SivaGanesha

But if you add in her views in the paragraph thereafter, she sounds much more reasonable: "I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown." I'm not sure who the "Justice Coyle" is that she is referring to--I can't seem to find any US Supreme Court justice named Coyle, although maybe this was a past justice from a State Supreme Court? In any event, I think the original quote--whether from Justice O'Connor, the mysterious Justice Coyle, or some else--is significant in its wording: "a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases" (bold emphasis mine) I STRONGLY suspect that the original speaker intended to imply that there is a wisdom that comes with age that transcends issues of gender, race, etc--and that there might be sharper differences at a younger age. These differences would therefore be relevant to Sotomayor's audience at the time (law school grads) and much less relevant now (consideration for the Supreme Court, an old man's/woman's club). "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

I would roughly consider the people who worked as guards in the concentration camps as belonging to two groups: 1. German Nazis who may very well have been loyal to Hitler from the beginning. 2. Former captured POW's, usually neither German nor Jewish but often from Eastern European countries, who 'volunteered' to assist the Nazis in various ways. The first group is, of course, the most culpable. I see Hitler as having been a cult leader who probably had the ability to help Germans feel really good about themselves. This in itself is not a bad thing (although there are indications that Hitler was disturbingly anti-Semitic from very early on), but the Germans allowed Hitler unlimited power when he had only earned the limited level of power appropriate to any leader in a democratic system. The dynamics of how cult leaders obtain unlimited power are well understood, but those who give away their power and do not stand up for themselves still bear responsibility for their actions. When this dynamic happens on the scale of a nation there are many individuals who bear some responsibility. The second group--the former captured POW's who became guards--are a more sympathetic group as a whole, but I don't accept the argument that none of them had any responsibility. Essentially many of the concentration camp guards were themselves former POW's--the Nazis could only spare a few actual Germans at the camps because most of the few Germans were too busy losing the war--and the argument is sometimes made that these people had to 'volunteer' or they would themselves have been killed. While I think that is true in some cases, I think that some of these people had reason to hate the Soviets and actually saw the Nazis as liberators from the Soviets--and were quite willing to join them. While this may actually have been an understandable decision in some cases--the Nazis may at times have been the lesser evil than the Soviets--it still is hard to understand a decent human being being willing to join the Nazis in genocide just because they were less frightened of Hitler than of Stalin. So this second group is very morally ambiguous. So I think the bottom line is that I see the guards as humans, but humans who bore a lot of responsibility for their actions which they sometimes were allowed to get away with evading after the war. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

What recourse does the lender hope to have if the loan goes bad? For example, do they expect to report this loan to a credit bureau if the loan goes bad? Are most other participants in that community--eg mainstream banks, the credit bureaus themselves, etc--subject to some level of government regulation? What justification does the lender have for wanting to remain completely unregulated while still retaining the power to screw up the customer's life in the more regulated sector of the economy? That seems a little unfair to me. My general feeling is that such lenders should be allowed to charge a one time fixed application fee, at whatever fixed cost the market will bear, the first time they deal with a given customer, but after that they should be allowed to charge interest no higher than a mainstream credit card issuer in the state would be allowed to charge. If the state allows unlimited interest in general, then so be it. I believe in the free market, but I also realize that in practice not all markets are completely free, and if the government is in the habit of helping the more affluent sector of the economy while letting the law of the jungle rule for the poorer folks, then I think that really stinks. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

3

Hope you are feeling better by the weekend

Well I was right anyways...I said the minority view was liberal/Democrat and that matches the results so far. It seems a little bit strange to me because skydiving remains somewhat out of the 'mainstream' whereas the Republicans still like to think of themselves as the party of the 'mainstream'--so I'm still trying to understand this phenomenom. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

It may also be why credit card issuers usually apply payments first to fees and interest and only then to principal. In my example there could be an issue, even in Russia it would seem, if the consumer made some payments (but less than required to catch up) which got applied to principal (for the less usurious lender) and only to fees/interest (for the lender with high fees/interest). "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Last time I checked bankruptcy was mentioned in the US Constitution as being a legitimate role for the federal government whereas the cost of fries at Burger King was not mentioned. If a credit card company raises rates on someone who has defaulted in some way, that is clearly a first step on a road that may, in some cases, lead to bankruptcy. The federal government does, according to the Constitution, have a role to play on that road at some point. Are they getting involved too soon? Hard to say. Consider the following scenario: consumer A owes both creditor B and creditor C $1000 each. Consumer A then defaults but doesn't declare bankruptcy until a year later. Due to usurious interest rates and fees, the balance with creditor B has ballooned to $2000 by this point, whereas creditor C--more reasonable in its fees--claims a balance of only $1150 at this point. Now the consumer only has $1000 in assets to be divvied up between the creditors. Creditor B argues it should get more because of the higher balance. Is this fair to creditor C? Both balances started at the same point and the only reason the consumer owes C less is because C has more reasonable policies--but C will get screwed in bankruptcy court--again, a legitimate federal power--because of its reasonable policies. Should the federal government, given its constitutionally delegated power related to bankruptcy, have some authority to intervene when someone defaults and is at risk of becoming a bankruptcy? "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Can you set aside one for me

There's not a lot of data on this as yet because the sport hasn't been around long enough. If someone started skydiving in their youth in the 1950's they would still be only about 70 years old--which with today's life expectancies would be still rather young to die of "old age". "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Raw oysters and some form of Merlot. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Congrats on finishing AFF! "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

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I'm planning on having beer and pizza myself for dinner--but leave out the beer part for the 15 y/o "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

I think I'm probably grounded because of $$$ for this weekend again, so I'll likely just be enjoying the wonderful weather--but on the ground not in the air. Should have the $$$ to jump again next weekend tho. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

I have absolutely nothing against prostitution morally but the father would have sent a better message to the son if he'd encouraged the son to get a job so that he can earn the money to pay for his own hookers--and make his own decisions about whether paying for a hooker is a good investment of hard earned money or not. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

That's why I said that I would have fewer reservations about the Rule of Law if I saw a stronger mechanism in place to repeal old, bad laws. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

In general I favor the rule of law but my faith in it has been somewhat tested in recent years for various reasons. Some of my reservations include: 1. The court system--civil or criminal--should be used only as a last resort or in extreme cases when other remedies fail. Too often it seems to me that people are increasingly litigious and either threaten to go to court--or, on the other side of the coin, refuse to deal reasonably unless taken to court--rather than attempt to work out differences with the other party. 2. There are too many victimless crimes on the books--and too often aggressively enforced--and these bad laws are being repealed at a disappointingly slow pace even allowing for the fact that one would expect the legislative/legal system to move slowly. Indeed I would argue that almost zero has been accomplished in this regard since the early 1970's with the possible exception of the movement to legalize same sex marriage. If the system has a built in mechanism to remove old, bad laws I'd like to see more concrete evidence of such a mechanism in action. 3. There are too many laws which absolutely do have a real, identifiable, victim and which are increasingly being ignored in certain cases. I'm referring here specifically to the increasing tolerance for torture although I could probably think of other examples if I wanted to. 4. Illegal immigration. No one wants to touch this issue because it would be political suicide--but this issue absolutely must be dealt with if we are to take seriously any claim to operate via the rule of law. Either the immigration laws are bad--and we should be legalizing existing illegal immigrant--or the immigration laws are good--and we should be enforcing them. But taking a stand either way would be political suicide so no politican has the courage to do so. The issue is so huge, however, that no claim that we operate under the rule of law can be taken seriously until we find the courage to act one way or the other on this issue. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

One thing that my instructors said to me that helped me a lot was to be sure to spend at least 5-7 seconds in full flight--no turns, no low "corrections" unless absolutely unavoidable, no braking--before beginning the flare. The reason is that it takes a canopy about 5-7 seconds after completing an input before it regains full flight characteristics. In the flare you are essentially converting forward speed to lift so you want as much forward speed as possible when you begin the flare. Of course to have the luxury of that 5-7 second period before the flare you need to first have flown a good pattern so you are properly set up on final and can focus on the landing. Also continue to fly the canopy until both you and the canopy are on the ground--sometimes people start the flare but do not follow through for whatever reason. You can also ask people at the DZ who see you land--even though you are no longer on AFF you should still be able to get feedback from instructors or experienced jumpers regarding your landings. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Thanks to all the wonderful ladies who have participated so far "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

No "Decoy" from me... "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Nightingale?? "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

It isn't so much about the risk but most things just don't "do it" for me the same way skydiving does. I think skydiving has sort of spoiled me for a lot of other activities.

Yup...here it is...back by popular demand

thanks but i'm a guy "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014