redlegphi

And as far as where the swine flu actually came from, the best theory I've seen is CAFOs. You stick a shitload of pigs in an extremely small space, pump them full of anti-biotics, and store their feces in a shit lagoon that can contaminate local water supplies, and it's only a matter of time before the flu mutates in the pigs and then jumps over to the human population. Thanks again agri-business!

Of course, the 1976 swine flu outbreak started under Ford, a Republican. There was also one under Reagan in 1988. Not that any of that matters, since who is in the White House plays no part in causing the swine flu. Minnesota, you really need to get Bachmann out of Congress. It's just embarrassing.

He's now probably going to have to go against a Democrat who is much more to the left than he is in the Democratic primary in 2010. In order to beat said Democrat, he's going to have to shore up his new Democratic credentials, meaning I wouldn't be surprised if he begins to push further to the left to try to take voters away from his primary challenger. Just my guess.

I think it all depends on what kind of asthma you have. I had mild exercise-induced asthma when I came in (technically still do). Basically I'll cough all day after I go for a hard run in the winter or at high altitude. It doesn't effect my ability to do my job and I can still outrun almost everybody in my Battery. I'm down at Benning now and the heat/humidity/pollen/whatever doesn't seem to cause me any issues. It seems like your asthma has mostly cleared itself up, so I'd expect your test will go well. If you do end up in the infantry, make sure you save up your cash so you can go jump at SD ATL. Good luck!

Alternative question: Why do "Nice Guys" feel slighted when women choose not to date them? Women will date whom they choose to date for whatever reasons they want. Some of their dates may appear to be ass holes to you. The women would apparently disagree. Regardless, it seems like you're less interested in looking out for the women and more interested in whining because the women chose somebody over your Nice Guy "friend".

While the social improvements are obviously an important part of any counter-insurgency, you have to make sure that they're social improvements that the people want. For example, we might view eradicating the opium fields of Afghanistan as a "social improvement". The Afghans would view it as robbing them of their livelihood and would flood to the Taliban side of the fight. Similarly, while we view making education and opportunities available to more women to be a good thing, many Afghan men do not, and could view it as yet another reason to join in the fight to eject us from the country.

I have a problem remembering rhymes at exciting moments, so I came up with my own. It relies more on common knowledge. On a street light, red is stop, and yellow is caution. If I see a snake where "stop" and "caution" touch, it is a bad idea. I'd like to point out that while these slogans are great and all, my good friends at wikipedia inform me that these rhymes don't hold true outside of the United States. Also, I'd point out that if you just make it a rule to leave all snakes alone, you don't have to worry about remembering rhymes to figure out if playing with this snake is going to get you killed.

I didn't read about it. I lived there for a year. The "freedoms" you're describing don't exist practically for the vast majority of Afghan women. The police department I was training had 800 officers. One was a woman. She wasn't allowed to wear a uniform and could pretty much never leave the headquarters building. And that was in an area with almost no Taliban influence. The south and east of the country are heavily Taliban influenced, meaning a woman would have to be damn near insane to do anything other than get married at 14 and start pumping out babies. I didn't spend a lot of time in Kabul, so Kabul may be different, though Kabul makes up less than 10% of the nation's total population. What happens in Kabul is the exception, not the rule.

My money is on the oil companies. The last I checked, the oil companies have more than enough cash, so I don't see how the government could wield any power over them. The only reason the government has been able to ask the automakers to do anything is because they're in desperate need of cash. Also, the car companies aren't federalized. They are still controlled by their boards. Those boards could have chose to say they wouldn't comply with the President's requests and rejected the money. Similarly, if you're running a bank and a man comes to you and asks for $10,000 to help shore up his failing business, are you just going to give it to him or are you going to look at his business model and possibly make some demands to ensure that his business will remain viable and capable of paying back the loan?

I think you're overestimating the amount of freedom women currently have in Afghanistan. Sure, they can legally go to school. However, if doing so is going to result in you being disowned by your family (at a minimum) and possibly stoned by a gang of thugs, then freedoms guaranteed by law don't amount to a whole lot practically. Also, being married off at 14 and having a litter of babies by the time you're 18 makes it difficult to get started on that doctorate. To get back on topic, I think lifting the ban could go a long way towards separating the people who want to kills us from the people who would just really like us to leave their country. Very similar to how we got the local Sunnis on our side in Iraq and then turned them on AQ. If we really want to make social improvements in Afghanistan, we have to get the war finished off first.

The European plan of adding regulations to prevent this from happening in the future without trying to stimulate the economy seems similar to deciding to put on a bullet proof vest after getting shot without treating the wound. While I agree that we need the regulation (and am shocked that the conservatives who want to drown the government in the bathtub apparently want to as well?), we also need an injection of capital into the economy to stimulate growth. The banks are either unable or unwilling to provide that capital at this time, so that pretty much leaves the government. Or we could just bleed out in our nice comfy vest.

I think it's pretty clear she's just doing this to set herself up for her run in 2012. Same as Gov. Jindal down in Louisiana. I can already hear her "You know them folks down in Washington tried to send us all of that pork money. And what did I do? I told them 'no thanks' you betcha! Cause that's what mavericks do..." etc. ad nauseum. The best analogy I've heard so far came from a South Carolina newspaper (I think) who said something to the effect of turning down stimulus money for these reasons is like being poor and turning down a free meal because you demand the money for the meal be spent to pay down your credit card debt. I just think it's sad that Gov. Palin is putting her own 2012 interests ahead of those of the Alaskan people, who could derive a lot of benefit from these funds.

I'm not running to his rescue as he doesn't need rescuing. He fucked up, realized he fucked up, and immediately apologized for it. You are certainly free to debate the sincerity of the apology, but the Chairman of the Special Olympics found the apology "very moving". Gov. Palin was brought up to point out that while what he said was offensive and shouldn't have been said, actions still speak louder than words and there are people acting like much bigger ass holes out there.

I guess it's a good thing that President Obama didn't attempt to make excuses and called the head of the Special Olympics immediately following the taping of the show (and prior to it airing) to apologize. Compare this to Gov. Palin, who is planning to turn down $170 million of stimulus funds for education, some of which would have gone to help special needs children, and then ask yourself who's the bigger ass hole and who's the bigger friend to those with this condition.

There is no mention of separation of church and state in the constitution. I don't even think the word church is in there. http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html She was clearly referencing the establishment clause, more commonly referred to as "separation of church and state", so while the words may not literally be in the Constitution, the concept is. Still can't find God though.

The correlation is between guns and successful suicides, not between guns and suicide attempts. A suicide completion, gesture, and ideation are three very different things. Basically, a higher rate of gun ownership means more people who attempt suicide will be able to complete it successfully because more of them will use a gun instead of using something else, like an overdose of a drug, which would tend to be less successful. Also, going back to the Swiss discussion, I'd like to point out that Switzerland has the second highest quality of life index (as of 2005), the seventh highest GDP per capita, and a relatively low Gini coefficient. I'd hypothesize that rich countries filled with happy people with very little gap between the rich and the poor tend to have very low crime rates, regardless of gun ownership rates.

Monty Python's explanation is both easier to read and funnier. And musical!

No, abstinence practiced perfectly is the only way to prevent HIV 100%. Unfortunately, not all people who use abstinence as a form of birth control/STD prevention actually remain abstinent. Therefore, it's a good plan to have a backup form of protection, like a condom. And given that the Pope's ridiculous comments will probably lead to a decrease in condom use among African Catholics, leading to an increased rate of AIDS transmission, I'd say his comments affect us all, so my formerly Catholic self won't be moving along any time soon.

Easy answer first: I'd have no issue jumping with you, as long as you aren't some raging ass hole or an accident waiting to happen. As others have said, the skydiving community is probably about as gay friendly as the rest of the US. You'll find some people who are completely tolerant, some people who think being gay is icky but would still jump with you, and some people who are just raging homophobes. The best way I can think of to cut down on the homophobia at your drop zone is to come out to them (though I recognize that's not exactly something to be done lightly). People will call others "retard" like it's going out of style, but if a retarded person or their parent is nearby, they'll probably watch what they say. If the people telling gay jokes around the bonfire and wishing gay people death suddenly found that they knew and were friends with a gay person, that might cause them to think again about their point of view and realize that things like gay jokes and Prop 8 affect real people, and not just some marginalized community that they have no interaction with. Just my two cents. Good luck finding some more tolerant people to jump with.

Financially, your current plan doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Skydiving is one of those sports that takes a good chunk of cash to get in to. You're probably looking at somewhere between 1000 and 2000 dollars to get your A license, depending on where you go and what kind of instruction you go through. The early AFF jumps are the most expensive jumps you'll make. And if you take time off after making them, you'll have to make them again in order to be current. So you'd basically be throwing away several hundred dollars. My recommendation is to do like everybody else is suggesting: take the time to save up enough money to get your license and, while doing that, drop some weight. 5 pounds may not seem like a lot, but if you can keep dropping that over several months, it'll add up and you'll be in the air in no time.

Flying out of Eastern Europe, I've seen some pretty horrendous toilets. I carry travel packs of TP and ass-gaskets. Afghanistan trumps whatever you've seen, hands down. I've held it for over a week to avoid those things.

Since an online petition will clearly not be representative of how many jumpers are actually on Fort Polk, my recommendation would be to gather up all of the local military jumpers and get their names, in order to give the Command Team a good idea of how many jumpers there actually are out there. Good luck!

Given the tendency of some beginner freeflyers to slide all over the sky until they get their form down, I'd suggest that he get a coach when he's learning to freefly, even if he's doing it "alone".

There are some better threads around that discuss this. I'd suggest searching for them. Short answer is yes, you can call out of your harness if you don't have the proper equipment for the discipline you're flying or if the equipment is not being properly operated.

This was discussed before, I'm pretty sure within the last year, so you should be able to find it on search. That being said, a couple of the negatives I can think of off of the top of my head are: 1) If you listen to it in the plane, you might not hear some valuable information (landing direction, jumper separation, "hey, the wing's on fire. let's get the fuck out."). 2) In freefall, it could potentially be a distractor from all the shit you need to be doing to save your life. 3) What, falling towards the ground at over 120 mph is so boring for you that you need music to accompany it? On my jumps right now, I'm generally so focused on trying to fly my slot (and having a shitload of fun doing it), that I doubt I'd even remember having music on in freefall. I'd suggest leaving the iPod on the ground and focusing on improving your freefall skills until you are the absolute shit, but that's just my opinion.