Nightingale

LOL. It stuck me in the top 1/5 in education and occupation, but didn't take into account the education debt it took to get there (or the fact that I live in California, where the cost of living is ridiculous!).

I hope we didn't kill this thread with math. It was just getting interesting.

What he said.

The shotgun's a 20ga winchester defender.

Okay. To figure this out, we have to first go on the basis of reproductive separateness. For example, a lion and a housecat can't reproduce and have offspring that are either housecats or lions, so we have to treat them as separate species even though they're both basically feline, right? Ditto with houseflies and butterflies. So, working from there, we have: 4260 species of mammals 6787 species of reptiles 9703 species of bird 35,000 species of land mollusks 1,000,000 insects 44,000 arachnids That's a total of 1,093,750 species, and those are only todays modern species. I'm not including dinosaurs or anything that's already extinct, like the dodo or tasmanian tiger. As the bible gives numbers ranging from two to seven of each, that's more than 2,187,500 animals. And then, we've got to worry about what to feed the carnivores.

"When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday - no matter what happened Tuesday." -Colbert

Ditto. Kristin Koenig B-26984

Format C:

Yeah, yeah...but some of us want to be able to do office stuff AND play games... Yes, but you can run windows on the intel macs. I don't know why anyone would actually want to do that, tho.

Don't buy a dell.

Four. The ellipsis and a period indicating the end of a sentence?

I'd be slightly off the coast of Madagascar.

Don't ask me, ask your doctor. I'm just passing along stuff I learned from friends with depression.

You're absolutely right. Exercise causes an increase in serotonin levels and can help correct an imbalance, but if the imbalance is severe, exercise is often insufficient.

Sure, people can be depressed without brain chemistry issues, but it's usually temporary. Someone with normal brain chemistry can usually pull themselves out of a rut. Someone without normal brain chemistry has trouble, and remains stuck. Some articles have identified traumatic experiences as a possible trigger for alterations in brain chemistry, along with biolology and genetics. From Vanderbilt.edu Study finds brain chemical cycles get ‘stuck’ in depression May 27, 2005 Ronald Salomon, M.D., has produced a more complete view of brain chemicals and how their shifting levels relate to depression. by Clinton Colmenares Scientists have studied serotonin and dopamine and their roles in depression for decades, taking snapshots of the chemicals as they ebbed and flowed. But the pictures never completely told the entire story; they never showed changes in the chemicals' levels. Ronald Salomon, M.D., associate professor of Psychiatry, literally tapped into people with depression. By gathering spinal fluid via catheters every 10 minutes over a 24-hour period, he revealed a more complete view of the waves of brain chemicals that push and pull the disease. The fluids were collected during a depressive episode and again after five weeks of antidepressant medication, and showed that brain chemical levels don't rise and fall normally in the disease — they're “stuck.” Dopamine, generally, activates instinctual behaviors, is involved in cravings, addictions and reward systems and has a role in independent, goal-oriented behaviors. Serotonin fuels calm, sedate moods, decreases impulsive behaviors and assists with socializing. Dopamine and serotonin typically flow and fluctuate independently, balancing each other over time. But Salomon found that in people with untreated depression the two chemicals often flow together with less variability than normal, and fail to respond independently. This lack of chemical variability, he says, may explain why people with depression get "stuck" in extremes of moods or behaviors — sleeping too much or not enough, eating ravenously or poorly, ruminating continuously or going blank for long periods. The findings were published in the journals Neuropsychopharmacology and Disease Markers. Most physicians think of the chemicals controlling depression and moods as a constant current accessible with the flick of a switch, Salomon says. "It's as if a steady chemical supply is there, and if (someone) decides to use that energy there's some volitional decision to say, 'OK, I'm going to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream, even if my brain chemistry wants me to nap.' "The answer is 'no.' If the person feels like taking a nap, the chemistry won't be easily ignored. That feeling is not just a matter of volition, it's a matter of chemistry," Salomon said. The same is true of the sadness and other symptoms of depression. Healthy people have feelings that change rapidly, over just a few minutes, because the chemical levels change all the time. So, bad feelings quickly give way to normal feelings. But people with depression don't cycle normally. "If they're not feeling the energy now, they're not going to feel the energy in 10 minutes or in an hour or even in three hours. They're going to feel stuck."

There wasn't anything else you could've done. You acted with the information you had at the time and made the best choices you could. In hindsight, you may ask "why didn't I do this...?" but with the information you had, you didn't know, and if you had to do it over again with the exact same information, you'd make the same choices. Your father's suicide was not your fault, and there was no way you could possibly have prevented something you didn't know was going to happen.

