mr2mk1g

Members
  • Content

    7,195
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Feedback

    0%
  • Country

    United Kingdom

Everything posted by mr2mk1g

  1. Well "victimisation" is a valid spelling over here... but since it was a US report I guess I should have used your crazy spelling. For the link hit: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cv03.pdf It's the 2003 survey published in September 2004 and as such represents the most up to date data from this source. I chose to use this source, as it is the US equivalent of the UK report I have which is the most accurate study available, (see page one of the thread for that discussion). True - 2,000 is a lot of murders to go unreported - thus the italics on "may". Other discrepancies [I]may[/I] be introduced by differences in reporting periods; the surveys are published in Sept whilst FBI figures may be annually by date or even by financial year. I haven't got the time or inclination to look into it to be honest.
  2. My figures do not include suicides. They are for Murders and non negligent Manslaughter by firearm. They do not include deaths by other weapon or by other acts. The discrepancie between your figures and mine may be accounted for by the fact that your figures are for reported crime whereas mine include crimes which go unreported. There is often a big difference between these figures - especially given that 67% of murder victims are criminals. My figures are from the Bureau of Justice Statistics National Crime Victimisation Survey 2003. They list 16,420 murders 71% of which were by firearms. 71% of 16,420 is 11,658.2 which for ease I listed as 11,660.
  3. As pointed out above I had thought Kelpdiver was making a comparison which I wished to refute. It would appear that on this occasion I was mistaken as to his intent but I hope you will agree that his statement can be taken either way. The only times I have compared the US and UK were in response to misleading statements by others comparing the two. I would agree with you that in general there is little merit in doing so, but where a misleading statement is made I still believe it requires correction lest someone believe it.
  4. You could always hop across the med to Empuriabrava on the North East coast of Spain. It's nice and close so you should be able to do it very cheaply on a budget airline and it would be a great short break. The DZ's BPA afilliated so ought to have a BPA rigger. Then you'd get your rig repacked by someone outside of Italy AND it would have a 6 month life span on it (assuming Italy will honour that). Hell for that matter I believe there's a German rigger there and their repacks are good for longer too (again assuming Italy honours the longer period). If you run out in Dec why not have your trip co-incide with the Christmas Boogie Empuria is having.
  5. Ok, I can see how that can read "substantially lower... than if you were a felon". I read it "substantially lower... than in the UK". Fair enough if you had intended the former. I wonder what percentage of our 68 deaths were criminals? The two reports which started this thread do not contain those statistics. It would be interesting considering how we're always told our gun crime stats are driven by "black on black" shootings and Turkish heroin dealers.
  6. Lets take the figures as you post them - even though you appear to have some concerns about the compiler. If 67.5% of murder victims have a criminal history then 32.5% do not. 32.5% of 11,660 = 3789.5 Remember we had 68 firearms murders in total and are 1/5th the size of the US. 68 x 5 = 340. So your figure of 3789.5 non felon murders is more than TEN TIMES the number of deaths we have if you project our firearms murder rate up to a country the size of the US. And remember that those figures for the UK are TOTAL murder victims - ie including BOTH criminal murder victims and non-criminal victims, a distinction you have failed to account for. If you take those into account the numbers become further skewed. Congratulations; you just disproved your own point.
  7. If skydivers follow propper procedure they check the position of this pin and have a second jumper double check for them before the get on the plane. A further budy check or self check by feel just before exiting the plane is also commonplace. Build it into your paragliding preflight checklist and this shouldn't happen. Or use a teflon cable passed through a section of hard housing before going through the loop of the three ring circus. It would be physically impossible to push the teflon cable too far as it first passes through a section of hard housing which is in itself attached to the tow. You could then have a soft loop on the end of the teflon secured by velcro to the tow below the hard housing, exactly as with a skydive rig cutaway system.
  8. At least he's right though – statistically there is a far greater chance of being shot in the US than here - 34 times more likely in fact. The figures have been posted in the thread several times now. Of course as has been pointed out figures like that have their weaknesses so I'm not making that big a deal out of them... but what he stated is correct, and 34 times is a big difference to account for. Anyway, later chaps - it's Saturday morning and I'm off to the DZ.
