wolfriverjoe

Didn't actually read the article you quoted, did you. The answer is 'no'. Virtually nothing we will do will change the outcome. When you add in the folks who think that fossil fuels are plentiful enough that we can continue to burn them in unlimited amounts, the folks who think that Climate Change and AGW are a "Liberal Hoax" (or a Chinese one), the folks who say 'why should I care, it won't affect me', and the chance for meaningful change is virtually zero. Look at human history. Rapa Nui (Easter Island) is a stark example. But there are lots of others. Short term survival takes precedence over long term sustainability. By the time it becomes bad enough to be seriously noticeable, it's too late.

Yeah, he linked the wrong article. The one he quoted was the top one on the 'most popular' list to the right. And he left out a lot. There's a bit of fear-mongering (the part he quoted), but there's some other stuff that is both accurate & rather disturbing. So we aren't improving anything. In fact we're getting worse. Personally, I think humanity is fucked. Not this year, not this decade, probably not (despite what the author of the article says) this century. But the damage we have done and are doing to the planet is too severe, too widespread and too lucrative to stop. Look at the Amazon. The ranchers are selling huge amounts of beef to China. They need pasture for the cattle. So they burn down the rainforest. Look up the stories. The ranchers don't think they are doing anything wrong. They need to feed their families. The Amazon is 'too big to destroy' (not an exact quote, but close). People will continue to deny and ignore it, for a wide variety of reasons. And, eventually, the climate will become largely uninhabitable. People (as a species) will survive. But the world will be a drastically altered place. And the world population will be a LOT less.

Well, I was part of a DZ that had a line of credit from a bank. We used that money for 'big' expenses, like rebuilding the engine on one of the planes. Or a new tandem rig (actual purchases when I was part of the club). We had a steady tandem business (maybe 20 every weekend), and a fairly active S/L first jump class (maybe averaging 5 every weekend). 2 182s. The bank had no problem, in part because we had 2 planes for collateral. The LoC would get extended, then slowly paid off. The bank understood we shut down in the winter and would accept 'interest only' payments when we were on winter hiatus. Also, after 4 years of no DZ near me, one started up again this year. The old Green Bay Skydivers reopened as "Skydive Freefall Adventure" on Memorial Day weekend. One of the TIs from the old operation and his wife, who worked manifest at the old place rented the same hangar, leased the same plane and got a pair of tandem rigs from one of the area DZs. I have zero clue what sort of start up money they already had or how much it took, but I know they took out at least some of the money as a loan. Have a business plan. Have projected income (if its already an operational DZ, show the numbers of jumps, each type and the income from them), projected costs, all of that. You can get around the liability question by showing them the waiver and how many successful lawsuits have been pursued against DZs. Do you have any/much experience as a DZO or DZ manager? If you haven't already done this, it's a ton of work. Plan on doing everything, from checking in the cute students to mopping out the toilets. And the standard phrase 'you make a small pile of money in aviation by starting with a big one' is often true. Expenses can be brutal. One way around it is to be as many of your own 'employees' as you can. Do you have a rigger ticket? Commercial piliot? A&P? Those can take a huge bite out of expenses (the bank would like that). I would call this 'difficult but not impossible'.

It looks like other folks have noticed that Trump's idiotic tweets are having an effect on the market. JP Morgan Chase has started the "Volfefe Index", which tracks the effect that the Mango Mussolini's posts have on the market. https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/09/investing/jpmorgan-trump-tweets-volfefe-index/index.html

Ya know? That statement sums up the ENTIRE Trump presidency in a nutshell. Nicely put.

China is in a bit of a bind. They need electricity. But they are finding out (as we did last century) that coal is dirty. The air quality in many major Chinese cities is as bad or worse than LA in the early 70s. People are starting to get sick & die from the air. That's one reason China is pursuing solar (and other 'alternatives') pretty aggressively.

Well, none of them actually affected him. Andrew, back in 92, barely skimmed the area that Mar A Lago is in. All of the Cat 5s that have hit in the past few years didn't go anywhere near stuff he owns. Just stuff owned by 'poor people.' So he doesn't care. And doesn't remember.

Read that one again.

Passengers and their luggage will have quite a bit of weight. What can be done with (or to) an empty (light) airframe probably cannot be done with a full (heavy) one.

Well, it's abundantly clear that Trump knows more about hurricanes & weather forecasting than anyone, even the meteorologists. Even if he doesn't know what 'Category 5' means.

Well, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Nevada, Utah, Washington Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho & Montana all have large areas that are considered 'desert' (or close to it). Few clouds, lots of sun. Also, solar equipment is dropping significantly in cost. It no longer takes "all day sun" for it to be viable. Obviously, the more sun a given location gets, the quicker the payback. But there's lots of solar going in in 'flyover country'.

Yeah, 'Exorcists' are 'real' things, just like psychic mediums and "Reiki healers'. "Real" in the meaning that there are people who represent themselves as these things and take money for their 'services' from the foolish and gullible. I do have to wonder: If the spells in HP are 'real' and 'risk conjuring up evil spirits', why hasn't this happened? There are millions of people who have read these books. I would guess that the spells have been read aloud upwards of a billion times. You'd think that the evil spirits would have appeared at least a few times.

