birdlike

It's been before the start of 2008 unfortunately. I need a repack, and my CYPRES2 needs a servicing before I can jump again. Oh, and my USPA needs renewing -- I might do that this weekend, and get my rig to the rigger in a few weeks if possible. I should mention... I &^#@& miss the sky!!! Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

That clarifies nothing. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Well, now that the labels give the trans fat content explicitly; now that even fast food joints make the nutritional content of their food available just for the asking, why shouldn't these decisions now be up to the consumer? You mean to tell me that now that we have all the transparency, all the information provided, they have to take the fat totally out of the products? It's amazing, and galling, that you wish to put no responsibility on the consumer, and all of it on a government that will take products away from everyone just so that the irresponsible people can't hurt themselves with them -- and fuck those of us who know how to eat in moderation, who have self control, who educate ourselves about our choices. We are not left with the choices that people should have when they are capable of making good ones. We are to be treated by the lowest common denominator. That's a fucked-up plan, dreamt up by modern autocrats who want to tell us all how we must live and leave us no freedom to choose for ourselves. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

You're being disingenous about it. It doesn't take being "intimately knowledgeable about the pros and cons of every food additive and product on the market" to know that eating too much fatty "junk food" is not good for you. And it certainly does take esoteric knowledge to be able to look in a motherfuckin' MIRROR and say, "HOLY SHIT, I've fuckin' gotten FAT! I'd better get to a doctor or nutritionist for information about food choices and exercise programs that can help me drop this unhealthy weight!" Many of us feel that the government serves us when it protects us when needed, but otherwise leaves us the fuck alone to live our lives and make our own choices. If I want fatty, tasty Krispy Kremes, I should have that right. And it doesn't take a protective nanny-state to know how to put limits on our indulgence so that we aren't eating Big Macs five days a week and then fuckin' whining that "McDonald's made me get fat!" Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Well, yeah. You've abused someone for using the exact same tactic you use and you (apparently) knew you were applying a double standard. Thought it was kinda wierd. Are you both arguing over how vortexring responded to me? Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

You should see some of the fatties that work in my building. OMG it's disgusting. I can just imagine how much more money there would be for for salaries if we weren't paying to keep them from keeling over. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Does the existence of such a "monstrous disease" not cause at least a few "believers" to have pause when wondering, "What kind of 'loving God' would afflict his beloved creations with such abominations?" This may take the thread in a different direction, and maybe that's ok and maybe it's not. If not, then don't, and I won't pursue it. But this subject definitely makes me wonder (further) why people are able to doublethink their way into believing in (much less worshiping) God. For every "miracle" that God supposedly provides (saving the kid trapped in the well, sending the "miracle" kidney donor, allowing the fireman to reach the sleeping toddler, etc.) there are horrendous examples by the MILLIONS of people living in subhuman SQUALOR conditions, MILLIONS DYING OF STARVATION, MALARIA, DIPTHERIA, TUBERCULOSIS, ETC. ETC. ETC. EVERY YEAR. People shitting blood until they die. People choking on their own blood and mucus until they die. This is "what God wants"? What kind of God wants what we would see if we opened our eyes to just how widespread human suffering is across the globe? Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

