JackC

Unless they are knowledgable enough to teach all the subjects in the national curriculum and are able dedicate the time necessary to educate their child to the required standard, then yes I'd say they are guilty of child abuse. I know of very few people who I would consider to be qualified to home school. I am not one of them. I can't say I'd be too happy about doing that to one of my kids but I will accept there may be mitigating circumstances I don't know about in this case. But as a general principle yes, I'd be looking at a situation like that to see if it was a form of child abuse.

I wouldn't trust the judgment of anyone who says its better to drop out than stay in school. In fact I'd consider it a form of child abuse.

Many believers haven't got a clue what Jesus was trying to say either. As Ghandi once said "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

I'm not positive but, I don't think anyone has ever successfully proved that I behave in that manner. What, using common sense and logic?

It is interesting to note that according to Paragear, a PD143R is actually 151sq ft and a RD160R is actually 175sqft. But then a Sabre 170 is actually 179sqft. So at an exit weight of 165+30=195lbs your wing loading would be: 1.09 on a Sabre 170 1.11 on a PD160R 1.29 on a PD143R But these numbers of course depend on which method you use to determine canopy square footage because there are several and it can easily make a 0.1 difference in your wingloading calculation. Then you have the elevation of the DZ you jump at where you lose about 4% performance for every 1000ft above sea level it is. So 2500ft could be the equivalent of another 0.1 on your wingloading. And then there's the temperature which affects air density and therefore performance and so on. So you might be able to shave a hundred jumps off the flame threshold on this website by simply picking the actual sqft as opposed to the name of the canopy. Or you might have to add a hundred to correct for elevation and temperature. It makes you wonder if the whole wing loading verses jump number thing is just a bit over egged really. http://www.paragear.com/canopyspecs/canopysizing.PDF

No, I don't believe that at all. Sure you do. You just don't like the way I've worded it because it sounds absurd. You believe god created everything don't you? You believe Jesus is the son of God don't you? You believe Jesus paid the price of sin don't you? You believe god doesn't forgive those who reject jesus don't you? You believe that hell is eternal and is where those who reject jesus go don't you? You believe god loves you don't you? So exactly which bit don't you believe?

You believe that god came to earth in human form and sacrificed himself to himself to appease himself so he wouldn't have to throw his creation into the eternal hell fires which he created, for the sole purpose of tormenting (for ever and ever) those creations who find the whole concept "a bit unbelievable" and that despite gods obvious use of extortion with the threat of everlasting torture unless the required brown nosing is observed, that he actually loves us. Now that is absurd!

You know, if I were flying into a war zone, I really wouldn't want to be lit up like a christmas tree giving all the RPG weilding nutters out there something bright and shiney to aim for. It's not a halo, it's a bullseye.

It may not be oficial policy but there are stories in the press about US soldiers having Bibles written in Pashto and Dari languages with the intention of distributing them to the locals in Afghanistan. There are also mentions of soldiers being told by Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley, the chief of the US military chaplains in Afghanistan, that as followers of Jesus Christ, they all have a responsibility "to be witnesses for him". That is a monumentally dumb idea. It looks very much like these idiots are trying to turn the Afghan campaign into a crusade, in the religious war sense of the word. Fucking morons.

Now there's a monumentally stupid idea.

Absolutely not. What does make you narrow minded is when you publicly ridicule those who do believe in Santa and teach others to do the same. Fixed. cos you cannot possibly by serious.

A personal relationship with god is the new religion.

Wow. Billvon can find the errors in the Bible with an oscilloscope and a signal generator by building and testing his very own god. Imagine that.

A meme only exists if it can be sucessfully communicated and the vehicle that provides that communication is the media. How else does Joe Schmo get wind of it? And the media start memes just as much or more than they echo them. Like it or not, journalists are powerful people and they know it. They decide which news is worthy of publicity, they can voice their opinions to thousands of people, they can decide who to make their darling and who to vilify. They tell people what to think. When the media is on yor side in public ilfe, you're unstoppable. But when they turn on you, it's only a matter of time before you sink. The media may be an unruly mob with only half the facts, little understanding and virtually no morals, but they have influence. And plenty of it.

