mr2mk1g

There's a jumper at my home DZ with a sky-blue main canopy. Against a nice blue sky it's... well... the same colour, it being sky-blue and all. It gives a very good impression of looking at a guy floating thought the air with nothing out. If it's a nice clear day you really have to look hard to see what the hell is going on... especially when he's up at 2-3k.

By virtue of the 1957 Geneva Conventions Act, English courts have universal jurisdiction to hear cases against people accused of breaches of the Geneva Convention and crimes against humanity. Torture under most circumstances would fall within these powers. Now if it were shown in the US (say resulting in impeachment or a national scandal) that Bush was complicit in, ordered or allowed torture in breach of the Geneva Conventions, English courts (as would many around the world) would then be empowered to take action against him. Indeed the treaties to which many nations subscribe put a positive obligation upon them to pursue such matters voraciously. Also note that there isn't actually a need for these acts to be proven before such charges could be raised over here or elsewhere, only for allegations backed up with evidence. One thing that could happen is if another sovereign state filed international charges against Bush then English courts would be required to arrest and extradite him to that foreign power (assuming we had an extradition treaty with them). In the UK the Criminal Justice Act 1988 incorporated the International Convention Against Torture into national law. This removes our doctrine of non-justicia where we decline to meddle in the internal affairs of foreign powers and instead again puts upon English courts a duty to prosecute in instances of alleged torture or other crimes against humanity. The only thing that would then protect Bush from arrest on arrival in the UK would be his diplomatic immunity as provided by the British State Immunity Act 1978. This however applies only to serving heads of state. Once Bush left office he would no longer be protected by this immunity against such serious charges. Normally he would continue to be protected from ordinary criminal charges conducted during his service as a former head of state. Protection however, is only provided for official acts on behalf of the state. Given that the US is a signatory to several international conventions prohibiting torture, anything done by a head of state allowing such acts cannot properly be said to be an official act on behalf of the state and would therefore not be protected. In addition to this, it has been held that crimes against humanity fall outside of this protection, irrespective of whether or not they were clearly done on behalf of a state which actually does condone torture. As such... if someone out there thought they had evidence that Bush was complicit in the commission of torture in breach of the Geneva Convention... well they could easily bring charges against Bush in English courts once he had left office and have him arrested as soon as he entered the country. Indeed, as I said above, all it would take is charges somewhere else in the world were we have an extradition treaty and the English courts would again be required to act. However here he would not face execution. At most it would be life imprisonment. If a country who did allow execution asked us to extradite him we would refuse to do so unless we were in receipt of a memorandum of understanding clearly stating that they would not execute him regardless of the courts eventual findings. The UK has a policy of not sending people to their deaths in other countries regardless of what they've done. If you're interested further, look up an Israeli called Major General Doron Almog who narrowly escaped arrest last week and also General Augusto Pinochet, who blazed the trail for such charges back in 98 and helped clarify the law which I've outlined above.

I have a problem with any bargains going on over charging unless there is an evidential difficulty which jeopardizes conviction. What is the point of giving an offender a deal on a lesser or fewer charges if they are bang to rights on all the higher charges? It makes no sense – you would have secured conviction anyway. I can not see the point in reducing the number of charges faced by your latino dude if the prosecution felt they were going to convict him on them all. Maybe there were problems with the evidence you didn't know about - maybe not, maybe they're just watching the bottom line. This is supposed to be about punishing guilt not turning a profit. I also have a general unease about plea bargains in on principle, however in practice the system is actually much better off with their existing than not were they disallowed.