1 month of pregnancy is only 1/9 of what it takes to start a life. The thing is, I kind of agree with that, in a metaphysical, ooo-WEEEE-eee-ooooo sense. Life does appear to me to begin at conception. There is something we may not quite understand about what exactly makes it "life," but there is a different thing going on at the very moment when the sperm and egg meet. But to say that it is sanctified is a matter for any given society to DEFINE. We realize all over the place that not all ending of life is equivalent. We end lives in war when we are defending our way of life; we end lives to save lives (as when police kill a hostage-taker) and we don't say, "OH, you shouldn't! We even end lives compassionately when people are sick and dying. They have life left, and without euthanasia, they'd live longer than we let them. So if we grant that some killing may be performed, why not allow that when a human life is still not yet a thinking, feeling, reasoning entity (as when it is a few weeks into its gestation) that it's permissible to end it? It's not like we're talking about ending a life that is looking at you, knowing what you are about to do, pleading with you, "No, please, don't do this!" In the words of the immortal Gob Bluth, "COME on!!" Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Mike, I guess I let myself believe that it was not a standard thing. I thought only Cadillac had begun installing devices that record the speed and other driving conditions prior to crashes or something. I haven't heard a lot of reporting about car data being retrieved after crashes reported on the news. Or any, really. But plenty of times I have read, "Police suspect speed may have been a factor." Why would they say that if they were able to know exactly what the speed had been? I mean, I have to believe that a large percentage of crashes are bound to involve cars manufactured since 1996. I have read stories of people being surcharged (essentially fined) by car rental agencies that used data from the rental cars' GPS devices to determine that they had been speeding in the rental cars, which is specifically circumscribed in the rental agreement. One side can argue that well, technically, they can certainly forbid you from using their car to break the law; the other side (justifiably, in my opinion) can argue, "Come on, dude, what the fuck?!" Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Love the Glock 27! Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

This isn't just at work. If you use tobacco anywhere, not just at work, no job. The "rationalization" is that it is to lower medical costs. (Or something). So, extending that rule to... being obese? Exercise? Obesity is the biggest health problem in the US. So, where do we go from here? Percentage of body fat limits? No more donuts for you. Alcohol is next. The costs are social and medical and a lot larger. No more drinking at home. Say goodbye to skydiving... you peeps is just crazy. Something will need to be done about reckless endangerment also. This is the insanity that those who cheer government intrusion bring us. It can come from the right or the left, but generally I see it promulgated by the left, who are always looking out for what's best for us, don't you know. If this is OK with you, you're a fascist wannabe, too shortsighted to see and understand the far-reaching implications. How long before something you like to do will make the list of "things we just can't allow you to do"? What about putting surveillance equipment into your car that records the forces of your starts and stops, and records your speeds? Speed kills, car crashes kill. What about breathalyzer ignition switches for everyone?! Why use them only for drunks? Anyone can have a "first time" when he gets behind the wheel drunk, and this would prevent even that first time. The idea of regulation for your own safety is anathema to liberty. It's worse when the reason is camouflaged as a cost-saving measure, as though that's a better reason to force people to give up liberty. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

What an abnormal statement! I doubt any potential mother would ask for that, I just do not believe it. Perhaps for you it is but, a DS child is NO toy, Bill Cole Now your little one is 10 y/o, will you be there in 10 or 15 yrs? I doubt that, too. *Shudder* Has anyone here read Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut? The omniscient narrator explains that mankind's problems arose because he had too big a brain. Thousands of years after the principal action of the book has taken place, mankind has evolved to be kind of like furred penguin-people with very small, simplistic brains. Pretty much like animals again, or monkeys of some sort. When I read these posts (quoted above) I was immediately reminded of that book. Kant said that you cannot do things that you would not will everyone to be free to do. So, if a person desired to have a child with a mental handicap (is it too unkind to call it a "mental inferiority"?), I suppose that should be expected to open the door to everyone else making the same choice. So imagine a world where eugenically we selected FOR Down Syndrome. (When the hell did we stop calling it "Down's Syndrome, anyway? We don't call it "Lou Gehrig Disease.") Would we not be essentially creating an "UN-super race"? DOWNgrading the overall quality of the human race? I am not making a judgment about the worthiness of the lives of people with Down Syndrome. But this is Speaker's Corner, yes? Can't I speak the plain truth that Down Syndrome is a FUCKUP of nature, not the way nature OUGHT to make babies? We may find conjoined twins fascinating, too, but does that mean we ought to try to make them happen? Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

