mistercwood

I think you're talking past each other. Based on Davjohns posting history and what he posted originally, I got the impression he was quite content for them to put "morality" in the realm of preachers and philosophers as that meant keeping it the hell away from the courts and preventing people from trying to legislate morality. But I'm sure I'll get politely corrected if I'm off-base... You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

I don't run a DZ (so my opinion is pure speculation naturally) but I would've thought a decent blend on each load not only keeps everyone happy, but also could work as a longer term investment... I recall the mate who came out for a tandem when I started AFF, and my little sister who I bought a tandem for her 16th birthday last year, both commenting on how cool it was seeing the "real" skydivers in action - gear checks, learning the fistbump handshake (sister LOVED that), watching 3 or 4 people get set up in this doorway to the void then WHOOSH they're gone. Contrast this with a plane full of tandems only - you get to see someone rigged up just like you, squealing just like you, getting rolled out the door just like you're about to. One is essentially a very fun fairground ride. The other exposes the tandem jumper to the sport itself, and might plant the seed of "How do I get to do it the way they just did?". So now instead of a couple hundred bucks you would've gotten from slotting a tandem in place of those fun jumpers, you've got someone who may potentially drop a couple grand on AFF, then half their weekly paycheck for as long as they stay in the sport... I have no idea how the numbers balance out in the long run and I could be horribly off base on how much swapping a tandem out for a fun jumper can impact the bottom line... I am confident though that a fun jumper on the plane can be of more potential value than just the price of their jump ticket... You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

Guess we'll have to agree to disagree then - I'd really like to get a better handle on where your distaste for sex-workers springs from, but without that there's not much more to discuss (you stated up front you weren't interested in doing so, so that's fair enough). Thanks for taking the time anyway. You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

Like and trust? Sure. It's not like I could see her bringing up her work at a family dinner table discussion. As for emulation... once they're consenting adults making an informed decision? Sure, why not? Especially in this instance - this woman is clearly well aware that porn is not a long term career, and is using the quite considerable pay rates earned in the more professional side of the business to fund an education for a much more "prestigious" career. Also thank you for answering my question - I was expecting a more religiously based foundation but didn't want to assume, good thing I waited... You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

I'm absolutely pro-choice, as in it's the woman's choice, period. Don't like abortions? Don't have one. That said, I really don't like abortion as birth-control... but previous attempts to curtail that tend to have the flow-on effect of restricting access for women who aren't doing it out of laziness, or whatever. Rather than restricting access further or setting "criteria" on who gets one and who doesn't, I'd much rather support improved sex-education and access to birth-control products. Make people aware of what they're doing, give them preventative measures, and unwanted pregnancies drop. And while I stand by the her body her choice principle, I do agree with the other option you've given where the father should have the option of opting out. There's a fair bit of grey area there though with regards to how the pregnancy comes about, where there shouldn't necessarily be an automatic get-out-of-jail option... that would need some serious discussion to get worked out. In the meantime, if you need me I'll be over here with my popcorn... You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

"Research" purposes, right? You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

I was actually genuinely curious on what moral framework you were coming from - there's no such thing as truly objective morality, as far as I'm concerned. For me, immoral acts generally arise when there's a question of harm - theft, violence, emotional abuse etc. In fact I'd generally say the most evil acts perpetrated by human beings always start with the simple act of treating people like things instead of people. Would you agree with this framework for morality? If so, where's the harm in her actions? If not, where do we differ in our approach, and how does it apply here? Just dismissing my original question because you don't agree with her actions doesn't exactly open up the discussion... You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

I'll bite - what exactly is immoral about her actions? You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

This here is a big part of what she was driving at in the article though - why the hell should her doing porn have anything to do with her image/credibility? If anything (with respect to a law degree) it should show strong real-world experience with contract law at the very least. Not aiming this at you specifically, but the idea that willingly engaging in sex-work somehow lessens the participant is the societal framework she's (for good reason) railing against. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvWCdnkPkPE We really, really need to collectively deal with this and move on... You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

Decent read, not the first of its type and sadly won't be the last. She quite easily hits the nail on the head regarding the root cause for the stigma attached to her work: While I don't remotely subscribe to the "Men are all evil bastards looking to oppress women at every opportunity" model, there's no denying that the world as it stands tends to favour my gender. Just as there's no denying some people are absolutely, utterly terrified of the possibility of any sort of change to that. Pity they spoil things for the rest of us. Chicks who own their sexuality are sooooo hot.... You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

Sorry Andy, but no - The Australian Liberal Party is as conservative as they get... if you want to identify as liberal in the ideological sense over here you have to specify you're a 'small-l' liberal. You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

Go through the video description - they had both audibles and AAD's, but neither went off because they'd screwed up the spot and were well above intended activation altitude for either. Also it was a main deployment, though the guy recognises in hindsight that this was out of reflex and that going silver would've been smarter. You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

To be fair, when it comes to the ACA working with Congress has mostly been the GOP saying "Repeal your signature law because we don't like it"... Though I see your point. You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

I don't get it. Conservatives: This law is going to hurt the economy, employers are going to get screwed by it!! etc etc repeat ad nauseum Administration: Fine, we'll listen - here's a bunch of accommodations to give people more time to prepare and hopefully soften part of the blow to employers and also the economy as a whole Conservatives: How DARE you make changes to address the things we've been screaming about for months on end!! What exactly am I missing here? You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

