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Provocation Fridays: Anyone care to put their imagination to work? Should you choose to take this on. The assignment for the next 2 weeks is to write a fictional account of Cooper starting form one of these lead ins: - What I have to say goes like this - I landed in - It were my grudge that were my trouble - I noticed that Or chose your own lead in.. Thinking 500-800+ words or more, should take 2-5 hours to write. Narrative style from the view of Cooper or from another characters view... Will check back in two week time to see what stories percolate up. This is all for fun.

The act itself is fundamentally suicidal. There was no reason to think it wouldn't end in death, injury or prison, since the previous versions all had. Success was not the expected outcome. It was a desperate act done by someone for whom the cost of failure was not a deterrent.

That's why they're so sure voter fraud is happening -- they're the ones doing it! Wendy P.

Kevin Gibson claims to have the galleys, and he led me to believe the copyright holder is still alive. I couldn't find an email address or phone number for him, and he didn't respond to a snail-mail letter I sent. You're right: I've not seen a better manual for an intro to sewing for riggers.

He was talking about people who did it recreationally for fun. My ears also perked up as soon as he said but then I realized he was referring to the skydiving fad of "pulling a Cooper". It was a thing for a while to jump out the back of a 727 at skydiving events.

I'm a little behind, so catching up on some of these episodes now... First let me say that Sergeant Major Mike Vining is a class act. Not only is he an explosives expert, but he also had sky diving background, you couldn't ask for more as a guest. He tended to drift off the topic of the bomb a little, Darren did a nice job trying to refocus him. He did leave me wanting a little more..in particular, I wish he spoke a little more on whether the description of the bomb indicated the presence of the blasting caps he kept bringing up or not. (I guess it didn't) I was a little shocked when he said he knew people who jumped out of 727s, I was hoping he was going to go into that a little more. How could he possibly have known ? Was he saying he was familiar with the Air America stuff, I thought that was all top secret ? Before I listened to this episode, (I actually listened to it 3 times), I was of the belief that: - The bomb was most likely fake - That Cooper had some military background in explosives After listening, based on what Sergeant Mike said about the size of the battery, the lack of "dynamite" wording on the sticks, and his comments on the seemingly amateur and senseless trigger mechanism of having to touch two wires together, I am still in "the bomb was fake" camp. But I no longer feel that Cooper had a background in explosives. I think it was a bluff 100% of the way, he only needed to convince the stewardesses and the brief case bomb may have been right out hollywood central casting for this purpose. I think Fly posted about the movie "Airport" from 1970 where there was a brief case bomb, maybe that was an inspiration? On a side note, was the question of whether he was suicidal or not and how that is tied to the question of the bomb being real or fake. I don't necessarily think one implies the other. While he did say that he wouldn't be taken alive, this could have been a bluff as well. But even if it was not, I don't get the vibe that he was willing to take everyone with him. Maybe he had a pistol in the bag or even the brief case that he would have used to go down swinging so to speak. Anyway, all conjecture and subjective on my part. Question to Oldmiss, were any of the other copy cats suicidal or willing to actually take the plane and the passengers out if they didn't get their money ?

Agreed. However, I don't see a murder by an illegal immigrant to be any better or worse than a murder by a US citizen. Hopefully this means you will support the next border control bill. They do. I volunteer at a homeless shelter here that targets the over-55 and homeless veteran population in San Diego. There are hundreds of others who volunteer there as well. And as a nation we spend $250 billion a year on veterans in the form of pensions, VA benefits including medical care, education, rehab, loan guarantees, construction of new facilities and housing support. You mean conservative border policies. Republicans just killed a bill that would have gotten billions for more border patrol, more overtime for them, better unmanned assets (drones) better scanning technoloy at ports of entry and more judges/jails/lawyers to process them. They opposed it to hurt Biden, but the result is that they are hurting Americans. I didn't say anything about ignorant red states, just that they are (on average) less educated. Yep. Heather Heyer REALLY got a taste of Southern hospitality (at the hands of a Trump supporter.) And when Trump supporters marched to vandalize, deface, loot, kidnap and kill in DC, they learned how the US Justice system works. My electric bill is $6 a month and I pay less than $100 a year for fuels (mainly natural gas for our stove and hot water heater.) But yes, on average they are lower. So are electrical reliability rates. Red states also tend to have much higher pollution levels than blue states. You get what you pay for. Same here. The people who have worked in the startup I am at now are Asian, white, black, Hispanic, Arab, cis, trans, straight, gay, male and female. The people who live at the homeless shelter I volunteer at are a similar mix, and are unfailingly polite (if sometimes a little odd.) My neighbors are Italian, Chinese, Filipino, Mexican, Pakistani and Iraqi immigrants, along with a bunch of San Diego natives. The other kids at my kids' school are also fairly diverse, and include nonbinary kids. I like it that way. And I am glad the trans and nonbinary people I know are not living in a place where conservatives mock and attack them, and try to pass laws against them.

Man, that’s just appalling. Unless, I suppose, that you think people do not as a matter of their true nature adopt a different approach to their gender than is listed on their birth certificate. Unless, that is, that you do not believe our perceptions of ourselves and the world around us happens at the level or our brains. And unless you are convinced that any deviation from an accepted norm is a matter of choice. If that’s what you think, oh well. What I see are people trying to live the only life they will ever have as comfortable with themselves as they possibly can.

There are plenty of issues with uncontrolled immigration; it's just that an increase of per capita crime isn't among them. It's an easy thing to point to, but it's kind of like pointing at the one car wreck where seat belts were a detriment, and saying that proves that seat belts are bad. Wendy P.

Illegal immigrants go through a lot of trouble to leave their home and go to whatever western country they are aiming for. They tend to be highly motivated, like all immigrants tend to be. They also have good reason to keep their heads down and not attract the attention of authorities.