JoeWeber

What a freakin' doof I am. Thanks for asking him.

Look man, you buy jump tickets and land your parachute. That's the extent of your skin in the game. You are also lucky enough to jump at a business that supports your discipline. Count your lucky stars.

Er,um, so you participate in something someone else organized and think that means you have the right to talk? Got it.

Unless you became a swooper and a competitor at a facility other than a regular DZ you really don't have a bone to pick. Stop moaning that the world doesn't revolve around you and your particular brand of fun and get out here on the sharp end of the stick and do something. You know, open a DZ that encourages nothing but hard core swooping and show us how it's done. Otherwise take what awesomeness you are given without complaint.

No, it is not about banning the sport you love. Some of us are of the position that 1. After experiencing first hand hook turn fatalities and horrendous, but somehow survivable, hook turn injuries (one where I was close to doing a tracheotomy while stanching the blood from where his femur rod from his last hook turn screw up was sticking out through his custom swoop shorts) have concluded they aren't the best fit in a public DZ environment. And 2. That owing to the fact the throughput for swoop competitions comes through DZ's, and that many injuries and fatalities result from these DZ's creating competitors for USPA's competitions that maybe USPA ought not to be pushing it so hard. I don't know, maybe if a DZ had an off site pond and landing area far enough away that the ambulances weren't more obvious than any traffic accident it would be a wonderful thing. But I've tried it both ways and I don't think it's a good fit in front of the public.

Anything for peace in our time.

Why, when with a little bit courage we can keep alive the sport we all love and a few more of our friends?

They can keep each other in doubt about that as much as they do on too many other issues but they ain't foolin' the bigger half.

Trolls.

And here are you engaging him, you a fan of the kill file. Consistency, Ken.

Absolutely. We aren't Russia and we don't need May Day Parades. Militarizing our society, or even lionizing our military, isn't the best way to show respect for our veterans. The best way is to do whatever we can, at whatever expense, to ease them back into the society they served to protect.

Adjacent and adjoining I think is their bafflement. No matter, by their logic your arterial and veinous systems are not adjoining or adjacent being below the surface as they are. Such taterheads, they are.

No, you didn't. What you did do was one of your, possibly patentable, lame assed attempts to deflect away from your failures by denigrating others. In this case it was "Teslas Fanboys" instead of accurately describing them as Tesla customers and investors with foresight.

Those "mud puddles" are called riparian zones. They have outsized ecological importance except to those who prefer ignorance and tribalism over knowledge.

This is interesting for the few of us who didn't notice: check out the white borders on these documents from Mar-a-Lago. The thing about white borders is that it means they're copies. That's what copy machines do. The original yellow document in the upper right bleeds to the border as the red bordered secret documents here also do. Apparently, according to a shit load of laws that alone is jail time for someone.

You're a serious stand up guy, no one would disagree. But, in all fairness, you do lean heavily into your military past in your posts which influences perceptions. Regarding "CK", if his actual name is too pejorative to write publicly where children might see it, seems to me he gave up a lot for his beliefs. Seems to me that's something you'd admire.

With respect, you've just validated a number of opinions on appropriatenesses and thought origins that vary from your own. Few things inform a world view like decades in uniform. Usually it is the end lens through which the world is seen by the individual; which is usually not at all individualistic in nature but rather tribal and collectively affirming. That's understandable because that's exactly the way indoctrination works. A close example of such brainwashing is skydiving and it's decades long adherents and the complete horseshit we are prone to accept.

Again, we'll just need to disagree on what encouragement means in this context but please know that, USPA or not, many of us on the sharp end of the stick don't see it as the "good look" that brings our sport to the masses. Also, good on you for medaling, that's a big deal. You wrote this: "I'll never be convinced that banning swooping or limiting its exposure in the public light will limit swooping deaths more than education can." You might be right but that's not the core issue. For example, I don't know what plumbing you keep between your pants legs pockets but mine has always enabled me to defeat the most well meaning education, no problemo, and from what I've seen in 34 years as a DZO I am not alone. "Support, teach, educate, and provide a path way to do it in a manner that limits the inherent dangers." No disagreement there, it's the how and where that needs some work. For my part I'm am over fearing another traumatizing to the viewer whomp in front of spectators or anyone else on my patch of skydiving. If swooping is such a great sport then it must have decent economic numbers from a business perspective, right? And it mustn't need buy-off from the highest levels at USPA, either. So, why hasn't someone formed the USSA and made a million by opening a swoop park DZ? Again, thank you for your thoughtful engagement.

You're right: he totally rocks is the fun attitude department.

Marcel, It's maybe a bit too nuanced. Swooping is a dangerous thing to learn, by the numbers. My issue is that supporting it and educating participants has limits; moreover that approach can cause serious injuries and fatalities as I've personally witnessed. I've given up caring if people do it I simply think doing it in front of innocent bystanders is both reckless and careless: like base it's best done away from the public eye, a view that is exactly antithetical to the USPA position.

Fair enough.

Cool beans! Why is it, do you think, that the lefties here seem to live more interesting and rewarding lives? Probably chance, I reckon.

Here are Joe's rankings of where the contenders stand right now. In order of popularity. Former President Trump. ... Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. ... Former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley. ... Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) ... Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin. ... Former Vice President Pence. ... Vivek Ramaswamy. ... Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Howdy Doody Brent Hutch

Yes, they do.

Bingo. There are countries I've traveled where if it creeps, crawls, swims, or flys it goes in the pot regardless of it's age or the time of years. America isn't one of those countries, last I checked. On the other hand, we are a country where we've learned that folks with indifference to animal life need to be closely watched.