He's also making a lot of money in the process. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/donald-trump-reports-hes-getting-rich-off-the-presidency/530718/?fbclid=IwAR3s3B9zgI0MPxFMdqzAvrsyuoVO6ildBWNcGkz4fnAk3Es1hcwQReKBcDM

Please name one that says humans will be in danger of extinction in the next decade. While I agree that politicians are not really reputable sources for scientific information (Al Gore included), I can't think of any that are claiming what you think.

Can you link any reputable source that claims humans will be in real danger in the next decade? Or are you just making shit up again? There isn't any real overall threat coming in my lifetime (or yours). So the idea that you will be 'rubbing people's noses' in it in a couple decades simply says you don't understand the reality of the situation.. We may do irreparable damage. We may reach a 'tipping point', a 'point of no return' where we won't be able to stop it. But the real effects won't be dangerous to us for a while yet.

Not strange at all. Some people understand the importance of biodiversity and the idea that stuff affecting polar bears and coral reefs will affect humans too. Others can't see past their own nose (and wallet).

Well, the guy who swore to 'uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States' has (yet again) decided that he gets to pick & choose which laws to 'uphold' and which ones he and his minions can just ignore. So to build his stupid wall, he told people to 'take the land' and if they broke any laws, he would pardon them. When administration officials were asked about this, they said he was 'just joking' (on condition of anonymity, of course). https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-08-28/trump-officials-border-wall-pardon?fbclid=IwAR3ulHJ1nEbBI9A_WqZ2m25Mcu_838pZ6C2wxTuO-UxaPh247cg7r4RH46w

Oh hush. It's on the ocean & the ocean is rising. Don't include stuff like how low the surrounding area is, or what kinds of weather threats are present, or any other facts. You'll just confuse him.

Given Trump's vitriolic anti-immigrant stance (at least from places other than Norway), can you understand why people heard this and assumed the worst? And it really wasn't clearly stated to begin with.

In general, it means pin (main & reserve) protection, bridle protection and riser protection that is secure enough to stay in place during the higher speed and 'unusual' attitudes that freeflying entails. "Unusual" meaning 'other than belly to earth'. Premature openings are the main concern, but it's also possible to have the toggles pop loose if the risers aren't properly secured. That can make for an interesting opening. One other issue is that the rig needs to stay in place on your back. That's more an issue of harness fit than any actual design feature of the container, although a belly band can help keep in place a rig that doesn't fit quite right.

Given the huge swings in the market since Friday (when he said he was going to make all US businesses pull out of China) to today (when he said that the Chinese delegation had called the US delegation to resume talks*), I have to wonder if one of his "Wall St Buddies" that has his phone number isn't using the power of the WH to manipulate the markets. It's been pretty clearly shown that Trump can be manipulated fairly easily. It's not too far fetched to think that someone who has access and a thorough understanding of the market and economics is taking advantage of Trump's foolishness.

You say 'I don't want a ban', yet every single 'heartbeat' bill would ban abortions outside of a very early timeframe. Most women don't even realize they are pregnant before the 'heartbeat' (which isn't really a 'heart') is detectable. The "heartbeat bills" are a very sneaky way to ban almost all elective abortions. There are a lot of men against abortion. Many (not all) are the 'pregnant in the summer, barefoot in the winter' types. Others seem to be opposed to women having any personal freedom or rights at all. Many men who are opposed to abortion are also opposed to welfare, Head Start education, government run medical programs (medical care for poor, pregnant women), all that. They don't actually seem to care about the women or the kids. A very scary fact that goes along with this is the simple fact that infant mortality rates have risen significantly in the US. So have maternal deaths during or shortly after childbirth. The numbers for white women & children is pretty stable, but the numbers for minorities have gone up by a pretty large amount.

It's a sad state when it's become hard to tell the difference between reality and an Onion piece. Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR news quiz has a segment they do sometimes, called the "Trump Dump". Rapid fire, True/False questions to the panel about Trump. Transcript from June: https://www.npr.org/2019/06/15/733018579/panel-questions

I do believe Yoink's point was that by 'finding Jesus', that one can be forgiven for any and all sins, even the heinous crime of killing one's own wife and two young daughters. That would, in theory, allow one to avoid hell (jail). However, if one does not believe in God or religion or any of that, there is no hell. There is no afterlife at all. No punishment for one's transgressions. For instance, the religious types likely believe that Jeffery Epstein is 'burning in hell'. Those who don't believe in that feel that he escaped any real punishment, and died in prison, just like he would have eventually. Just sooner. Well, there are some religious arguments that are actually pretty noble. I know more than a couple of the 'Born Again' persuasion that I put in that category. They firmly believe that Jesus was a real person, that the New Testament is accurate and correct. They try to live their lives according to the teachings of Jesus. All the teachings, not just some of them. They know full well that they are going to fall short, but they keep trying. They don't pray for specific stuff (end war, end abortion, put a 'God Fearing' Christian in the White House, ect). They pray to understand what God's will for them is, the strength and courage to carry it out, and forgiveness for their sins. They are truly trying to live the life they think God & Jesus want them to (and it doesn't include hating Muslims, or Mexicans or Gays or any of that). While I don't believe the things that they do, I have a lot of respect for the lives they are trying to live.

The ones on the pillows & mattresses. It's perfectly legal to tear them off if you are the purchaser. The only 'legal requirement' is that they be attached when the product is sold new.