DrewEckhardt

HERE is he solution While the turbine is more practical, for coolness factor I like the jet version http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSK-Mielec_M-15_Belphegor

kinda shoots a hole in the nationalized health care plan. Public spending on health in the US was about $2000 per capita in 2004 after combining medicare, medicaid, state children's health insurance, and other programs. In 2003, countires like the UK with universal health coverage got by on $2300 TOTAL per capita public and private. Without a profit motive, the government can do better than private industry. I've shipped things via the US postal service for 1/3 the price of Fed-Ex or UPS and gotten better service (shorter wait times and Saturday delivery). The likelyhood of that actually happening is pretty low though. Just compare what you pay for Social security against it's returns (25-50% income replacement) versus the same money going into a 401K (75-100% income replacement with the ability to leave it to your heirs if you spend less)

Same thing that happens when the auto-land system fails on a zero-visibility landing in a comercial jumbo-jet, the computers fail on a newer fly-by-wire model, or your Cypres fires during a swoop. Redundant systems make failures exceedingly unlikely. For example, you can build rotary engines (which have a great power-to-weight ratio for aircraft) with a $100 ECU on each rotor which will run when one or more of the computers have failed. An airframe mounted balistically deployed parachute could be used as a backup too. If the car dies it fires with reefing devices staging deployment until you reach a safe airspeed.

Add drag in the direction you're spinning. That'll rotate you a bit and turn you in the other direction Reaching out with an arm away from the direction you want to turn works. Mostly, you want to be even. Your legs need to be symetrical.

They won't. Their flying-car computer will use GPS to navigate "highways in the sky", communicate with other cars via a mesh network to make traffic flow more smoothly, and have sensors as backups.

Because 1. We live in a post-literate age. People get their viewpoints as 30 second sound bites which real facts don't fit into. 2. The two parties aren't that far apart. Two relatively centrist parties are the inevitable result of a first-past-the-post voting system and addressing the real issues doesn't fit into that scheme. 3. However bad things seem, America could still be the least expensive first-world nation to live in. As long as 94% of us have jobs, most of us own actual houses on land, nearly all of us have cars, etc. there just doesn't seem to be a pressing need to address any of the real problems. The rich have a lot more than the poor; but it's not like most of our poor live in tin shacks with no windows, electricity, or running water. People living below the poverty level have places to live, cars, and free emergency medical care (preventitive medicine would probably be cheaper). 98% of our population even has at least one color television. 4. 1/3 of Americans pay no income tax. They bottom 50% shoulder only 3% of the income tax burden. Even bottom 95% are only covering 43% of the total. Most people aren't paying directly for what our government is doing so they don't have a vested interest in fixing it. The median IQ is 100. People aren't that smart. That said, points 2-4 mean even smart people have reasons to ignore what's going on.

The demand is season. Gear manufacturers can either 1. Hire new employees to meet the demand, train them, lay them off at the end of the busy season. or 2. Hire enough people to handle the average year's production. #2 is nicer to the employees, has lower training costs, requires a smaller factory, and is apparantly compatable with the skydiving market (the rigs with the longest waits are often the most popular inspite of that delay).

Buying a used rig is usually a better idea unless you have a really odd body shape/size, and even then you may be better off getting a harness resized or a new one made.

Some of my friends golf and I'm not at all interested in where they chased those silly white balls around or what sort of new driver they got to whack their balls. I don't care that I don't know what an eagle or bogie is, let alone what happens when you double them. I'd say skydiving is pretty much the same, except it's not. Skydiving is worse because it's about paying lots of money to dress up in goofy suits, go for plane rides with no seats where people fart on you, hold hands, and fold laundry. Golf is pretty much only interesting to people who golf. Skydiving is pretty much only interesting to people who skydive. You might end up with an especially supportive spouse who takes pictures on the ground or have a hang-gliding co-worker who wants to fly birdman suits although anything more is unlikely.

Not at a skydiving wingloading. Might be fun to try under a big accuracy canopy with a beach landing. Not if the risers came from a different rig. I have sets of risers where both have an RSL ring, and some rigs have the RSL connection on the other side so just hasving the RSL ring on the right side isn't a guarantee things are setup right. You also have to worry about twists in the risers which you can't see. Any time you swap canopies you want to unpack (I chopped one where I just moved over the risers and packed D-bag), use your D-bag, and do a continuity check. Laying the canopy out on its side (like you were doing a flat pack) and running the outer lines up to the canopy is the most idiot proof. Repeat with the nose pointing left and the nose pointing right. .7 pounds per square foot are enough to give you a spiral tibia/fibula fracture, nerve damage, and if you're unlucky (I avoided this one) put your leg bones through your skin. On a straight-in landing going forwards. You don't want to complicate things by flying backwards.

As opposed to a 45 year old Cessna which only holds 3-4 other fat guys and has the next guy's rig resting on your nut sack? I don't think so. It's big and has a licensed copy of the 1820 Wright Cyclone (as used on the B17 and first DC-3s) up front. The problem is that non-experimental imports would do horrible things to the values of American and Canadian propellor driven cargo and brush planes. Why buy a million dollar C208 when a $30K AN2 will haul more freight? Why buy a Beaver for $400K when you can get more cargo and better STOL performance for 1/10th that? So they're experimental only, which precludes flight for hire (one Alaskan pilot actually got in trouble for buying one to haul his personal crap instead of paying local brush pilots) and parachute operations. Obviously, turbines climb faster and are more fun.

