dorbie

There are consequences to not going to war too. Just because you get the warm and fuzzies does not make a decision moral. Should people have avoided the American Civil War? That would have led to secession of the southern states and would definitely have left millions of blacks in chains in the south, perhaps even to this day both here and abroad. What about the Revolutionary War? That was over tariffs on goods (I think tea was the only stamp duty that wasn't repealed). The view that War must be avoided at all costs has led to disgusting examples of appeasement with characters like Hitler even as he sent millions to the gas chamber and annexed entire countries. War should not be avoided at all costs, sometimes the costs of avoiding war are too great, even if it's not you who are paying that cost.

Short memory or selective memory? It's convenient to forget that the US had to trade with a lot of partners during the cold war in an attempt to influence them or keep them from Soviet influence, and Iraq was at war with Iran after it had been taken over by fundamentalist nuts who'd hijacked a popular revolution against a dictator (The Shah was backed by the West unfortunately). The troops in Gulf War I were blowing up Soviet Tanks and Migs, not Amerigan hardware, something conveniently overlooked by the finger waggers. America gave Jihaddists (mujahideen) in Afghanistan Stinger missiles to fight the Soviets who'd have occupied the country successfully otherwise. These were some of the same guys who morphed into radical Islamiscists like al Qaida, (an organization Bin Laden formed to supply & organize Jihaddists for that war). Was it right to help them defeat the Soviets? Yes! Was supplying man portable anti-aircraft missiles to fighters affiliated with al Qaida wrong? No! Was it right for Rambo to go there and fight with Jihaddists kicking Soviet butt? ... probably not There was a context to all of this and ignoring the context only makes you dumber. I'm really not up for paralyzing the U.S. in it's ability to act because it might have supported or done something in the past in another context. In the case of France you're talking about a nation that sees itself in some respects as a geopolitical adversary of the USA. It doesn't seem to grasp the profound change in the consequences of low level asymmetric conflicts. France absolutely was engaged in supplying embargoed weapons to Iraq in exchange for oil exploitation rights while America and other of it's NATO allies were preparing to go to war with Iraq and while U.N. sanctions should have been enforced. Some 15 year old geopolitical policy of the USA or attempt at diplomacy taken out of context doesn't erase that, and doesn't make America hypocritical.

Sigh, more orchestrated bogosity. Woodward has already said this was entirely his decision in his capacity at the time and he's clearly no Bush fan. If the shoe were on the other foot this would be taken as proof positive, but since it categorically refutes the case it is conveniently ignored. Interesting interview with Bin Laden's brother: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5403841/ That's the problem with disinformation, half truths and downright lies; fair minded people walk away thinking there's a lot of damndable stuff going on, when infact they've been presented with a selection of facts out of context with lot's of false assumptions they're not equipped to challenge. Underlying the Bin Laden flight accusations is the convenient presumption that the family which had disowned the guy at the time had something to hide and that they felt perfectly safe in the USA after the biggest attack on it in history, just assumed (at that time) to be by their relative.

I pitched without fully slowing after a track on my first or second solo with a Sabre 190. It hyperextended my back when it popped open. That was *painful* and quite dangerous, I had a sore back for weeks (I still jumped

You and most other AFFs have a long way to go before you earn the monicker I gave this guy. The suggestion was of course rhetorical. Sorry, this guy is a dumbass, you should *listen* to the video as well as watch it. He's earned that title not merely through his spectacular ineptituede, but by his willful failure to understand or admit the causes of his predicament (damaging the reputation of skydiving as a result). That's his final and most dangerous mistake. You can screw up, but screwing up many times and then not admitting any of it in the face of clear proof.... well, you can only hope for his sake he stays firmly on the ground, because making several potentially fatal mistakes and having them all video taped has not taught him a darned thing. At the end he compares himself to Wile E. Coyote, and that's the most accurate thing he says in his entire commentary, Wile E. never learns.

