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i thought he said the Iraqi sovereign govt will have power to veto Allied troops after June 30th? Has this changed? (had a quick look on bbc today and couldn't find anything other than: "UK Prime Minister Tony Blair says that after the transfer of power on 30 June, Iraq's interim government will have a veto on operations by coalition troops. . " from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3745611.stm edited for bad link "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

true, but while we are the lapdog poodle of the US, as much as we can be put on the ground and walked over whenever the need arises, i think political suicide is what comes to mind if the US decided to break a promise they made to the highest rung of the political ladder over here. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

i couldn't agree more - we must clean our own house first before we can expect others to follow suit. Obviously i'm joking. It is frustrating though. I know it's a fine line between preserving human rights and draconian law, but come on people (not anyone here, just people in general) - how is it so wrong to say "you were involved in terrorist activity in 1999, so even though this is a new law as of 2000, you will be prosecuted because, hey, you shouldn't have been doing that". Why can't the law just be changed to take account of historical activity when making new laws, is, i guess, what i'm wondering? (mrmk1g feel free to grab the mic whenever you like) Edited to add - never mind you already did a good job on the above post, thanks, i get it.) "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

aparently we can't extradite him on those grounds, but: "Under current laws, Britain must ask the US to pledge they will not apply the death penalty before any extradition is approved. The US will use every diplomatic, legal and administrative tool to pursue and to prosecute those who facilitate terrorist activity But a barrister specialising in extradition cases, Paul Garlick, says that guarantee would have no legal standing once Abu Hamza was in the US. Former assistant US attorney-general Victoria Tonsing insisted there would be no possibility of an execution: "If you ever broke a promise like that, there would never be another extradition." That's from the link you posted earlier i think (well the link to Blunkett defending the extradition case, i forget who posted it). I mean this makes sense - if they promised not to allow him to be sentenced to death and subsequently did do, i think that would be the end of diplomatic relations between us and them. Or at least it should be if they renege on such an agreement. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

good explanation - although don't you think driving/drinking under age is different from "terrorist activity"? That's another rhetorical question, i know you know it's different. I wonder why we can't have a simple law that states that, regardless of historical activities, if you were involved in organised terror or links to organised terrorist groups or assistance to those groups and their activities, regardless of when this was - if we can prove this, even though the law is being passed now, then why can't that be admissable? I mean, the terrorists aren't wiping the pre 2000 slate clean, so why should a law being brought in to help prevent terrorist attacks going forward do so? It's bizarre. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

LOL! "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

nac do you think the US didn't share this info with relevant parties in the UK? That's a rhetorical question by the way. I like the way how Blunkett says "...and it related to our country". It almost implies, well if we find evidence he was involved in something dubious that didn't directly have repercussions for the UK or any British citizen, then let's keep our noses out of it. That's how it reads to me anyway. Maybe that's UK law, mk2 might know more about the in's and out's of the law here, but if that's the case, that we can't hold people accountable here, as UK citizens, who had been involved in terrorist activities abroad, well, that's just bizarre to me. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

thanks - are you a criminal solicitor? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

why does it take a foriegn country, the US, to have a guy like this removed from our own country, can someone tell me that? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

It is important to have goals. Some people lack the motivation to identify what is important and then pursue it. LOL! "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

when i flew out to Perpignan with Ryanair, i checked my rig in my luggage both times. Going back, for some reason i was weighing in at 37kgs - technically anything over 15kg is chargeable, and the max you can take on one checked back is like 32kg i think? I distracted the check in girl with bad French and made her laugh and she didn't seem to notice/care about the excess weight and just took the bag through. It's all luck of the draw. I guess if you can, take it on as hand luggage (if not, make sure you have good travel insurance or take a chance like i did). You should be fine. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

Utopian for who? - Jim me "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

So would you be willing to admit that cognitive thought is a recessive rather than survival trait? Before you answer consider the state of the planet (social, environmental, political). It was doing pretty well before "We" evolved. Well, I think you did make the comparison, but I won't hold it against you. The difference between my statement and Hitler's philosophy is the definition of "defective". Hitler practiced genocide. I suggested the removal of those that harm society. If we are so evolved that we are "better" than the animals, why can we not face the fact we need to ACTIVELY police the survival of the human species. I think the ability to think cognitively is a survival trait - it's the reason why we are top of the food chain. I also think it has led to many of the problems and destruction in the world today - the more "advanced" we become, the more destructive our capability and actions. Humans really are their own worst enemy, and i really agree with you on that. I didn't compare you to Hitler, it's just what you said seemed to ring true of his beliefs, but you're right, it comes down to what you define as "defective". I understand where you are coming from, i guess where we differ is on our definitions of "remove" - you would like these people removed from society permanently by killing them, i would like them removed by having them held securely with the attempt to rehabilitate them. If that's not possible, then they stay locked up. That may be utopian but i just don't think i could be part of the killing of someone who might have killed someone else, but not even realised or comprehended their actions. I don't know why i have an issue with that, i just do. PS i never said we were better than animals "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

nah i alwasy give a good check when im approaching/in the door for traffic below and to the sides. Im talking about when doing a tracking dive specifically - if people check 2-3 miles in the track direction for traffic/clouds, all the way down to what they imagine will be breakoff altitude. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

due to my lack of experience, until this weekend, i was a #5 sort of person, now after hitting a cloud i didn't look out for, i would say i'm at least a 2, if not a 1. You? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

What it just "poofed" into the sky? ok what i should have said was "i haven't done enough formation tracking dives to know that with my level of experience, i should check the track corridor fully, even on a day that only has the odd one or 2 clouds in the sky, and even if i'm not leading". Say i spot a cloud though as we are lining up on jump run - should i just point and shout to the leader and tell him "cloud"? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

thanks quade. This cloud came out of nowhere, i guess scanning the skies before going up and as we are lining up on jump run for lurking clouds like this, and avoiding them is the key? There was no cloud base to speak of, just blue, until we hit the cloud - i guess it's something for me to think about when tracking (i.e. whats 1 or 2 miles out, and 5-7000ft below us in the track corridor) "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

at 7000ft approx, near the end of a 3 way tracking jump, one guy off to my left, pretty much on level but a fair amount of separation (maybe 30 ft away), the other guy way low (like 200ft down) on his back looking up at me, he was off to the right and slightly ahead. At 7k the low guy on the left begins to disappear into a cloud, and my first instinct is now arch hard through the cloud so that at 5000ft (breakoff) we can all acertain where we are, and ensure we track away from each other. I'm watching the guy on the left, our designated leader, and as we begin to hit the cloud at around 7k, rather than follow him i decide to maintain my heading as at 5000ft he is going left anyway to peel off out of the "formation", i would carry on straight ahead, and the guy low and on the right would be peeling off to the right (this is what we said we would do on the dive plan, depending on who was left, middle and right, thats the way you would peel off to separate). So anyway this cloud - the only big puffy cloud on an otherwise clear day - decided not to comply and at 5000ft i can't see the low guy or the ground now, and i'm pretty sure the guy on my left will now be peeling off left heading back toward the dz as i had seen him pointing that way at 7k, so i decide to power forward and deploy a little higher at about 3500 as i was worried that the low guy could really be anywhere. What is standard protocol/best practice if you have this sort of separation/level issues on a tracking dive (or i guess any jump where you aren't able to see the others and you have some horizontal and/or vertical separation between you, and you hit cloud a few thousand feet before break off time? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

Sounds like he knew what the fuck was going on, i.e. there's no "insanity" or "mental illness" defense here. A person who "doesn't know what's going on" wouldn't have the presence of mind to assert innocence about what he didn't know was going on, right? BTW, do you really expect that this will not turn into a pro/anti death penalty thread just because you said, "Without turning this into a pro/anti death penalty post"?? I think murderers should be put to death, yes. Murdering someone justifies your society extinguishing your life -- humanely, fine, but definitely it should be done. Humanity, society, should not have to suffer the burden of having people circulating among normal good people, when they have it in them to commit murder. I think those who oppose putting these murderers to death should be forced to be the guards who keep them incarcerated until they die -- because as far as I'm concerned, a living murderer in a prison is, til the day he dies, a potential escapee or releasee. It happens a LOT, and it shouldn't happen at ALL. Prison breaks, prison escapes, unjustifiable paroles or releases... dead murderers don't leave a prison with the capacity to commit more murders. - i said "without turning it into a pro/anti death penalty" post in the hope people wouldn't get sucked into that side of things (which i knew was going to be difficult for most, as most people tend to be passionate about it one way or the other). I wanted people's opinions really on whether mentally ill people should pay the ultimate price for something they did, even if they might not comprehend what they have done, or how they came to do it. Should these people be put to death for something they might not even be mentally culpable for? Your view on humanity/society not having to suffer these sorts of people walking around is utopian and not very compassionate - 1 in 5 people it is said has a mental "defect" waiting to happen, and how many times do we read about someone killing even though their neighbours/partner/family/work colleague said they were always just your "nice kind normal sort of guy"? I understand where you are coming from, and i don't want severely psychotic mental patients wandering the streets, but my view is they should not be allowed out - even on a day release - until such time as it is known they won't be a hard to themselves or anyone else. If you can't prove that, then they need to go through more treatment. I don't think the way to solve this problem is by culling these people, as has been suggested, but thats just my own humble opinion. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

*DING-DING-DING* Ladies and Gentlemen, this thread is officially closed. Move along, nothing to see here... - Jim why? I said i wasn't comparing him to Hitler, i'm just saying that when someone justifies the killing of someone who is mentally ill as the "culling of defectives", it does have an tone of Hitlerism about it. That statement is based on historical fact, not my personal opinion of diablopilot or his politics. I don't know if diablo meant it like that, but that was my interpretation, and maybe i got it wrong. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

i know, and for that much i'm thankful - but we, like the US, have a similar problem - public money is just not there to support mentally ill patients receiving the treatement they need, and they end up on the streets. Whethere they kill or not, or end up executed or locked up for life is neither here nor there - at the end of the day, society is not throwing these people a life line, they are throwing them out, ignoring the consequences of those actions, and to me that's not the way i would like things to go. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

not that im comparing you to him, but that one sentence rings true of what Hitler said about the extermination of the "inferior" races (see blacks, gypsies, jews, mentally retarded etc) "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

Why do people insist on thinking humans shouldn't fit into the rules of Darwinism like the rest of the animals? because we have the ability to for cognative thought, unlike any (at least, known to us presently) other member of the animal kingdom. "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

i guess i'm asking, why was he on unsupervised release at all, wandering the underground? No society is unfallable, it's not just the Americans that can be blamed for gaps in the system for dealing with the mentally ill... "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts

well in that case, i guess we too should bow our heads in shame? Just one example of a similar social situation on home turf right here... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/3595053.stm "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts