GeorgiaDon

Thanks for doing that Michele. I guess the internet (or is it internets?) really is just a giant game of "operator". However, not being one to let a few inconvenient facts get in the way of a good rant (after all, I am a professor myself!), I'd point out that this isn't the only such story out there, many visitors to NO were caught in the situation descibed (including a Swedish member of parliament who I doubt is a complete dumbass, and a nurse from Saskatchewan I heard on NPR this morning, who definitely didn't sound like a lobotomy patient). I still think that any reasonable evacuation plan needs to take into account that there will be lots of visitors with no mode of personal transportation. Can the airlines/rental car companies/buses take care of them all? On really short notice? I doubt it. The fact that there was no plan should be a wake-up call to every city that promotes itself as a conference/tourism destination (which would be about all of them I think). Notice that I'm not blaming Bush. Actually it's not really about blaming anyone, it's about recognizing that this was a major screw-up that doesn't need to be repeated elsewhere. Plan the dive, dive the plan applies here. I doubt that dumping on hapless tourists who find themselves strangers in a strange land in the midst of a crisis is going to prove a very useful approach. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

This is addressed to everyone who has been blaming "the professor" for his predicament, not specifically just to rickjump1. The professor was in New Orleans for a CONFERENCE not an "adventure". New Orleans promotes (promoted?) itself as a conference and tourism destination. At any time there are several thousand conferees/tourists from out of town in the city. Almost all have flown in. So what do you think would happen in any city in the world if every out-of-town visitor shows up at the airport at the same time and demands a seat on a departing flight? Is there any city anywhere that requires airlines to hold enough seats open to evacuate all the visitors? Same for car rental companies, can you imagine how they would squeal if they were required to have available at all times enough cars to accommodate everyone who needs to leave? Take the bus? Train? Same issue. Not everyone can afford the luxury of having their own private helicopter on standby in case they need to "get out of Dodge" on 2 hours notice. Comparing a large city full of out-of-town visitors with no personal means of transportation to a private company evacuating their own people from oil rigs is just silly. Some have suggested, in other threads, that those without transportation should have started walking. Leaving aside the wisdom of attempting to hike at least 100 miles in a category 4 hurricane (and the storm was still hurricane strength for over 150 miles inland), in this case people did try to walk out, and they were blocked and threatened with being shot if they didn't turn back. Enough with blaming the professor, and the other thousands of tourists and conferees who found themselves trapped in the same situation. They were abandoned by everybody who had any authority, power, and responsibility to help them. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Christina I'm sure you could go to any DZ and they'd be happy to let you camp out in the hanger for a couple of days. We had people come up from Florida last year to do that. Has your DZ moved their plane(s) yet? Maybe you could hitch a ride. Once Katrina hits you won't be able to do anything to save your house anyway, you really need to get yourself out of harm's way. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

