mr2mk1g

That's half the fun.

The point is, the two acts differ in name alone. The chick will still be prosecuted for a sexual offence, still go to jail, still have her name entered on the sexual offenders list still have all that on her record.

If the man knew the woman was not consenting I do not see how the amount of force used comes into it - he knew she was not consenting and he still stuck his whowhodilly in her chacha [al-la south park]. How can anyone defend that decision? Call it rape or sexual assult, whatever - doing something sexual you know the other person doesnt want you to do is wrong. Now if the man thought she was consenting when she actually wasn't, then he gets away with it - so long as he can convince the jury of that of course. In your mates scenario where the woman forced herself on him - over here he certainly wouldn't have been laughed at - in the UK, (about which this thread is), she would have committed a serious sexual assualt for which she would have gone to jail for. If that's different over there perhaps something should be done - but are you sure that's the case? Force only comes into rape when we look at how long to sentence someone - the thing that makes a sexual assult a sexual assult is a lack of consent. If you know they don't consent and still touch them - that's wrong, even if you don't use force.

I can't belive that on this site out of all of them, no one has nominated Bill Booth.

The wording on statutory rape is that is illegal for a man to have sex with a girl under the age of 16/13 depeding on the charge. Again it's gender specific.

The straight answer is, you're friends are right. No case law is required - look directly at the statute. Women don't possess a penis - ergo, they cannot commit "rape" by this definition. Women can of course commit a sexual assault on a man though and in practice the penalties for doing so may well be just the same as for a man who commits rape - all else being equal of course. But no – women cannot "rape". Of course if you want to pay me I'm sure I can come up with a good enough argument to win your friends over. I think my fee of 4 cases of good beer is very reasonable and I'll see if I can't win your bet for you... of course I offer no guarantees though, you can't sue me if I don't win and I get to keep my fee whatever.

oh yeah - that reminds me. I found what appeared to be a great company called DogTag who offered insurance to extreme sports and had a neat system for ensuring whatever local medical care you had, had your medical records available. Unfortuantely, although they were specifically geared towards extreme sports they only covered "parachuting" not "skydiving". Their definition of parachuting was a static line jump - anything involving freefall was excluded. Do read the small print.

I personally always felt the greatest personal affinity with Rolf - go figure. I'm sure Freud would have a field day with that statement.

Year... thats always good to see. My grammer dyed a few years back. We berried her with my grampar.

I'm certainly taking a break - I'm off early this avo on two weeks holiday. Pitty it's a damn busman's holiday in sunny old England but hey, a break's a break.

An international war crimes tribunal in the Hague?

We agree on a lot of points. I just think that China would have effective control of the island before anyone was able to do anything significant about it. From that point I think that sea denial would work both ways. US subs could prevent re-supply. Chinese missiles would prevent any serious attempt by the US at getting close to the Taiwan with a surface fleet. I just think that preventing any serious re supply of Taiwan would not kick out an occupation force – only troops on the ground can do that, and you can’t get them there without sailing within range of all those missies. You end up with stalemate where they’re sat in the castle dieing of disease while US maintain a blockade without ever being able to make any serious strikes past that big ass castellated stone wall of missiles. Any move by the US to walk up to the China’s door and knock would mean decimation for both sides. You’re looking at something akin to M.A.D. only with conventional weapons and only involving the military forces committed to the battle. M.A.D. with troops is something China’s proven they are quite willing to do. All the way back in Korea they showed that – hell, Pork Chop Hill was just for political wrangling, not even military gain and they still threw thousands at that. I don’t think things have changed all that much. On the other hand the US can’t stomach casualties – not in those kinds of numbers. Remember an aircraft carrier has something like 3000 sailors sat on board. A couple of little missiles of which china has thousands will make for a really really bad day. Now imagine having half the US task force taken out in one day as an overwhelming strike is what most analysts think is the best tactic against a surface fleet. Those kinds of losses would make Ypres and the Somme look like a sunny walk in the park, and Verdun look like a pleasant wander round an old French fort. At the end of the day though, I agree - I doubt that The PRC will invade the RoC. But I think that’ll come down to commercial considerations as opposed to any military concerns.

