warpedskydiver

That happened?...by our troops in Iraq? please post some details

Who says we don't?

1. Because our constitution says we can. 2. I have no need for a useless handgun, but if someone wants that thing go for it. 3.Because the well made ones are very nice and I like them 4.Because we can, hey some people collect barbie dolls but the image of those dolls has probably done far more harm than the mere existance of collections of firearms. I would like to add that suppressors should not only be legal in all of the 50 states and US territories but MANDATORY when possible....holy fuck do my ears hurt. I wear hearing protection but it wasn't always possible...

Or how comfortable and safe you must feel while in denial

DING!!!

Yawn, I wonder if you ever have spoken with ANY police officer in the US that is WILLING to try and go house to house conficating guns. I wonder how many officers would still try it after say the first 50 of their dept. are cut to ribbons by superior firepower and accuracy, including field tactics. I know some cops who are SF and or SPECWAR and THEY don't wanna try that. The ONLY people willing to give up their guns are called VICTIMS.

It's really a bad analogy. How much help would / could you render DURING a skydive? How much risk would you take, say in swooping to deploy an unconscious skydiver?.. Would you chop your main and chase? 1500ft? 1,000ft? 500ft? Or would you think: Hope he has a CYPRES - Should've had a CYPRES?Quote I know people who would, or may have for all I know, but nobody would ever know, because they would never say anything.

Deaths in our sport don't make that great an impression either. It's the pull of the mountain for them. I understand the allure of the mountain. But Everest used to be a goal that people worked and trained YEARS before they would attempt. I wonder how many people on the mountain this season had climbed Rainier, or any of the volcanoes in Mexico, or Aconcagua. I'm willing to bet that most of the clients probably went from Rainier or some trekking in the alps and then bought their way up Everest. I mean hell, they've already brought a Polish Playboy model up there this year. Maybe I'm prejudging her ability, maybe not. The funny thing is that she was probably in far superior physical condition than the majority of the climbers...and not hard to look at at base camp either

I went to one in Crete back in the early 80's I know now that some things shed like a snake when it gets sunburned

ya know I have heard people saying crap like that for nearly all my life...ooooh I am sooooooo scared of the fucking UN. I would wager that if the UN tried that shit here in the US, even if they had a treaty they are going to get their asses handed to them so badly that it will make the insurgents look like kindergardners.

I am sure that if I saw anyone get injured or even die on a jump, I would not hesitate to render any assisitance I could. I would also remember who walked by without doing ANYTHING. To those people and I use that term loosley: YOUR DAY WILL COME

It is an awful shame that no matter what they get to keep their retirement pay...WTF is wrong with this picture?...yuo can be in office one day and commit a horrible crime and yet still draw around 15k per month in retirement plus benefits

There was so much probable cause that the judge could not refuse to issue the warrant.

Jefferson Refuses to Quit Ways and Means Wednesday, May 24, 2006 2:39 PM EDT The Associated Press By LAURIE KELLMAN WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats sought to get embattled Rep. William Jefferson to resign his seat on the House's most prestigious committee. "In the interest of upholding the high ethical standard of the House Democratic Caucus, I am writing to request your immediate resignation from the Ways and Means Committee," wrote House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi in the one-sentence correspondence. The Louisiana Democrat was defiant. "With respect, I decline to do so," he wrote back to Pelosi."I will not give up a committee assignment that is so vital to New Orleans at this crucial time for any uncertain, long-term political strategy." Earlier, House Speaker Dennis Hastert demanded that the FBI surrender documents it seized and remove agents involved in the weekend raid of Jefferson's office, under what lawmakers of both parties said were unconstitutional circumstances. "We think those materials ought to be returned," Hastert said, adding that the FBI agents involved "ought to be frozen out of that (case) just for the sake of the constitutional aspects of it." The Saturday night search of Jefferson's office on Capitol Hill brought Democrats and Republicans together in rare election-year accord, with both parties protesting agency conduct they said violated the Constitution's separation of powers doctrine. Support from a majority of the House would be required to strip Jefferson of his seat on the panel. It was not immediately clear whether such a vote has been planned, according to knowlegable officials of both parties who spoke on condition of anonymity. Jefferson, meanwhile, on Wednesday filed a motion asking U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan to order the FBI to return all of the documents taken from his office during the 15-hour search. Hogan was the judge who last Thursday issued the warrant authorizing the search. The congressman also asked that FBI and Justice Department attorneys be prohibited from reviewing the documents and that they be locked up until the judge acts on the motion. Jefferson's motion said the search violated "speech and debate" protections in the Constitution to insure the independence of lawmakers. Presidential administrations and the Congress have routinely subpoenaed information from each other, and often they have refuse to cede the materials sought. This is the first time the branch seeking the information dispatched its law enforcement arm to wrest information from the office of a sitting congressman who is the target of a probe. Republicans, meanwhile, were being careful to protest the raid without defending Jefferson, in an increasingly tense relationship with the White House over its use of executive power. A day earlier, Hastert, R-Ill., complained personally to President Bush about raid. Other House officials have predicted that the case would bring all three branches together at the Supreme Court for a constitutional showdown. In April, Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., personally told Bush that "the president doesn't have a blank check" during a discussion of Bush's domestic wiretapping program. Hastert kept up the drumbeat after the FBI's raid of Jefferson's office. "My opinion is that they took the wrong path," Hastert said after meeting with Bush in the White House. "They need to back up, and we need to go from there." The developments are the beginning of what lawmakers predict will be a long dispute over the FBI's search of Jefferson's office last weekend. Historians say it was the first raid of a representative's quarters in Congress' 219 years. FBI agents searched Jefferson's office in pursuit of evidence in a bribery investigation. The search warrant, signed by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan, was based on an affidavit that said agents found $90,000 in cash wrapped and stashed in the freezer of Jefferson's home. White House officials said they did not learn of the search until after it happened. They pledged to work with the Justice Department to soothe lawmakers. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales tried to strike a conciliatory tone, saying, "We have a great deal of respect for the Congress as a coequal branch of government." But he also defended the search: "We have an obligation to the American people to pursue the evidence where it exists." Justice Department officials said the decision to search Jefferson's office was made in part because he refused to comply with a subpoena for documents last summer. Jefferson reported the subpoena to the House on Sept. 15, 2005.

U.S. Says Taliban Strength Is Growing Wednesday, May 24, 2006 4:32 PM EDT The Associated Press By NOOR KHAN KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — Fighting in rugged southern Afghan mountains killed at least 24 militants and five Afghan forces, while the U.S. military acknowledged Wednesday that the Taliban have grown in "strength and influence" in recent weeks. The violence came after a week of some of the deadliest violence since the Taliban regime's ouster in 2001. As many as 336 people have died, mostly militants, according to Afghan and coalition figures. The Afghan military commander for southern Afghanistan, Gen. Rehmatullah Raufi, said up to 60 rebels had died in the latest fighting in Uruzgan province, which involved ground forces and a U.S. airstrike. The U.S.-led coalition, however, said 24 militants had died. It was not immediately clear why there was a discrepancy in the numbers, which were impossible to confirm independently because the scene of the fighting was remote and insecure. The fighting erupted after militants hiding in a mountain compound in a small village in Tirin Kot district fired small-arms, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars at a joint Afghan-coalition patrol late Tuesday, according to two separate U.S. military statements. The troops fought back for six hours, forcing the militants to retreat before they tried to bring in reinforcements from two nearby compounds, the statements said. The forces then called in air support. American bombers and unmanned Predator aircraft, along with French and British fighter jets, dropped bombs and fired rockets at the militants. Besides the troops and police that were killed, six Afghan soldiers and three police were wounded, one of the statements said. In the past year, Uruzgan's largely inaccessible mountains have been the site of some of the heaviest fighting, but militants suffered high losses in multiple battles with coalition forces, and the violence there had subsided in recent months. Uruzgan was one of three southern provinces where U.S. military spokesman Col. Tom Collins said the insurgents have bolstered their numbers. "We know for a fact that in recent weeks they have grown in strength and influence in some parts of Kandahar, Helmand and Uruzgan," he told a news conference in Kabul. "There is a hard-core group of Taliban fighters, certainly numbering in the hundreds." He said the militants are recruiting poor villagers. "They prey upon people who don't have a lot of hope. They recruit people to join their cause," he said. "These people may not believe much in the cause, but they need a job." Meanwhile, a British military C-130 cargo aircraft carrying the British ambassador caught fire while landing at an airstrip in Helmand, said Sgt. Chris Miller, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition. He said one of the plane's tires burst when it hit the ground at the airstrip in Lashkargah in Helmand province, sending debris into an engine, which then caught fire. No one was hurt and there was no hostile fire involved, he said. Separately, a district chief, a judge and two guards from the Shahrak district of Ghor province were killed by a group of armed men who ambushed their car Tuesday evening, said Karimuddin Rezazada, the deputy governor of Ghor province.

