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Nope. He married Jill Jacobs. a subsitute teacher, after his wife died - and they have been together ever since. Let's compare that to your hero. Trump married Ivana Marie Zelníčková, a Czech socialite and a model, in 1977. In 1989 Trump started banging Marla Maples. He had the locks changed on Ivana's office to keep his wife out, then divorced her a year later. He then took her to court to void their pre-nups so he wouldn't have to pay her anything. Trump married his mistress Marla Maples in 1993. She was an actress and a model. Trump started banging topless model Melanija Knavs in 1998. (Fun fact - Melanija came to the US in 1996 and was an illegal immigrant at that point, working and being paid without a visa.) Trump and Marla divorced in 1999. Trump married Melanija in 2005. Melania (new name) then chain-immigrated her family into the US. Trump banged playboy model Karen McDougal in 2006 - then paid her hush money to cover it up. Trump then banged porn star Stormy Daniels while Melania was home with their newborn baby. He also paid her to cover it up. How sad that you think the Biden story is unsavory, but Trump's is just fine.

FAR 105.3 - definitions "Reserve parachute means an approved parachute worn for emergency use to be activated only upon failure of the main parachute or in any other emergency where use of the main parachute is impractical or use of the main para- chute would increase risk." Simply put, a jumper must be equipped with a certificated reserve parachute that they only intend to use for emergency purposes.

I agree that the 'normally plural' used in the singular is challenging. It just 'feels' weird. Nowhere near as challenging as what they have to go through, so I just go with it.

You made a very incorrect statement that I don't like to answer questions. The reality is that I refuse to get suckered into dead-end conversations with the "yeah, but" crowd. Look through the forums and you will see that I answer questions routinely for anyone with a desire to have a sincere conversation on any subject. When I sat down to write this, I planned to address your post in great detail. After re-reading my own words, I've changed my mind. I will not take the bait. You know as well as I do that there is no acceptable level of injuries or fatalities in skydiving. There is no skydiving discipline designed or intended as a tool for growth, so making a connection between them and any intended promotional value is a false narrative. Here are the facts: CP is a legitimate, internationally recognized discipline. In accordance with USPA bylaws, we support all ISC recognized disciplines. CP is dangerous. Statistically it's more dangerous than other skydiving disciplines. Welcome to reality. All forms of skydiving are dangerous. I wholeheartedly support all of them. Finally, you suggested that I must either believe that CP injuries and fatalities are "worth it", or that I haven't "actually thought about it seriously". Brother, you are way off base. There is NOTHING in skydiving that I haven't thought about seriously. Pretty much every moment of every day. Anyone who knows me and my priorities knows that. Five left and cut.

That assumes that they’re able to think past the current news cycle, which I think is giving them more credit than they deserve.

Hi folks, I have known Joe Weber for over 30 yrs. Anyone who jumps at his dz knows that he runs a tight ship. If you do not follow the rules, you are gone. End of discussion. He has had fatalities; it is part of skydiving. After each & every one, he took absolute corrective action to do his best to prevent anymore. Jerry Baumchen PS) There are a lot of things Joe & do not agree on, c'est la vie.

Even an unintentional joke can be funny.

But the capability of the Russian military is not. And that's still Ukraine fighting with one hand tied behind its back, since the best long range weapons are still to be supplied. Soon Ukraine will be able to deny Russia the use of Crimea altogether without even having to cross the Dnipro. That's what the money is buying. By the way, Ukraine never promised to win the war this year. They've been very careful to caution the west that the advance would not be like the 2022 counteroffensive that happened before Russia constructed any defensive lines. You're either lying again, or just tragically misinformed. In this case I'll go for the latter.

Oh for fuck's sake! The malignant cancer that is the Republican Party must by now be obvious to all. As much as I would enjoy the irony, Jeffries is not going to become the Speaker. The Democrats should put an end to this charade, if given a chance, by voting for a "less evil" Republican candidate if necessary, or just have enough of their side vote "present" to let the less evil one get a majority. Emmer wasn't great by any means, but he didn't vote against certifying Biden's victory in 2020 and he did vote for the temporary spending bill to prevent a shutdown a few weeks ago, so he isn't completely off the deep end. I suspect that is why the Republicans won't let the vote get to the full House, as the MAGA ones don't want the Democrats to have an opportunity to end this madness. Of course, even if they do find a way to elect a Speaker then the actually tough issues will be in their faces, such as coming up with legislation that can pass in the Senate and be signed into law. Meanwhile the arsonist-in-chief is busy lighting his little dumpster fires to try to burn down the whole country.

