wolfriverjoe

Well, to be fair, the law says nothing about homosexuality. It broadly specifies 'gender identity' and 'sexual orientation.' It's CLEARLY targeting gays and trans, but it doesn't specify that. Some folks have realized that and what it really means. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dont-say-gay-he-she-sabotage-teacher-letter-moms-for-liberty-florida_n_62489f02e4b0587dee6a3a1a

Ok, I'm convinced. And impressed. I'd be interested in knowing how it was set up. The BRS has a rocket assist parachute launch, not a spring loaded pilot chute. The "B" is for 'Ballistic'. So there's no closing loop to cut, but a rocket to ignite. Probably not a hard thing to do, just take the impulse that ignites the cutter and use it to ignite the rocket. But I'm still curious about the details. And I would say, given the picture in post #56, that this doesn't count as a 'save'. The CYPRES may well have functioned as designed and intended (Airtec makes a big deal that that's something that has always happened), but that plane wasn't 'saved'.

I was wondering what sort of attitude the airplane is supposed to be in for the BRS to work properly. I did a quick search, but didn't find much. How reliable is it when the airplane is in a steep dive? How long (how much altitude) will it take to deploy from that speed? It's been mentioned that there was a CYPRES that activated it. Is that true? An Airtec CYPRES used on a BRS? I'd need to see some confirmation on that (not that it wasn't, I just am skeptical). I know the 'standard' BRS is manually activated. I don't see any automatic options, but I wouldn't be surprised if these guys rigged something up (the airplane was supposed to be empty for a time, so that makes sense). I find it interesting that the FAA supposedly refused to grant an exemption to the rules for this, but they went and did it anyway. This sort of takes away any "I didn't know it was against the rules" defense. Given that they put a lot of effort (successfully) into making sure nobody got hurt, they saved themselves a fair amount of grief, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some significant fines and potentially ratings suspensions/revocations for this.

Every single lawsuit filed by or against Trump has had A winner. It's just that most of them aren't Trump.

These are the same people who want to ostracize gay people, yet keep getting caught in bathrooms committing 'crimes against nature'. The same people that claim to be for 'family values', yet support scuzzbuckets like Trump, Gaetz, Rey Moore and a lot of others. They claim to 'follow Jesus', yet behave the exact opposite of what Jesus' teachings espouse. They claim to be "patriots', yet are doing everything they can to destroy democracy in America. So, no. It's not 'just you'. They're a bunch of hypocrites.

I thought there was another thread about these idiots, but I can't seem to find it. There's a bunch of them camped out near DC. Because they are idiots who refuse to obey the rules, they have some problems. Some of the 'convoyeurs' have dogs. They let the dogs run loose. The dogs pee on things... Like the food supply. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-peoples-convoy-cant-stop-their-own-dogs-from-peeing-on-their-food

Ok, I'll try to put this 'properly'. I don't see any issues with those people in 'positions of power and responsibility' reacting strongly to this. They were in their offices, minding their own damned business when they were told (more or less) 'run for your lives, there's an airplane about to attack us!!' From a supposedly responsible security force, that's not a warning that's going to be taken lightly. To later find out that it was: A - Not a threat at all. B - A plane operated by the US Military. C- That the people investigating it are starting to falsely lay blame (story says that "Officials believe, based on a preliminary review, the pilot may have not properly reported taking off or had appropriate clearance", yet also says "Air traffic control recordings capture the army plane coordinating its flight with the control tower at nearby Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport."). Would be rather infuriating. To insist that those responsible for it be held accountable is not unreasonable. I have no clue who screwed up. I doubt it was the GK. They've done this too many times in too many places not to know the drill. And, being 'the Army', I'd bet very heavily that they have a written procedure that details all the steps, including those that cover notification of proper authorities. Did the FAA fail to notify the security people? Perhaps. I don't know the procedures and such for authorized flights into that sort of restricted airspace. For the plane to be in contact with ATC AND in that restricted area means someone at the FAA knew about it and was ok with it. That doesn't necessarily mean that the FAA passed the info onto the security folks, but I think it makes it less likely that the screwup was at the FAA. My first instinct is to blame the security guys. They are the ones who never bothered calling the FAA (control tower) to see what was up. They are the ones who over-reacted and ordered the evacuation. Did the message get sent and never read? Did the person who received & read it not pass it up the chain of command? Did it get 'lost in the shuffle'? I don't know. I'm rather curious to find out.

Gotta love the 'probable threat' assessment. Circling (standard jump plane climb pattern, most likely) Stayed out of the Prohibited Areas directly above the Capitol & WH. Did it occur to anyone to simply pick up the phone and call the controllers? I'd be very surprised if the security folks didn't have a phone list that includes the tower over at Reagan.