My first hop 'n pop, from 3500', this was only a couple of jumps after my first solo (I wanted it at the correct USPA A License qual heigh although nobody was insisting on that). I exited and got stable then went to pull and rolled onto my back. So I quickly corrected myself back to belly down and went to pull again, and did exactly the same thing. Once again I corrected and so I was falling after two pull attempts probably under 2500' now asking myself why the heck I couldn't pull stable. I realized that without the wave off I was forgetting to compensate with my other arm as I was reaching for my BOC pilot. Third time was a charm and I managed to pull correctly. Needless to say I had to redo my hop 'n pop. It was never really worried, I was just glad I beat my student Cypress to the pull, but I probably came close to a two out with that main toss. Another strange one I had was some jumper falling/streamering/opening past me at 150ft horizontal separation as they opened after I'd been under canopy for maybe 30 seconds or more. I couldn't figure out how the heck he managed to get where he got to with the separation involved especially after I'd been under canopy so long(I was flying towards the landing area not in line with the flight line). The most plausible explanation I thought was he tracked a *long* way back up the flight line.

Beer is good. I like beer but it has to be ballanced by the folks at the DZ sharing a cold one every now and then at the end of the day to lubricate the process. My first DZ did this, they had a nice atmosphere at the end of the day with a few folks sharing a beer and maybe a chat around a campfire and you could soak up the skydiving lore. All was right with the world. Other DZs aren't as friendly, they evaporate at sunset. Still others head for the bar & it's not quite the same. I LIKE bringing & sharing cases of beer, it makes me feel like Santa Clause for a sec, but it's not as much fun to bring beer when you always have to bring beer if you want one yourself, or you bring cases of beer and nobody's up for a cold one on a Saturday night after jumping. So depends on the DZ & the vibe IMHO, but I like the idea.

Sorry for the repost, the student screwed up big time, and not just once or twice. Very annoying that he's suing after seeing that video. Edit: Sued and lost

Don't know if this has been discussed but my TIVO caught a great Maximum Exposure show with two incidents that probably offer more potential for informed post mortem than most since they were both on video. One was a demo jump where the skydiver came down over the seating on his front risers fighting a headwind and didn't seem to flare at all, seemed like he could have towards the end but he just went in, feet then face, but he survived with a few broken bones. Another and the more interesting for me was the AFF student from hell: the video starts with a normal AFF level-1, the student waves off to pull and seems to hesitate so the instructor on his right takes his hand back to the ripcord down by the student's right hip, but on the way down the student finds the cutaway and grabs it. The instructor pulls his arm and assists the pull probably hoping in part to move the hand away, but the cutaway is pulled (TV show annoyingly makes *NO* mention that this is what is happening), immediately the instructor pulls the main ripcord. Predictably the main bag deploys, pulls the student up on the risers before the 3 rings release the risers. The right instructor keeps his grip, I'm sure he knows what the situation is, unfortunately the instructor on the left may not be aware things are going badly on the other side, and he releases his harness hold because untill the rings release it looks to him like a normal deployment (my interpretation). So when the student is pulled up by his risers then cutaway he tumbles over the AFF instructor holding on his right, but at least the cutaway is clean. The instructor releases or loses his grip on the student, unfortunately the student is totally dearched and falls rapidly on his back flailing a bit. The instructor is arching like crazy trying to catch the student but he's falling too fast and not even attempting to arch. The instructor points (based on student comments I assume as a hand signal telling the student to pull) and eventually he pulls on his back, fortunately gets a very nice reserve opening. Don't know if his AAD fired the student said he pulled but the video doesn't really show enough detail to tell. The next phase of the student's jump video shows him clearly landing way off and he flies right into powerlines suffering burns. The cameraman filmed this all the way to the student pull so it probably wasn't that far off when he finally got hs reserve opened. The Max X show gave the misleading impression that the whole thing was just some scary random thing that might happen when you go skydiving, no mention of the numerous screw ups.

So if you try to kiss a woman, or tell her you're in love with her you're trying to recruit her to heterosexuality. edited to add: I feel your pain. I would get angry and exile anyone who told me they thought I was a great guy too. Laughable, really. "recruit". Jeeze, I wish more women would try to recruit me.

