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You’re gonna wish you hadn’t asked that. Not necessarily. In order to bring an application for Judicial Review you have to have "standing". That used to be fairly well restricted to people who were directly effected by the decision... however over the past 20 years it’s been relaxed significantly so that pretty much any "publicly spirited individual" could challenge the decision. I would suggest then that it's likely that pretty much any BASE jumper would have at least a good argument for having standing... on the other hand; you would certainly have it if you had previously been denied. The main problem you'd have is that you have to apply for JR within 3 months of the decision (and you have to have exhausted all avenues of appeal), thus in practice the best way to do it is simply apply yourself and be refused... yes I know – then the park service know who you are. Only then would you actually get to court to make your "Irrationality" argument (the "fettering" point I outlined above). So, while JR is the proper mechanism by which a challenge of the park service's actions should be made... it would from the outset be a full on assault on the park service and really ought not to be undertaken unless the individual is really serious about it (and well aware of the potential costs consequences were something to go wrong). In practice, your best way to bring this up is simply when you're up in front of the bench for BASE jumping. Simply stick that park service policy statement under the Judge's nose and point out to them their illegal stance. The prosecution's likely to jump up and down about it but hey, once the beak's seen the policy statement the damage is done. As I presume you'd be up their being prosecuted under whatever legislation requires a permit (ie for failing to have the appropriate permit)... the judge is going to find it hard to convict you after you've shown how the park service is flouting that very same legislation by refusing to even consider permits. The outcome I would be pushing for if I was defence counsel would be you to get off scott-free and the park service to get a good slap on the wrist. Still... nothing’s ever a given... if it was I’d be out of a job. As before, this is all based on UK law and may not necessarily directly translate to Australia – get your own local advice before even considering doing anything silly.

You have an the guys e-mail address (well, at least an email address).... try 419 scamming him - tell him he's won a trip or an all expenses paid night at a swanky hotel. Then have the cop meet him there... or just turn up and kick the living crap out of him... ok, ok, police would be a better idea. You'd be surprised how often things like that can work. Law enforcement agencies have even used such tactics - they sent free holiday tickets crooks who had outstanding warrants - dozens of them turned up and booked in for their freebee, only to be arrested.

If what you indicate is correct, and you can prove it (or they’re stupid enough to admit it), then I suspect it would be extremely unlikely to stand up in court. What they park service is doing is “fettering” their discretionary right to grant permits through the adoption of a blanket policy. Such action unlawful and the courts are likely to come down on them like a ton of bricks were it ever challenged. Such a challenge however may not necessarily come about as part of a defense to being prosecuted in relation to BASE jumping without a permit (more usually it would come to court through an application for Judicial Review)… but it’d almost certainly be worth a shot. That is based on UK law but I'm pretty sure it would hold true for OZ given our Privy Council links.

Men don't care what you look like in the vehicle... only what you would look like on the bonnet of said vehicle.

On the other hand it's a bit of a lottery. The squad who find him probably won't do so because of anything they do but simply because command told them to go to cave 'X'. The poor saps in Alpha company have to be content with being told to raid the empty cave 'Y' and 'Z'. Thus 99 squads carry out raids on command orders and find squat while 1 squad carrys out exactly the same kind of raid with exactly the same kind of risk and hit the jackpot. Bit unfair on those who don't win simply because command told them they were further up the valley that day. Still... would seem a bit of a jip if Uncle Sam didn't do something with the promised reward.

At the AGM the specific question "can you define a swoop" was asked. In answer we were told that for the purposes of these rules “swoop” was to mean any input into your canopy designed to increase it's forward speed – they specifically mentioned that would include double front riser landings. Thus even your double front approaches are banned till you get your CP1. Re carving for CP2 - they pointed out the rules were not finalised yet but that they would most likely be whatever the IPC required.

Thought you said prettiest for a moment there... there's this one mounted WPC who rides past my office each lunch time.... beautiful blonde... certainly wouldn't kick her out of bed for making crumbs.

You thought it was up 11% a week and a half ago. Change your mind after I showed you the home office figures stating it's down by 3%? Still not sure where the 6% comes from though...

Ahhhh... but which weighs more, a pound of gold or a pound of feathers? To make it interesting... also say which weighs more; an ounce of gold or an ounce of feathers?

Do you honestly think Parliament legislated because of ordinary violent and or firearms crimes? Ask yourself this: What two single events preceded each piece of firearms legislation in the UK in the last 20 years?

Seriously John, this is getting old. I've explained this to you before. Try looking here: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1439715#1439715 It's only a week ago for Christ’s sake. The 1997 legislation was not intended to have much of an effect on overall violent crime rates. It hasn't. Why are people surprised by that? If you want stats on violent crime look to the above thread again. Violent crime is down by 36% since the 1997 gun ban. I'm saying there's no causal link between the two whatsoever. Why are you always going on about the two in the same breath? The 1997 legislation was created to remove guns from those people who would otherwise have legally owned them – nothing more. Why on earth does that give you so many sleepless nights? It has no impact on you.

It's got a lot to do with it John - read your own article.