"cool" is such a relative thing Sure, the FF flyer looks cool. I look a complete muppet in my bright rig and black FF suit with flames licking down each side. You seen how much tie dye there is amungst us? Man that stuff went out in the 70's just about everywhere but in freeflying. I also think the RW flyer looks... professional, tuned in, there's a kind of image I get of concentration and dedication to the team. RW suits are the absolute epitomy of utilitarianism, how can that not also be cool? Birdman... hehe, even that stupid penguin waddle is cool. Camera flyers are damn cool - they turn a skydive into a buisness day down at the photo studio. That kinda skill is always gonna be cool. CRW dawgs? Sure they're cool - they have knives. BIG knives. And they bind thier risers with crap and have stuff hanging out of their rig as they board the plane. They only jump those big ass canopies cos of the weight of their balls. And till you've seen a little italian hottie in a skin tight style suit you aint seen shit.

Yeah I'm liking the AXA cover I've got. I've also got some exp handling claims against AXA policies from third parties - I know they've got good legal back up and deal with their own equitably. Strangly I think they exclude camel rides... or am I remembering cover I used to have with columbus? (columbus no longer offer skydiving cover IIRC).

I'd go with #3. White tape can be an absolute arse.

ahhhh... now there's a new sport - swoop-golf ! We've already got people doing ghostriders - surely they can hold a 1 wood too. Think of the range you could get with that kind of runup!

You could get a natwest gold account. They give free travel insurance and the kicker is it does cover skydiving so long as it's done with as part of a nationally recognised instructor program and you pay for it on your card. Holiday's also covered so long as you pay on your card. It looks like you'll be doing AFF? In which case that'd probably be covered (check for yourself) as it's instruction. My problem would be trying to convince someone that fun jumps are part of an instructional program. This is just one option - there are also a number of insurance co's out there offering insurance that would cover you. Look at somewhere arround £30 for a single trip or £100 for annual multi-trip.

it's better than golf.

How do you get close enough to hit airfields on mainland China? SAM's kill even really cool planes - and they're gonna start going bang well before you even see the coast.

It's me dude, I just don't believe taking on China will be all fun and games. They're real good at making rockets, lots and lots of rockets. We still haven't figured out a reliable way to stop rockets. Like I said - it's a question of them being onto Taiwan before anyone has time to react. Once they're there you've gotta dislodge them and that's going to take troops on the ground. Closing the strait does little but starve the indigenous population. I doubt very much a Chinease army will be brought to it's knees by hunger - their commanders don't have quite the same concern for their troops welfare as we do.

there we go folks - DZ.com's longest single post in history - ah well, brain dump over: I'm off to bed. I'll be amazed if anyone reads any of it.

