livendive

I understand the victims will get paid. My concern is that the perpetrators of a criminally negligent shooting will not be charged with what was very clearly an unjustifiable assault simply because they're under the protective cloak of the LAPD. Blues, Dave Mmm, that remains to be seen. Everyone in the US has this under a hi-powered microscope. With Dorner dead, the press may turn their attention to it, but so far it has been amazingly glossed over. If that remains the case, I doubt the DA will break ranks. Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

I understand the victims will get paid. My concern is that the perpetrators of a criminally negligent shooting will not be charged with what was very clearly an unjustifiable assault simply because they're under the protective cloak of the LAPD. Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

I fully agree. Killing the daughter and her fiance was inexcusable ("evil" in your terms). Of course they're not the reason he had 0% chance of surviving arrest. The cops shooting a 71 year old woman was pretty bad too, but I'm willing to believe it was just criminally negligent rather than intentional. Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

Plus he'd said some hurtful things about said cops, and didn't have the good sense to just whisper them. Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

There was never any question in my mind that he might actually survive his entry into custody. The fire worked perfectly in that regard. Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

Seat belts don't stop traffic fatalities either, but they sure help. Sprinklers don't stop all building fires, but they sure help. Reserves don't stop all skydiving fatalities, but they sure help. Your argument is silly. So with the massive increase in gun purchases since Obama took office, I assume you can show that gun deaths per 100,000 have increased by some corresponding amount? Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

All I want to know is whether the cops that shot up the two middle aged and elderly hispanic women have been charged with reckless endangerment and assault with a deadly weapon yet. Wrong age, wrong gender, wrong ethnicity, wrong size, and without making any threatening moves. Yes, they were in a pickup truck, but it was a compact, not a half-ton, and of the wrong make and wrong color. If I had a white ex-girlfriend who drives a green Nissan Sentra make a death threat against me, and the next day I unloaded several dozen rounds into two elderly black men (and several nearby houses and other vehicles) because they were in my neighborhood in a red Toyota Avalon, you can rest assured I would absolutely be behind bars. Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

Assuming a 27.5% income tax rate, putting $12,000 in a savings account will cost you $15,300 each year regardless of whether the account earns any interest. Without even addressing the annual tax on any earnings, if it earned 0% interest, you'd have "spent" $459k over 30 years compiling an account worth $300k. Also, most people take a cut in income when they retire, thereby decreasing their tax bracket, thus the taxes paid on 401k withdrawals should always be less than the taxes that would have been paid if they'd not been deposited on a pre-tax bases. Also, there's a slight incentive to pre-tax your 401k deposits affecting the money you DON'T deposit. If you make $100k/year and deposit $12k/year in a savings account, you're going to pay the $100k rate on all $100k. If, instead, you deposit $12k/year into a 401k, you're going to pay 0% (that year) on $12k and the $88k/year rate on the rest. Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

I've taken many students multiple times. If tandem looks like their only viable means of jumping, I ensure that each one is as fun as I can make it. But if they seem physically and mentally capable of solo jumps, I'm giving them a full blown lesson by jump 2 whether they ask for it or not. Actually, several years ago my routine was working tandems (student turns us in freefall, maintains altitude awareness, opens and flies the parachute) to AFF. I've also used tandems for remedial canopy control training several times. In short, its nevery been a problem, ask away. Most instructors like a student that's engaged and wants to learn. Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

Send USPA money (plus a couple less important details). Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

You have far more tandems than I do, but I've taken a few people I'd call stupid. Actually, I call them "mountain dew motherfuckers", the young males that show up with no interest in flying, just proving how "extreme" they are. They typically act like they already know everything there is to know about skydiving, and when I realize I'm being ignored, I reduce their training to 3 lines. "Arch, don't grab anything, pick your feet up for landing". These guys are not terribly common, and sometimes my first assessment proves wrong and they turn out to be attentive and fun to work with, but once every season or two I do indeed feel like it's nothing but a big ol' bag of stupid strapped to me. I don't get paid enough to try to magically make them smarter, so I just try to get them to the ground quickly and safely so they can go home and post their video on Facebook. Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

You mean you got to marry that beautiful, gorgeous woman AND save money? How cool is that? Yep! I called our HR lady the following Monday morning, while we were having breakfast, and told her to fix that. Instant raise of something like eighty bucks a week based solely on ditching the "domestic partner" benefits tax. Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

A friend told me he recently priced 30-round .223 magazines and they'd increased from $19 each in early December to $80 each in mid-January. I guess I'm good on those for awhile. Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