  9. Please source your figures as I have done so we all know where each other is coming from. I gave the statistic that 16% of people "fear violent crime". It is true that there is a difference between being injured by and being involved in this kind of crime. The % of people in this country who are involved in violent crime is 4.1% (British Crime Survey 2003/4). Slightly higher than the 2.2 who are sustain at least a minor injury in violent but by far lower than the 25% figure you give. I’ll reiterate: the rate of violent crime is NOT "over 25%" as you suggest. Please source your figures. The figure for involvement in overall crime is 26%. This is at its lowest level since records began more than 20 years ago, having fallen from a high 40% in 1995. The figure you chose to rely on shows crime here is falling drastically! If you want to look at trends in the levels of violent crime that’s cool too - they’re down by 26% since 1997 – the year when we had our guns taken away from us. That’s right, since we lost our guns violent crime fell by 26%. (British Crime Survey 2003/4). My point was merely that perception of crime and actual crime can be very different things. Here in Britain we perceive violent crime to be at 16% when it is actually 4 times lower than that. Quit buying into the lies you are fed by the propaganda in your country, things are not all doom and gloom over here. We are quite happy with the way our laws are working; we do not want to change things drastically and we certainly do not want to arm everyone. Most of all we have no desire to meddle with your gun ownership rights, nor do we have any particular interest in them.
  10. That's why we have em do it by hand. There are plenty of verges here that are never mown - lets set em to it.
  11. Another option would be to look at whatever national advertising ombudsmen you have in the US. I wouldn't have a clue to start looking for the US, nor am I aware of what rules businesses must abide by. If Skyride were operating in the UK they would fall fowl of half a dozen or so laws prohibiting what they're doing and would be stomped on for doing so by one or two non governmental organiseations. The evidence is there for everyone to see in the form of websites. A couple of letters to your advertising ombudsmen would get them looking into the matter. Depending on what the US system is swift fines and a reprimand could follow together with Skyride being required to take the offending websites down.
  12. So go for it. How about someone who really knows the in's and out's of the "scam" writes a stock letter to the USPA voicing concern and asking them to do something about it. Make the letter available to everyone - maybe here as an attachment and invite people to print it out, sign it, stick their USPA number on it and mail it. I may not live in the US but I'm a fully paid up USPA member - you'd have my signature.
  13. Personally I don't have a problem with them being in the market place - they have just as much a right to be there as anyone. My only gripe is with some of the appalling marketing strategies they've adopted, examples of which have been posted here in the past. Things such as stealing copyrighted material, stealing websites lock stock and barrel, passing themselves off as genuine provincial DZ's, lying to potential customers about where they operate, lying to potential customers about who's on their staff, lying about what planes they use, using photographs of planes belonging to other DZ's and claiming they're their own. Whoever it is doing things like that, it tends to leave a bad taste in my mouth.
  14. I'm quite happy to be corrected on this one but um... I would hazzard a guess that some of the skydiving related lens manufacturers probably don't actually make the lens themselves but buy them in and brand them... I'm only guessing here but... given the number of places you can find "low profile" 0.3 and 0.5 lenses, all of which look absolutely identical, and cost within a few bucks of one another, I would suspect we're looking at probably 1 manufacturer that supplies everyone. If that is the case they may not be able to help us with details on exactly how they come up with the numbers on the box.
  15. the problem with that would be that given skyride's current advertising ethos all they would do is steal the photo's of the otter from the website of the orriginal DZ and pass them off as the experiance you would get at their DZ. That's exactly what they're currently doing.
  16. I don't see we can do anything about nor can we complain about their opening up their own DZ's - it's a free country, they're entitled to do so. What they cannot do is advertise using cloned websites, fake locations, misleading adverts as they are doing. Those are the unlawful aspects (if any - I'm no expert on the law they're subject to) of their activities. The USPA has a legal fund. Perhaps they should consider using it. Perhaps DZ's should consider putting in some money to the fund. Perhaps in order to fund the action (and also as an incentive to take the action) they should not only be looking for injunctive relief but also for damages in lost revenue because Skyride is stealing their custom. It really isn't far from reality to expect to recover damages against these shisters given the blatant cloning that is going on and the ease with which documentary evidence could be obtained of the loss of buisness their activities represent.
  17. tandems don't go to a specific DZ because they have an otter or king air. dz's don't make money of fun jumpers - the money is in the tandems
  18. If everyone stopped accepting their certificates they wouldn't get any money. It only requires a little solidarity to make it work. On the other hand it only requires one DZ to keep taking referrals to screw up that plan. Is the USPA on board? What do they think? Do they feel sufficiently placed to send round a circular or are they too afraid of being sued by Skyride? (a real possibility).
  19. mr2mk1g

    Python fans!

    I tell you - they're dirt diving an atmonaulti dive...
  20. Does it count as a "date" if you've just met and still don't know her name in the morning?
  21. Empuriabrava east cost of Spain. Below you the town of Empuria, right on the coast - no roads just canals. Think a modern day Venice laid out in a grid. Mediterranean to one side of you with a coastline stretching off into the distance. To the other side are the mountains. You can see the Pyrenees in the distance.
  22. But that's just so messy - you'd never get the pink vote for it.
  23. Yeah - it's the kicking and struggling that brings the crowds in.
  24. Actually that bit I was serious about. Its a genuine solution to our problem. We don't have the space to build the prisons we need. Purpose built prison ships (static) have been used in the recent past and many are calling for their re-introduction.