wolfriverjoe

You have got to be kidding. Trump IS all of those things. Many of his supporters are too. Not all of them, but many. I completely fail to understand how any reasonable person can continue to support Trump. And, somehow not surprisingly, the "White Nationalists" have latched onto Trump's "Go Home". When Trump was asked about that, he said it didn't bother him (keep in mind that he feels the Nazis & KKK have 'many fine people among them'). He's just happy because people agree with him. The fact that many of those people are racist, and that more people find his comments disgusting doesn't seem to matter to him. WaPo source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/15/given-an-opportunity-criticize-white-nationalists-trump-instead-welcomed-their-agreement/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.33c2c883d945

Of course not. She's white and attractive.

What the hell are you talking about?

Back on topic, the stock market reached new heights last week. Due in large part to the Fed announcing interest rate cuts. Kinda funny. Rate cuts makes Wall St really happy because it makes borrowing money less expensive. However, it's a strong sign that the Fed is seeing an economic slowdown on the horizon.

No. Misspelled 'thought'. Did you miss the question I asked a few posts back? Or are you just ignoring it?

Try reading the story of the skydiving duck. http://tailotherat.blogspot.com/2011/08/sky-diving-duck-ii-chicken-of-sky.html

Something along the lines of this:

You are correct. We are talking about the President of the United States. I would hope we would hold him to a little bit higher standard than a "no name TI". Same with a Supreme Court Justice appointment. An interesting though popped up on FB:

You clearly implied that it's a "Witch Hunt". Which really means false accusations. If the accusations are false, then the accusers are lying. Do you really believe that the accusations against Trump are all false? ALL the accusations? Rape (and other sexual misconduct), tax fraud, plain old fraud, obstruction of justice, bribery of public officials, misuse of campaign funds, misuse of charitable funds, and on and on. Many are felonies. Are ALL of these lies? If they aren't, how can you still think he's fit to hold office? Or do you simply not care what he does, as long as he meets your political objectives?

How about: "Rape allegations - 14" And 'Rape of a child - 13" There's a meme going around on FB to the effect of: They aren't "underage women" They are CHILDREN. It isn't 'non-consensual sex'. It's RAPE. And, by definition, children cannot consent. But his supporters won't care. He's not black, he's not a woman, he's not a 'liberal'. So they will continue to ignore the allegations, asking questions like "when was the trial?" THEY DON'T CARE. This has been made abundantly clear.

I would say it depends on the rest of the training program. Do they have you do more tandems before your first AFF jump? Do they have you do tunnel time? My current DZ does a program that has 2 tandems (after the first jump class) with tasks that must be accomplished & objectives met. Then 10 min in the tunnel. If all goes well, the first AFF jump is one instructor. If the TI or tunnel instructor isn't confident that the student will do well with one instructor, they have the option of doing the first jump with two.

I was unaware that you were the Canadian Ambassador. I thought you drove truck. While this is a private site, owned by South Africans & hosted on Canadian servers (at least it used to be), the latitude allowed for civil discourse & debate is pretty broad. It's not true 'freedom of speech' (the mods see to that), but outside of truly offensive statements (racist, hateful, threats, PAs), people are allowed to voice (type) their views. While I certainly don't agree with some of your positions, you post in a civil manner, and do so in a literate and logical way. That goes a long way for me. The fools who believe in truly stupid crap, or who can't be bothered to worry about spelling and grammar tend to end up on my 'ignore' list. I was unaware that the flag thingie was an optional setting. I like the flags, if for no other reason than it gives a bit of perspective on the poster. Literally 'where they are coming from', which is pretty helpful in evaluating their posts. Thanks for sharing it.

Meh. The main thing this episode has demonstrated is that Trump doesn't feel that he has to abide by SC decisions. Somehow, not a big surprise that he feels that the rules don't apply to him.

Well, if I really wanted to find out, I could put myself on my own ignore list, and then create a sock puppet account and not ignore me. Then I'd see if I still existed or not, because I wouldn't be using me to check on me. I'd be using a me who isn't me to check to see if the original me exists.

Power & money. Epstein had them. So he was 'friends' with a lot of people who either have or want power & money.

Meh. It wouldn't take her long to get to you. Not in that car.

So an opinion poll is a 'fact.'

Right. I did a quick search and found pretty much the same thing. Military parades after military events. Not 'just to feed the President's ego', which this one clearly was.

Oh, there you go using facts and data again. Trump supporters just ignore those.

One thought - Do you have any idea where you will be once you are back in the states? (I know, the army may not tell you, they may change their mind) But if you do know where you will be, you might get in touch with the DZs in that area and see what they would want to see and to have you do.

How many of you guys realize that the Star Spangled Banner does NOT tell the story of a Revolutionary War battle? It refers to the flag that was still flying over Ft McHenry on the morning of 14 Sept, 1814. War of 1812. George Washington died in 1799. Almost 15 YEARS before the event. No way he was going to capture Trenton airport or conduct an assault on ORD (O'Hare). As for Trump, I'm sure he took the 'Rockets Red Glare' to mean that they had rockets then. So they had a "SPACE FORCE!!!!" They must have had airports too, right?

No easy answer. Drinking, smoking and driving are toughies. Kids at that age don't realize they aren't immortal. Rush got it right in Dreamline. So telling them that doing that stuff is a bad idea because it will cause long term harm won't sink in. They will 'worry about it later' or it 'won't happen to them'. There are some kids who won't believe that anything bad can happen to them. Sangi was an excellent example of that. It's pretty clear that different actions & decisions require different levels of maturity. Impulse control and empathy (understanding how ones actions affect others) can be taught early, but often aren't. That's why some choices are given kids earlier and some later. Of course, not all 18 year olds are 'grown up' enough to make good decisions on a lot of stuff. Hell, even some 30 year olds aren't. For criminal actions (like the one in the OP), it can be really difficult. Which is why the 'one size fits all' approach of automatically shifting kids into adult court for some crimes (or only keeping them in the juvenile system) is not always the best idea. Some kids are pretty far gone and 'rehabilitating' them is difficult if not impossible. Others made a bad choice, compounded it with more bad decisions and ended up in a lot of trouble, yet aren't really "all that bad".

No they aren't. I think you know that the idea of treating juveniles differently from adults comes from the basic idea that they are too young to understand the gravity of their crimes, form true intent to commit the crime, all of that. The principle that the actor must understand that what he did was wrong is long and deeply held in our society. Finding someone 'not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect' is another expression of that. Saying that someone was so mentally ill that they didn't understand that what they did was wrong doesn't happen as often as pop culture would want you to believe, but it happens. The 'pendulum' on juveniles swings back and forth on a fairly regular basis. We go from 'they're kids and don't know what they are doing' to 'they commit these crimes knowing full well that they will just get a slap on the wrist because they are juveniles'. We are currently on a bit of a swing back to the 'gentle' treatment, after a decade or so of sending kids to adult court automatically for certain crimes, and giving young teens life without parole. In this case, he was 16. Old enough to drive a car, which is a pretty adult activity. He took video. He shared that video, admitting on it that he was committing rape. And the prosecutor had to go to a judge to get the accused waived to adult court. In this case, the judge didn't say anything about his youth. Or immaturity. Or inability to form intent. Or understand the nature of his crime. Just that he came from a good home* And would go to a good school. The appellate court agreed with the prosecutor that the accused should be tried in adult court. And that the judge used some really poor reasoning to deny the prosecutors motion. * - I dunno about anyone else, but I would think that a kid from a 'good home' would know that raping an unconscious girl, videoing it and sharing the video with his friends was not a good thing to do.

Which ones had military parades? The only real 'military parade' I can remember in DC was the one after the First Gulf War. While there were a lot of non-military displays, this was the closest to a Soviet-style 'show of power' that I've ever seen in the US. I could be wrong on this, and welcome correction if so.

I jump a Sabre2 loaded about 1.15:1. It does some funky stuff on opening. Off heading isn't unusual. I don't get closed end cells much. I usually pack myself. I was getting some random 'hardish' openings a while back. Not 'injury' hard, but 'kinda hurt' (especially my back) hard. I had a conversation with a fairly knowledgeable master rigger who told me that his understanding was that they had found that the sides of the slider are important for avoiding hard openings. He said to make sure the sides of the slider are well pulled out when quartering it. Front and back matter, but nowhere near as much as the sides. I took this suggestion and had a lot of success with it. As long as I pull the sides well out, the openings have been much more consistent and not hard. Not 'buttery soft' (like a Crossfire or Silhouette) but not hard.