NO, that sounds awful, and while I feel compassion for those who suffer from it, I cannot imagine them being willing to engender a child who is very likely to suffer the same sort of TORMENT. It sounds like a life lived (and then ended by) such a disease would indeed be TORMENT. Prior to procreating, there is no child to speak of. No child that you could say, "Oh, but he would like to have had a chance to live instead of never being born." There is no lament about the life that didn't get created except on the part of the PARENTS who might (selfishly?) crave to hold a little one of their own. I don't like having to say it, but that really does seem like a selfish self-indulgence, to have a child knowing that you have a 50% chance of making him/her grow up to be stricken thus. A personal desire to be a parent should not triumph over a selfless desire to not make a child of yours grow to suffer such a horrible fate. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

To believe that, you first have to believe that Jesse Jackson has good judgment. That's certainly a debatable subject. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

I have my choice of Glock or USP and I still pick the Glock for EDC. Why? I am a fiend for ultrasimplicity. I love the fact that I can separate every single part of my Glock from every single other part. I know that does not factor into using it in a shooting scenario, but it does help me to have ultraconfidence in the gun. Now, as for the P7, yes, it's a fascinating gun and I know it is practically revered. I'd love to have one. But doesn't it cost about three times what a Glock costs? My G22 ran $529. I think that P7s are like upwards of $1200, aren't they? Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

In enlightened jurisdictions there is the "castle doctrine," which in its recently expanded form protects from criminal and civil liability a person who has used deadly force in justifiable self defense. That means that if you were justified in shooting, you won't be prosecuted. And NO ONE CAN SUE YOU IN CIVIL COURT, EITHER. If I, here in Florida, shoot a carjacker and it's determined that I acted in self defense, his family can't do SHIT. And that's how it OUGHT to be--everywhere. Forgive me, but I don't think you can really "know" that. I think that a lot will depend on how clear-cut the case for self defense was. It's not automatic that everyone who shoots someone gets hauled in and booked and has to wait for the DA to see if he feels like prosecuting a righteous man. Well, I don't have the Kimber, but I do have the $300 .38 +p snubbie. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

I was thinking the same way about that. I doubt it takes much shooting with a .40S&W before you lose a measurable amount of hearing ability. My friend and I once made the mistake of popping off some rounds from his .25 Beretta at the end of a day shooting at an outdoor range, and it hurt like all fuck, man. Like icepicks in the ears. Or cast iron Q-tips or something. Never had that as an issue with any Glocks I've fired. What's the deal with that? Mine go up and to the right, plenty of clearance. One question to probe this: were you shooting in a lane at an indoor range or something, where the casing (thank god you called it a casing, not a "shell") may have bounced off a partition after going the right way? Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

In such a case, what I'd be sure of is that I'm about to shoot a criminal. I disagree on a different basis. This isn't about whether you can be prescient or not. This is about what you have a right to believe the criminal is willing to do to you. A weapon brought to bear on you is clear, unambiguous license to use your own weapon to end your assailant's life. It is impossible for me to fathom any person's opposition to that principle. To tell me I cannot act decisively and lethally when someone expresses an overt threat to my life--whether or not, unbeknownst to me, deep in his heart, my assailant knows he'd never shoot me--is to tell me that I do not have more of a moral right to emerge the victor in a robbery/murder situation than he who attacks me does. And that's nonsense. I do not have to be able to get inside his mind; I just have to reasonably fear that he intends to cause me grievous injury or death if I do not defend myself. It doesn't matter whether he "means it"; it just matters that the threat is presented and is credible. First of all, I keep reading news story after news story lately of people shot to death after complying with robbers' demands. So much for "give them what they want and they won't hurt you." How would you like to lie on the ground, dying, wondering why the fuck this shitpile shot you after you gave him everything you had. I'd rather die after failing to beat him to the trigger pull. Is there a gun or weapon being used to threaten you? Then your life is at risk. I don't think you ought to parse words here. How can you possibly know, at the moment of the robbery, whether this is "good" robber or a "bad" robber? (That's a sick joke I'm making there, as though a guy could be robbing you but still be "good.") Just as you say that you can't know that he's going to kill you, I say that you can't know that he won't kill you. And if you make the latter assumption, there's a hell of a price to pay if you were wrong to give him the benefit of the doubt. What insurance will pay me for money that is taken from me in a robbery? None that I know of. You might be right about the idea that few people who really believe they're about to be murdered would not fight back. The trick is, many people come to find out that someone really does mean to kill them, and all they have is a cellular phone with a 911 operator asking them what the emergency is. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