No worries. I sometimes suffer from foot-in-mouth syndrome myself. I learned something myself while looking those numbers up, so thanks for that. All I ask is mutual respect between people and (by extension) countries. Ultimately I think we're all on the same side here. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Skydyvr, your education is sadly deficient. Here is a brief synopsis of Canadian participation in miltary conflicts since the mid-20th century. WWII: Entered war Sept 10 1939. Canadian troops served in every theater of the war (Europe, North Africa, Pacific, Southeast Asia. 42,000 military fatalities, 50,000 wounded population at the time: 11 million (Note: the US didn't join the war until Dec 1941. Although US casualties (dead and wounded) totalled about 600,000, the population at the time was 129 million, so Canada contributed more and suffered more loss in relation to the size of their population.) Korean War: 26,971 Canadian troops served; 516 killed in action Gulf War I: 1,914 Canadian troops served Bosnia-Herzegovina: Approximately 40,000 Canadian troops served during conflict and in subsequent peacekeeping roles Afghanistan: During conflict 2,250 Canadian troops in theater Subsequently the Canadian contribution to peacekeeping operations has ranged from over 2,000 troops to the current level of about 900. Lets see, what's missing? Oh yeah, Vietnam and Iraq. One based on a failed geopolitical theory (the Domino theory), and the other based on an incredible "intelligence failure". Frankly I'm not sorry that we missed out on those two. Anyway your statement that "those countries [meaning Canada among others] don't do jack shit to try and stop the world from becoming a totally dark, rotten place place to exist" is complete shit. What is truly sad is that this sort of ignorant drivel is all too common amongst Americans. Not just the general public, but even your politicians (including Presidents) who really should know better. And no, the "ugly American" isn't just about tourism, it's about the whole attitude that only America and Americans matter and the rest of the world doesn't count for anything. Incidentally the earlier comment that Canada hasn't suffered a terrorist attack is not correct. Canada suffered the worst terrorist attack in history up until 9/11, when Sikh terrorists blew up Air India flight 182 on June 23 1985. This flight originated in Toronto and it was headed to London (and from there to India) when it exploded off the coast of Ireland. All 329 aboard, most of them Canadians, were killed. Matters could have been worse, as at the same time a bomb was planted on another Air India flight from Vancouver to Tokyo, but due to a flight delay the bomb exploded on the ground in Tokyo (killing two baggage handlers) rather than going off in midair during the Tokyo to India leg of the flight. I've noticed that American "terrorism pundits" tend not to mention this incident, probably because it doesnt't fit the American agenda as it didn't involve Islamists. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Squeal like a ... moose? fake, antlers like that haven't been seen since the Pleistocene (Irish Elk). Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Unfortunately it isn't very hard to find therapies that kill cancers in tissue cultures, and even in live mice, but most of these fail when you go to clinical trials. Years ago I worked on several plant compounds that looked great in the lab in tissue culture experiments, but in mice they either did nothing, or in some cases they killed the mice rather unpleasantly. Whole organisms are very complex, they have enzymes that metabolize and excrete toxins (the body sees all drugs as toxins), they have immune systems, tumors continue to mutate so therapies that worked for a while may fail, etc. Despite all these hurdles your chances of surviving most cancers are better now than ever because "armies" of researchers continue to plug away at the job. The AAV-2 approach may turn out to be a useful one, but it will take years of lab and clinical trials to find out. At this point some things don't quite add up. Supposedly 80% of the human population has this virus already (according to an interview with Dr. Meyers on CNN). The virus is obviously moving from person to person efficiently (otherwise it would be much rarer), which means the second virus that it needs to replicate is also common. Despite this there is nothing like 80% of the human population that is immune to getting cervical, breast, prostrate, and squamous cell cancers. Obviously things don't work the same in people as they do in lab experiments. Maybe the reasons can be found and fixed, maybe not. If not you shouldn't ascribe it to some evil worldwide conspiracy without having much better evidence. This is a good example of why people should keep their mouths shut until the research data is peer reviewed and published. Unfortunately all universities and hospitals are busy chasing donor dollars, and a cure for cancer is unbeatable for opening peoples wallets. All these institutions have publicity departments now that release this kind of half-baked information, and they don't give a damn about the damage that they do. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I have always been very careful to have legal status to work in this country. Universities also tend to be very anal about this as they can lose their eligibility to receive federal research grants if they employ "undocumented" people. I was at the University of Arizona when Clinton signed the "The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. From the Snopes article: "This "welfare reform" legislation, signed by the President on 8/22/96, ...also terminated SSI eligibility for most non-citizens. Previously, lawfully admitted aliens could receive SSI if they met the other factors of entitlement. As of the date of enactment, no new non-citizens could be added to the benefit rolls and all existing non-citizen beneficiaries would eventually be removed from the rolls." It was clear under that law that I had to pay SSI tax but would not be able to collect anything when I eventually retired. Some of that was reversed by the provisions contained in the Balanced Budget act of 1997, so if you are legally employed and you pay into the SSI system you are entitled to eventually collect from it. This seems to be the basis for the (rather misleading) question/answer, regarding immigrants, in the first post of this thread. Really, my initial comment was directed more to the disgusting tactics employed by some to twist and distort issues of basic fairness towards immigrants (and other groups of people), so as to use them to attack Democrats. That some are willing to screw over anybody to promote their political ideology is shown by some of the responses to my comment (not yours Itdiver, your comment was fair and I agree with it totally). And by the way, Ron, if you move to Canada or any other civilized country and have legal status there, you are entitled to health care and other benefits. I will apply for US citizenship as soon as I am eligible (September). When I can vote, do you think my choice might be influenced by who was willing to screw me over, and who treated me fairly, when I had no (political) voice? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I have been working in the USA and paying social security taxes since 1990. Is it your arguement that I should not be able to collect benefits although I have been legally forced to pay into the system? _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

The Washington Post began publishing articles based on tips from Deep Throat in August 1972. It was only because of the pressure from the press that a special prosecutor (Cox) was eventually appointed on May 18 1973. If Felt had not leaked info to the press there would never have been a special prosecutor to investigate things, and Nixon and his gang would probably have been able to cover the whole thing up. Remember that the attorney general (Mitchell) and Felt's boss (Grey) at the FBI were both actively involved in the initial plot and/or the cover-up. Felt knew that Grey was assisting to destroy evidence. So who exactly should Felt have gone to? Your suggestion that he save his testimony for Cox makes no sense. _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Well I had actually hoped to get some serious discussion from some of the creationist-leaning types who post here. Too bad. Kennedy, I think you're partly right that well-adapted parasites don't do overt damage to their hosts, but there are lots of exceptions. Some of it has to do with how the parasite gets transmitted to new hosts; sometimes the pathology results from the mechanism the parasite uses to move from host to host. For example smallpox never evolved to be less virulent because it has to form pustules to shed virus and get transmitted. Similarly ebola is transmitted by contact with infected blood, so making you bleed is critical to the propagation of the virus; a mutant ebola that didn't do that would not get transmitted and that strain would be trapped in the host, it would die out when the host died. Another strain that made you produce lots of virus-laden blood would probably be transmitted to lots of new hosts so a few generations down the road you would only find the virulent strain persisting. Of course if it killed you too quickly it also wouldn't be very efficient, it's better (for the virus) if you bleed out over a month than if you kick the bucket in two days. The example I gave the other day (Chagas' Disease) takes about 30 years to kill you, that's about 3,000 generations for the parasite, so it's like us living for 75,000 years (25 yrs/generation) on an island before ruining the ecosystem so the island becomes uninhabitable. Of course that whole 75,000 years some people will sail off every year to colonize new islands, so by the time the island becomes uninhabitable the islanders will have millions of descendants all over the place. My issue here wasn't whether or not bad things happening proves or disproves the existance of a God. The issue is that God must have made those bad things in the first place, if the creationist paradigm is correct. _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Well now i'm a college professor and I hear this all the time, and I often wonder who's version of "reality" applies here. I've able to get to the DZ once in the last three months because, between running a research lab, supervising several graduate students and technicians, writing grants to generate the funding to keep them all employed, writing and publishing papers, reviewing other peoples manuscripts and grant proposals, oh and yes teaching undergraduate and graduate courses, I just don't seem to be able to get it all done in less than 60-70 hrs/week. All the other college professors I know personally work at least as hard. So if your reality includes weekends off so you can jump or whatever, I'll take your "reality" thank you very much. _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

So if I have read the article correctly this guy put the gun to his head and appeared to pull the trigger. If I witnessed that and wasn't given a heads-up before hand I would have been extremely traumatized. You might consider that, at pretty much any University of any size, there are a number of real suicides every year. It seems clear to me that the intent, or at least the effect, of this piece of "performance art" was to scare the shit out of anyone who wasn't in on the "joke". But then again, they did use a gun so I suppose that makes it all OK. _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

One last thing while I'm on this rant. One of the diseases I work on (Chagas' Disease) is caused by a parasite that will infect you when you're a kid, silently move into your heart, and gradually destroy it. You won't know you've got it until 30 or 40 years later when you can't walk up a flight of stairs any more. A few years later you'll drop dead when your heart explodes. If you're lucky. In some people it destroys the colon so they can't shit. Eventually you die when your colon bursts and you get massive sepsis. Or maybe it will destroy your esophagus and you'll have to be fed through a tube for the rest of your life. About 18 million people in South and Central America have this. It kills about 200,000 a year. No cure, no drugs, no vaccine. I could quote as bad or worse for any number of other diseases. Malaria kills between 1 and 3 million people a year. What's my point? Evolution can easily account for this. We're just food to organisms that can resist our immune defenses. Of course over time parasites will evolve to use us like that. On the other hand suppose creationism is true? Why would any God intentionally create such monstrous diseases? I am serious with this question, I have wondered many times how a divine God could even permit this to happen. But y'all want me to believe that He/She/It did it ON PURPOSE? CREATED IT? Please please please explain this to me, so whenever I have to tell a grieving mother that her baby is dead of malaria I can explain why it had to happen. end rant _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

The condensed version of evolution by natural selection: 1) The phenotype (physical structure) of living organisms is largely determined by the genotype (underlying genetic structure). 2) Organisms produce many more offspring than normally survive to reproductive age. For example your average fly can produce several thousand baby flies (maggots) in its life. If they all survived to adulthood and all also produced thousands of maggots, within a decade or so they would comprise the total mass of the Earth. That doesn't happen. In fact, in a steady-state population each female produces on average one adult female (and maybe one male). That is an average; in reality some produce more and some none at all. 3) Some phenotypes (and hence genotypes) tend to be more successful at producing offspring that survive to also reproduce thenselves. Over time the population will come to be made up mainly of these more successful genotypes. 4) The successful genotypes will tend to be those that are better at finding food and mates, can avoid being someone elses food, can resist disease, etc. Each of these postulates can easily be tested experimentally, and all of them have been shown to be true many many times. If evolution is false, then one of these points must be false. So all you creationists out there, which one is it? Is heredity a lie? Do flies secretly produce only one pair of little flies and make it look loke a lot more somehow? Where is the logical flaw? How come "creation scientists" have never disproven one of these points?It seems to me that organisms have to evolve, it's as inevitable as increasing entropy. One mistake people commonly make is reasoning backwards; they start with the end result (humans, for example) and they ask "what are the chances evolution would have produced humans?" This supposes that evolution had some sort of a goal to produce humans. All the theory predicts is that over time genotypes of populations will change because poorly adapted genotypes don't get to reproduce themselves. If you wound the clock back 100 million years and let it run all over again species, genera, phyla would still evolve, but they would end up as a different collection of species today (and it's unlikely that humans would be one of them). Here's a simple analogy for those of you who like to blow things up. You can build a bomb, and enough is known about chemistry and thermodynamics that you can predict the yield and even the size and temperature of the fireball pretty accurately. But you could not predict with any accuracy exactly where every molecule of air in the fireball would go. You couldn't even predict the exact trajectory of every piece of schrapnel. You could only describe the gross behavior of the system as a whole. Does that mean that bombs don't exist? _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I know of two professors at the University of Georgia who jump, me being one of them. Go Skydawgs! _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Thanks for the clarification. I asked here because I thought the information could also be useful to others who are browsing the web site. I'm pretty excited by this tunnel as it is only 3 hrs from where I live, much closer than Orlando. We have a new skydiving club at the University of Georgia and I'm sure we'll have a group to make a visit soon. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

According to the web site for this tunnel, individual flights are not available; you have to have a group to reserve a 30 or 60 min block. Does anyone know the minimum number of people that is considered a "group" for a 30 min slot? Blue ones, Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

A couple of weeks ago I stopped at the Orlando tunnel while on my way to Miami. As luck would have it my new jumpsuit (first one with booties) arrived the day before so I took it with me to try it out. I got to watch some Airspeed tunnel campers, which was an unexpected (and quite amazing) bonus. Anyway I had just 10 minutes booked, in four 2 1/2 minute slots. I went in for the first slot, all stoked from watching Airspeed, and spent the whole 2 1/2 minutes bouncing off the walls while I tried to figure out what to do with my legs. By the 4th slot I could more or less stay in place and manage centerpoint turns. I know I wasn't doing myself any favors by trying out a new jumpsuit and first time with booties, but I found the tunnel a lot harder than I had expected (very humbling but still lots of fun). Do people usually find that it takes a while to get used to flying in the tunnel or do most take to it right away? _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

If you're going to point to the Iranian hostage situation to justify the US's support of Saddam, you might also want to consider why the Iranian revolutionaries were so hostile to the US. American policy for at least 25 years was to unconditionally support the Shaw of Iran despite the fact that he ran an incredibly repressive regime, under which political dissent was ruthlessly crushed and rivals invariably "disappeared". Of course there was a strategic reason for our support: the Shaw was also being courted by the Soviet Union, who needed a warm-water port from which to base their navy. All Soviet ports either freeze over in winter, or else (in the case of the Black Sea) surface ships have to get out past the Strait of Gibralter or the Suez Canal, both under the nose of NATO. This situation limited the effectiveness of the Soviet Navy, so access to an Iranian port would have been a strategic disaster for NATO. Nevertheless, it's yet another example of how US support for ruthless dictators comes back to haunt us. I guess it also shows the difficulty of these policy decisions, where there is really no good choice: either support a ruthless tyrant, or (in this case) increase the risk of war with the Soviet Union. In the 1980's there was a real possibility that an Iranian-inspired fundamentalist Islamic revolution would sweep across much of the Middle East, again threatening our (economic and political) interests. So once again we had little choice but to let it happen or throw our support behind yet another ruthless dictator (Saddam). Maybe it just goes with the territory of being the world's largest economy and military. Still it's worth remembering that things happen for a reason (good or bad), and people don't hate us because they hate freedom. They hate us because all too often we're the "friend of their enemy", the dictators that cause them to live in oppression and terror. Sometimes our surrogates get so far out of line we feel the need to rein them in or get rid of them (as was the case with Noriega). Maybe that's part of the reason for the war on Iraq. What I really don't appreciate is justifying the war based on innuendo, rumor, or deliberate overstatement of suspicions from the "intelligence" services, then trying to change it to a "war of liberation" after the fact. Why not trust people to understand the real reasons? Could it be that this administration doesn't trust the public? If so then it's mutual, I sure don't trust this administration. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Good vibes from Georgia. I had to do the same thing for several years when I lived in Tucson; when Mexico was included in NAFTA then I could just pop down to Nogales, much closer than Alberta. Have you considered going south, you can renew the TN at the Mexican border even if you are Canadian. (That way you could stop at Eloy on the way down and the way back, or head to southern California instead). I never had any trouble but I always got nervous dealing with INS, I guess because they can mess with you so badly if they're having an off day. Now I've got a green card, one more year and I can apply for citizenship. _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

One cutaway so far, at jump number 99. It was the "kindest" sort of situation for a malfunction that I could imagine. I hadn't jumped in a few weeks so I wanted to go solo and open high to play with the canopy. There was one tandem on the load, so the tandem master told me I could go last if I opened at 7,000 feet. The canopy (215 ft2 Falcon) opened with three broken lines on the left side, and started a slow turn that quickly picked up speed. I found I couldn't counter it with the opposite toggle, and when the spin built to the point where the canopy was horizontal with me I chopped it. Under the reserve by 6,000 ft. Kept the handles but lost the freebag. So I had lots of altitude, lots of time, all in all ideal circumstances to experience the first cutaway. _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

If you're ever heading to Florida stop by Monroe Georgia on your way and we can do an all-Canadian 2-way. My folks live in Golden Lake about 45 minutes from Arnprior, so next time I'm up there I should bring my gear. How is Mile High, friendly folk? It's a Cessna DZ isn't it? (but that's OK, it's all good). Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Wendy, I really wish I'd read your reminder about last Thursday. On Friday I went up for a two-way, but on the climb to altitude the wind had picked up some so after opening I found I had little forward penetration. I was barely able to clear the trees, but couldn't make the grass and landed in an ungraded area with knee-high grass. Once I cleared the trees I thought I was fine and kind of relaxed, but I put my foot right into the side of a six inch high ridge of rock-hard Georgia clay. Now I have a broken tarsal bone, a foot the size and shape of a bologna, and about a month to contemplate the merits of a PLF. _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Thanks Bill. Of course skydiver safety is the #1 issue, I was just wondering if the liability issue was even worth considering. I guess it's too rare and unlikely a scenario for DZs to require AADs for this reason. _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)