tkhayes

True, Bin Laden is pretty much insignificant at this point. We caught Saddam and watched him get executed - did nothing either way for terrorism If we caught Bin Laden otmorrow, it would make no difference - we have pissed off far too many people in the world - people who have access to money, arms and a will to die for their cause. Great big pile of shit and no way out it seems.

Thank GOD we're doing such a great job on the war or terror! I'm sure another $500B or so should fix it.....let's just keep thrwing the money away (and the American soldiers lives too) I guess now we have no choice to but to 'continue' the war - since the problem only got worse. Maybe we outta nuke the rest of the world - just to be sure we get all of them. TK

If you are ONLY going to consider the economic benefits then I doubt any of us will ever buy a fuel efficient car, we will never buy a solar water heater and we will never consider any form of energy usage other than traditional, fossil-fueled systems that we use today. Of course, as we know in current times, there are better reasons to make changes to the ways we burn and use energy. solar makes total sense, even if it costs a little more. You will STOP dumping thousands of tons of toxins into the atmosphere every year and reduce your reliability on anyone else for your power. That alone is a good reason to change over. I only wish the government(s) would make it even more palatable by offering larger rebates and tax breaks. More people converting means more demand for components and probably more development and choices in the market - which helps drive the price down. Of course - it' hard for me to be 'environmentally' radical when I burn 100K gallons of Jet-A every year - but I still put compact flourescents, high efficiency lights, and will install a solar heating system for water at the DZ this year. TK

Almost always, the battery goes bad after a while. You can get many of them at Tractor SUpply, or your local electrical shop. I buy them on Ebay, almost always cheaper. Just search on the number you find on the side of the battery. A new battery and it will be a good as new - don't forget to recycle the old one, it is a sealed lead acid battery and should not be tossed in the trash. Wal-Mart auto shop will take them for disposal.

The A2 did not work for us at all in the Strong tandem systems. The attachment point for the drogue kept tearing away and damaging the canopy. THe flight characteristics were great. It was not built to handle the stress added by the Strong Tandem drogue chute, which stays inflated throughout the deployment.

Sorry dudes, I have you all beat.

so maybe someone can answer this for me - since i am about to become a citizen and studied a lot - the president is the EXECUTIVE branch. and we have a JUDICIAL branch to uphold the laws that the LEGISLATIVE branch creates. How does the President get to 'override' that process. I also never understood that for example when the Governor gets involved and stays an execution for example. If you have a judicial process, should that not be left to the legislators and the judiciary to resolve? Sounds like a broken part of the Constitution. Can the President them absolve himself of wrongdoing? As he has been doing anyway for years.... TK

It's also a federal aviation rule thing. Taxes are already paid on the fuel etc, I do not remember exactly what it falls under, but rides in an airplane are not taxed by local govt's. Same as airline tickets. Now a Tandem video, since you provide a DVD, VHS or film, whatever is taxable in most states, although I know many DZ's do not collect it.

show me ANY shed of proof that this might happen. The thread is about CHOICE, not FORCE. Nice try at the hysteria angle though.

cracks me up - a democracy - republic, whatever you want to call it - "for the people", but even the VP does not apparently think any of the rules apply to him, nor that he has to answer to anyone.... so exactly what is he afraid of? What would he be hiding? It is just another example of likely buried corruption at the top levels of government. So how do you impeach the VP?

I would leave them to themselves - it is and was always their fight to fight - not ours. We never should have been in the first place, we were lied to and now we use that to justify staying - get real. Continuing to do the same shit over and over again and expecting to get different results is not only stupid - it is insane. Instead, I could probably find ways to spend $400-$500B on education, border security, health care and a host of other things within our own borders. Yes, absolutely, we should just plain up and leave.

Where did the 2 million come from? Even the White House does not acknowledge that many: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/04/20030404-1.html He was a tyrant, yes, probably killed 100,000 or 200,000 of his own people, but we have killed 60K-70K during this war on terror. http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ and now more dead soldiers than people who died on 9/11. Way to go! we have generated far more refugees, done more damage to the infrastructure (but that is OK, my and your tax dollars paid to have it demolished and will now pay to have it rebuilt) Get the 'hang' of freedom? These people barely know what that is. They are a third world country, with poverty and poor education. You cannot choose freedom for them, they have to want it on their own. Then they would have risen up against their own government and done it themselves. But no, we had to step into the quagmire ourselves. Anyway, now we have it, and we deserve every bit of it. dead soldiers, economy gonna go down the tube, dollar going to shit, but at least we got rid of all those terrorists right? TK

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/iraq_2122.html Looks like a grim picture - HOWEVER, if you look under statistics - there are some positives - so you may not be totally wrong - i.e. there may very well be more schools, but apparently children are not going to them. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/in_depth/post_saddam_iraq/html/7.stm Also a grim picture - So I modify my original post a bit. SOME Infrastructure is there, even some that did not exist before - like internet access. But apparently is having LITTLE OR NO EFFECT. So again, I will state that until things get back to 'normal', orphanages can be expected to be neglected - a long with a lot of other things I expect. "What to do today, what to do.... Take care of the orphans or try to keep my family alive?......hmm let me think about that one.....hmmmm." Good enough for you?