I heard there used to be a "marriage penalty" in the U.S. income tax rates, and that congress wanted to fix it. Is there now a "marriage advantage"? Vskydiver and I are joint everything and we have an accountant do our taxes. I have know idea if we'd do better as singles. That's temporarily fixed, as the standard deduction for married filed jointly is exactly twice the deduction of a signle person. I think there still some breakpoint discrepancies, e.g. two people combining their income hit the 25% tax bracket at something less than double the corresponding income level of a single person. That said, a lot of this depends on income parity. Two people making similar money will suffer some marriage penalty, but if one person makes a lot more than the other person, their combined tax bill will be reduced. Erin and I were registered domestic partners for a few years before we married in order to get her on my employer's health plan. There was a few thousand dollar a year tax penalty associated with that, but it ended the day we got married. Basically any benefit an employer pays for to cover a domestic partner (or their children) is considered taxable. If the person is a spouse, it's tax exempt. Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

Where do you live that these Chuck Norris style home invaders are wandering around the house at night in the dark, with the 100lb rotty mix??? I need to avoid moving there those criminals have brass balls the size of cantelopes. I sure as fuck am not wandering around a strangers house at night when there is a 100lb crazy ass rotweiler chasing me.....all to steal a digital camera and a xbox I could just as easily take from somewhere without a 100lb crazy dog......but thats me. So again, where the hell is this place with these insanely brave burglars? Clearly you're being sarcastic, but I'll stay up here. My dog would probably not chase a burglar, nor would most dogs unless specifically trained for that purpose. His jobs are to a) notice an intruder, b) scare intruders, and c) alert me and/or my wife of their presence. In other words, pay atttention and be big & loud. Dogs are easily foiled, and my guess is most people thinking of breaking/entering know this and have a plan for dealing with an unexpected dog. Most would probably leave and look for a softer target. If an "xbox" or laptop or whatever was not the goal, that's where guns come in handy. I want my wife to have a dog as big as her, who looks scary to the uninitiated, and I want her to have a gun to put said person on his back if the dog doesn't scare him off. I live in a low-crime area. Oddly enough though, there has been a recent uptick in night-time burglaries of occupied homes, some with dogs. One of my co-workers recently had a laptop and tablet and purse taken from her kitchen/dining area in the middle of the night, and another friend of mine had two neighbors on his block be the victims of similar crime. The common theme (outside of being "nice" neighborhoods) was unlocked back doors. Cops suspect young-ish males just walking through back yards, checking doors and seeing what was within easy grabbing distance if unlocked. Simple solution there, assuming they stick with just crimes of opportunity, as I lock the doors at night. On the other hand, what if its something else? Another of my co-workers was the victim of a home invasion about 3 years ago. A maintenance worker at her higher-end apartment complex knew she lived alone. He got keys to her apartment from the managers office and let himself in at something like 4 AM, shattered her arm & wrist with a crowbar, and beat her about the head enough to require 43 stitches, then raped her. A dog like mine and a gun could have stopped him. Barking = get gun, guy enters anyhow = shoot him. No dog and no gun = lay back and try to enjoy it? Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

We have a 100 lb Shephard Rottweiler mix. He's pretty territorial, seems to enjoy the fact that protection is part of his job, and definitely elevates his awareness/alert level when I'm gone and he's home with my wife. Still, his job is to act as deterrent and alarm system, not defender. Also, walking through my house in the dark with unknown persons doing suspicious things, I'll be carrying a handgun. I'd prefer my AR, but I can't retrieve it nearly as quickly or quietly as my .40. I was just talking to my wife last week about getting her a shotgun for this purpose if my work has me traveling more. Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

Actually, Dave. That's exactly in line with what I was thinking. Some mandatory training of the legal responsibilities of ownership. How does that solve a problem? Well, it might help keep your kids from stealing your guns and shooting you in the face and then going on to shoot up a bunch of other kids. If being shot in the face by your own child isn't motivation enough, how the hell would a threat of imprisoning your corpse make you more likely to comply? Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

This will never happen as long as we continue to allow our society to be dominated by vultures who get rich on others misery. . What does the Walton family have to do with gay marriage? XD Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

I think I started posting there in 96 or 97. Blues, ALF#16, ABG#1 "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

Ha, he got me with that too. Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

Leave tandems as optional if you want, but start them with IAD. Once they've gotten to the hop & pop stage, they're cleared to jump by themself. At that point, having an AFF instructor with them is better than going solo. Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

On the nuclear front, what are they doing that we haven't? We've tested missiles, and detonations, and been rather obvious in our distaste for their government. Goose/gander? Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

All the intitial reports were that the AR-15 was found nearby, in a car. It seemed clear to me they were saying he didn't use it, but then the gunophobes heard "scary black gun" and figured somewhere within a city block or two is scary enough. Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

Goddammit. Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)

How many times have you needed a PSA count, or an EKG? What about the insurance policies on your plane and house? Are those also bad ideas? Or is it plausible that some preventative measures can give the concerned a measure of comfort without regard to whether others get by fine without them. Do you think insurance policies should be outlawed because some people abuse them with fraudulent claims? Blues, Dave "I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!" (drink Mountain Dew)