First off: You are not a doctor, and your friend's mental well being is not your responsibility. If something happens to her, it is not your fault. You are doing everything you can. Second: In-patient care can really help sometimes, because the patient can be supervised and prevented from harming themselves until the proper combination of meds can be found. Her family is not capable of supervising her constantly, and it's not the job of her friends. If her therapist/doctor advises inpatient care, there's a good chance it's in her best interest. Depression is a physical illness, not some kind of emotional issue that can be solved with happy thoughts and exercise. Often, it's caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain that results in mood disorders, and can be treated successfully with medications that work within the body to correct the imbalances. There's nothing wrong with going into a hospital for medical treatment, whether the disease is cancer or depression, especially because, like cancer, treatment for depression can often be trial and error and a matter of finding the right drug at the right dosage.

ROFLMAO!

Get rid of it. It's nothing more than security theater and a colossal waste of time and money. I went through TSA at Las Vegas wearing a brace for a badly sprained ankle, which was swollen and quite painful. I was forced to sit in a chair while TSA roughly jammed the explosive test pads between my ankle and the brace. I told them I could just take it off and hand it to them to swab, but they wouldn't let me and insisted on repeatedly poking my injury. It was very painful, and I was extremely angry, but if I'd pitched a fit, I'd have missed my flight, so I let it go. _____ "KUSA - Checkpoint security screeners at Denver International Airport last month failed to find liquid explosives packed in carry-on luggage and also improvised explosive devices, or IED's, worn by undercover agents sources told 9NEWS. "It really is concerning considering that we're paying millions of dollars out of our budget to be secure in the airline industry," said passenger Mark Butler who has had two Army Swiss knives confiscated by screeners in the past. "Yet, we're not any safer than we were before 9/11, in my opinion." The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screeners failed most of the covert tests because of human error, sources told 9NEWS. Alarms went off on the machines, but sources said screeners violated TSA standard operating procedures and did not hand-search suspicious luggage, wand, or pat down the undercover agents. "The good news is we have our own people probing and looking and examining the system," said Rep. Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat in the 7th congressional who sits on the House Homeland Security and transportation committees. "The bad news is they're finding weaknesses." After 9NEWS told Perlmutter about the undercover results, he requested a classified briefing from the TSA about the team. Four TSA and Homeland Security Department officials briefed the congressman last week. "The bottom line is, we've got to plug those holes," said Perlmutter. "We can't have those kinds of problems because we want to have people who fly across this nation be as safe as possible." In one test, sources told 9NEWS an agent taped an IED to her leg and told the screener it was a bandage from surgery. Even though alarms sounded on the walk-through metal detector, the agent was able to bluff her way past the screener. "If they miss something that's obvious, often times that could happen, we will pull them off the line and retrain them," said Security Director Earl Morris at TSA headquarters in Washington, D.C. "That's how we audit and keep track of which people are doing a better job than others and how we keep this whole process so that it really is one that's legitimate and factual and actually is effective." The TSA would not confirm the test results obtained by 9NEWS. The covert testers who were at DIA are part of the TSA's Red Team. The Red Team was formed by the Federal Aviation Administration after terrorists blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 270 people. The Red Team tests about 100 airports nationwide every year, according to Morris. It halted testing after 9/11. Since it re-started testing in 2003, the Red Team has investigated security at approximately 735 airports. The team tested DIA once during 2006 and on February 12 to 14, said Morris. The agents act and think like terrorists to find vulnerabilities in the aviation security system. The Red Team uses very expensive chemical simulates in the test devices that look, smell and taste like real explosives, except they do not explode. To the CTX bomb detection machines at DIA, they are real explosives, according to a former Red Team leader. Sources told 9NEWS the Red Team was able to sneak about 90 percent of simulated weapons past checkpoint screeners in Denver. In the baggage area, screeners caught one explosive device that was packed in a suitcase. However later, screeners in the baggage area missed a book bomb, according to sources. "There's very little substance to security," said former Red Team leader Bogdan Dzakovic. "It literally is all window dressing that we're doing. It's big theater on TV and when you go to the airport. It's just security theater." Dzakovic was a Red Team leader from 1995 until September 11, 2001. After the terrorist attacks, Dzakovic became a federally protected whistleblower and alleged that thousands of people died needlessly. He testified before the 9/11 Commission and the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the US that the Red Team "breached security with ridiculous ease up to 90 percent of the time," and said the FAA "knew how vulnerable aviation security was." Dzakovic, who is currently a TSA inspector, said security is no better today. "It's worse now. The terrorists can pretty much do what they want when they want to do it," he said. TSA's Morris disagrees with that. "We have a very robust program of which we are very proud, in which we utilize testing at all of our airports every single day," said Morris. The security chief says he expects screeners to fail the Red Team tests because they are difficult. "We could put these tests together so that we have a 100 percent success rate every single time," said Morris. "Then, they wouldn't be challenging, they wouldn't be realistic and they really wouldn't be stretching the limits and the imagination of the Transportation Security Officer." Morris says the tests are designed to be tough so that officers can learn from their mistakes and successes. "It's a test but it's also a learning experience," said Morris. "It's a constant audit that we put on there to see where our employees are and where we need to enhance the weaknesses." Morris says other agents, not with the Red Team, test and train screeners every day at the nation's 450 airports and says screeners pass most of those tests. In those kinds of tests, he said Denver has done well in the past. However, tests done by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General and the U.S. Government Accountability Office in 2006 found widespread failures. According to the GAO, screeners at 15 airports missed 90 percent of the explosives and guns agents tried to sneak past checkpoints. Also, a Denver woman who carries a Taser for personal protection, told 9NEWS she carried it on board airplanes last year six times. Her Taser shoots 500,000 volts of electricity. She says the TSA never caught it and stopped her. Most test results, including results from the Red Team, are secret, classified as SSI or sensitive security information. Morris says they do not make them public because they could point out holes in the system. "We're actually fighting a war on terror. Our intent is not to educate the public on how we do tests and what are tests consist of. Our sole objective is to prevent those who have intent to do us harm from being able to successfully complete their mission." Sources who leaked the test results to 9Wants to Know say they were concerned about the failures and want security improved. Morris says the screeners were told about the failures and the problems were fixed. He called 9Wants to Know's sources 'disgruntled and underachieving employees.' "Anyone who violates the rule we have in place for divulging information that is sensitive and secret, that jeopardizes the security of this country is wrong," said Morris. "They're out of line, it's not acceptable and it's not appropriate." Dzakovic, who testified that the FAA ordered the Red Team to "not write up our findings," said the TSA is also trying to hide its results. "The last thing TSA wants to do is look bad in front of congress and in front of the public, so rather than fix the problem, they'd rather just keep them quiet," said Dzakovic. Dzakovic says aviation security needs fundamental changes if it's going to improve. "If anything of value is to be achieved out of this latest round of testing in Denver, congressmen need to go into the internal mechanics of how TSA operates in order to really affect change," said Dzakovic. "Because if they don't, next year there will be another round of testing, get them same kind of results and it's just a matter of time before potentially thousands of more people get killed." While Morris said security can always get better, it's already excellent. "We understand that security is not perfect in every aspect but we understand that we go about trying to be perfect every single day and we are doing a tremendous job out there and the public should feel comfortable flying out today and quite frankly, they do," he said. ..." Undercover agents slip bombs past DIA screeners reported by: Deborah Sherman , Investigative Reporter photojournalist: Dan Weaver , Reporter/Photojournalist created: 3/29/2007 3:00:43 PM Last updated: 3/30/2007 10:29:41 PM