Half of you are mad. It wont be a case of defending Taiwan - it'll be a case of deciding if you want to try and take it back. There's little chance of the US putting enough assets in the way quick enough - China's not going to send out invitations to their bash - they'll just do it one day when everyone's been told they're holding maneuvers. And China doesn't have to be a "modern" military to seriously screw over a surface force - the Argies could have taken out the Falklands task force if our Harriers let them get close enough and if they had enough planes/Exocets to throw at us. That was 25 years ago. They lost the air battle because they ran out of planes and missiles not because we had any really effective way of stopping them - those planes that did get through made short work of any ships they could get a missile off at - just look at the Sir Galahad. Even Iran's got 300 Exocets waiting for something to point them at - wanna guess how many China's got – that and other similar munitions? Didn't they just buy three massive Russian surface to surface missile ships that were specifically developed to defeat Aegis cruisers? And Taiwan is no Falklands. It's just off the coast of China. Even 30 year old rocketry can blow the crap out of anything you sail up and down their coast line. You've got to get out of this mentality that you're so superior everything will fall before you. Underestimating an enemy is quickest way to get your words stuffed back down your throat - SunTzu would have a fit if he could read this thread. Stop running Rambo'esc scenarios through your head where Chuck Norris skydives onto Taiwan and single handedly kills off a million slant-eyed twits to while an American flag waives defiantly over his shoulder. Live in the real world - start thinking about the bad things, not the Hollywood hype of what you'd like to see down the multiplex. Lets try a real world telling of how it might go. You wake up one morning to find China already has a foothold on Taiwan. They went in overnight, seizing key infrastructure after coming in on commercial flights – before anyone knew what was happening container ships in the doc were disgorging thousands of troops and tanks were rolling of RORO’s. At sun up news agency’s film the straights of Taiwan are thick with landing craft. The US administration has still to figure out what it’s going to do about it. What US forces are in the area are told by China that if they come within an exclusion zone they're toast. The Taiwanese military put up a good show of it – after all they’re armed and trained by Yanks. But they simply can’t sink enough ships fast enough and all their key bases were destroyed during the night by stand off weaponry – they lost air superiority before it was even light to hundreds upon hundreds of Mig jets. China has so much rocketry sat on their coastline that sailing anything within 300 miles can get hit by so much munitions it will make Dresden look like a crappy 4th July party. US planners know this and can’t risk intervening till they have a significant force in the area. Before anyone can do anything but posture, China's overwhelmed the Taiwanese military through shear weight of numbers. Sure they took huge losses, but who the hell cares when their country still accounts for 1 full sixth of the worlds population. By the time the US has dispatched a couple of task forces Taiwan is already in complete Chinese control and they're busy bringing their big missiles over to the island to extend their range out over your bases in the Philippines. So how do you take back Taiwan? By sea? Aegis doesn't work - at least not well enough to counter such a proliferate threat. You lose thousands of men per ship - no govt. can afford to lose even one ship and ever hope to get away with it, besides they cost billions – they Chinese can fire off a dozen sea skimming missiles and no one would ever see them coming. By air? Give me a break- Douhet’s crap that "the bomber will always get through" died in the 40's and again in the Cold War. Vietnam showed you that even crappy armies can amass such heavy air defenses that flying anywhere near them is tantamount to suicide – Why would Taiwan in 2005 be any different to Hanoi in 1975? Even if you do manage to obtain air superiority, Iraq and hell, WWII for that matter proved that no one's ever going to win a war through air power alone - face it, Bomber Harris was wrong on that one. You’re still gonna have to put men on the ground. That still means slow lumbering planes taking lightly equipped men onto a tiny island crawling with heavy, mechanized troops or slow lumbering transport ships taking sailing through minefields. Both are highly vulnerable to even basic rocketry – something China’s simply not going to run out of in a hurry. Taiwan is not a simple question, and it most certainly doesn’t have a simple answer. But one things for sure – real military planners certainly won’t be looking at the situation as if it were a Hollywood blockbuster with big name stars in all the lead rolls. Big name stars don’t die in films – grunts do, and ships sinking don’t come with panavision footage shot from three different angles.

If you press and hold the trigger you'll get 4 shots in just over one and a half seconds. You would then continue to get about one shot per second until you ran out of space on your CF card. Or you could fire 4 shots and stop. Those shots will be written to the camera at about 1 shot per second depending on the speed of your CF card. Once those are cleared you can shoot another 4 shot burst. Or after your 4 shot birst you could wait for two to clear and fire a two shot birst. Or you could not bother waiting at all and simply continue to fire single shots with each writing to direct to the CF card - so long as the last one has finished writing there will be no delay on hitting the trigger.

The "aftermarket printing" is a photoshop job - at least in the photo's they show. Sounds like they're going for the sick momento collector market - same lot who will pay more for an "only used once, small dent from where it was dropped" AK than for a brand new AK. I doubt the provenance... but who knows.

If I were a terrorist I would love the thought of having a plane load of 340 people shot out of the sky by their own side. I think from a psychological stand point that would almost be as good as hitting a target - sure it would be second to hitting the target, but I figure it would be a pretty good second. I'd go with them being as much a boost to public moral as a deterant to terrorists - much in the same way as AAA arround london was as much a boost to moral as it was a threat to German bombers. At the end of the day though such issues only come down to a secondary concern in my opinion. The primary factor is simple utility. These missiles ought to be there - so they are. The messages they send and to whom are of secondary concern.