. Mike Branch NSCSA #7

Getting to the age where truly memorable people are dying of natural causes rather than hitting the ground is cause to ponder those halcyon days. I swapped a few emails with Larry some years ago, but the last time I spoke to him was in the early '80s, when he and Mary Donnan, both of 'em knee-crawling drunk, called me at about 2a.m. from Salt Lake City. They thought it was hilarious when I told them - rather grumpily - what time it was. There's something rather poignant about how easily forgotten are those who made a real contribution to the sport.