Then what is war? Which is the greater and which is the lesser evil; risking 79* (or so) of our men to invade a hostile country to attempt to "capture or kill" a terrorist (which might also cause innocent civilian deaths**), or a drone strike which poses absolutely no risk to any of our guys? What war? You're not even AT war with most of the countries you've performed drone strikes in... I've brought this hypocrisy up before in the context of drone strikes. If another country - let's use China as an example - sent in a drone strike against one of their "dissident" citizens who was hiding in Mexico and took out a few locals who happened to be nearby, America would collectively lose its shit. There would be outrage, and sabre-rattling, and probably even military escalations. China in the meantime basically sit back and say, "Well, they've been saying they wanna hurt our government, and we talked about it in a closed room but our secret lawyer said we were good to go and we couldn't get Mexico to find them and hand them over so we just blew them up. It's all kosher from our pov so just deal with it". Now, I'm sure you can pick apart my hastily assembled analogy (I'm on my way to work and in a hurry), but please try to look at my underlying point - why is the US allowed to play fast and loose with the rules globally? There was a time you were supposed to set the benchmark for human rights, what the hell's happened since then? You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

If you genuinely want to know, dig deeper into the culture rather than just assuming every Iraqi citizen is a psychopath from birth. Learn about the difference between the Sunni and Shiite muslims who make up much of the population. Learn who had it made under Saddam, and who was getting shafted. This will tell you who was shit scared when Saddam was ousted that they were about to get their comeuppance - this will explain motives for continuing instability in the region. That Sunni/Shiite divide also makes your accusation of completely indiscriminate targeting misguided - you could target an area known for a higher population of your opposition quite easily. Think of the Civil War - you didn't have Americans killing Americans, you had Southerners killing Yankees and vice versa. Now you need to reevaluate the biggest apples-oranges part of your viewpoint - you can't compare the education and upbringing in a Western society against one from the Middle East. Priorities are different. You're not going to have a kid just pick up a phone and detonate a bomb for the joy of it. But that kid may be raised to value family above all else, and then later have that twisted into a fanatical love for his faith, and then someone points him at people who are mostly like him but is told "They're trying to destroy your family. They welcome the invaders, and want to take away everything we've built". Indiscriminate bombing is fucked up, no matter who does it. But please try not to condemn an entire nation of people as being fundamentally broken without digging a little deeper. You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

Surprisingly I wasn't as stressed as I may have otherwise expected - I still kept catching glimpses of both instructors so I knew they were close "ish", I was mainly just trying to focus on arching and trying to get stable so either they could dock or I could pull (the video shows each time I did get belly to earth I'd drop my head, sending me into a near perfect backloop again - I think this means I get to skip stage 7? ). To be honest my internal dialogue was less fear and more facepalm - "Ok, exit's a bit tumbly, we're flapping a bit, oh there he goes, oh great there SHE goes, you twat how did you lose them BOTH? Muppet. Now fix it!" While it was nice I didn't panic, you're entirely right that I effectively got tunnel-vision and burned through about half my working altitude before my next alti check. Lesson learned, altitude awareness is KEY...

When did they become interesting? You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

Yay, I get to play! Finally got back to the sky this weekend after a year off (busted my shoulder maybe an hour after finishing AFF1 last January). On stage 2, had a seriously messy exit that led to me throwing off both instructors within a few seconds. I'd been briefed that losing one instructor was acceptable, losing two meant go for your handle. Of course I kept trying to get stable to do this but wasn't exactly succeeding - did at least 3 near perfect backloops along the way though so I've got that out of the way already . Finally managed to get belly to earth and hold it long enough to get my hand on my handle, just as both instructors docked on me again. So I squeezed what I could from the dive plan into the time we had left then had an uneventful deployment. My stupid thing was that from exit to the moment they redocked when I was about to deploy (I read 10k just as that happened), I hadn't checked my alti - I'd lost 4000ft in that time. My arms were in view the whole time I was tumbling, so there really wasn't much excuse for not at least getting a read at some stage. You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

Well I was GOING to but you ruined it... You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

Basic relevant version is anyone saying "The Bible is the true, literal word of God and without error, because it says so right here in my Bible". You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

It's a weird thing from when it was originally livecast I think, I just skipped ahead about 20 minutes and it plays. Just finishing the whole debate, will see if I can update the original link to skip ahead for everyone. EDIT: Done. You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

Pretty much this. Definition of a Question-Begging Argument - Where your conclusion rests on a premise that pre-supposes your conclusion is true... (and my friends said Philosophy 101 was a waste of my time... ) You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kgvhG3AkI#t=13m14s I'm amazed this one hasn't been posted about yet, this is still Speakers Corner, right? Yes, it's long - I've got it running in the background. So far, I'm frustrated as hell by Ken Ham's strategy of redefining existing terms to suit his argument and then sticking with "You weren't there!" for any reference by Nye to the non-directly observable past. Pretty sure he wasn't there when the Bible was being pieced together, but of course that one gets a pass - it says so right there in the book, see? Personally, I find the attached image to sum up my views best... Now flame on... EDIT: Changed link to start at the beginning of the debate. You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.

Rush killed PSH??? You are playing chicken with a planet - you can't dodge and planets don't blink. Act accordingly.