wolfriverjoe

Well, the biggest problem with the whole situation is that it largely is a result of the destabilization of Iraq. By the Bush admin. It's impossible to say what would be the current state of affairs if we hadn't invaded in 03, but it's pretty clear that the predictions of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al were completely and totally wrong. The idea that "the oppressed" would rise up and form a democratic, humane, stable government was a joke. But anyone who opposed that idea was quickly shouted down. The idea that anyone associated with the old regime had to be kept out of any role in the new one was idiotic. That had the dual effect of making sure the new government had practically zero experience running a country and creating a large population of angry, former leaders who want to be back in power. But, back in June of 03, Rumsfeld called those people "dead enders" and predicted a quick end to the insurgency. At the time, US casualties numbered less than 200 dead. That turned out to be just a little bit inaccurate. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

If you mean Afghanistan, I don't recall any ridicule, criticism or attacks by anyone for our going into it do assist the Northern Alliance in taking down the Taliban. If you mean Iraq, they had nothing to do with the attacks on New York or the Pentagon. NOTHING AT ALL!!! As a matter of fact, the entity known as Daesh (ISIS) is a direct result of our going into Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein and the Baath party. Remember Rumsfeld talking about the 'Dead Enders' after the invasion? They don't seem to have gotten the message that they had no future at all and would lie down and give up. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

That would be an obvious problem, not to mention unconstitutional. I suppose one alternative would be to have no training requirements at all. Are those the only options? Are there no examples of jurisdictions that require some training, and also make that training easy to access? Don Of course it's unconstitutional. The NRA had to sue to get it rescinded. The city of Chicago did a lot of those sorts of "legal requirements" trying to prevent gun ownership. They got sued a bunch of times in the process. I'm unaware of any place that has training requirements to own a gun. Maybe some places like NYC that have "pistol permit" requirements to possess them. I wouldn't be opposed, in theory, to having training requirements. Just like I'm not opposed to knowledge tests applied to prospective voters (again, in theory). But the voter tests have been tossed because they were too easily abused and used to disenfranchise particular groups of people. Unless it can be shown that any "training requirement" to own a gun can be safeguarded against that sort of abuse, then I'd be opposed to it in practice. Lots of states have training requirements to obtain a carry permit. Those vary. Most places have classes available pretty readily. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

The NRA is very strongly in favor of proper education. Just about every firearms instructor is "NRA certified." The NRA is the group that came up with the "Eddie Eagle" educational curriculum to promote safety for kids. BUT... Just like tests for prospective voters, those "educational requirements" can be rigged to deny people their rights. One of the better examples was Chicago after the MacDonald decision came down. They proposed a training requirement for anyone who wanted a pistol permit. Classroom and range training. Sounds good so far. But they also wanted to ban all shooting ranges in the city. That's pretty simple. Enact a training requirement and then enact rules so that no one can meet it. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

I'm going to guess that was just a weird coincidence. This attack wasn't put together in a day. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

I have yet to see Bill make post after post after post bitching about the style and wording and intent of other people's posts... Without actually discussing the subject of the thread. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

CBS news is reporting the death toll up to 60 and it will probably go higher. Seems like coordinated, simultaneous attacks on several targets. Explosives and guns. No claims by any groups yet, but Daesh (ISIS) is a pretty good guess. This is going to be bad. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

When the head of CDC sits on the board of directors of one of the largest anti-gun organizations, and says publicly that the research will be used to prove the need to control guns, then I'd be inclined to call that sort of 'research' "biased." "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

'Ski's comments on how/when flaps & gear are where is spot on. But it sounds cool to the uninformed. And if "The Rock" is a Ford spokesman, he will be driving them. If it's just a "one-off" commercial, maybe not. Note that I say driving, not owning. Around here, back in the 90s, Brett Farve had a big endorsement deal with the local "car conglomerate". One guy owns dealerships for just about every brand. So BF would be in a commercial touting the different brands, saying that no matter what you want, you could get it from them. The story I got from a friend who was a parts manager at one of the dealers was that part of the contract was that BF only drove cars from that dealer (and had the dealer tag on the back). The deal included his wife and other family members too. BF didn't actually own the cars, he would just drive them for a few months, after that they'd go back to the dealer and be sold as "demonstrators." "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Although it's nice to know where everyone is behind you, I feel it's also very important to watch where you're going. If anything is going to kill you while you're tracking, it will probably be out in front, down below you. An open canopy, or a jumper tracking the same direction getting ready to pull, or a jumper from another group who exited too soon after you. I would advise looking forward and below more than back.

The majority of people killed by cops are ethnic minorities. Usually poor, black and either inner city or rural. Not white, employed, middle class. And history has shown that the white middle class generally doesn't care when minorities get killed, by any means. They often don't even know it's happening. Richard Pryor had a really insightful bit about it (and this was almost 40 years ago). http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/richard-pryor-knew-all-about-police-brutality-1666822891 You seem to think that only someone who is a cop or has family who is one have any right to criticize them. You include EMS too, which is garbage. No EMS that I'm aware of has arrest power or carries a variety of lethal and "less than lethal" weapons. I'm unaware of any EMTs taking a patient, restraining their hands so they have no way to catch themselves in a fall, tossing them in the back of an ambulance and then giving them a "rough ride" that results in their death. The cops are killing people on a pretty regular basis. They are only recently being called to account for it. And a large segment of society seems to think that those calls for closer scrutiny are wrong. Why is it that very few of those who think it's wrong for closer scrutiny are of the same socio-ethnic background of the majority being killed? Here's a rather disturbing one that's fairly recent. Pulled over for a minor traffic offense, that then escalates because of a combination of the cop's and the driver's attitude. Arrest results. The arrestee is then discovered dead in the cell. From "suicide." "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Given human nature, we will ignore the problem until the only option is #3. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Errr.... no. The following is a good explanation from Oswald Chambers. That's what I am talking about. Sure. That's what's commonly known as a "Spiritual Experience", or what Jung called a "Psychic Change." It's a deep and fundamental change in how a person views the world and acts and understands and everything. Lots of people go through them. To imply that 'through Jesus" is the only way to have one is pretty presumptuous. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

So what percentage of stops that end up with the murder of an innocent citizen (or even the murder of a guilty one) is acceptable to you? Or, as has been going around on FB, how many little old ladies getting their tires changed makes up for shooting an unarmed man in the back? Or does it not matter to you because the people getting killed aren't like you? "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Bullshit. There's PLENTY wrong with our law enforcement. It's just becoming more and more apparent lately because just about everyone now has video capability in their pocket. It's no longer the citizen's word against the cop, where the citizen was rarely believed and the cop almost always was. Look at the consent decree that the LAPD operated under after the Rodney King incident and it's aftermath. Read "Serpico" and realize how endemic the corruption in the NYPD was. It's better now, but there's still a long way to go. Take a look at the Chicago PD and their history of corruption, including mob figures as Chief in some of the suburbs. The "bad apples" are relatively few. But they tarnish the entire profession. And the proven fact that the good cops will cover for the bad ones makes it worse. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Great. Then you above all people should be offended and concerned when the police overstep their authority and hurt or kill people instead of "Protect and Serve" them as they swear to do. If you are saying that there are no bad cops, or that the cops never overstep their authority or that they have never murdered any innocent people, then you are incredibly naive. Or deliberately obtuse. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Steering lines, yes. But that's not what "in trim" means here. It's talking about all the lines. The entire lineset. It's not hard to check. You have to measure each line and compare it to what they are supposed to be. You can find this on the PD Website. A lot of people will have a rigger do this, but it's not anything difficult or special. You need to be able to use a tape measure. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