Your post pre-supposes that equal legal rights granted would not actually entail equal legal rights, it could. But let's take this to where you seemingly want to go. Considering the issues w.r.t. adoption which I think many people have opinions on but not a lot of hard data. People are entitled to opinions on this IMHO. You're back to fundamental unanswered questions of nature vs nurture and beyond that mental health & self esteem, this is not a science. I don't think there's any question that the *vast* majority of folks who are gay are born gay, but clearly there's some imprinting I don't think you can argue that anyone is born with a high heel fetish (or other examples I won't delve into), but it's imprinted at some point. The central issue is the psychological impact on a child of having two gay parents and that household environment during development, and I'm not talking about some homophobic visceral bullshit, I mean what's the data? There are undoubtedly much worse things can happen to a child than this, but consider an adoption agency with two seemingly equally suitable couples for a child. One is gay and one is hetero, taking your position to it's logical conclusion on equal rights suggests that this should play absolutely no role in deciding where the child is placed, they should just flip a coin. That would concern a lot of people and I suggest that they have a right to be concerned about this. There are arguments to be made in preference for the heterosexual environment beyond the "tried & tested for millenia" all else being equal, role models, formative experiences and natural reproduction. What weight you place on that is up to you, but equal rights should not ignore this should it? If you thing it shouldn't ignore this then articulate it. Is there a line to be drawn, what value do we place on healthy psychosexual imprinting. If you just keep pounding on the case for gay adoption it's difficult to know where you'd be prepared to go with this and that polarizes opponents.

Battle lines are drawing up on this one. The Kerry campaign is calling the broadcast a contribution in-kind. That's contrived so it doesn't pass the soft money reform muster. http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=37872 More and more interesting by the minute. Amazing that soft money finance reform is now being used to censor a broadcast by asserting that a broadcast is a campaign contribution. Wow, we're already there folks. On reflection the lack of commercials may be what sinks this one, OTOH if the programming is free (it may be) then it may be less of an issue.

Duly noted, thanks. One or two of my jumps were pretty uncomfortable due to the earlier bruising of the bone (didn't know you could bruise a bone), and certainly made things worse, but I hoped it would improve with a full recuperation and a brace. I'll probably take your advice but I may have a final jump first. The prospect of not jumping for 9 months is not a pleasant one. How soon were you back jumping after surgery?

There's a reason NEWS is exempt, it's supposed to be factual and serve the public interests. There are supposed to be ethical standards in reporting. When it becomes a meritless one sided diatribe based on forgeries then it ain't NEWS. I was watching the evidence on the memogate forgeries as soon as it broke and it was shown to be an iron clad forgery less than two days after the broadcast at most. Absolutely categorically iron clad if you spent 30 minures reading technical analysis readily available online. Yet even after this Rather and his NEWS program persisted in broadcasting the accusation and a defense of the forgeries. If you were informed and listened to Rather his defense was very carefully worded to avoid the actuall rigor of the allegations against the forgeries, it was just enough to deflect. In the end it transpired that none of the experts actually validated the documents as they claimed and his "inimpeachable source" was a party Democrat activist with a history of Bush grudges and mental illness. I dont' know about you but this is un-frikin'-believable to me. I mean really, it's jaw dropping. The unimpeachable source especially. Just amazing. And the Rather is still a NEWS anchor pretending to be objective. Now Hewitt won't answer whether Rather should be allowed to even cover the election, so eggregious was his "NEWS" reporting, but of course he will. This makes broadcast restrictions & rules at election time all the more interesting.

If you separate the rights from the terminology you get a lot more traction, much more support and agreement across the board, however I think this has been hijacked and coopted by intrested elements within the big two parties, or maybe just the pressure groups themselves. It almost seems like Democrats and Republicans *want* to throw the label marriage in there because they see this issue as energizing their base, while being low on the radar for most others.