EEEESSSHHH slow bastages aint they..... Yup.

I agree, but you're always going to have people who don't stick to the plan, don't communicate, and just can't learn. Of course, it isn't the job of the DZO to babysit people, but people dying is bad for business, so they're trying to control it as best they can. If this way doesn't work, they'll try something else. I've seen a lot of responsible swoopers, and I realize that the bad ones are ruining it for the good. Ultimately, DZOs are business owners, and they need to do what they feel is best, and ultimately, if people keep dying on swoops and skydivers and DZOs fail to regulate it, the FAA will, and nobody wants that.

I've heard instructors around here say that it's about 10% of people that pass without any repeats. However, keep in mind that every jump still counts towards your license (A license in the USA = 25 jumps). No jump is wasted; it's all experience and learning. If you want, you can click on my link and read my jump diary. I wrote it right after each AFF jump. Everyone's experience is different.

Personally, I think there's more interest in our sport because of the accessibility of tandems. The swoopers scared me a little when I went for my tandem. I completely understand the concern of DZOs... watching people femur or die is not good for business, so they're minimizing the problem that, more than any other, results in serious injury or death. DZOs aren't in this for charity... if they find that banning 270s is costing them money, they'll probably un-ban them. If, however, the policy results in a decrease in landing-related injuries and an increase in tandems and student skydives, they'll probably keep the policy in place. Money talks, business owners listen.

LOL. Now it says: NAME appears on the pass list for the February 2007 California Bar exam. I had to reread it a few times just to make sure. They should just say: NAME passed the February 2007 California Bar exam.

That's the plan!