This has received pretty widespread attention. Local radio guy: "This is exactly why you get the insurance on the phone."

Bingo. I agree with Wendy that the longer post is chock full of good info. But your unwillingness to simply accept it and move on is one of the smartest things I've seen a student post in a while.

I'm a fan of Tony. Was given a Tony RW suit, and jumped it until it an upper arm panel split. Which took a while. And it was pretty beat up when I got it. Ended up 'inheriting' a very similar one from the 'student rack' at the old DZ when it shut down. Trying very hard to jump it until it disintegrates, but it's holding up well. Got a Tony suit (hybrid? No booties, no grippers) off the rack at Summerfest a while back. Fit perfect and was discounted. It's starting to show wear, but should last a while longer.

Yup. Overthinking it. Funny thing - Old school static line jumpers started from 4500' or so. First full altitude jump, the though going through my mind was 'Wow!! It's so high!!!" These days, AFF students on their first H&P - 'Wow!!! It's so low!!'

You can shut off the 'suggested posts'. There's a drop down menu for it. You can also report the posts containing the 'racist drivel'. I report them as 'offensive'. After reporting a few of them, they tend to go away... For a while. I still remember back when BillyV's 'Sick & Twisted' thread was active, there was a link to 'fat roll separator pads'. Intended for obese people to put between the rolls of fat to reduce chafing and irritation. I was foolish enough to click on the link in the post to see what it was. I had ads for those things showing up everywhere for a week. Yes, I know that's Google following me, not FB. But the principle is similar.

"Full Jakee"? Are you going to start the endless bickering like you did with Gowlerk? Item 14 is the '2%' thing. Right before it goes into detailed numbers, it has the qualifier: "Taking current commitments into account, we are guided by the following considerations:" While I'm not a lawyer, the 'legalese' in that statement, particularly the word 'guided' takes away any 'obligation'. And I'm not certain that NATO membership includes ANY real 'obligations'. There are lots of words in the treaty, but most of it seems to be based on willingness to cooperate.

What are you talking about? A 'Defense Minister' (or Secretary of Defense) has no power over the national budget. They can make 'binding agreements', but they can't commit a country to spend huge amounts of money. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=US Germany has a GDP of about 4 trillion dollars. 1% of that is 38 BILLION. That's well beyond what a "Defense Minister" can spend without legislative approval. With the very real threat from Russia, Germany has announced that it will greatly increase it's military spending. The announcement came from the Chancellor, and must be approved by parliament. https://www.npr.org/2022/03/22/1087859567/germany-military-buildup-russia-invasion-ukraine Putin hasn't said anything formal about it. He hasn't said much since the war started. I thought I saw a couple stories that had 'sources' claiming he said that. I don't see them now. They may have been pulled, I may have misunderstood them.

Who is in charge of the budget and spending in any democracy? More importantly, who isn't?

My comment about Putin's 'claims' was about declaring victory on May 9. There are several reports out about plans for a victory parade to go along with "Victory" celebrations about the "Great Patriotic War" (WW2 for us proletarians) I don't think Putin will use nukes. It's been made very clear that his comms are compromised. If he tried some kind of ruse to make it look justifiable, that would be all over the news a few days before he tried it. The cost for 'first use' would be too high. Both in the short term, and long term. Putin wants to be in the history books. But as the 'hero' who restored Russia to greatness. Not as the man who murdered thousands or millions of people in the first use of nukes in almost 80 years.