No, I like my PD reserve and reserve pack jobs a lot. With enough altitude I cutaway, get right side up, relax, take a short delay, and then deploy a bit head-high. If I don't know where I am I just pull both handles in sequence. Seems to work fine that way too.

13, which was when I got my own rig.

Actually, it doesn't. Collectively the lower income half of our country only shoulder 3% of the tax burden. The bottom two quintiles each have an average tax rate that's negative due to refundable credits. Income tax revenues from the bottom 95% only cover 43% of the total collections. Most people do not directly bear the burden of government waste and that's the problem. Want optional goodies? Pony up. Want a $150B stimulus package? With about 125M returns filed each year that'll be costing you $1200 if everyone else agrees and $2400 when only half the country does. Want to keep fighting in Iraq? Make a $100 or $200 month direct withdrawl until it ends. Until something like that happens, people are going to continue voting to spend other peoples' money.

That's fucking awesome!!! How long have you had it? About eight months. Literally speaking it does not stink.

We bought a Cat Genie to avoid the problem. It scoops the poop, liquifies the mess, pumps it into the toilet, washes its non-absorbant cat liter with odor-neutralizing sanitizing solution, and blow-dries the litter so your kitty doesn't get wet feet. We have ours programmed for once a day, but you can increase that or activate it manually when your cat doody is unusually smelly. http://www.catgenie.com/ The Cat Genie is by FAR my favorite labor saving gadget.

I pass two gas stations on my way to work. One has gas for the same $4.32 they've been charging for at least a month. The other is $3.65 and five cents less if you pay cash. I don't see many people fill up at the more expensive station.

Public schools in America reflect the local populations' wishes, and are often paid for by the same population. I lived in a yuppy breeding ground where 95% of the graduating class was college bound. I finished with 27 hours of college credit including a couple semesters each of calculus, physics, computer science, and English liteature; art projects in sculpture and photography; and practical experience in car repair, electronics, and drafting. In another school in the same district they had problems offering advanced placement classes because the parents claimed it was "unfair to their normal children" Annecdotally, inner city schools were worse. There isn't "one culture" in America. Most of the people I know are professionals and both them and their kids take school pretty seriously.

Samurais open wonderfully. Like any elliptical things will get exciting if you have bad body position when you open or don't deal with issues promptly, but they're not like Stilettos. They fly fine too.

Only if you place a much higher value on mostly white Americans than mostly brown foreigners.

Aparantly, Obama is the Anti-Christ too. When I got back from the store on Sunday my across-the-street neighbor hollered at me and asked what I thought about "Obama being the Anti-Christ" I said "That's OK, he's still better than McCain" That night at 11 some one threw a bunch of eggs at one of our Obama-poster containing windows. Could be that you don't have to wait for the next life to be punished for supporting Obama.

Because it affects us personally more than anything except higher taxes (and maybe the devalued dollar, although historically I've spent a lot more time at gun ranges than travelling abroad). Places with liberal carry laws don't have as many home invasions and restaurant take overs. During natural disasters, riots, and economic collapses the police are under no obligation to protect individuals. You can give up your food, water, and property to anyone stronger or protect yourself with guns. My favorite guns have to stay in another state because the bed-wetters in California are afraid of black guns and I don't want to see that happen in the rest of the country. Given what's happened in California (which is usually a bellwether for the rest of the countr, as in the Clean Air Act of 1970, bans on public tobacco use, etc) and other English Colony/Commonwealth countries like Australia and Canada that's probably reasonable. Actually, I'd have more fun jumping off big cliffs in National parks than shooting my guns but the nanny state won't let me. You gotta cling to what you have left.

Frexer failing to provide a quality product for the price doesn't demonstrate that. It just shows that they aren't providing a quality product. The low price just means they're more likely to stay in business doing it. I talked with Tony in Quincy one year. He said that they could sell inexpensive jump suits (under $100) sewn by women in some Central or South American country (it's pushing 10 years ago) but that wouldn't be nice to the other skydivers running jumpsuit businesses so they wouldn't. I had one really nice suit (for example, there isn't a single shoulder seam - the stripes are sewn into the suit instead of being apliques so you don't have a seam underneath your rig yolk) built for $40 in materials and under $200 labor to a local rigger who was starting to design and build jumpsuits. Sending that money someplace where $200 a month is a generous wage for skilled labor as opposed to some hours of rigging/construction could have netted the same thing for a lot less even if I had to pay for shipping.

You're stuck with it regardless of whether the Democrats or Republicans win. Defense spending and the Wall Street bailout are both huge Socialist programs. Bush 43's discretionary non-defense spending increases eclipsed Carter and Clinton's.

Screw the synopsis, what's the rest of the law read? At the federal level you can end up with a thousand double spaced pages for there to be enough in it for everyone for a bill to get through Congresss. Some state laws are simple. Some state laws aren't.