dbattman

You forgot the nitpicking! How could you forget the nitpicking? There's nothing more productive to political arguing than jumping on sentence fragments or even individual adjectives.

Let's head for the pub, Ron. I'm buying the first round. What's that thing about arguing on the Internet beeing like the Special Olympics?

I see. We're following the 'DROPZONE.COM' posting guidelines and picking small sentence fragments to jump on. Would you like to comment on the numerous recounts that STILL come out in favor of Bush, or are you sticking with the Hilteresque power grab idea? I don't see what dz.com guidline I violated - I was responding to a section you mentioned...I felt the need to point something out. The reality is, the entire election was suspect. From the states, the the gov't, to the media...all of it. The United States should not have had such a debacle. We had GW before the election saying that Florida was signed, sealed and delivered and you could bet on that. You had a Bush relative being the only one in the media to say otherwise and the idiots at the other stations took that as truth without full factual checking or waiting for the polls to close (everyone needs to have the story first!), to no one in the Senate signing an objection to the decision from the Supreme Court despite numerous passionate objections, to votes that are still missing and talked about on a weekly basis in the Florida new media. It is a black eye on our country, and it was a sign of how our new president would run things. The debate on the election will never be over, and we are on pace to have the same thing happen again this year. GW and his crew are corupt, and they will do what it takes to make him win. I do not need to resort to calling someone the new hitler. Besides, Hitler had a different vision; he wanted world domination and to rid humanity of what he considered imperfections. GW just wants power and money. Therefore it doesn't make sense to compare the two. That was a 'tongue in cheek.' Unfortunately, this place is no different than the rest of the internet where it is highly anonymous and very easy to just pick out a few words and say 'OH yeah! Oh yeah! well your an idiot!' rather than commenting on a paragraph or post in it's entirety. It's a pet peeve of mine. I was watching several news channels that said 'Gore won' and several others that said- 'nope still close' It was a long time ago and no I don't remember which ones. I also remember seeing footage of voters at a polling place cheering because they heard Gore won with others stepping out of line to go home with a defeated look on their face. Like I said, that's just one more conspiracy theory to throw around with all the other trash about the election. Sure, it was a hugh mess. We had military ballots that never made it out, lawyers finding whatever reason to throw out absentees like signatures that were not an exact match (sign your name three times and compare the differences), etc. etc. As far as 'missing ballots' in Florida, every election a ballot box goes missing in Miami-dade. Cries about stealing the minority vote go out and the box turns up in a Church full of crayons and pencils. If you want to talk about who's dirty and corrupt, it goes out over both sides. You could raise plenty of arguments about both sides being sneaky and underhanded and wanting to win regardless of the cost. That doesn't change the fact that Al Gore still loses in the recounts. Perhaps I misunderstood, but you did comment in your second post on the whole point of the article being about parallels between Bush and the rise of the Nazi party short circuiting the Democratic process.

All you have to do to vote is show up with your ID at the polling station. You can fill out your registration card right there and still vote. I myself have been purged from the voter rolls. I showed up, I signed the form and I voted. I have yet to see ONE person who showed up at the poll and wasn't allowed to vote. They looked high and low in Florida, and the best they could do was some woman who drove through a police roadblock a few miles from the poll and another person who was off the rolls and had to fill out a form.

Slanted news media? Did you know that Fox News was the first station to call GW as the winner? Yup. Do you know who approved it? Bush's relative worked for Fox at the time and made the call as producer to call GW the winner that night. Hmmm...biased? After Fox called it, the rest of the news stations back peddled and the whole fiasco began. I see. We're following the 'DROPZONE.COM' posting guidelines and picking small sentence fragments to jump on. Would you like to comment on the numerous recounts that STILL come out in favor of Bush, or are you sticking with the Hilteresque power grab idea?

Ah geez. Not this again. Every recount done in Florida by whatever news media, by whosever standards about hanging chads, or chads with scratches on them, or whatever else puts GWB ahead in the Florida election. You want an election conspiracy theory? Try this one: The left 'slanted' news media, fully knowing that Florida was a razor thin state with enough electors to push Gore over the top, deliberately called Florida early for Al Gore to demoralize the Republican voters and energize the remaining Democrats. By doing that they cost GWB several states in the Mid-West and West, several house and senate seats, squashed additional Republican 'get out the vote' campaigns and destroyed a landslide GWB election. But like I said, that's just a conspiracy theory. Al Gore LOST. And no, I am not a republican and I did not vote for GWB. I'm just tired of hearing this again and again. You want to prevent this stuff in the future? Go to 6am to 6am polling with results released after 9am EST when all the polls close. Alaska and Hawaii, well, maybe they do 9pm to 9pm or something like that. No excuses for not voting anymore, no early calls, no projections. They can have their victory parties and get smashed before lunch instead.

Yeah, they're still great. I spent my first season jumping 182s in 95+ Texas heat. I went back a month ago and launched a perfect hybrid off the strut. Noice. That's a nice sit train exit- rodeos are great off the 182 as well. The 182 is still the workhorse of the sport, and still tons of fun.

I agree with pilotdave. Bag it, put it on the belt, and don't volunteer anything unless they ask you. If you need a carry on, the 21" roll on pilot cases work perfect. You can find them cheap at Target or a thrift shop. Much better than lugging 20 pounds over your shoulder. Get to the DZ at oh-dark-early in Hawaii. The winds pick up fast on the North shore.

Ah, the C-182 exits. How I love them. You jump turbines for a long time, and it feels great to hit a small DZ. Those guys are creative. When that's all you've got you figure out how to launch all kinds of cool stuff off the strut. Great pics.

It's possible Poynter was refering to tandem jumps as opposed to sport jumps. 300,000 tandems a year in the US sounds in the ballpark. Overall, that was an excellent article.

Some good thoughts. Thanks. I've also got some big concerns about the "what" (concrete, plastic, steel, size), the "where" (three feet deep, five feet deep), the "how" (backhoes, cranes, dumptrucks, where will they need to drive), and the 'how long'. Of course, I could just save myself the headaches and tell them to look somewhere else. Everything that needs to be done should be done by the developer and then it is maintained by the county. Has anyone ever done this before? How many hours do our attorney jumpers think they would spend on something like this? I know these get done all the time, but I'd still be wary that I'll get screwed by not having everything reclaimed or looking off because the street has been patched or the curb concrete looks nasty. Damn, I never wh\ould have thought about this stuff until I bought a house. Talk about uping your 'sleepless nights.' Is the roof leaking? Are the gutters clogged? Are there termites in the basement? Roaches? Boogeyman in the closet? Agh!

Hey, I still get 'I would have never guessed you for a paranoid schizoid psycopath', but we DO look just like everyone else. OK, pu the beer down and go to sleep.

A developer has approached me regarding a sewer easement on my property. It would run from the front of the house down a creek gully about 40', then snake along the back of the property along a creek. I would lose some trees in the 20' easement but they are back from the house. It's not an unacceptable situation, but I don't know how much to target in comp. I'm not thinking I'll get 40k out of the deal, but how much is it really worth to have someone rip up your back yard, drive around some backhoes at 7am and PRAY they put everything back like they said they would? Any thoughts? I plan to demand they pay 'reasonable legal expenses' since there is no way I'm doing this on a tabeltop.

Former jump wonder here, jp. I had the 200-400 jump 'thinking' I was a lot better than I was, knew a few things, and that I was doing ok. About 450 I realized I still didn't know a damn thing. Now I'm pretty good at keeping my mouth shut. Sure I jumped in some winds that were iffy, took some risks I shouldn't have, jumped when other people were sitting around. We've all been there. One thing I never did, was ignore the word 'NO' or get offended when it was said. It's still worth fighting, some of us do listen.

Tell the DMV they made a mistake, it is really the 2nd. That jives with SSA, so you're cool. Whalla! You are now one day younger. [:)}

Has he said why he will veto such a bill?

Would it be possible to just 'adopt' the 2nd as you 'governent birthday'? That might be simpler.

I'd have to read his position on both issues before calling it a flip-flop. It is possible that the lawsuit was filed as an absurd extension of what he supported on the PBOR.

Heh- I went to a site on Kabballah and look what the firwall kicked out: Found in Denied List (Occult/New Age). Entry causing block is jewfaq.org/kabbalah.htm. Hmm, how interesting. Maybe it's a celebrity trend after all? Kinda like Scientology.

Ditka

I've found that a 21" (or is it 25") rolling pilot case works great. They're cheaper than a gear bag, have wheels for rolling, and look just like every other piece of carry-on luggage out there. It attracts no attention from security and slides through every time. It works great at protecting it from little kids with snotty, ice-cream smeared sticky hands. Yeech!

Just put it in a bag and put it on the belt. Don't worry about disclosure- if they need to know they'll ask. Keep your mouth shut and you'll be fine.

Cascaded lines got rid of pack volume back when the suspension lines were the size of shoelaces. Just one reason.

And if "Bill & Ted" is the dual nature of your god or gods, "Under God" in the Pledge would work for you too. Be excellent to each other! :)

I've always understood the founding of the US to be based in personal property rights. I'm just a little curious- what is a 'Christian belief?' Christian beliefs can also be Muslim beliefs and Sematic beliefs. I prefer the gospel according to Bill and Ted, myself.