So far I've kept all the raw footage on DV tape and when I've finished using clips in edits I burn them as data to DVD's (ie raw AVI's stored on a data DVD). These DVD's can be quite accurately catalogued for easy access to individual clips. This way I have two copies that each cost me roughly the same. I guess I ought to find a reliable buddy and swap DV tapes with him so if either of us ever have a house fire at least one set of copies would survive... the odds of two house fires in short succession are probably acceptable. I'm not exactly a big user yet though. I can imagine this system being a major pain, very time consuming and quite expensive if I were churning though a lot of tapes.

yup. Plus cost benefit. It's worth the cost of buying and installing a box for cars sold to high risk debtors - you end up losing on every box you put in but the savings delivered by those you activate negate that loss. On the other hand it's not worth the cost to buy and install the box on low risk debtors - you wouldn't get to use enough of the boxes to justify the expense of putting them in. Capitalism.

I dunno man, I'd hope even a first timer would notice that they didn't have to do up a backstrap. The guy clearly has some skydiving knowledge... he's either feeding off someone else though or is simply a retard.

Kind of. If he's not acting like an asshole his chances of being [involved in some kind of violent confrontation] are probably comparable to his home town in Spain. His overall chances of being beaten up are (I'm guessing, based on general trends) probably less in Florida than in Spain (although I might be wrong – I've not looked). His overall chances of being shot are however, greater in Florida than in Spain. There are far more shootings in Florida than in Spain... statistically he's more likely to be involved in such an event there than at home. What we are unable to do is say why those people who are shot or beaten up are involved in such events. There is rarely much reliable statistical data on why people are involved in such incidents. It's never their fault after all. It's therefore very difficult to say whether or not acting like an asshole is more or less likely in each country to get him involved in any specific kind of incident over another. I don't think that any of this though has very much to do with this new law nor do I think it's particularly a reason to stay home... but it is a fact of life.

Well, seeing as they operate out of Texas and South Dakota it's probably not that surprising to see them hanging out over the states... Seeing one cruse across an airfield in the South of England at about 8,000ft is a bit more of an event though! I'm joking about reporting them of course - who the hell are we going to complain to, that a military jet over flew a military airbase. Just damn cool to see one of the largest bombers in operation flying over the DZ on a Saturday morning.

I had actually been trying to convey the opposite - with the caveat that the best way to pick it up quickly would be to go take a lesson. Kite surfing kites are often very different to land boarding kites (although I understand that a great many kite surfers simply use land kites because they're good enough to not crash the kite into the sea). Kite surfing kites are not made like parachutes - they are a single skin with inflatable ribs and a large inflatable beam running along the nose. That beam is level with the top surface of the wing but extends lower by some way and thus creates an aerofoil in the same way as say a hang glider. These kites I understand are capable of relaunching from the sea as the inflatable beam and ribs keep it afloat. Land kites are ram air wings and are liable to sink if crashed in the sea. Having never done any actual kite surfing though I don't know quite how quick that would happen... but I can see it being a concern. The answer is therefore quite obvious - use kites with an inflatable rib design for kite surfing unless you are very confident that you're not going to ditch the kite. Cost is very much tied to the size of kite you buy - more so than in the skydiving world. The size of kite you will need will depend on your weight, what you're doing with it and what you want it to do, the model, your experience and skill, and hell a whole lot that I'm not even remotely qualified to advise on. This is again one of the great things you will get from the lesson - a day flying kites will give you and your instructor a good basis for looking at which kite and which size of kite will suit you best.

I was waiting at my home DZ on saturday for our plane to turn up and take us on a demo. While there, a bandit flew straight across the middle of the DZ without a care for who could have been in the air. We tried to get it's number so we could report the guy but didn't manage to take it down in time. The bandit was one of these: http://www.milairpix.com/planes/bone.htm

um... try google: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=.org+parachute+&meta= try variations on the theme I've given you...

What's wrong with the 101? After the 101 features on Sony consumer models started to decline. Not to say that there's anything terribly wrong with the current cameras... but there's certainly nothing wrong with a 101 either... except of course the fact that it's not yours.

You take the splash or the force of the passing omnibus. (yes it's an old rule). I still adhere to it as I'm sure do many. It is the polite thing to do, just as it is the polite thing to hold doors for people etc. It's not gone un-noticed or un-rewarded in the past. I tend to deftly transition from one side to the other by taking a slightly slower step and moving slightly behind my partner before stepping over to her other side. I may do this with my hand ever so lightly touching the small of their back - so they know where I am without having to look and thus drawing attention to what I'm doing. Don't make it obvious - it'll simply make the girl feel odd. I think it's probably worse to do it in an obvious manner than it is simply to not do it. The best way is simply to move from one side to the other as part of the turn to cross the road - kind of like the way planes flying in formation will turn across one another during a turn.

The learning curve is very steep... or at least it was for me anyway. I took a lesson, all of which was pretty obvious and then moved on from there. As the technology is all pretty much the same as in skydiving I simply translate the stuff I already know about skydiving into kiting. I'm still effectively a newbie at it though so I can't really say what I don't know just yet... I might well be talking arse. I know a certain kiting instructor on these forums though - I'll point him to this thread. I'm only talking about the kiting side of things here though - I'm not doing much boarding - not something I've ever been interested in... ya never know though. So far I've just been static flying and what's called scudding... essentially where I'm pulled the lenght of a field at a rather un-nerving rate of knots by the force of the kite. That's rather good fun. And yes it is a really great workout.

Just took it up a short while ago. Great fun. Very much a transferrable skill from canopy flight I believe. Many of the kites really are exactly the same as parachutes - I mean they are litterally almost exact replica's of parachutes in miniature. Whaddaya want to know? I think you're best bet is to go get an hour's lesson with a kiting instructor. They'll cover all the basics and you'll get an hour playing round with a range of kites - you should be able to tell from that if it's something you're going to enjoy.

Hey Dave, how's it going? Give me a call if you want a chat about this or put something in an e-mail/pm for me and I'll let you have my ideas. There are significant rules about the proper format a witness statement should take. Take a look here - http://www.dca.gov.uk/civil/procrules_fin/contents/practice_directions/pd_part32.htm#IDA2Y2RD These are the Civil Procedure Rules which govern all the procedural aspects of how civil claims are handled in UK courts (kinda what it says on the tin). The link should take you to Rule 32 - check out Rule 32.17 and onwards. This should give you the dry text as to what it needs to include and how it should be laid out. If you like I'll write you out a simple statement demonstrating what a civil statement should end up like. Are you thinking of doing this for the civil law or criminal? There could be some very significant differences, although there are a very similar set of rules out there for the format of criminal witness statements. Let me know if you need these. I'm not sure what tack you're planning on taking with this. I remember chatting with you about it a while ago but that was at least a couple of vodka's back - you'll have to refresh my memory. Let me know how in depth you want this program to go etc and I'll help you out with the legal side of things. If you let me know what you want it to be able to achieve (and I guess you might want my input on what's actually feasible) then I'll see if I can fill in the gaps for you. There are plenty of programs out there already which help lawyers deal with the procedural side of things, such as generating letters etc at certain times and reminding the lawyer to do certain things in line within a time scale etc. It sounds like you're looking at going one step further... I need more info though before I'm able to give you anything more specific.

Surely though if things are "now" less about qualifications there must have been a "then" when they were more about qualifications? Has the system been re-designed since "then"? Or was the "then" way of doing things a mistake and we are now doing things the way it was actually intended? And surely if this is "sadly" then you would prefer things to be as they were "then"? Sorry, I feel I'm coming over all facetious again. On a more serious note, when I say "broke" I am referring to the criteria on which the system focuses rather than the strict qualifications required. ie anyone is allowed to be on the Supreme Court and the system intended it to be the most qualified for the post who were appointed... sadly the system is perverted (or "broke") and as such it actually ends up preventing the most qualified from ever being appointed, instead appointing merely the least objectionable.

So essentially you're saying the system's broke'.

I agree completely that many of the skills are transferable; after all, all judges were once lawyers (well, here they were at least). I speak from a country where our top judges were all once merely important appellate judges, and those important appellate judges were once less important appellate judges and one day they were even a newly appointed appellate judge. Only then do we start to see people creaping in from the Bar. It's all based on a system of promotion through numerous ranks, where only the best and most able are promoted to the next level. Then to look across the pond I see that there it's possible to go straight in at the top with only comparable experience as opposed to actual experience, leading those appointing you to guess at your actual ability. It just seems odd to me, that's all. I end up wondering what is so wrong with the pool of appellate judges in the US which makes them so poorly qualified to sit as a Supreme Court Justice.

That's the tricky one. It's also one of the main reasons we have juries. Theres almost always a mental element to a crime and this is always a question for the jury to consider. It is often one of the hardest questions lawyers ever have to put to a jury, especially in situations like this where they are asked to consider what the defendant believed at the time when they acted. Generally you would put to them the information the defendant had available (here that would probably be transcripts) and also how they acted (again mostly transcripts). Perhaps past behavior or subsequent behavior would be relevant. If the defendant was testifying then their testimony of what they believed. Then there would be information about the defendants credit (if admissible dependant on many things, not least jurisdiction). There could be a whole host of information on the point depending on all sorts of things... I'm sure the admissability and relevance of it would be a hot topic between the lawyers too in many cases, but what should be put before the jury will be put before them. Once they have this info and some argument from either side about it, the jury is asked to come to a conclusion about what they think he believed. It's a hard question and legal systems expect a lot of juries under such circumstances but not all jurors stupid... and besides it's the best system I've heard of. [edited to add:] Often this won't be in issue. The whole point of sting operations like this is to let the accused drop himself so heavily in the shit with what he says on record that he's not got anywhere to go. That said... the issue of playing out a fantasy is a difficult one to address as it involves someone acting as if they were talking to a child while secretly knowing they weren't. The very nature of an unspoken fantasy makes it one which would be very hard to deal with. It would certainly be an interesting case... one would just hope everyone got the answer right.

Well that one's alright. I'll let you off on that one. But the fact is that the principles surrounding attempt go back to the time when we were one country and the legal reasoning on the point ought to be common to all common-law systems. I see no difficulty with charging him with attempt, the principal should be the same. The only caviat I add to that is there may be some quirk of the US legislation on kiddy fiddling that mean you can be guilty of a "thought crime" and thus the police would not need to use attempt chrages... but that's not to say attempt charges wouldn't work were they used.

You can take a horse to water but if it just wants to eat sand there's not always a lot you can do about it. Read this post: http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1857828#1857828 Hell there's even a nice case study and the clear-cut statement: "...what he has actually been charged with is attempting to solicit sex with a minor. The physical act of this is soliciting sex with someone who he believes to be a minor. The fact that the person isn’t actually a minor doesn’t stop him being guilty of the attempt to do so..." How you can still be confused about whether or not he can be guilty of soliciting sex with a minor where no minor is involved is beyond me. You don't need a minor present to attempt to solicit sex from a minor. You do need a minor to actually solicit sex from a minor. So the answer is, don't charge them with actually soliciting sex from a minor - just with attempting to solicit sex with a minor. Unless as I indicated earlier there is something peculiar about US law.

I personally agree with you and I think that the majority of those I call my friends would agree with you. I can't speak for everyone though... but I certainly don't think its accurate to say that "nobody" would be jumping if it were completely safe. ...although the risk element does serve as a mechanism to keep a lot of the knobs out of the sport who otherwise end up degrading many other activities out there.

I know - just as a lifetime of working as a lawyer does not equate to experience as a judge. Of course the answer in my little analogy really ought to be "d" – I just couldn't resist making a joke so went with "Dave". My example may be facetious, but it's there to make a point. I just find it really odd that the system is set up to put people with no judicial experience into the highest judicial post in the country. No matter how you cut it that is just down right odd.

If you're not bothered by jurisdiction or wish to do some kind of comparative study I can provide some from the UK. If you're only interested in US law though they're not likely to be of much use to you.