I'm not sure but one possibility was they were looking for somebody to rob by distraction. At least the guy was heads up and trying to disengage from them. That would be my guess. Either they were going to pick his pockets or they were going to steal stuff from the store. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

I was thinking the same thing. http://grammar.about.com/od/alightersideofwriting/a/Gibe-And-Jibe.htm "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Yes, ballistic evidence is used regularly. But this was a joke. 300,000 pieces of information. But no way to use it. The only times it was used was when they already knew what gun to look for. The idea that they would be able to take a fired case and match it up with one of those 300,000 was ludicrous. DNA matches happen because the information is categorized. Fingerprints the same. An unknown is classified and given a categorical number. That is then used to pull up potential matches (that are classified and categorized using the same system). That allows the authorities to easily search the database for matches to an unknown. But there was no real categorization or classification of the marks on a spent case. Every attempt was an abject failure. Any request to match an unknown case against this database would generate so many potential matches that there was little to no chance of it being of any use. And as far a "every-gun-sale-background-check", how many of the recent high profile shootings would that have stopped? Oh, yeah. NONE. Cho, Holmes, Loughner, the one on TV in Virginia, the one at the college in Oregon, ect. All of the guns were sold by FFL dealers with full background checks. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

I would guess that a lot of people have no concrete way to evaluate their tracking skills, nor how to measure improvement. I did a couple of belly jumps last weekend, the first in many months. After I was home I was looking at my Flysight GPS data to evaluate my tracking. I wish more people had access to such data for training. I recently ordered a second unit so I could let friends use it. I don't know about that. I can easily evaluate my tracking by looking down between my feet and watching the others in my group. It's a good way to know where everyone else is, too (small groups - 4 or so). As the groups get bigger, then there are people tracking closer to my heading. I can then evaluate my skills by seeing how well I keep up with those people. I still look down between my feet to keep track of everyone in my group as best I can. I also start to reach up as my canopy is opening. I wait until it's fully open (or at least the slider is all the way down) before I grab my rears, but I'm really close to them. That way I can make a quick "avoidance turn" when necessary. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Yes because we let our students take cellphones on jumps for this exact purpose. More likely the student was a douche nozzle, and despite being told to empty their pockets fully they snuck their phone on to the jump and pulled it out unannounced and unplanned. Would the pilot be in jeopardy of an enforcement action/lawsuit if the phone was dropped and caused injury/damage? "It Depends." (stock answer to just about any legal question, thanks Prof Schaefer) If the DZ has a policy of "empty your pockets, no phones or cameras on the jump", and this "douche nozzle" student violated that policy and snuck the phone on the jump, then probably not. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

One question I haven't seen: What kind of plane? There's a list of planes that are certified to operate with the door removed. If a "normal" door is on, getting out has a whole lot more issues. Does your brother have a commercial ticket? Or just a private? If he's got a commercial, he can fly jumpers in a 182. Many DZs are in need of 182 pilots. All of this is presuming you are in the US. As was noted, different places have different rules. "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Responding to last post, no to anyone in particular. Quentin Tarentio, the movie maker, made some comments at a 'Rise Up October" rally, saying he was on the side of the people murdered by the police. Police unions have taken that to mean that Q T is a "Cop Hater" and are trying to build support for a boycott of his new movie. Q T is refusing to apologize, saying that his comments don't mean he hates the police, just police brutality. Interesting that someone who calls for accountability by the cops is called a "cop hater." Seems like the police want to protect the murderers that wear the uniform. Story: http://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/quentin-tarantino-responds-police-boycotts-im-not-cop-hater-n456751 "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

Agree 100%. I'm sure the investigation will show that it was just an innocent clock built into a briefcase halloween costume and not some kind of "test". I am thinking that with the attacks on service members on base such as Ft Hood.. or the recruiting centers... and the rise of ISIL.. that it is absolutely amazing that this TOOL was not instantly perforated with a lot of 5.56mm for that level of stupidity. Maybe the guards had some... Common Sense? "There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy "~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo