Nightingale

Because whether they're US citizens or from somewhere else, human beings are still human beings. I'd rather risk being attacked than to go out and attack someone because they MIGHT hurt me. If a citizen does that here, it's called assault (or murder!). You have to be in imminent danger of being harmed. Why is it okay for the government, but not the private citizen? If you attack someone because they might attack you, there will definitely be an attack, and somebody (the other party, or you yourself) is going to get hurt. If you are at risk for an attack, but do nothing until you are absolutely certain that an attack is imminent, there may never be an attack at all.

The argument that I heard was that Geneva didn't apply because the prisoners were not POWs and they were not strictly civilian. They were saying that because they couldn't pigeon-hole the prisoners neatly into one of those two categories, that Geneva didn't apply, because the people that are imprisoned are not the people covered by the convention. Both the US and Iraq are signatories to Geneva. Geneva applies to conflicts between nations. There's not a lot of ground to argue that Geneva doesn't apply, other than arguing over the exact status of the prisoners. The problem there is the Article I quoted. Geneva is pretty thorough, so it's got me wondering if the people claiming Geneva doesn't apply have actually read the conventions. The people talking "enemy combatants" are relying on the third Geneva convention, which is the one people are most familiar with (and in that case, in some situations, they may be right and Geneva 3 may not apply. It's rather specific about who is considered a soldier/militia member/army member, etc. Read article 4 of Geneva 3 if you're interested in the exact definition). However, the convention covered everybody else who is being held by a nation that they are not a citizen of during a conflict or occupation (hard to argue that we're not involved in a conflict) under the fourth Geneva convention, article 4, which I quoted in my first post. Hope that helps. Let me know if you want more info, and I'll go dig it up. I wrote a research paper on some of this stuff last semester.

She's a fanfiction author that lives in Venice Beach. I met her when I lived just south of Venice. If you've seen the movie, you probably know who I'm talking about.

But... But... they're not POWs! They're "enemy combatants" (whatever the hell that is) and not covered under Geneva. Please, tell me how this: "Art. 4. Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals." doesn't cover those guys.

did you ever see trekkies and trekkies2? (they're documentaries.) Hehe. yep. I actually know somebody that was in Trekkies.

They're not just ferrets, they're your fur-friends and part of your family. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I'm so sorry for your loss.

OMG... they've got John De Lancie (Q from Star Trek) and Gary Jones (Walter from Stargate SG1)! ok. I admit it. I'm a sci-fi geek.

huh? I'm probably missing something, but my tabby cat is quite fond of Irish beer and German beer. No idea if he likes British beer, as I've never bought any or gotten any close enough to the cat for him to sneak a taste.

What if they could be disabled in a premier members view of the forum (like the way you can turn signatures on and off, but only available to premier members)? That would add value to premier membership, and also give people a way to put their money where their mouth is. It seems like seeing the ads aren't the problem... it's that people don't want ads placed in their posts, because there's no way to tell whether it was a product endorsement or an artificially added link. Allowing premiere members to disable seeing these links wouldn't change that the links are included in those users' posts anyway.

Well, if I were shopping for a used canopy, I'd consider #6, #4 if I was desperate, and wouldn't consider purchasing the other two, even if I had to pay a couple hundred dollars more.

Give people the option of how they want to support the site. Give premiere members the option of disabling keywords. There aren't a ton of premiere members in comparison to the number of people who use this site (not even counting all the lurkers that haven't registered).

A knee to the face can be quite effective when used on the unsuspecting.

Well, if you miss more than 5, they drop you from the class with a failing grade. Otherwise, I'd be cutting a LOT more classes.

Well, given what you'll save on VAT and overseas shipping, a plane ticket and a stay in the bunkhouse may well be cheaper.

If you pick it up at Perris and fly it back with you, you'll probably avoid VAT. You will have to pay california state sales tax (about 7.75-8%). If you have it shipped to someone outside of california, you'll avoid sales tax, but pay shipping fees, which could be more expensive. I was looking into having my mom buy it (she was contributing some anyway), and getting it shipped to her Utah address. Shipping would have cost more than the sales tax on the rig (but it was a used rig), so I just picked it up at the DZ.

I'd love to but: 1. my reserve needs a repack, so I can't jump right now 2. I've got this really annoying little thing called law school on Monday. I'd cut class, but I've already cut that class 3 times.

A not-so-bright guy that's surrounded himself with evil and misguided advisors.

Since some of the paying members seem to have a strong dislike for it... What about giving paying members the ability to disable that feature in their posts, since they are supporting the site in another way? I'm guessing this would probably be really difficult to do, though.

I'll be at Perris (wind tunnel!) on saturday, but not on sunday.

Um... were those cops uniformed or plainclothes? Normally, I would intervene in something like this, and have...turned out the kid was screaming "you're not my daddy" at his adult older brother who was trying to remove him from a toy store. I was on my way in, said "if he's not your dad, who is he?" and got "*sniff* my brother *sniff*" and I said "just checking." and walked away. I would have been very worried about that little boy if I hadn't asked, though. I didn't hesitate to ask mainly because oftentimes just walking up and saying "hey, what's going on?" will get the guy to drop the kid and split, because you can now identify both him and the child, you're in a public place, and the guy wasn't looking for a confrontation with an adult. However, if there was a cop around, I would expect him to do the intervening and figure that if he wasn't getting involved, there was probably a very good reason (set-up or whatever). In that case, I would be on my cell phone to the cops.

You had me fooled for a minute. I thought you might actually have something educational to say about endocrinology but this is just hilarious. Is this really the sense of reality that we're battling against? I think what he's trying to say is that the default gender of a fetus is female, and requires the presence of certain hormones to make it male. This is why we sometimes have women who are XY, genetically male, because they either couldn't produce the hormone or are not sensitive to it.

What about keeping the keyword the same color as the regular text (less visually distracting than turning it purple, especially if the link has nothing to do with the post), but having an underline to let people know that it's a link? Edit: also, perhaps for forums such as Speaker's Corner, the keyword feature for icon could be disabled, as it's unlikely we'll be discussing gear there, and very likely that the word will come up in other contexts. Or, just use the keywords in the skydiving related forums rather than Bonfire and Speakers, where most of the discussion is non-skydiving related.

The auto-clicky to Aerodyne is pretty cool, but the Icon one seems to be a little problematic, because icon is a word with other meanings, and a lot of times, the clicky doesn't make any sense, and when words happen to end in the letters -icon, it makes half the word clicky and puts a capital "I" in the middle. For example: emoticon

A broken bone isn't really a disability, at least, not in the long-term way people usually think of "disability." I could see people talking about hardware, and when you can jump after a broken bone and stuff like that in a medical forum.

Identical twins don't have the same fingerprints either. Reading that article, I started to wonder if Adam is transsexual, as he identifies so strongly with girls, to the point of stating he wishes he was born a girl.