To the argument that the Defense Ministers all agreed that their respective countries would meet the defense spending obligation, everyone there knew perfectly well that the Defense Ministers don't set spending policies. For them to promise any level of spending was a lie. For any of the others to accept that as anything other than an "I'll try to get my country to do this, but I'm not in control of that much" would be pretty stupid. It was posturing. Window dressing. Nothing more. Anyone who is familiar with the subject should know this. Assessing military competence and capability is pretty complex. And REALLY difficult. Some of the reported failings of the Russian military would not have been something that could be evaluated before hand. Apparently not even by the Russians. Truck tires? Those who are 'car guys' understand that rubber ages regardless of use and that old tires are dangerous (especially on high performance cars). It's entirely possible that the Russians had a replacement schedule program in place and that those in direct control of it simply pocketed the money for the new tires and left the old ones in place. They looked like they were almost new? What could possibly go wrong? Also, there are reports that the combat rations are really old. That stuff stays 'good' for a long time, so stuff that's 7 years out of date is pretty bad. And, again, it's not really something that would be available information. Again, maybe not even to the Russian command structure. Perhaps money was provided for the timely replacement of that stuff, and was simply pocketed. Add in the fact that making one's self look tougher, meaner and more capable that reality is standard practice for a lot of things, not just militaries. I'm not terribly surprised that the rest of the world over-rated the Russian army. I am surprised at how bad they turned out to be. And, in the 'Reality Check' thread, it was noted that the US seems to be sending more aid, and more capable aid to Ukraine. And that, predictably, Putin has renewed his threats about it. But the thing Putin claims to be 'concerned' about is that the west is providing Ukraine with the capability to invade Russia. So far the only things that have happened outside of Ukraine are a couple of attacks on supply yards just into Russia and the sinking of the Moskva, which may or may not have been in Ukrainian territorial waters. And at this point, it's pretty clear that, short of launching large missiles, the Russian military isn't able to do much against the west. I think the west will increase the capability of the aid (up to fighter jets) as this goes on. I don't think it will provoke Putin to 'enlarging the conflict' (the Russian army can't do much more than it's doing right now - which is getting it's butt kicked). In fact, I think this has made Russia FAR more vulnerable than they were a couple months ago. The Russian army has been shown to be a hollow shell of what it was claimed to be (reminiscent of the US military in the late 70s). Any major army, with the will to take on Russia, stands a pretty good chance of beating them. China? Certainly capable. Probably not willing. Japan? History gives a strong willingness, but probably not capable. German? Again, historical willingness, but not likely in the current political climate. Certainly not willing to go it alone with the result being the likely destruction of NATO. I don't think that anyone is both willing and capable. At least not right now. But that may change. Putin has claimed he will win by May 9, which is "Victory Day" in Russia. We call it 'VE-Day' (Victory in Europe Day) and celebrate it on the 8th. Short of nuking Kiev, I can't see that happening. If Putin has anything close to reality available to him, I don't understand how he is foolish enough to claim that. But there have been a lot of reports that Putin is likele operating in the 'land of make believe'. He's reported to have been convinced that the Ukrainian public would support the Russian invasion. He's probably been fed 'less than accurate' reports about the 'victories' the Russians have been achieving. The number of RSV officers that have been reported arrested tends to support this. Not sure if it was the ones telling the lies that got in trouble... Or the ones telling the truth. The answer to that would be a good indicator of how this might end.

Does he have to reveal who was backing him and who was profiting? I have no doubt this is an attempt to evade paying the judgements against him. But those were 'summary judgements'. The cases never went to trial. Jones basically defaulted because he refused to provide subpoenaed materials. One thing that was pointed out was that some of the 'refused material' included details on who provided his start up capital and who 'owned' the shows. I would hope that any bankruptcy filings would include that info.

Maybe, but probably not. Mondays are not the typical mass shooting day. "Recreational" mass shootings (bars, shopping malls, car shows) happen mostly on the weekends. "Workplace" mass shootings typically happen towards the end of the week.

Leon Askin, who played General Burkhalter, was Jewish. He was attacked & beaten by the SA, interned in France for a while and later made his way to the US. https://hogansheroes.fandom.com/wiki/Leon_Askin

This is the same Jesus that promised he' return before all of his disciples died, right? I recently came across the medieval myth that there was an immortal Jew wandering Europe and the Middle East, who was doomed to survive until Jesus came back. Interesting way of fitting the narrative to the facts. Somehow, I have a hard time believing he'll be back before 2051 (or 'about' then). If I still believed the tales, I'd likely be rationalizing his 'failure to appear' with something along the lines of: He's sitting up there, watching and listening. He sees how those who claim him as 'savior' behave. How they act and how they treat their fellow man. I think he's given up on us and decided we aren't worth the effort.

In the 'sort of silly, rather pointless, but still pretty cool' department... Someone is projecting an image of the Ukrainian flag on the Russian Embassy in DC. The Russians try to wash it out with a spot light, but the projecters keep moving it.

You mean the same ObamaCare that the Rs did everything they could to torpedo, did a pretty decent job of watering down and have subsequently done an even better job of weakening through various lawsuits? That ACA? When the requirement that everyone have some sort of coverage went away, the fools and idiots dropped that coverage. They thought they were 'healthy'. Or that it 'couldn't happen to them'. And they were wrong. Now they're broke. And guess who's going to pick up the cost when they can't pay for the zillions of dollars in care that they received? One of the interesting things about reading the Herman Cain Awards is how many of the nominees & awardees end up begging for money with a GoFundMe. No health insurance, no savings, often no life insurance for those that died.

They don't give one single fuck about 'all'. Or 'society' as a whole. They don't think 'those people should have any rights. If there's one thing I've learned in the past 2+ years, it's that the 'conservative' types give exactly ZERO fucks about anyone but themselves.