Seems there's a difference between indisputable videotaped congressional testimony and the kinds of tortured links & conspiracy theories cooked up by Moore. I've seen what Kerry said and did with testimony and his medals, and that stuff just doesn't play well nationally today, if it did he'd be singing it from the rooftops. Back then he went down a storm in MA, and I'm sure that's why he did it, but it's there on file, he did it and boasted of it. Now denying it or vacillating just won't erase it. On the other hand the larger context is important as Moore demonstrates, Kerry needs to present that instead of trying to argue over ribbons vs medals. I mean you'd think Kerry would have the stones to say "Damnit we saved tens of thousands of young U.S. lives by ending the Vietnam war early through our protests.". It might be hotly disputed but it would be a consistent and credible position. Instead he presents this incredible waffling crap, he could have a good story or one at least people could stomach. It's very dangerous to suggest that anyone should be prevented from broadcasting anything before an election. Even if it costs Bush or Kerry the election, it's called freedom. Don't think this never happened with the founding fathers. There were awful smear campaigns conducted using print medium back then by some of our most respected founders and it helped them win (John Adams for example). Where do you draw the line? Stopping Moore or anyone else showing their film before November... well at that stage you're doing massive harm. Who gets to decide? Does Dan Rather get to do 60 Minute hatchet peices or are you going to shut that down? What about CBS NEWS or Fox NEWS?

Yup, tolls are usually taxes, though not always. Some are very pernicious, for example the Golden Gate bridge, that's a doozie, like having a local government troll they decided to just give OUR bridge to, living right under it. Most toll roads have alternatives that are less convenient but free (or at least paid for by your other taxes already), that's a significant difference.

Yes, the T in that label was my point. You seem to be saying that unless it has "tax" in the label the government gives it then it's not a tax. That's somewhat naive. And you are of course correct, you don't need to pay tax to merely watch TV, unless you drive into London to watch it, then you have to pay Red Ken's congestion tax.

There's something paradoxical about promoting Moore's film to anyone so they may make an informed decision. I like Hitchens' commentary best: (Hitchens is a former Marxist and left wing pundit who's become disillusioned with the left in America and has always been one of the most intelligent writers) http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/ Best quote from the article: "To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery."

Hey call it what you like, I know what it is. If you don't want to pay VAT you don't have to buy VAT rated goods it's still a tax. Utter nonsense to say a "charge" isn't a tax because the thing your charged for is optional. The "charge" isn't optional. Your TV "license" isn't a tax either I suppose, I mean you don't need to watch TV.

How did your landings go. Was it manageable or did the knee keep getting a pounding?

These strawman arguments are very misleading. It's only expensive to execute the worst of our murderers because we execute so few and spend a fortune in years of appeals on the few we do execute, and we have statutes that prevent guilty pleas in capital cases forcing expensive trials, moreover I'm not altogether sure that these aren't worst case numbers including defense costs. If the anti-death penalty crowd weren't so hellbent on frivilous defence of stone cold killers it would be a darned sight cheaper to dispatch them. We're not talking just about dodgy convictions here, it seems everyone is fair game for incessant appeals & attempts to call any method of execution outside of old age cruel and unusual. Not that I'm a gung-ho pro death penalty advocate, but groups who tie the states up in legal knots for years then complain about the cost of the cases are contemtible. We can be pretty sure that if the death penalty were abolished the costs of fighting defense actions from the same cabal would probably be about the equivalent in other areas, in other words the activists would simply move on to other areas. FYI - I'm not taking sides here, but this argument by anti-death penalty crowd has always struck me as the most ludicrous. If they really cared about the cost they's stop running up the bills.

He he. OK it was a stretch, but I like the way you call this tax a charge. Very British. I dunno what's worse, socialist social engineering or anti-economic tax grab. Either way London definitely gets what it deserves. Impressive the way Ken stood up to New Labor & won.

Some problems lend themselves to this distributed approach, others don't (for compute vs bandwidth reasons, sheer practicality or security reasons). Here is the place to look if you really want to contribute: http://www.grid.org/home.htm You'll have to settle for Anthrax & Smallpox number crunching though.

This is already in place in the UK, let this be a warning to you :-) http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?control=1200&id=72