Am I missing something here? If the door handle can snag the yoke of a rig fitted with a Skyhook and pull the reserve pin, it could also snag a regular RSL, or for that matter the reserve rip cord itself even on a non-RSL rig couldn't it? The only added scaryness I see from a Skyhook system (which is super extra scary I'll admit) is the Colins lanyard which could have disconnected his main. I think the main problem here is the snag point on the aircraft, not the rig.

A present day illustration of martyrdom for Allah. Once a person experiences a relationship with Allah he understands that death is not an important enough reason to renounce that relationship. A present day illustration of martyrdom for the USMC. Once a person experiences a relationship with the USMC he understands that death is not an important enough reason to renounce that relationship. But how do you tell if someone is a fanatic? Willing to kill or die for their belief? Does it depend on the belief?

Boredom. I seriously underestimated how much of a passtime smoking is.

I see what you're missing. Your block of ice example is correct for what it is but it's not applicable in this case. If you had half of your block of ice at sea level and half at the top of a mountain, you'd be closer to reality. Glaciers aren't all at the same temperature because they are formed on mountains and temperature depends on altitude. Just because one end of the glacier is melting, doesn't mean the rest of it is. The altitude at which the temperature drops below freezing (the snow line) will creep upwards as the temperature at sea level increases but the lapse rate may not be linear, or it may even reverse and it will definitely change with climate conditions. You know, if you are going to try and debunk the science, you should at least try and understand it first.

Whisky tango foxtrot? Is it me, or is this starting to sound a bit "Heaven's Gate"?

What other possible mechanisms could be responsible for ice melting? Ice melts when the temperature goes up. It's basic thermodynamics.

What good would that do? You advocate making up your own definitions of words so no one would be able to agree on what the rules are. Much like the different sects of any religion can't agree either. You only have to go to Northern Ireland to see one bunch of God fearing Christians knocking seven shades of shit out of another bunch of God fearing Christians simply because they aren't the same brand of God fearing Christian.

Why not? If it exists, it's fair game to be scientifically poked to see what falls out. If it exists. ---- There are many areas of life where we don't use science. Science is useful for exploring physical mechanisms, not internal, spiritual experience. Just because something isn't scientific, doesn't mean it is non-existent. The study of the humanities are not scientific studies (by definition) but that doesn't mean that they are lies. When you discuss the merits of a painting or an opera or a novel, you do not use scientific terms or standards. Does that mean that your statements re. these things would all be BS? But why not? The scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses. Why can I not discuss opera or novels or paintings or religion or chicken entrails or whatever-the-hell-I-want-to using scientific method? People do. See: The physics of paintings - FIG Rawlins The Physics of Music - Alexander Wood Making the quantum leap: Lessons from physics on studying spirituality and religion in organizations - C. J. Fornaciari et al Reading the entrails of chickens - D Graur Why do you object to using the best tool at your disposal to investigate the validity of outlandish claims such as these? Are you afraid you might not like the answer?

Why not? If it exists, it's fair game to be scientifically poked to see what falls out. If it exists. If science has not identified it or even tried to identify it, why is that? And have you told Dr Susan Blackmore that it's not her job to investigate this? Although it seems that even she has given up after drawing a blank. ~ Source

That is not how language works. Although it would explain a few things if that's what the religious folk do.

If it hasn't been identified, how do you know it exists? But this is not consistent with your first statement because all these things have been identified and studied by scientists quite extensively. This makes no sense. Saying you have to be spiritual to experience spiritual phenomena (whatever that is) seems like a circular argument to me. If spiritual phenomena exist external to the observer, they should not depend on who is doing the observing. If it does depend on the observer, it can't be an external reality, c.f. hallucinations.