winsor

Don't worry. They won't even let you swoop until you finish AFF. Oh, you can bury a toggle at treetop height, but you will be yelled at for breaking the rules. We wouldn't want that to happen.

Nope, Alexander had the presence of mind to avoid military confronatation in Afghanistan. He married into their royalty, and thus coopted their forces. Well, we're basically doing that: Karzai fucks us, in return for which we give him lots of money. He wastes most of it on stupid shit, and gives some of it to people who we hate. Sounds like....? Yeah, but only an idiot would take that approach and engage in combat anyway. Perhaps it's what comes of watching too much teevee, or of thinking Rambo movies are documentaries. The average Afghan's existance is one that would have the ACLU bouncing off walls if an American prisoner was to have things anywhere near as tough. Let's see, home court advantage, tough as nails, nothing to lose - looks like we found the ideal adversaries! Actually, if we could have sent over the AFL-CIO, we could have taught the Afghans to fuck themselves. Too late now, I suppose. BSBD, Winsor

No really! Thank you for agreeing to the cut in your retirement pay entitlement. Of course if you all had been up to the task of winning in Afghanistan our country would be enjoying a much rosier economy. The US bet on you to get the job done and you let the people down. But thank you for atleast seeing your failing and quietly accepting the retirement cut. Ah, Afghanistan - The Graveyard of Empires! Yup, we should have gone in there and showed the Brits and the Soviets how it's done. "This time it's different!" Right. i think afghanistan could have been 'won' - iraq was the backbreaker... Afghanistan showed what cheating your way through history class does when one has to make decisions that have solid precedent. Iraq was a case of incompetence supercharged by hubris. In any case, one must have clear objectives and a realistic plan for the end game to have any hope of success. In any of the conflicts in which we are now embroiled, we have had neither. There is nothing we are now undergoing that was not glaringly apparent at the outset. The fact that we still have no one in charge that has the slightest inkling of how to extract ourselves from this quagmire bodes badly for the forseeable future. BSBD, Winsor

Nope, Alexander had the presence of mind to avoid military confronatation in Afghanistan. He married into their royalty, and thus coopted their forces.

No really! Thank you for agreeing to the cut in your retirement pay entitlement. Of course if you all had been up to the task of winning in Afghanistan our country would be enjoying a much rosier economy. The US bet on you to get the job done and you let the people down. But thank you for atleast seeing your failing and quietly accepting the retirement cut. Ah, Afghanistan - The Graveyard of Empires! Yup, we should have gone in there and showed the Brits and the Soviets how it's done. "This time it's different!" Right.

That's my point...I think you would, if you had more muscle than brains. You guys abuse your intellect in the same way a bully abuses his strength. As usual, you speak entirely for yourself. Come back if you ever get a clue.

You guys can play the "greater intelligence" card all you want...but it's no different than a jock claiming he's more of a man because he's bigger, badder and can kick your ass... It's just as bad to boast in being a "geeky dweeb" as it is a meat head...(pinky salute) (thanks Amazon...) It's more like being at a DZ and having a whuffo seek to hold forth on the nuances of skydiving. "Here's a quarter, kid. Go see a movie." Ok Naugler...wedgie time! You might like getting wedgies, but I hate to disappoint you. I am not the kind of douchebag who would consider giving you one - no matter how hard you beg. If you want a wedgie, I am sure there is some total asshole somewhere who will oblige you. Good luck.

You guys can play the "greater intelligence" card all you want...but it's no different than a jock claiming he's more of a man because he's bigger, badder and can kick your ass... It's just as bad to boast in being a "geeky dweeb" as it is a meat head...(pinky salute) (thanks Amazon...) It's more like being at a DZ and having a whuffo seek to hold forth on the nuances of skydiving. "Here's a quarter, kid. Go see a movie."

There are a few that scared the hell out of me, but this one comes to mind. At a boogie, we decided to to an inner-tube dive. We attached rope around the periphery for handles, and inflated it only enough that it would not be straining at exit altitude. After exit, we got nice and stable as planned, with the other guy opposite me and two females opposite each other. Approaching breakoff altitude, the other guy decided to sit in the inner tube; once he planted his butt into the middle, he dropped down to his armpits and knees, very stable and completely stuck with his rig below the inner tube. It was immediately apparent that he was screwed and out of time. As a desperation move, I grabbed the handles and managed to turn him and the inner tube upside-down. He then popped out, so we all tracked very briefly, pitched, and were in the saddle somewhat above Cypres territory. One of the things that has become very apparent in this sport is that any added complexity increases the danger level exponentially, whether it is a camera, raft, flag or whatever. It is important to be willing to make survival Job #1 at the drop of a hat. Rules of Combat include: Always know when to get out of Dodge. Always know HOW to get out of Dodge. I guess that includes Combat RW. BSBD, Winsor

When responding to gibberish, it is pointless to go much further than to point out that it is gibberish. Not to worry, I would consider it equally meaningless if, for whatever reason, you claimed to agree with me at some point or another. If you ever manage come up with a valid argument at some point, I will be most impressed - whether I agree with your conclusions or not. I am not holding my breath. BSBD, Winsor

And what blows their mind even more is that our God is personal. Every invisible friend is personal. Try again.

And the "intelligent mind" to which you refer requires orders of magnitude greater "irreducible complexity" than that which actually exists. Try again. Interesting, William of Ockham, was a theist. I doubt he would agree with the way you are interpreting his philosophy. ... By your own characterization, what you opine is irrelevant.

And the "intelligent mind" to which you refer requires orders of magnitude greater "irreducible complexity" than that which actually exists. Try again.

Agreed, but the one thing I have noticed about Truth, in any area, is that it remains after all of the chaos surrounding it has subsided. We are engineered to want the Truth. If there wasn't Truth in the concept of God, He would have died out long ago. Please go to whoever told you that and point out that they have burdened you with one of the most blindingly stupid arguments ever concieved.

Yes, the only way to access God is through faith. But once that threshold has been crossed, the spiritual riches God has in store for us make the leap of faith worth the risk. Proof is irrelevant. God is either real on an individual basis or He isn't. ... Per the definition of faith, whether something is real or imaginary is irrelevant to the faithful. I have seen it routinely touted as a badge of honor for someone to adhere to tenets of faith despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Whatever floats you boat. If you have faith, fine. Having crossed that line, however, discussions of what is or is not real are pointless. BSBD, Winsor

Many moons back someone gave me a number of Marcinko's books, and I made it through enough pages of the first one that I concluded that the guy was entirely full of shit. Basically he is like Sylvester Stallone without the 4-F. There is a big difference between being given to disinformation and being clueless, and he is the latter. His discourses on ballistics, tactics, parachute operations and so forth are back-to-back groaners. If I recall the disclaimers in his first opus, he IMPLIED that he was the grand mover and shaker of all things Special Ops, but that he couldn't actually make the claim for reasons of national security. I call bullshit. The difference between a fairy tale and a war story is that the fairy tale starts "once upon a time..." and the war story "no shit, there I was..." Dick Marcinko seems to have taken that to heart. BSBD, Winsor

They undoubtly will. That still doesn't make it murder. Right. Let's call it "rigor mortis restraint." What the hell, he was not going to live forever anyway, and the cops were just doing him a favor by getting on with the inevitable. I mean beating the guy to a bloody pulp was what any reasonable person would do. It is obviously the fault of the deceased - he committed "suicide by cop." You are right to defend the caring public servants whose only purpose is to Serve and Protect, who barely survived the encounter with a crazed criminal. It is totally unfair that people have come to view them as vicious, murdering assholes. Good on you.

If you peruse Bereshit (Genesis) from the standpoint of its origins, it has some saving graces. There is much insight to be gained in quite what legends, lore and mythology were assimilated from other cultures and assembled into a prequel to "The Book" (Devarim - Deuteronomy). Devarim is a much older work. To reject the whole thing as worthless because of the persistent strain of superstition that pervades the work is as unrealistic as is swallowing the superstition hook, line and sinker. Any researcher worth their salt will put into context a contemporary account, and will consider the limitations thus imposed. A tribal language whose numerical complexity consists of words meaning "one," "two" and "many" may provide a description that is entirely accurate within its limitations, but it would be foolhardy to try to base calculations to any level of precision on values other than one or two. Thus, when pagans got ahold of our family lore and dubbed it "the word of god," an awful lot of meaning was lost and meaning that was not there to begin with was added. There is nothing any more wrong with Torah than with the Aeneid, so long as either is taken with a grain of salt. It is when people become wholly credulous that veracity becomes immaterial. BSBD, Winsor