Hillary Rips Climbers Who Left Dying Man Wednesday, May 24, 2006 12:33 PM EDT The Associated Press By STEVE McMORRAN WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Mount Everest pioneer Sir Edmund Hillary said Wednesday he was shocked that dozens of climbers left a British mountaineer to die during their own attempts on the world's tallest peak. David Sharp, 34, died apparently of oxygen deficiency while descending from the summit during a solo climb last week. More than 40 climbers are thought to have seen him as he lay dying, and almost all continued to the summit without offering assistance. "Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain," Hillary was quoted as saying in an interview with New Zealand Press Association. New Zealander Mark Inglis, who became the first double amputee to reach the mountain's summit on prosthetic legs, told Television New Zealand that his party stopped during its May 15 summit push and found Sharp close to death. A member of the party tried to give Sharp oxygen, and sent out a radio distress call before continuing to the summit, he said. Several parties reported seeing Sharp in varying states of health and working on his oxygen equipment on the day of his death. Inglis, who was due to arrive back in New Zealand on Thursday, said Sharp had no oxygen when he was found. He said there was virtually no hope that Sharp could have been carried to safety from his position about 1,000 feet short of the 29,035-foot summit, inside the low-oxygen "death zone" of the mountain straddling the Nepal-China border. His own party was able to render only limited assistance and had to put the safety of its own members first, Inglis said Wednesday. "I walked past David but only because there were far more experienced and effective people than myself to help him," Inglis said. "It was a phenomenally extreme environment; it was an incredibly cold day." The temperature was minus 100 at 7 a.m. on the summit, he said. Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953 became the first mountaineers to reach Everest's summit. Hillary said in an interview published Wednesday in a New Zealand newspaper that some climbers today did not care about the welfare of others. "There have been a number of occasions when people have been neglected and left to die and I don't regard this as a correct philosophy," he told the Otago Daily Times. "I think the whole attitude toward climbing Mount Everest has become rather horrifying. The people just want to get to the top," he told the newspaper. Hillary told New Zealand Press Association he would have abandoned his own pioneering climb to save another's life. "It was wrong if there was a man suffering altitude problems and was huddled under a rock, just to lift your hat, say 'good morning' and pass on by," he said. He said that his expedition, "would never for a moment have left one of the members or a group of members just lie there and die while they plugged on towards the summit." Three climbers, from Brazil, Russia and France, died descending Everest in separate expeditions in the past week, a Chinese official said Tuesday. More than 1,500 climbers have reached the summit of Mount Everest in the last 53 years and some 190 have died trying. Quote I guess selfish, rotten fucks aren't just limited to other more familiar sports

Canada Paper Sorry About Erroneous Story Wednesday, May 24, 2006 7:34 PM EDT The Associated Press By BETH DUFF-BROWN TORONTO (AP) — A Canadian newspaper apologized Wednesday for publishing an erroneous story last week claiming that an Iranian law would require Jews and Christians to wear badges identifying them as religious minorities. The National Post article Friday caused an international uproar. Tehran on Wednesday summoned Canada's ambassador to its foreign ministry. Iran's conservative parliament last week began debating a draft law that would discourage women from wearing Western clothing and encourage citizens to wear Islamic-style garments. The Post erroneously said the bill included provisions requiring Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims to wear a patch of colored cloth on the front of their garments. That incorrect description appeared to many as a chilling throwback to Nazi Germany when Jews were forced to wear the yellow star of David. The United States, which is locked in a standoff with Iran over its nuclear program, criticized the bill. The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, a Jewish human rights group, had sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan asking him to investigate, according to the National Post. Iranian officials labeled the newspaper account a lie and a copy of the bill, obtained by The Associated Press in Tehran on Saturday, made no mention of requiring special attire for religious minorities. Iranian state television reported Wednesday that Ambassador Gordon Venner had been summoned to the foreign ministry. The meeting comes on the heels of comments by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who said Friday that while he couldn't vouch for the accuracy of the National Post report, he believed Iran was capable of such actions. "Unfortunately, we've seen enough already from the Iranian regime to suggest that it is very capable of this kind of action," Harper said. "It boggles the mind that any regime on the face of the Earth would want to do anything that could remind people of Nazi Germany." Douglas Kelly, editor-in-chief of the National Post, ran a lengthy column on page 2 Wednesday explaining that the story was based on a column by Amir Taheri, an Iranian author and journalist, and two expatriate Iranians living in Canada. "We acknowledge that on this story, we did not exercise sufficient caution and skepticism, and we did not check with enough sources," Kelly wrote. "We apologize for the mistake and for the consternation it has caused not just National Post readers, but the broader public who read the story." Taheri, on his Web site, wrote that the National Post misinterpreted his original column bit insisted that his sources in Tehran's parliament tell him that the concept of badges for religious minorities has been discussed for several years. Relations between Canada and Iran cooled after the 2003 death of Iranian-Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi, arrested by Iranian authorities while covering a demonstration. In November, an appeals court has upheld the acquittal of an Iranian intelligence agent and ruled Kazemi's death was not premeditated. —————

Somehow I doubt this. I'm -almost- certain nuclear power and aviation lead the way. those aren't items

I am not going jumping with that crew

The absence of death

I'm sure it was an "anonymous source", who asked not to be identified. I'm glad to hear that Murtha, who retired from active service almost 40 years ago knows so much about what happened. I'm not disparaging Murtha of his record, I'm just questioning his sources and if he has some "insider" knowledge. I prefer it if he'd wait until the full report comes out rather than proclaiming someone guilty or innocence before hand. But that would not facilitate the political agenda of the democratic party

Bin Laden May Be Trying to Reassert Power Wednesday, May 24, 2006 7:26 AM EDT The Associated Press By JASPER MORTIMER Listen to Audio CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — The latest tape purportedly released by Osama bin Laden may be an attempt by the al-Qaida chief to regain his eminence in the global terror network and raise his profile overall after being sidelined by insurgents in Iraq, terrorism experts said Wednesday. In an audio tape posted on the Internet late Tuesday, a speaker claiming to be bin Laden said that neither Zacarias Moussaoui — the only person convicted in the United States for the Sept. 11 attacks — nor anyone held at Guantanamo had anything to do with the al-Qaida operation. "I am the one in charge of the 19 brothers and I never assigned brother Zacarias to be with them in that mission," he said, referring to the 19 men who hijacked the four aircraft used in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Two counterterrorism officials in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said U.S. intelligence is aware of the bin Laden message. One of the officials said there is no reason to doubt its authenticity. If authentic, it would be the third tape that bin Laden has issued this year — a sharp increase in the volume of propaganda issued by al-Qaida since August, according to terror experts such as Ben Venzke, head of IntelCenter, a private U.S. company that monitors militant message traffic and provides counterterrorism intelligence services to the U.S. government. "Al-Qaida messaging volume levels are at the highest now than at any point since the group's inception," Venzke said. Rohan Gunaratna of the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore said the increase in propaganda was apparently bin Laden's attempt to compensate for his group's loss of ability to mount attacks. The U.S.-led war on terror apparently has severely disrupted the portion of al-Qaida directly under bin Laden's control, he said. That has allowed the head of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to capture the spotlight on the world terrorism stage watched by militant sympathizers, Gunaratna told The Associated Press in a call from Singapore. "The jihadis are increasingly looking to al-Zarqawi, who is on the ground and every day is killing Americans in Iraq," Gunaratna said. "Al-Zarqawi is stealing the thunder of bin Laden." By stepping up his propaganda, Gunaratna said he believed "bin Laden is trying to maintain his eminence in the global jihad." Moussaoui, a 37-year-old Frenchman and admitted al-Qaida member, was sentenced to life in prison earlier this month after a jury in the United States ruled that he was responsible for at least one death on Sept. 11. On the tape, bin Laden said to Americans: "Since Zacarias Moussaoui was still learning how to fly, he wasn't No. 20 in the group, as your government has claimed." Bin Laden said Moussaoui's confession of involvement in Sept. 11 was "void," and the result of pressure during imprisonment. "Brother Moussaoui was arrested two weeks before the events, and if he had known something — even very little — about the Sept. 11 group, we would have informed the leader of the operation, Mohammad Atta, and the others ... to leave America before being discovered," bin Laden said. Bin Laden also said that none of the hundreds of terror suspects held at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks — and said most had no ties to al-Qaida. "Our brothers in Guantanamo ... have no connection whatsoever to the events of Sept. 11," he said, claiming they were jailed to justify the cost of the war on terror. But he did say two of the detainees were linked to the Sept. 11 attacks. "All the prisoners to date have no connection to the Sept. 11 events or knew anything about them, except for two of the brothers," bin Laden said. But he did not provide names or elaborate further. The audio message, which is less than five minutes long, was transmitted with a still photo of bin Laden. In a tape aired on Arab television in March, bin Laden denounced the United States and Europe for cutting off funds to the Hamas-led Palestinian government, accusing them of leading a "Zionist" war on Islam, and urged followers to fight any U.N. peacekeeping force in Sudan. In January, bin Laden said in an audiotape that al-Qaida was preparing new attacks in the United States but offered a truce — though his lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahri later issued a video saying Washington had refused to take the offer. OBL has also been busy telling other high ranking al-Qaida that he has been smitten with a young American and that he hopes to oneday be his bitch. Hi Clay!!! I wonder if OBL and Zarqawi are going to fight it out in their man jammies over who gets to be "bitch"

The reporter doesn't have a clearance and has made no agreement to keep certain information secret. You do have a clearance (presumably) and have agreed to be accountable for such information. That's a pretty big difference. Blues, Dave You can be and most like WILL be charged if you are found to be in possession of classified docs even if you don't have a clearance. You can be charged if you have a clearance but had no NEED TO KNOW.