ChasingBlueSky

http://www.tvjunkie.tv/ Rent this and watch the entire thing, it could change your life....as long as you don't do the "nah, that could never happen to me because I only do x and never have done y" This movie is most likely the most realistic point of view of what drugs can do to a person's life....esp someone that has it all at the start and chooses to video tape the entire journey. Really, this is the biggest wakeup call ever put out there. On a personal note: I met Rick, the guy in the video, a few times in the early 90s when this was all going on. He really was a great guy to be around with and was damn funny/energetic. It's really sad to watch this and see what happened from him after that. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Looks like the WP is on a roll for the most relevant stories these days. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17902403/ WP: How phony letter drove Iraq war Intelligence failures surrounded inquiry on Iraq-Niger uranium claim By Peter Eisner The Washington Post Updated: 5:43 a.m. CT April 3, 2007 It was 3 a.m. in Italy on Jan. 29, 2003, when President Bush in Washington began reading his State of the Union address that included the now famous -- later retracted -- 16 words: "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Like most Europeans, Elisabetta Burba, an investigative reporter for the Italian newsweekly Panorama, waited until the next day to read the newspaper accounts of Bush's remarks. But when she came to the 16 words, she recalled, she got a sudden sinking feeling in her stomach. She wondered: How could the American president have mentioned a uranium sale from Africa? Burba felt uneasy because more than three months earlier, she had turned over to the U.S. Embassy in Rome documents about an alleged uranium sale by the central African nation of Niger. And she knew now that the documents were fraudulent and the 16 words wrong. Nonetheless, the uranium claim would become a crucial justification for the invasion of Iraq that began less than two months later. When occupying troops found no nuclear program, the 16 words and how they came to be in the speech became a focus for critics in Washington and foreign capitals to press the case that the White House manipulated facts to take the United States to war. Dozens of interviews with current and former intelligence officials and policymakers in the United States, Britain, France and Italy show that the Bush administration disregarded key information available to them at the time showing that the Iraq-Niger claim was highly questionable. In February 2002, the CIA received the verbatim text of one of the documents, filled with errors easily identifiable through a simple Internet search, the interviews show. Many low- and mid-level intelligence officials were already skeptical that Iraq was in pursuit of nuclear weapons. The interviews also showed that France, berated by the Bush administration for opposing the Iraq war, honored a U.S. intelligence request to investigate the uranium claim. It determined that its former colony had not sold uranium to Iraq. Burba, who had no special expertise in Africa or nuclear technology, was able to quickly unravel the fraud. Yet the claims clung to life within the Bush administration for months, eventually finding their way into the State of the Union address. As a result of the CIA's failure to firmly discredit the document text it received in February 2002, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was called in to investigate the claim. That decision eventually led to the special counsel's investigation that exposed inner workings of the White House and ended with the criminal conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was forced to resign as chief of staff to Vice President Cheney. "You know I feel bad about it," Burba said later, discussing her frustrations about her role in giving the dossier to the Americans. "You know the fact is that my documents, with the documents I brought to them, they justified the war." The tip In early October of 2002, a man mysteriously contacted Elisabetta Burba at her Milan office. "Do you remember me?" the deep voice said, without identifying himself outright. It was Rocco Martino, an old source who had proved reliable in the past. He was once again trying to sell her information. Martino said he had some very interesting documents to show her, and asked whether she could fly down to Rome right away. They met at a restaurant in Rome on Oct. 7, where Martino showed Burba a folder filled with documents, most of them in French. One of the documents was purportedly sent by the president of Niger to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, confirming a deal to sell 500 tons of uranium to Iraq annually. This was the smoking gun in the package, claiming to show the formal approval of