If they advocate for the ban, and it gets passed, won't that mean that the others will start making donuts with substitutes similar to Kingpin's, and then they won't have an "edge" over the "unhealthy" competition with their "healthy" donuts? I don't get it. I'd think that they'd want the other companies to use those "evil trans-fats." I have a question: Why won't these legislatures go after companies like Nabisco and such, and all those companies that make crackers and Pop-tarts LOADED with hydrogenated oils? And who are these abject fuckin' liars, these demagogues and scoundrels and meddlers, who are acting as though this is going to make populations healthier, when SO many unhealthy foods will not be affected (consumer goods that people buy and take home to eat). Is it their belief that no one gets fat in any way other than by eating the stuff they get in restaurants? If McDonald's food is making people fat, is it because it contains trans-fats, or because the people eating it get ZERO EXERCISE, eat two Big Macs and a super-sized fries four to six times a week, and sit in front of the t.v. with a box of Cheez-Its every night for six hours, then go out and smoke a pack and a half a day? In the immortal words of Gob Bluth: COME ON!! Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

Hmm, I'm well familiar with the (very common) feeling that Glocks are "ugly, but do the job well." I have never found them to be ugly, though! I've always admired the elegance of their simplicity. I have seen lots of supposedly "handsome" guns that I thought were dolled-up and horrendously ugly. Why, for example, aren't people bashing the Walther P99 for being ugly? God, that thing looks like poop from a leper warthog! And even the S&W M&P looks, to me, far too much like the old (deservedly maligned) Colt 2000. Hideous. I respect your personal opinion about the Glock -- hey, if you don't like it, you don't like it. I'm glad you recognized that it's up to the job; but I still can't fathom people's feelings that it's an ugly gun. I guess it's a lot like taste in cars. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

ok so don't get a Hi-point or a Kahr they are crap! Get like a FN, Ruger, S & W, or a H/k. My recommendation is GLOCK all the way. I'm a firm believer. But whatever you do, don't get suckered into buying a Kel-Tec. OMG they are such JUNK!! Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

I agree. I have gotten the overwhelming sense that the media consider Obama their "golden boy" as well. And what's more, the more it goes on, the more I keep thinking of him as Damien Thorn in the third Omen movie... Idolized, charismatic, adored, demagoguic, dishonest, two-faced... I just think that ill is going to come of it if he's elected to anything more than dog-catcher. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

I think it is (silly sentiment talking), because no one can really fathom oblivion--never having lived. It's paradoxical to contemplate what someone who was not given the chance to live "would think." Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

This response begs the question, "Is it 'mean and cruel' only because the baby has Down Syndrome, or would it be mean and cruel to abort a baby period?" Because it seems that if it's the former, then special consideration, charity, sympathy, whatever is being given to a Down Syndrome baby but it's ok to deny that to a normal baby! Me, I think I would give serious thought to aborting the child, and I would feel the requisite pangs and pain and emotional grief but I have long since recognized that the world is a harsh place and we are put into positions to have to make tough choices that sometimes make us feel bad about what we had to do. I don't mean that to be used as a justification for just doing any old thing one feels like (for example outright murder, robbery, rape, etc.). But there is truth to the idea that sometimes we make decisions that we just have to live with even though we didn't like having to make them. Sometimes we even end up feeling like we have to pay penance for the rest of our lives, in our own minds if nowhere else, for what we chose. Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire

The city fathers of Kennesaw, Georgia, should send a basket of goodies to the town council of Morton Grove with a polite but sarcastic card saying something like, "Ah, we see you've finally come around. How was it, enduring all of those high crime years while we had nearly none?" Spirits fly on dangerous missions Imaginations on fire