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I hope everyone has a great day, whether or not you celebrate this particular one Wendy P.

Absolutely correct, and while America has been suffering from supply shortages, crazy inflation and rising interest rates just for starters the rest of the world has been seeing real economic growth at such a rate that now Ghana is the #2 economy.

I fully agree that a full blown dictatorship is more likely this time. The "Freedumb Caucus" is full blown Fascists. The R leadership and their '2025 plan' is clearly going to destroy our democracy if they're allowed to implement it. My point is that Trump has spouted authoritarian garbage from the beginning. Anyone who paid attention could see that.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Cooperites!

No wonder they are leaving, California ranks number one in taxation but a lowly 35 in services provided https://www.accountingtoday.com/list/20-states-with-the-worst-taxpayer-roi OTOH, Texas and Florida rank #5 and #2 respectively for taxpayers getting the most bang for their buck https://www.accountingtoday.com/list/20-best-states-for-taxpayer-roi

The world is a very different place to 2015. Covid has been a huge catalyst for change and has divided people and fuelled conspiracy theories. I am vaccinated and don't believe there is anything sinister about the vacs, but I do believe how it was handled here in Australia was wrong. It has eroded trust in government and that can increase radicalism. Two examples, firstly government manipulated and changed statistics regarding vaccine injuries. I had anti vacs friends (why are so many skydivers in that camp?) who claimed the vacs killed more people than Covid. I showed them on the Australian Bureau of Statistics they were wrong and it was roughly 300 deaths to 9000 deaths. 3 months later in the same argument I pulled up ABS to show someone else and it was now 7 deaths due to the vaccine with a note that they no longer accepted Dr reported deaths due to Vacs, however they continued to use the same metrics for Covid deaths. That kind of thing erodes trust. 2nd example was the WA Government trying to increase vaccination rates and so they made it mandatory to be vaccinated to buy alcohol- including at a drive through bottle shop. That was direct coercion with no medical basis as all other shops did not have that requirement. Again undermining the argument of science. Lastly Trump is not stupid and has learned from his first term. Put all this together and a Trump dictatorship is more likely this time around.

On the contrary, I don’t know anything about this. That’s why I am repeatedly expressing my befuddlement. I think you’re right though. We don’t have enough information from Tom to really draw any serious conclusions.

The Columbia River has low levels of silt and the sand has silt... So, what the silt is going on... Did Tom mean low levels of silt or NO silt AT ALL..

Generally emergency procedures may assume that you've already made "one try" to fix the issue, and that means one short try. Can't get PC out of pouch? Try once more, but then go to emergency procedures. I would tend to stick with that "one try" idea for an entanglement. With the usual warnings about how people can stretch "one try" out way too long. However, I haven't actually spotted anything on bridle entanglements in the USPA SIM (but I'm not really familiar with it), only more generic "out of sequence" deployments, which it kind of ends up being if the bag is out but PC bridle wrapped around a foot. The SIM basically says for premature container opening to " First, attempt to deploy the main pilot chute for no more than two tries or two seconds, whichever comes first", then cutaway and use reserve. (5-1 Skydiving Emergencies) Huh, "two tries" in there! Well, yeah that works with the qualifying statements but I suspect most instructors would just say "one good try" or similar. For pilot chutes in tow, the SIM does allow 'the two methods' -- cutting away or not cutting away first. And for "partial malfunctions" in general, for all the many many varieties of 'container open but no good chute', the instructions are just to cut away and go to reserve. So, are there specific recommendations about a bridle entanglement somewhere? (Not just from the USPA) They do exist for things like tandems, but in that case the entanglement with the drogue bridle normally happens shortly after exit at altitude, so one can afford to try to fix it for 10 seconds like the UPT Sigma tandem manual says! Skydiving organizations do expect a jumper to try to fix some entanglements -- like with a camera helmet -- Otherwise, why would any organization bother with all the recommendations to have a cutaway system for the helmet! The Aussie APF's great malfunction video series, for horseshoes, just says to cutaway and deploy the reserve -- with the video of the the test jumper doing that, but with little tension on the main risers [Edit: fixed from 'reserve risers'], the reserve fires into the mess -- but clears it. (Even with a tersh, there's a fun jump...) I only skimmed the video but didn't see a specific Entanglement mal. One thing I wonder about entanglements is what to do with the RSL -- as that will fire the reserve as one cuts away before pulling the reserve handle, if the main risers are tensioned and clear the rig. Does anyone address that? Does having a second of time between cutaway and firing the reserve improve the outcomes in case of an entanglement? The Sigma tandem manual these days has stuff on releasing the RSL first before cutting away, when dealing with various messes behind one's back -- but again, their emergency procedures tend to happen at a higher altitude. The USPA SIM does have a section (5-3) where it lists all the ways that an RSL can complicate procedures in the event of an emergency..... but does it actually go through those messy scenarios and what to do about them anywhere?? With a high speed entanglement in regular skydiving, time is very short, and those RSL tabs may not be easy to find in freefall quickly. I figure theoretically it would be better to release the RSL first but in practical terms it is hard to do in a short "one try" time period...