Ask the Commander of the Black Sea Fleet.

This seems like it's going to be the case no matter who gets chosen. And as Trump points out above - maybe that's because there really isn't a single unified Republican party anymore. There is at least the Maga party and the traditional GOP / RINO party (depending on your point of view), and they no longer appear to have very much of a connection with each other. In that case, the Democrats actually have a plurality in the House, and could easily argue that Hakeem Jeffries is the front runner for Speaker. The traditional GOP, who will sooner or later have to come to terms with being a small minority party in this House, just need to decide who to join a coalition with - the Maga crazies who hate them or the grown up Democrats who'll work with them.

Yes. Filling in the pond and disallowing greater than 180° turns in the high performance area stopped the problem. It certainly made a number of folks unhappy but so does strongly enforcing no off DZ landings (even wingsuiters) and demanding that everyone on the load land in the same direction even if the first person down screws it up and other safety issues. I wouldn't say one was too many. After the Pro hooked it in short of the pond I tried to keep some level of perspective. The final straw was when someone did it right. That is he hooked it in such a way that he if he misjudged he would hit the water. The problem was he did not per the rules make it known he was going "pond side" so someone could watch for safety. He hit the water so hard he was knocked unconscious and were it not for an aware packer who sprinted down and pulled him out he would have drowned. After thinking about that for a while I realized there would be only one way to stop swooping injuries and fatalities and took appropriate action.

MAGA! Making Attorneys get Attorneys!

And within 24 hours, I expect the the Orange Fool to deny she was ever his attorney.

A clerk at a convenience store in a small mountain town here makes it easy: A large button worn on the shirt that says "My pronouns are...".

