nacmacfeegle

Shame on you professor, his name is Wernher, with an H. Point being, virtually any one with even a passing interest in rockets would not have been 'playing with toys' during WWII....

Okay, so nobody is arguing that WMDs may have been stashed, exported, otherwise concealed. Why doesn't Dubbya show us the evidence that led him and everyone else into this? You know satellite pictures, that sort of thing? -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

Velcro sporrans work just dandy. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"Right now I'm sitting infront of my computer with a jar of spicy pickled garlic and a spoon. I can't stop. This is so good. I've also got a craving for pickled eggs." Are you pregnant? -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"And we have a saying here in colorado about our neighbor to the north......Wyoming.....where men are men and sheep are nervous...... cau dy ffwcin ceg,uffar gwirion! owain glyndwr " Odd thing, we have similar jokes about the Welsh. No hard feelings, everyone knows Scotland is the true home of sheep shagging. But I will repeat the findings, 5% reduction in crime in Scotland, without widespread private firearm ownership. Must be the sheep distracting us, those little minxes..... -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"Here we go with the toy rockets again. Good thing you weren't around during the rationing of WWII." Ummm, I don't think their were too many toy rocket enthusiasts around during WWII. Well, not outside Peenemunde anyways. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"Interesting given the past conversation." Indeed it is, the 10,000 casualties mentioned on the IBC website, and the 7350 appear not to tally, or the numbers are indeed misleading. As PM'd I'd like a look at your spreadsheet, not to chuck rocks at you, but to get to the truth, which is often bent by those at extreme ends of the political spectrum. Thanks for taking the time and effort to help get to the bottom of all this.

"My cypres expires next year I wonder if anyone has ever used an old cypress for a mini parachute on a space ball? hmmmm....." I heard the Babylon people were at one stage playing with water weights, attached to tubes. At the preset alt, the AAD dumped the water. Sounds like a load of fun to me, till it all goes wrong, and its hilarous..... -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"what's your thoughts on this?" I can't get down the High Street without my 'Urban Passport', a copy of the Big Issue, so I guess I do support the homeless.

I heard this last night, its a good thing, IMO. But I might have expected a wee bit more pomp and circumstance, maybe a live broadcast from a carrier by the president..... -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"The classical example of limiting free speech is the "yelling fire in a crowded theater" exception." All this particular analogy does, to me anyways, is to highlight the inadequacies in the provisions made for the the theatre goers' security, and the paranoia of the general populace. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"I'm pretty sure Mr2 will have some decent stats for the rest of the country, and will post an explanation for them soon." Right on cue. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

Baaaaah. We are at least peaceful sheep. this link is to last year's crime figures in Scotland, overall, crime has fallen by 5%. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00338-03.asp I'm pretty sure Mr2 will have some decent stats for the rest of the country, and will post an explanation for them soon. But up here, we are, for the time being, well behaved sheep. I'm off to chew some turnips, have a cool weekend folks. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

Not where I live. Anything linkable to firm up your suspicion of crime rate change? In the interests of healthy debate, of course, I actually have no strong opinions on this. I'm just a little fed up being told to solicit our govt for gun law change, a course of action that would currently be about as popular as a bacon sandwich at a barmitzvah -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

I don't know Jimbo, it would depend if our crime rate got worse, or yours got better. I like to think that things won't get that bad, but if they do, I'm quite prepared to change my viewpoint. I'd rather press my government to attend to the situation first though, rather than take things into my own hands. Like I said, its a culture thing, different strokes for different folks. We don't have a strong gun ownership culture here, it would take a huge change in our crime profiles to warrant widespread requests to change our gun laws. I like to think that the govt would be well on top of things way before that point, this is the way its worked up to now. I'm not saying that your way is any better or worse than our way, its just different. You guys have a worse crime rate than we do, and a tradition of gun ownership, hence your aversion to firearm control. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

There's a DZ on Cyprus, if anyone is interested... -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