I do not need to - it is so painfully obvious just how successful Iraq is and has been for us..... (and them) TK

arguably NOT comparative Environment: you talk about marshlands, not water supply to the Iraqi people in general, just a small group of people. The Marsh Arabs are only 200-300K of the population. Economy: You talk about potential - not what was, versus what is. Almost every country in the world has potential, except maybe Bangladesh and a few other dry African countries. Electricity: You talk about what happened since 2004, much improved since then I guess, after we bombed it all out of existence. Still no comment on what was there prior to our invasion (and for that matter prior to the FIRST invasion. Oil: Sure they have lots of oil and if we get it right, American based companies will get it all. Will this help the orphanages? Telephones: Again comparing prior to 2004, -ww already invaded. ANd bombed their existing system out of existence. Believe it or not, Iraq actually DID have telephones prior to our arrival. Internet and Media: Good news I guess - but does that help the orphanages? Does that stop the refugee status? Some recent news: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=22965&Cr=refugee&Cr1= http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/sc9041.doc.htm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/6766877.stm http://euronews.net/index.php?page=info&article=428570&lng=1 Sounds like a resounding success to me. I mean, thank God they have cell phones.....They can call their relatives as they flee the country, duck for cover, try to find food for their families and can easily discuss evacuation plans with one another..... I'll stand by my original post - until the country gets back to normal, I expect to see plenty of orphanages neglected, etc etc. Much like the fall of the USSR, animals dying in zoos, unattended, hospitals empty, trash piling up, all the 'normal stuff' of everyday life not happening because people are scared and running away. Food, water, shelter and staying alive - the basics become important, everything else is gravy and often left behind.

wanna try comparing that with what they had BEFORE we invaded? If everything is so intact, why are 2000/day becoming refugees?

sorry but it's not like they have any infrastructure left to deal with such things. I feel sorry for the kids, but I expect the people in Baghdad have bigger fish to fry every day. Blame the caretakers if you like, but first stop shooting at them and bombing them etc. Once the country gets back to normal, if ever, then things like this tend to get fixed. Until then, expect LOTS of atrocities

a good case for retroactive abortion....

The difference is that I DO believe in the law of gravity and I can actually prove that it exists. Whether or not I believe in God, I cannot prove that he exists, and neither can you. And yes, I even have a will to live, but I am not so arrogant to assume that I will live forever. I am totally content to believe that once my life is over that it IS actually over. TK

Easiest recourse is through her credit card company - scream bloody hell with them, showing the BBB and other reportrs of their fraud. Almost always, the customer wins in these cases - I do not understand why more people do not do it. Without a signature, the Skyride guys have only a very small leg to stand on. TK

http://www.cafepress.com/bettybowers/626823 some great shirts and stickers....

After I die, 'God' will send me nowhere since I am and do not believe. Since you insist that liars will burn in hell, I thought about this last night while I went to a movie. I buy some popcorn. "Do you want butter on it?" she asks. "Sure" I said. But we all know that it is not really butter. Just some oily product that some chemical engineer designed. So she lied to me about the butter. Does she go to hell for that? Or does her boss go to hell for telling her to say "butter'? Or does the company that made it, all the CEO's and workers and staff because they call it 'butter'? Or do I go to hell, knowing full well that I accepted that lie and failed to correct her at the appropriate time, maybe even SAVING her from eternal misery and fire. Just a thought. 'cause if anyone goes to hell for lying about popcorn, they I am not interested in worshipping such a God, nor am I interested in hanging around with a bunch of people to believe that someone should burn in hell over popcorn. Since we all sin, I assume we burn in hell (if I actually believed that). More likely, I will just die, like the billions before me, like the mosquito that I swatted this morning. Just gone. No eternity, no nothing. No other side. Just back to dust. TK

that's not the point tho', especially with the Catholic religion. Even if you led a great life, helped the needy, and did everything you could to be a good person - if you sinned, and never asked for forgiveness and never accpeted Jesus into your life as your Saviour, then you will still burn in hell.

It was published by Harvard Medical School. In what 'journal', i do not know, but it was obviously made public by a well acclaimed and highly accredited educational institution. TK

Not so. Again, we know what OUR life needs and we are familiar only with OUR life. Someday we will explain more of it. And do you know for sure today that NO LIFE exists on Venus? We tend to look for life that exists only in our narrow parameters. Some other sulphur or acid based lifeforms may very well exist or may have in the recent past. (say millions of years ago) Remember, we are but a sliver in time, in the history of the universe. To expect that all forms of life would simultaneously exist, or at least exist during OUR sliver of time is naive. Again, we have no idea (yet), if and when forms of life existed even on our own planets. But someday we probably will be able to definitively determine that. We just cannot right now. Let's say that we find some evidence of microorganisms on the planet Mars in say 100 years? Does religion (Christianity) then completely fall on its face? According to what I was taught in my church and all the Bible studies that Idid, that yes, Christianity would collapse. Of course, the religious zealots will find a way to twist it again into something that it is not using faith, but no science or 'logic' TK billions and billions of stars and planets across an infinite universe. Assume that we are the only lifeform that God made in his image? Get real!