John, how many times now have I had to lecture you on the fact that the way we record crimes has changed significantly since 1997? Jeez man, I only posted about it last week. Do you just not listen at all!? One more time John, just for the record. These figures are based on RECORDED crime. When you change the way you record crimes, you are going to change the number of crimes you record. When Labour came to power in 1997 they started messing with the way we record crime in a big way. Recorded crime went through the roof. Meanwhile other crime statistics usually show no rise and sometimes even fall. You’ll recall we only discussed this a week ago. When the old ways of recording figures are used, (as often it’s still possible to do) again often no rise is seen. Two kinds of people seized on these new statistics. First there were the people and newspapers who wanted to make the Labour government look bad (there are many more convincing ways to do that than this). These people are deliberately misleading their audience as they know there are better statistics available but instead chose not to use them. The second class is the stupid person. The stupid person either isn’t clever enough to look into these changes or simply doesn't understand their effect. As such the stupid person could perhaps be said to be slightly less blameworthy. Unfortunately this doesn't change the fact that they are stupid. If you want to continue to post things like this, do yourself a favor. Go look up the NCRS and the changes in crime recording which preceded them. Otherwise you just look like you fall into one of the above categories. After the number of times I’ve discussed guns with you, I know that you really don’t.

I don't think that your thoughts are a hijack exactly. You’ve raised what is always the central question about BPA membership costs, thus it's entirely relevant. I'm sure that's what the original poster had in mind. Well it is to our benefit; by far the biggest slice of the fee buys a substantial amount of third party liability cover - cover I doubt we would be able to obtain anywhere else. Whether or not people would prefer to make that choice themselves is another matter. I presume there are some who would prefer to forgo the benefit of insurance and take the risk. The other point, as I indicated above, is that it is likely that even if third party liability cover for individual members was removed, there could still be the same liability exposure for other elements of the sport, as lawsuits would seek to include whatever insured party they could find. Thus our total skydiving outlay would stay the same – ie parties such as DZ’s would seek their own insurance and pass that cost on to individual skydivers in the form of increased ticket prices... that’s if they could get the insurance of course. Whether or not having a cohort of skydivers who are uninsured would be a particularly good idea for the sport as a whole is also a matter I ponder. Would we see the BPA’s permission to conduct skydiving operations under threat after the first whuffo is killed by a skydiver without insurance? Would we see the threat of government or CAA intervention to force us to insure to cover the grieving orphans? I simply don’t know enough about the behind-the-scene politics to know what other considerations there might be... Many people are doing just that. I know there are numerous jumpers who have become holiday skydivers only after taking the view that a 150% rise in insurance costs were not worth their while. BPA membership is noticeably down this year… I wonder how much of that can be accounted for by jumpers only skydiving abroad?

s.2 of the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 prevents a person from attempting to exclude or limit their liability for causing death or personal injury arising out of negligence. It further states that exclusion of liability in relation to other losses must be reasonable. IIRC the section also provides that knowledge of any such disclaimer or notice pertaining to risk does not, in itself, amount to evidence of volenti which can also be an important element of skydiving litigation.

Yes they did. Not that has much impact on the conversation... just correcting an inaccuracy.

Reminds me very much of the choice I had when I went off to highschool except for me there were only two others from my junior school going - everyone else was going to another high school. I went to the better school. I made new friends. I'm glad I made that choice. If he choses to do what's best for his future he'll be making the smart choice. New friends are easy to make, good ones will stay friends regardless of where he goes to school. Only question I can't help you with is the one you posed I'm afriad - which is the better school choice.

If the components are cold water vapor is likely to condense on them.

He owed beer. That was NOT the time to collect it.

Insurgents then terrorists… 60 years ago they were called Partisans and 59 years ago SS officers were tried and found guilty of war crimes for executing them. How times change.

Somebody must want to do this: http://www.419eater.com/ with this joker...

bwaahahahahaha. Just got this via Dropzone.com PM! Anyone want to fuck with them or shall I just let the mod's deal? I'm guessing the mods will want to turf them off the site in any case but seeing as they're asking for my private e-mail adress you can write to them from your own and mess with their heads a little if you like. hehehe, I can't believe people ever fall for this stuf.

A couple of points on that idea. Waivers don't work in the UK - they're legislated against and I personally wouldn't like to see that change for many more important reasons than just skydiving insurance. If you took away member to member coverage you'd be left to skydive uninsured against what is at the moment, the greatest source of litigation in the industry. I'm sure plenty of people would be willing to take that risk... but remember a payout in a skydiving claim has the potential to take away everything you have... you may end up broke even if you win. Having sat in on the insurance open forum at the AGM, it's also pretty clear that the option of obtaining similar private insurance cover would not be open to us. No one in the industry wants to bother with private customers – not even the one and only company that’s currently willing to cover the BPA – it’s simply too much hassle to deal with individuals. The other problem is that removing insurance from member to member claims wouldn't necessarily reduce the potential liability of the BPA itself. Lawsuits go after the money - a poor skydiver with no insurance is often not worth suing. Thus the lawsuit would target those areas that are still insured - such as the training syllabus, the training itself, the airplane owner, the DZ – whoever they can bring in. All of these would still be covered by the BPA insurance and as such the potential liability might not be seen to actually reduce. If the potential liability isn’t reduced, the cost of BPA insurance won’t come down either.

I suspect and hope that the company involved is fucked over pretty badly in the court room. Smoking sucks ass but descrimination is descrimination. Till there's legislate against smoking, there's no way people should be fired for it.

Above 43,000ft it's 9-12 seconds. Plus you have to deal with decompression. This is a great, detailed but dense resource: http://wwwsam.brooks.af.mil/af/files/fsguide/HTML/Chapter_02.html