Niger's president to supply Iraq with a commodity that would in all likelihood only be used for a nuclear weapons program: Iraq had no nuclear power plants. Though the document was in French it would later come to be known as "The Italian Letter." It was written in all capital letters, in the form of an old telex, and bore the letterhead of the Republic of Niger. The letter was dated July 27, 2000, and included an odd shield on the top, a shining sun surrounded by a horned animal head, a star and a bird. The letter was stamped Confidential and Urgent. The letter said that "500 tons of pure uranium per year will be delivered in two phases." A seal at the bottom of the page read "The Office of the President of the Republic of Niger." Superimposed over the seal was a barely legible signature bearing the name of the president of Niger, Mamadou Tandja. Burba listened without saying much as she took a first look at the documents. She recognized right away that the material was hot, if authentic. But confirming the origin would be difficult, she recalled thinking at the time. She didn't want to fall into a trap. Burba and Martino made an agreement; she would take the documents, and if they checked out as authentic, then they could talk about money. 'Let's go to the Americans' Back in her magazine's Milan newsroom, Burba told her editors she thought it would make sense to fly to Niger and check around for confirmation. The editor of the magazine, Carlo Rossella, agreed. He then suggested they simultaneously pursue another tack. "Let's go to the Americans," Rossella said, "because they are focused on looking for weapons of mass destruction more than anyone else. Let's see if they can authenticate the documents." Rossella called the U.S. Embassy in Rome and alerted officials to expect a visit from Burba. On Wednesday morning, Oct. 9, Burba returned to Rome and took a cab to the U.S. Embassy, which is housed at the old Palazzo Margherita. Burba came to a security gate and walked through a magnetometer, where an Italian employee of the embassy press department came down to meet her. After a few formalities, an Italian aide introduced her to Ian Kelly, the embassy press spokesman. Kelly and Burba walked across the embassy's walled grounds and sat down for a cup of coffee in the cafeteria. Burba told Kelly that she had some documents about Iraq and uranium shipments and needed help in confirming their authenticity and accuracy. Kelly interrupted her, realizing he needed help. He made a phone call summoning someone else from his staff as well as a political officer. Burba recalled a third person being invited, possibly a U.S. military attache. She didn't get their names. "Let's go to my office," Kelly said. They walked past antiquities, a tranquil fountain, steps and pieces of marble, all set in a tree-lined patio garden. The Italian journalist's chat with Kelly and his colleagues was brief. She handed over the papers; Kelly told her the embassy would look into the matter. But Kelly had not been briefed on what others in the embassy knew. CIA role One person who refused to meet with Burba was the CIA chief of station. A few days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Sismi, the Italian intelligence agency, had sent along information about the alleged sale of uranium to Iraq. The station chief asked for more information and would later consider it far-fetched. On Oct. 15, 2001, the CIA reports officer at the embassy wrote a brief summary based on the Sismi intelligence, signed and dated it, and routed it to CIA's Operations Directorate in Langley, with copies going to the clandestine service's European and Near East divisions. The reports officer had limited its distribution because the intelligence was uncorroborated; she was aware of Sismi's questionable track record and did not believe the report merited wider dissemination. The Operations Directorate then passed the raw intelligence to the CIA's Intelligence Directorate and to sister agencies, including the Defense Intelligence Agency. A more polished document, called a Senior Executive Intelligence Brief, was written at Langley three days later in which the CIA mentioned the new intelligence but added important caveats. The classified document, whose distribution was limited to senior policymakers and the congressional intelligence committees, said there was no corroboration and noted that Iraq had "no known facilities for processing or enriching the material." Pushing the Africa claim Almost four months later, on Feb. 5, 2002, the CIA received more information from Sismi, including the verbatim text of one of the documents. The CIA failed to recognize that it was riddled with errors, including misspellings and the wrong names for key officials. But it was a separate DIA report about the claims that would lead Cheney to demand further investigation. In response, the CIA dispatched Wilson to Niger. Martino's approach to Burba eight months later with the Italian letter coincided with accelerating U.S. preparations for war. On Oct. 7, 2002, the same day Martino gave Burba the dossier, President Bush launched a new hard-line PR campaign on Iraq. In a speech in Cincinnati, he declared that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a "grave threat" to U.S. national security. "It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons," the president warned. CIA Director George J. Tenet had vetted the text of Bush's speech and was able to persuade the White House to drop one questionable claim: that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa. The information was too fishy, Tenet explained to the National Security Council and Bush's speechwriters. Bush dropped the shopping-for-uranium claim, but ratcheted up the bomb threat. He said in Cincinnati that if Hussein obtained bomb-grade uranium the size of a softball, he would have a nuclear bomb within a year. This particular doomsday scenario had first been unveiled several weeks earlier, on Aug. 26, by Cheney. In a speech in Nashville to the 103rd national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, he declared with no equivocation that Hussein had "resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons." On Oct. 16, Burba sat on a plane on her way to Niger, while in Washington, copies of the Italian letter and the accompanying dossier were placed on the table at an interagency nuclear proliferation meeting hosted by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. At this point, State Department analysts had determined the documents were phony, and had produced by far the most accurate assessment of Iraq's weapons program of the 16 agencies that make up the intelligence community. But the department's small intelligence unit operated in a bubble. Few administration officials -- not even Secretary of State Colin L. Powell -- paid much attention to its analytical product, much of which clashed with the White House's assumptions. The State Department bureau, nevertheless, shared the bogus documents with those intelligence officials attending the meeting, including representatives of the Energy Department, National Security Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency. Four CIA officials attended, but only one, a clandestine service officer, bothered to take a copy of the Italian letter. He returned to his office, filed the material in a safe and forgot about it. The Niger uranium matter was not uppermost in the minds of the CIA analysts. Some of them had to deal with the issue in any case, largely because Cheney, his aide Libby and some aides at the National Security Council had repeatedly demanded more information and more analysis. A fraud unravels Burba arrived in Niamey, Niger's capital, on Oct. 17 and began tracking down leads on the Italian letter. Burba's investigation followed a series of similar inquiries by Wilson, the former ambassador, who investigated on behalf of the CIA eight months earlier. It became clear that Niger was not capable of secretly shipping yellowcake uranium to Iraq or anywhere else. Burba found that a French company controlled the uranium trade, and any shipment of uranium would have been noticed. If a uranium sale had taken place, the logistics would have been daunting. "They would have needed hundreds of trucks," she said -- a large percentage of all the trucks in Niger. It would have been impossible to conceal. Burba returned to Milan and reported her findings to her bosses in detail. She didn't believe the evidence provided by Martino; it was impossible. Her editors agreed. There was no story. Five months later, on March 7, 2003, as preparations for the Iraq invasion were in their final stages, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, told the U.N. Security Council that the report that Iraq had been shopping for uranium in Niger was based on forged documents. The agency had received the document from the United States a few weeks earlier. Not long after the invasion, other news media in Italy, elsewhere in Europe and then in the United States reported that the source of the information about a Niger yellowcake uranium deal had been a batch of bogus letters and other documents passed along several months earlier to an unnamed Italian reporter, who in turn handed the information over to the United States. Although Burba knew that the Bush administration had also received information about the forged documents from Italian intelligence, she wished she could have acted earlier to reveal the fraud. It remains unclear who fabricated the documents. Intelligence officials say most likely it was rogue elements in Sismi who wanted to make money selling them. © 2007 The Washington Post Company _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

I think this is where the gut reaction from the swoopers comes in to defend themselves. If the terms were broader to include all jumpers (who are all at fault in this), it may go over better. It's a semantic issue, but saying that "aggressive and unpredictable turns, patterns and maneuvers in trafic" are the issue, more people may spend their time listening instead of defending their style of flying. The sad thing is that none of this information is new to anyone that has ever attended at least one first jump class. As far as no hop-n-pops at Eloy? I don't think he said that, he said it won't happen that often nor would they be a priority. Since they know what it takes to pay the bills for that playground, they get to make the rules. If that means you choose to go to a DZ that has less traffic or enough real estate to allow for low passes, so be it. It most likely would be better off for everyone. The economics will play out in the long run. Will losing the small amount of swoopers that traditionally make more jumps a month than non-swoopers be an impact? Will the lack of spectators that come out to watch them have an impact on first-jumps, less/more casual jumpers and additional spending done around the DZ? Guess we will find out. Bottom line: It's better to have pissed-off skydivers than dead skydivers. Raise your hand if you would prefer to still have a friend around bitching every weekend about what DZ he can't go to instead of sharing memories of his/her life around the bonfire because they died in a canopy collision. **Raises Hand** _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

no problem! try the fancy pants game or warbears - both are rather addictive _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

I found this article the other day http://uk.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUKN3L42391720070322 And have been losing hours playing the free games on the site it talks about: http://www.kongregate.com/ _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Usually they want to see Six Sigma on your resume to know you have worked on some in house projects using the training that was given to you. There is a big push for all PM types to have process improvment (CMMI is another) and structured methodology in their background (PMP). It just makes it easier to believe what your experiences on your CV claim. So without direct practical use of something like 6 Sgima, it tends to lose a bit of the eye candy aspect during the hiring process. The only reason I would go off and get it on my own is because you have the years of experience and finally want to get the formality of it out of the way. It never hurts to show you have aspired for continued education in your career, but the standalone certification without the experience won't be as huge as you think. TBH, I would go for an MBA before either one of those. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Canopy related deaths have been on the rise for years. Collision related deaths were there as well. None of this is new. Sometimes you will get a rash of deaths, esp at the start of a season when people are rusty....some years you get lucky. None of that changes the problem that has been growing since HP canopies became the norm and safety complacency has been allowed to breed from the top down. New BSRs won't change a thing if the canopy pilot isn't going to listen and think "but I always do this....I know what I am doing..." etc. Lack of training killed alot of lower jump number pilots over the last few years. What's happening now is that luck is running out for those that had the skill to avoid past incidents. The first jump you get complacent on WILL kill you. Your skill, jump numbers, infamy or sponsorships will not protect you. Your training, EPs and constant due diligence to safety will always give you a better chance of living for another jump. The question you should be asking is: "What am I going to do to make sure I am not next to die in this sport?" Followed closely by: "What can I learn from past mistakes?" And never, ever claim "That couldn't happen to me." _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Someone stole my brother's credit card number from the internet...then they created a fake card....then they went to a store and purchased something....Visa fought him on this for some time because there was an imprint of the card and a signature.....luckily he was able to prove he wasn't in that state when the purchase was made but it took nearly a year to resolve the issue. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17702021/ Who needs an EMP when all you need is poor planning and inept employees? _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

credit cards are protected, unlike debit cards and cash. If you truly want to limit your exposure, I would suggest using credit cards more and less of cash and debit. It depends on your bank. My debit card is protected from fraud and is one of the main reasons I choose that bank. I never use my credit cards and long ago shredded them. They exist to keep an open line of credit to inflate my score. What you can't do with most debit/check cards is stop payment like you can on a real check or credit card. As I said before, I picked up a rechargable debit card that isn't linked to any account and has less information on it (plus uses a secondary address which isn't my perm addy). This is a good way to shield your primary banking account. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

exactly what I get Mark.....check to see if it happens when you pull up a thread that Gawain has posted in _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

But, is there a connection between the two? I don't like how many people answer one thing by bringing up another.....drawing a reference point or showing precendence is one thing....but throwing another political volley just to score a point doesn't make much sense to me anymore. I've been watching this whole thing and still can't figure out what the real issue is. It seems the Dem's are lining up whatever ammunition they can for the upcoming election...but it also seems this has surfaced to scare this current Administration. Has it all just been political flexing. As it has been said before, Regan, Bush and Clinton all did the same in the past - why make noise about this? Maybe I haven't paid enough attention to what seems more like a non-issue to me than something worthy of front-page news. Aren't there other issues worth more discussion on? Now, if there is some connection to the Scooter Libby trial then I would have to say the noise is warranted. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

nope _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Disaster Recovery is big business and alot of scenarios have been played out and planned for. The plans aren't widely discussed in the media and blogs just for the sake of security. However, you can pick up a few articles on the web and attend conferences to hear the latest. There will be more of a push for a paperless society, including dollars. However, until certain issues are resolved you won't see it happen fully. When my bank account was stolen I had to live off the cash in my wallet for 6 days before the issue was resolved. I'm also sure I'm not the only one to have a company charge you three times for one item which in turns overdraws your account. I've personally resolved the security issue on my own - I own one of those rechargable debit cards that I use to purchase items off the web or while traveling. It's costs me a bit more every year but I figure my piece of mind is worth it. Also, there will be many "big brother" claims if a cashless society becomes a major hot topic. There are some nice things about going cashless: Never having to worry about being mugged, you can't lose $50 on the train when it falls out of your pocket, you don't have to worry about purchasing foreign currency when you travel, etc Here is a question for you thou: Does the percevied value of the dollar change once it's a thing of the past? Think about it, The dollar is a physical representation of some worth.....if you never see it and its 100% virutal, what is the psycological impact? _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Haven't seen it yet, but it is on my slate to view once it is on DVD Pan's is a very haunting movie and has been on my mind all day. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Finally saw this movie last night. What an amazing film and I am shocked at how it was ignored at the Oscar's.....this was easily the best movie I've seen in the last year. I can't wait for the DvD this May so I can watch it a few more times. More Info on it http://www.panslabyrinth.com/ _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

I'm not a lawyer, but I do know that what you just posted was the court overturning an earlier decision. The State of Arizona does have jurisdiction and Ben/Cary are legally/financially accountable in that State. From my understanding this means that SDAZ can pursue them personally as well as Skyride. With this legal precedent I wonder if any other dropzones around the country will pick up from here and file similar lawsuits. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Had a 91 Corolla that had over 210k before I junked it. I think it had 61k on it when I purchased it. Did evething with that car and took it everywhere. Outside of the normal repairs (tires, brakes, exhaust) I only had to replace the starter. I took it off roading and bent the frame. One time I drove it for 35 miles in "2" up to 70mph. Right around 200k most things started to fail on it: electric, heater core, fans, both CVs, shocks, etc _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

The people that should lead often don't want to. The people that shouldn't lead are often the ones that get the title. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

That thought crossed my mind as well. But the mother didn't know where the child was and she wasn't in school where she is supposed to be. Alot of key details missing here: Why did they seperate/divorce....what were the custody agreements, etc _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

NO, he shouldn't. Scooter was a puppet with someone above him pulling the strings....or he was someone that had ambitions to move into favor with someone higher up. Either way, he made the choice to leak the information. However, I do still believe to this day that he was the fall boy for the VP office. IMO, now that they have this verdict they should go after more of this administration. As far as the pardon, it will most likely happen in the final weeks of the Bush administration. So Scooter does a year or so in jail and it all becomes a footnote to this administration while the real crooks get away free. Anyhow, thats my thoughts on this. Tinfoil hat is on! _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Uh, that was not clear at all from your post. The implication was that O'Reilly was to be taken as seriously as Colbert. I understand that many do feel that way, so it was not unreasonable for me to think you did also. Not sure what you mean, Colbert is fair and balanced _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Ok, I'll admit it. That was damn funny! Again, no humor at all...just putting together a punch of name calling. It's been done to death and isn't original, or funny. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

Where was the joke? The best I saw was school yard name calling on a stage with a lot of lights....no timing, no setup, no payoff....just using a word that has some shock value in a sterile environment. _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....

This isn't the first time that something like this has happened. In that thread I created there were a bunch of new ID's created that were later deleted and banned. From my understanding it is usually connected to something that is said or done locally and the backlash is felt here to drum up more drama.....and posts that can be used in the lawsuit. It usually fades and comes back again a few months later....kinda like herpes. So just put some cream on it, make sure you use protection and forget about it till it flares up again :p _________________________________________ you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me.... I WILL fly again.....