flyingferret

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Everything posted by flyingferret

  1. In media veiwing wars, accuracy does not really matter, not in a commercial sense. The people's reactions matter. I dont agree with it, but it drives modern media. The military knows this. they know where all the reporters are in Iraq, you really think vice versa is true. I do not. If you have friends in the forces, talk to them. There is a lot of talk in the back channels, this war is doing just fine. and I think it will go down in the textbooks. -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  2. You mean People for the Eating The Animals? The are busy whining about dolphins in the middle east. If you read fark and know the origin of the ad it is hilarious. Besides, who think that PETA reads skydiving mags? I say kudos. -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  3. This article (which is out of the national review, not of cgrosses creation) sums up my thoughts. Foooey on you and your pessism. I support Bush and the Pentagon and our leadership. The people criticizing his plan have only seen the first 8 days of it, and are not strategists. I choose to trust the people in the know. -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  4. Hoo RAH! Semper Fi and right f#cking on!!! Hold on.... Lee Greenwood is playing somewhere behind me.... -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  5. Yeah, Bill is right, look at New York they took out two building and that did nothing to disrupt our lifestyle /sarcasm off. I think dropping a couple of MOABs in populated areas would be amazing. But I also think it would be sad, and I dont see that being close to the top of our list of options. So if he said six days, six weeks, I guess those were the two finite options? Nothing inbtween or past? -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  6. I no way did I associate spending with strength. The two are linked, but not on a 1:1 ratio. Other things were more harmful, things like the little yellow card. In any case, I have no proble with military spending. Domestic spending is doomed anyway if you do not have the might to enable persistance of your way of life. To answer others about, the long war, do you guys really just regurgitate what the media shows you? The markets were through the roof the first few days, then the media starts saying 'ruh-roh, it might take longer than 48 hours' and everyone starts questioning. If anyone really thought that a ground war could even come close to conquering a state in 2 days, they are incredibly naive, ie the media. You could hardly drive a tank at full speed to baghdad in 2 days. I think for this war being a week old, we are hauling serious ass. Our losses have been tiny, our progress in mileage tremendous, and we now have airbases in both ends of Iraq, one of which had been mothballed since we last used it. It is only just beginning, I think the Pentagon has done a bang up job. -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  7. The CIA has had assets in Iraq for years. Does that mean they shipped in gear in mass and framed the Iraqis? Doubt it, that is not necessary and I dont see how it would benefit us. I truly believe that oil not much of a factor in this one, a positive side effect, yes. But a reason for going in, no. My personal opinion is that the CIA has first hand knowledge of what is going on in Iraq and what they are capable of, that is why we went in. Sadly, we let thousands die when we did not pursue Baghdad a decade ago, because world opinion did not support it. -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  8. Your thoughts are tied into the history of the latter 20th century. There is a large component of historians that think we obliterated our own ideas of winner/loser/wrong/right when we dropped the bomb. The victory was too absolute, shattered American conceptions, etc, etc Long field of study. Anyway, I dont think Bush or anyone else will eagerly push the red button. But i think it has to be an option. At least Derek indicates the usage of threat of force, so much hinges on that, this whole conflict in Iraq was necessary to avoid invalidating the past 12 years of threat of force. -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  9. It depends on the strength of the WMDs. If the quantities are such that they can anniliate our forces and push forth past their borders, well they gotta go. War is hell, literally. The boys over there have my respect, it could get nasty. Or for those of us with religious views, Providence/God might have a bigger plan and disaster will be averted. -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  10. Actually this is a very interesting issue, that I have not seen anyone tackle. 'News' in this day and age is very fluid. Dozens of times have I seen an article updated, reviewed, reworked all at one link over several days. In my opinion, this virtually eliminates accountability for journalists as opposed to paper copy. I think there are some serious ethical issues there, but I have not seen many people bring it up. That does not necessarily apply to the above link, but it got me thinking. -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  11. I think if WMDs were used you would see a massive air campaign with all the air power of the civilized world. One sortie by a wing of b-52s and B-2s can reign hellfire. We have simply been very polite and indeed surgical in our methods. I think that a nuke would be the last choice, as soon as chem/bio weapons come out, you will see thousands of civilian casualties anyway. I only wish we were a little stronger, clintons decade weakened the forces by 50% -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  12. Yeah...ask the Christian Science Monitor reporter that got kicked out
  13. Either way, Foxnews has surpassed CNN in the polls. More people are watching Foxnews than anything else, at least in the US. Erego, someone agrees with it. You want hardcore right....try newsmax :) -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  14. Yeah it has been floating in the back channels for a few days. Just have not seen 'proof' How ominous is the picture on the left of this strip from Foxnews.... -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  15. Well I clicked before judging and was amused...