Hi Steve, welcome to our world. "Is there a place where I can check the safety records of different places? " Not really, the best thing to do would be to tell people where you actually live, and ask for recommendations from the good people on the forums. "You'll find that there's folks on here from every DZ in CA and we haven't really heard anything about a DZ out there negatively. " Thats about right, Skydivers can be fiercely loyal to their home DZs, gear selection, even political affiliations etc. That said, if you ask for recommendations along the lines of "I'm from LA where is the best place to learn to skydive", you will get responses from real people who actually regularly jump at the dropzones in your area. Hope you like it. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"We are officially the worst team in the history of football... ever. " Much as I (as a Scot) would like to agree with you, don't feel bad, at least you qualified. Besides, probably the worst team in history (British soccer terms anyway) is Bon Accord (Aberdeen by any other name), they lost 36-0 to Arbroath a long time ago (1885) in a Scottish cup match. Being from Arbroath, and living in Aberdeen, I take some delight in reminding the locals of his great day. Compounded, by the way, by Dundee's thrashing of Aberdeen 35-0 on the same day. So its not that bad, there's always the next time....... And for what its worth, my money was on England to take the cup, dammit, they cost me a tenner, and you know that us Scots hate losing money. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

There are huge cultural differences (regarding the issues of gun ownership amongst others) between the colonial cousins and ourselves. These differences can't really be measured and applied in a discussion like this. All we have to go on are facts. This site is quite good for distilling out numbers for this sort of thing, and other interesting global comparitive statistics. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_wit_fir There are other charts and stats that support the assumption that in the US there is quite a high mortality rate associated with gun ownership. eg mortality with a rifle shotgun etc (USA 10th in the world), assault by handgun discharge (USA is 8th highest). One might expect fewer murders, firearm ownership being a deterrent, but no, the USA has a higher murder rate than the UK per capita. Lets look at assaults per capita and things are closer with the USA at #5 the UK in hot pursuit at #7. Whichever way one examines these stats, I can't see how, on a per capita basis, gun ownership can be said to be making life safer for US citizens, whilst lack of gun ownership is making life more hazardous for UK residents. I believe the differences in our county's approaches to the use of firearms in crime etc are cultural. Our crooks are just nicer guys? So, Peaceful Dude and other supporters of personal gun ownership, we will stick with the status quo on gun control in our country, because it works for our particular set of circumstances, thank you very much. You may as well try and persude us to drive on the other side of the road, it just ain't gonna happen. "As a nation we are happy with our gun legislation." Sums it up.

"As for the bonny Scots, well their punishment is that they have Rod Steward & Sean Connery..." At least we know how to lose in style. Lets face it, us Scots are quite used to sporting disappointment, apart from curling of course, curling rocks. BTW, Rod Stewart is actually English, he was born in London, but like many people, he longs to be truly Scottish. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"It's not the jumpsuit that makes your butt look fat." Aha, the politically correct answer to "Does this jumpsuit make my butt look fat?" Would of course be.. "Why no dear, and your rig looks much smaller." See?, Not a lie, and awkward situation with subsequent pain and or divorce, averted. Until she works it out of course...... -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"I have a feeling once the low sulfur fuel is available you'll start seeing a lot more diesels." Soon, Padewan, soon. Low sulphur diesel is already widely available over here.

"There are lots of things that the general people of america don't need to know about, don't need to hear the truth about, and really don't care about. There is some truth in the common phrase: "Ignorance is bliss" " What a risible notion. Billvon said it, Kennedy agrees with it, and I support it. Any government should be open and honest about its actions, moreover it should be held accountable for its actions and policies. Futhermore it is not only our right, it is our responsibility to challenge any or all policies that we, as free thinking individuals, disagree with. "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. Author: Martin Luther King, Jr. " -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

"To get things going, we need vast grass roots demand, and government backing." Yay! also about ten years to make it happen (an approximate lifecycle for cars in circulation right now), it won't happen overnight, so lets be realistic over the timescale for this sort of thing. But yeah, hell yeah... "Our foreign interests are much more extensive and complicated that just oil. I also believe we have been procrastinating the inevitable sacrifice of developing alterative energy sources. The main political motivation is going to be demand from the voters to do this. If any greater good can become of this war in Iraq, this could be it. One thing I believe sets the US apart from any other country in the world is that we "can" do it if we set our minds to the task. I don't mean we don't need the help from other countries, but we have the ability to take a leadership role in developing new technologies. There's hope for the world yet guys. For what its worth, oil drilling and production CAN be safely conducted in remote, environmentally sensitive locations, its just hellacious expensive. I've worked on zero emissions drilling projects in various locations, for example. -------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson