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That was Paul Rafferty, and it was 2004, and from what I remember, it was absolutely horrific. Do a search here for more if you want. Note that this website is going away at the end of the year, so do it soon Wendy P.

I read it as good can come from it. Murder isn’t good Wendy P.

No, he’s saying that just about everything is more complicated than it seems. There were medical advances that came from the Nazis, doesn’t make it worth it. If people start taking the cost and complexity of our medical system more seriously, that doesn’t make the murder worth it. Just as every war has thousands to millions of casualties. Some people think they’re worth it, because wars happen over and over Wendy P.

Peeing my name in the snow isn’t normal and natural to me. Wendy P.

I also think about Tonto, whenever I come on dz.com Wendy P.

Still an influence. It’s how skydivers live on Wendy P

Joe McCarthy (of McCarthyism) was a Republican. Eugene McCarthy was a Democrat. Two rather different people Wendy P.

He’s just pissed that he has to suffer consequences for free speech. If, when I was younger, I’d said “hey baby” to some random guy and was attacked, plenty of people would think I had it coming. That’s consequences. If my brothers then beat him up, that’s consequences. If the woman actually has power to do something — well that’s not fair! Wendy P.

Well, current estimates are that a conservative estimate of true intersex (chromosomes don’t match phenotype — or what you “look like.” That’s a little under 60,000 Americans. Add in transgender and the number climbs. For some people, until they know someone, they don’t matter. But you probably do know someone whose problems you’re dismissing. They just don’t want to tell you — it’s their business, not yours. Especially if they think you or someone else might weaponize it against them. How does it hurt you if a transgender male pees in your bathroom? Again, finding ways to keep people out is much cruder than finding ways to include them. Wendy P.

Around the edges of every “plain and clear” class are people who prove that very little in humanity is either/or. A woman born without ovaries at all, or with no uterus, can never become pregnant. An intersex person who has both testes and ovaries can also exist. They might not be the usual, but they exist just as much as all the he-men out there. Instead of setting keep-out boundaries, maybe figure out how to define ones that say who you want. A local movie theater identifies its bathrooms: Urinals and stalls; stalls only, single bathroom. Seems to work. Wendy P.

50 years ago you didn't have to respect women (other than in the “sacred womanhood to be protected and shielded like a child” way), or blacks, or Hispanics, or, yes, polacks. Awareness helps — they didn’t get smarter, neither did women or anyone else. Just recognized as actually equal (at least where you can be shamed for that kind of prejudice), rather than ignored as irrelevant to the power structure. Maybe even considered as individuals, rather than as placeholders for “everyone else like that.” Wendy P.

Fifty years ago it didn’t matter if a joke was funny to women, minorities, etc. consider Polack jokes (just an example). Now they’re not so funny. And if the site owner says that kind of thing isn’t allowed, isn’t it his site? Wendy P.

Well TBH in his case, the papers were by no means impeccable; they were up to date (about 20 years ag0), but an X-ray of the engine (after he flew it home) showed 7 cracks in mounts, and a repair in one of the wings was done with newspapers dated 1976. But he had fun fixing it; he'd already restored his project car, after all. He's the kind of guy who always has a project car. 2 subsequent daughters put paid to the concept of a project plane -- they sold it when they moved to the US in 2007 or so. Wendy P.

Yeah. But enough dog piling and most people just don’t think it’s worth it any more. Can’t blame them; there’s a reason most of us don’t go on Truth Social to interchange, either. Wendy P.

Dude! I can still ban you, y’know! Wendy P.

This has been a noticeable piece of my life for over 20 years; I joined in mid-2002. There are friends from here who are no longer alive, others who have moved on from skydiving, and ones who I correspond with offline. I jump with one regularly now; we were on different coasts (there are three to choose from). Thanks for being a big piece of my life Wendy P.

Andy posted in Incidents reasonably; I think he still reads, but doesn't get involved any more. Lots of people like that I have a feeling. It's just not the social center it used to be. It takes a certain kind or amount of excitement to maintain, and since dz.com lost its shiny newness, no one really considers the value of all their individual contributions (yes, I'm even including the ones who bounced after proclaiming their incredible skill and above-average skill at canopy flying). Wendy P.

OTOH my brother worked with machine and welding folks in Brazil, near the Embraer plant (he worked with them for years with a couple of companies). He said they were as good as a group as any he ever worked with, and were better at making do than a lot of workers are now. So many rules around what you can do in aviation. He was able to rehab a Cessna 140 using local help to fabricate the vast majority of the parts. With the airplane manufacturer nearby, they were absolutely up to snuff. Wendy P.

Newt Gingrich was the first republican Speaker of the House in 40 years. Of course, previous Democratic SOHs were dealmakers, and the current Republican SOH approach is pretty exclusionary, but I'm hoping that's just a reaction to the pendulum swing. Hope hope hope. Because there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. Wendy P.

This used to be my bailiwick. While I thoroughly agree with the inclusion of private industry in the space business, I do think there's a place for government, too. Because they have different drivers. Private industry is mainly driven by eventual profit; even if they're doing something unprofitable in the short run, they're looking at money. The government is currently more driven by risk aversion in the short run, but they're not as concerned with the most cost-effective way. Which means that their imaginations are unfettered in a different direction. To me, the competing interests drive different approaches, and with a new technology, with goals that aren't necessarily possible yet (mission to Mars?), and which may not be financially possible, different approaches is a good thing to have. Each has constraints; all have money, time, and the current limits of technology as constraints, but they have different reactions to those constraints. With Elon at the head of SpaceX (and I'm by no means against SpaceX -- they're truly impressive), I can see it being weaponized because of his whims. It's not publicly traded. While he doesn't have sole control, he does have a huge amount of control, and I do think that needs to be fettered in some ways. Right now, the other space companies can't do that -- they're way more market-driven (i.e. "what's in it for me today) than SpaceX. If there's a vibrant multi-faceted space industry, great. But just as the drug companies and the technology companies now answer to the stockholders way more than to innovation (i.e. they're aiming at specific sales points, rather than just exploring what's possible -- remember Bell Labs and the like?), so will the space companies. Wendy P.

Except it's like playing the "let's hit each other, you go first" game. The one where one person socks the other's arm lightly, in a friendly manner, and the second one wallops the first. Watch for details on who he pardons, and watch for all the "you did it first." Personally, I'm sick of that shit. Bad is bad, good is good, and context is context. Wendy P.

Rich, if you can't articulate the truth yourself, why exactly should I trust your estimation? Wendy P.

No. But Gingrich was the one who pretty much defined serving “my people” over “all the people” and “compromise is loss” as tenets of the new Republican Party. And I don’t think either of those added to the country. Our already adversarial political system became way more adversarial, and I see that as a strong net negative. We are still neighbors and countrymen Wendy P.

Not where I live! It is, of course, a buckle on the blue belt Wendy P.

Well, if OAN, Blaze and the like can exist, why not this also? Wendy P.