  16. Well Jim, I see your point. But evaluate both sides. Don't take this the wrong way, but Dave and I are still pretty green jumpers based meerly on numbers. Yet the two of us started together and would literally read anything and everything we can, and still do. Dave is very dilligent in terms of safety. I am not sure about the swooping forum, I don't read it. However, my point in the bringing up the early cobalt thread was that one small mistake can be very damaging. And this shows that even people that are very dilligent and have hundreds of jumps can make a mistake thinking they can better their situation. That being the case, the possible results for less dilligent people are frightening. As I suggested earlier, perhaps the average skydiver has so much faith in the modern equipment that they are trying to do too much in a dive. I am sure next time Dave will pull silver. But my previous statement persists as I ask how comfortable we should really be frequently pulling silver. -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  17. I really dont get that....I was catching up on this thread, and the cobalt/students/beginners thread crossed my mind. Why is everyone so anxious to go small so fast? I realize it depends on the jumper, but I would imagine something very similar could occur on a slightly lower wingloading than yours. -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  18. First off Dave and I already talked about this last night...but once again, glad you are okay. I think all the points raised are good ones, and ones that Dave had already contemplated last night when I talked with him. Here are a few sidebars, that were stirred up by what Nac said: This weekend as I was wondering around the DZ looking at pics, I kinda struck me in a 'non-academic' way how much more dangerous freeflying is than belly (bigway excluded). So I was thinking...man that seems so simple these days; no drastic corking, no high speed premies, etc. Then later that day as I was enjoying my Sabre2 demo, I was perplexed by some of it opening characteristics, ie diving for no reason after opening. One time it dove so bad, I just really yanked the brakes unstowed and flared it out. So I was contrasting this with my old square Sabre. Then David mentions this and Nac talks about raising deployment and decision altitudes. And I tend to agree. Sadly, the USPA guidelines tend to follow the sport, not lead it. Thankfully, we are a self governing group. But think about this: 30 years ago, the equipment could kill you, you had to be pretty alert all the time. Then we gravitated to an nice point with conservative proven squares and really recreational skydiving was pretty easy. Now the pendulum is swinging back. We want to be able to headdown at 180mph, shoot camera, throw out an elliptical, and swoop the grass on fire all in one jump. Is it too much? I am not saying it is or it isn't, but just throughing it out for thought. Freeflying is already raising the breakoff and deployment sequences significantly because of the speeds. Now we have canopoies that can obliterate 1000 feet on a hard spiral. Perhaps we need to shift the bottom end of the jump up, even if that means not doing everything in one dive? Those guys flying recreational 4-ways and landing Spectres have a lot more reason to have an open container at 2000, than we do. Anyway, just my thoughts, not chastizing, I think discussions like this make us all better jumpers. -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  19. I guess will throw my 2 cents in on this, not sure why. Personally, I think this tragic and I regret her death. I am glad the state department is asking for an investigation. So why are we arguing? the matter is being investigated. That being said: http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/transcripts/2003/mar/030317.banse.html Nothing in this world guarantees you safety, and this obviously was cause with some risk involved. At least some reports indicate that she lost her footing and disappeared from view. This one is most disturbing: http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Statement_Rachel_Corrie_031703.htm If I was driving the bulldozer and she disappeared from view for some reason, would I have stopped? Probably. But we really dont know the situation here. Look at the pictures..there are other protests right next to her; do you think the driver was actively counting them and determining where they were? I really think this is hard to examine without more info, which we really are not getting in the new right now. Guys, face it, these kind of protest are stand-offs. A game of chicken with a multi ton piece of equipment and huge stakes. In reality these people intend to make it so difficult for the driver to continue safely that he must stop his job. If it became obvious the dozer was trying to proceed, would you really "climb[ed] up onto the mound of dirt and rubble being gathered in front of it"? Because I sure as hell would not. At sometime you have to able to walk away from a bluff. Once again, I think this is sad. And I do not even fault her for protesting. However, I do think that her last actions were foolish and put her in an extraordinary amout of risk. Was it her choice? Did she think it was worth the risk? Obviously her actions answer those questions. I still it was foolish. -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  20. okay, I was one year off http://www2.acc.af.mil/accnews/jun01/01198.html You still get the point. -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  21. Furthermore, if it determined not to be him, that in and of itself does not mean anything. I hope the strike was succesfull, time will tell. In any case, reports indicate very little structured response to our attacks indicating lack of communication with the level of officers that were in that bunker. -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  22. Silly skydiver...bump the thread with the poll. That thread was about determining the options for the poll here,....although the winner seems obvious. http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=386866#386866 -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  23. Nice pic of pilots They seem very distraught
  24. US Forces (edit: near) capture Basra http://www.news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=339432003 Turkey okays use of airspace http://www.news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=339432003 -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.
  25. Actually, right link, but wrong commercial. The one referenced is: STILTSKIN Inside (4:22) ((P)1993 P.Lawlor) -- All the flaming and trolls of wreck dot with a pretty GUI.