This comment about USPA was made by @NickDG in 2008: Before forums on the internet completely imploded into anonymity and incivility we urged the USPA Board to use the net to open a dialogue with its members. They didn't, and it was a combination of some not being computer savvy enough, or if they were, thinking it a severe breech of USPAs bunker mentality. And by bunker mentality I mean a combination of hiding most of the year in a cold weather state, allowing their RDs, ST&As, and (as we see here) their candidates to shield them from the heat on a day to day basis. And when they do make a public appearance en masse they use secrecy to shroud their inner workings. Now I'd think secrecy is sometimes called for in cases like fatalities so board members can speak frankly without the worry of offending long time friends or the deceased's families. But they surely abuse the secrecy thing and they use it for every hot button issue. Now a word or two on the first time candidates and the threads here where we're supposed to ask them questions. To the folks asking the questions - ease up a little bit. The candidates are the least culpable in anything the USPA has done in the past. And the candidates, even though they realize there are issues and problems, may think of the USPA like a benign and friendly member association when it's really more like the Mafia or the Hells Angels. What will happen is once elected the hierarchy of USPA will endeavor to convince them it's not them against USPA, it's USPA against the great unwashed, which is us - the rank and file members. So like freshman Congressmen they will either drink the kool-aid and get onboard or life will be made miserable for them. And being onboard means survival of the USPA is job one. And believe it, the board does hears us when we say things like we should drop USPA and go with AOPA, and it scares them. I suppose like many long time members I have a love/hate relationship with the USPA. In my first few years of the 70s, I loved them, I devoured every word in the magazine, and USPA was my hero and champion. Then slowly and through the 80s I saw the cracks began to appear, the nepotism, the old boy network, the don't rock the boat, and the propensity to hang individual jumpers out to dry when that was the easiest thing to do. And while I didn't realize it at the time USPA was becoming less a member's representative and more a trade group for people in the business of skydiving. So when we write long, pointed, almost accusatory posts, asking questions and demanding answers of our candidates we are already starting them down the road where it becomes easier for them to believe USPA and its methods are more sanctuary then adversary. And a lot of people here help that along by saying, "run for USPA office or shut the hell up!" That's B.S. It's like saying run for Congress or you have no right to voice opposition to your government. Yet, where we do fail is we don't confront the USPA enough with our concerns. So where the candidate's forum could work is in just listing our concerns for new candidates to become familiar with. Such as pure tandem mills getting association protection and benefits while excluding up-jumpers, a group member program that should be strictly a member to member program, and the fact USPA pretty much pulled the covers over their heads concerning the swoop death rate issue. I'd also like to see groundings come back. And not on a DZ level, but on a USPA level. People do get kicked off DZs these days, but it's usually for wacky ground antics and not wacky air antics. And anyway the offenders just move on to another DZ. I think any ST&A or Instructor should be able to document a jumper who's an accident waiting to happen, and if they prove their case, the aberrant jumper's USPA card would be flagged as grounded, not for 30 or 60 days, but if warranted for six months, or even forever. One thing that we accomplished when we grounded people all the time is sometimes it kept them from killing themselves in the next few jumps and it matured them a little bit. Another issue is USPA HQs very location. When they moved from San Francisco to the DC area many many years ago it sort of made sense. It was to be near the seats of power, and indeed Bill Ottley like to portray himself as running down to the halls of Congress (sometimes through the snow) for a beat down every time legislation that could possible affect skydiving popped up. But that was flawed reasoning and if you go along with it then USPA HQs should really be located across the street from FAA HQs in Oklahoma. But even that's a stretch in these days of instant communication and cheap airfares. USPA should be where the members are. I believe USPA HQ should be located in a Sunbelt state and next to a large DZ like Eloy, Perris, or Deland. A place where many members rotate in and out of, a place where the most members can knock on USPA's door year round with their concerns. As it is now it seems to me like they're hiding out in the DC area during the winter. Besides that there are other issues. I've watched USPA sit by and watch Instructors have their power stripped away, I've watched the various methods of instruction, the product of years of research and refinement turn into a hokey hodgepodge of hybrid programs designed to favor a DZOs bottom line rather than students and teachers. We totally allowed our AFF certification courses, once a flagship program copied the world over, to be dumbed down to the point of being toothless. There were I know issues with it but the answer was making the AFF cert course real schools on instruction and not just cert courses. But they skipped over that and just made the cert easier to get. Another thing I hear people say all the time is, "I'd rather have the USPA regulating us rather than the FAA." So let's examine that for a bit. This is a USPA scare tactic that works and they count on it. But the FAA, or more specifically the FARs, already does regulate the sport of skydiving, and also more importantly, they protect it. The feds recognize skydiving as a legitimate aeronautical activity and it's the reason we can't arbitrarily be banned from airports that accept federal funds (and that's the majority of GA airports.) Generally, Part 105 of the FARs is all we need to regulate skydiving. The USPA is just a façade built upon those federal regs. And if the USPA did all of sudden disappear and the FAA felt the need to get deeper into skydiving it would not be the end of the world. I'm sure like they do in other areas they'd hire experienced parachutists to oversee things and I could finally get my dream job. A skydiving instructor with a badge! Besides, rarely does an entire week go by without a General Aviation accident that results in fatalities. And most of the time it's not only a licensed pilot who dies, but they take one or more innocent passengers with them. The FAA understands well that when people fly people die. So I doubt they would overreact and start strictly over regulating skydiving. And seriously, if the FAA tried to do anything detrimental to skydiving there is actually more of a re-course already built into federal rule making system, and even more so than what we have with USPA. Thirty five or forty thousand of us could actually get the FAA to do something we wanted in the long run. They are bound by law to consider our concerns. Thirty five or forty thousand of us can't get the USPA to do anything. They can simply throw our concerns in the shitcan and there's nothing we can do about itl. I know many will say, "Who cares about all this?" And don't think the USPA doesn't count heavily on that. They know most of their members stay in the sport for seven years or so and those members just want to go to the DZ on weekends and make some jumps. And that's fine and dandy but who's watching the store? It used to be USPA printed a detailed line item budget every year in the magazine and any member could see where every penny went. They still run it but now it's so general in nature you really can’t tell where the money goes. There's no doubt Bill Ottley saved the USPA in the 80s when they didn’t have two cents to rub together. They were actually cancelling general membership meetings for a time because they couldn't afford them. But through some good real estate and investment deals Bill turned all that around. But the down side is now we have $100,000 per year Executive Directors camping out and collecting that money for years and years. The Executive Director slot shouldn't be a Pope for life position. Term limits should be in place and I'm not so sure letting the Board decide who gets the ED position is all that wise. But I don't know how to fix that as the general membership is too apathic to cast an informed vote in that regard. One thing maybe we could do is let any member run for the job of ED, and have the board vote rather than just decide like they do now. (BTW, I pretty sure that's the way it works so let me know if I'm wrong). And as it stands now the job of ED surely calls for someone who's not necessarily a very experienced jumper but more someone who's an experienced administrator. And in our ranks at large we have plenty of those folks. I've learned and taught others to always end a critique on a high note so here goes. The new website is great, a big improvement, and Shirley has made the magazine into a thing of beauty. But it's just lipstick on a, - Whoa, almost blew it there . . . NickDG August 7, 2008 https://www.dropzone.com/forums/topic/138544-example-of-uspa's-problems/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-3090631

That implies there was a pause.