Let's not confuse the hypothetical with what happened in Fullerton. According to all reports; The police were called in response to a report of a man breaking into car. When the police pulled up the man attempted to runaway. When the police searched the man they found items in his backpack indicating he was, in fact, the man breaking into cars. The man then resisted arrest, injuring two officers enough to break bones. The police tased the man, which brought him to the ground. Witnesses say the police continued to beat the man, but so far it's simply hearsay as to how many blows, where they landed and the extent of the injuries as a result of the beating. The coroner's report was inconclusive and didn't mention skull fractures, at least not in any way that's been reported so far by the media. Let's pose another hypothetical. If somebody tases a guy, the guy falls down, hits his skull on the pavement and five days later the guy dies . . . is that "murder"? Seems to me that if the cops wanted to murder a homeless guy because the guy broke some bones of fellow police officers, they could simply pull out their handgun and shoot the guy. Gosh, since you put it so reasonably, I guess its okay for cops to murder people. Thanks for clearing that up.

We're looking at the same evidence. I've got no problem with that which we can show to be true (operational science). You just also take speculative (historical science) investigation and assume a solid foundation from which to further your understanding built upon your atheistic assumptions. I see the exact same evidence and approach it from the other perspective. You can't adequately "prove" yours. I can't adequately "prove" mine...at least scientifically. The difference is, I admit my starting point and how it influences my interpretation. You do not admit yours. You take your unprovable position and establish it as absolute. Again, I do the same. We just disagree. I happen to think mine is more reasonable. I understand that you do the same. As usual, everything you claim is wrong.

This. They are already (rhetorically) backing off from the cuts for this year, which only total 21B dollars or 1% of the cuts needed. No chance they take any serious action to actually put this "agreement" into effect. It is all political theatre. P.J. O'Rourke had it pegged when he said that "giving power and money to politicians is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." Asking Washington to stop spending money faster than it could be printed is like asking a junkie with an unlimited supply to cut back on their consumption. If you believe them when they they tell you that they will conduct themselves in a completely different manner in the future than they did in the past, you are in for a rude awakening. The problems we face go far deeper than the numbers on the budget - they are structural. For example, in the '50s people paid cash for hospital costs, having kids and so forth. By the '70s this had become impossible, since liability and layers of administrative overhead became much more expensive than the cost of care itself. In the '40s the cost of military power, while staggering, was but a tiny fraction of what it is today. In the '30s if you could not afford food, you went hungry. Now, by having a child a teenager is ensured a life of "freedom" and mediocrity, with food, housing and expenses a "right" that goes on the tab of whoever is left paying the bills. In the '30s we had maybe 1/3 as many people, plentiful mass transit, and great stocks of petroleum. Now we have triple the population with fewer skilled laborers, the urban rail systems in most of the country are long gone, we are a net importer of food and import over 75% of the petroleum it takes us to barely function. All things considered, we are so far beyond screwed that the only question is when and how bad. A skydiver behaving as responsibly as Washington would be viewed as a crater looking for grid coordinates. It does not pay to get hung up on the crappy details of how we progress to our impending doom as a nation, since we have made it inevitable. Enjoy yourself - it's later than you think. BSBD, Winsor

Given that they then proceeded to murder him, his attempt to flee in terror seems rather well justified. The excuse put forth by the department that they only murder people once in a while does not do much to sway me. If you want to wear a white hat, you have to follow the rules. BSBD, Winsor

given that's what you believe about your ancestory, I've always wondered why you are a "somewhat practicing Jew." ...why even bother? As usual, everything you think you know is wrong. "If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know." You said you were a "somewhat observant Jew." ...I want to know why? Xin loi.

given that's what you believe about your ancestory, I've always wondered why you are a "somewhat practicing Jew." ...why even bother? As usual, everything you think you know is wrong.

I have, and here is what the Spirit of Christ says: "You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies." There is medication for that. It is not curable, but it is treatable.