crustySCSA69

yes ... i will laugh my ass off, that's amusement, not jealousy anyone that dies can potentially affect this sport in a bad way (read still more regulations), thereby affecting you and affecting me (but I'd still laugh at these guys) Darwin will be vindicated ... we used to do 13 ways on Fri 13 and everyone would dump at 1300 ... was that stupid ? of, course it was, but we didn't glorify our stupidity by self-promotion after the fact .. we just did it, for our own ghoulish reasons, the management always seemed to be 'in the office' when it happened, and we didn't make a big deal about it afterward, we just got on with things had we had problems, there was still time to do something (reserve) and if something had happened, tough shit, we didn't expect sympathy either ... but we didn't self promote our nonsense... BASE jumpers HAVE a parachute ... and if they are smart, and jumping from a decent height (EL Cap, Angel Falls, who knows how many Norwegian walls) they should wear both... I'm sure in her last 5 seconds that lady at ElCap may have thought, 'damn, I shoulda wore my skydiving rig' the point being, if you don't maximize your own safety ... then you are a dumb shit ... sorry, I don't make the rules... that's just the way it is was opening at 1300 ft on Fri 13 being a dumb shit ? you bet your ass.. and if someone like Al Frisby (RIP) had seen one of us go in he would have been pissed, not sad and said 'what a dumb shit' and he'd have been right .... I didn't say I never acted like 1, I simply pointed out that you get NO sympathy points when you conciously put yourself in that place..

nothing there to be jealous of, that would imply some desire on my part to be an idiot .... i may be disreputable, cantankerous, sometimes annoying or even infuriating BUT my momma didn't raise no IDIOT

very awesome... and when the inevitable happens, and one of these dumb fucks bounces and all his friends write sobbing testimonials about what a great guy he was ... I'll pop a beer, crank up 'Another one bites the dust' (can't beat Freddie Mercury) and laugh my ass off..... Sport Le Morte ....

at the risk of sounding 'smartass' almost every fatality and almost every injury (I know, you can do everything right, make all the 'right' choices, and still end up dead... and you can also simply get hit by lightning) was DIRECTLY attributable to CHOICES made by the victim. 50% of all fatalities are people screwing themselves into the ground under arguably operable parachutes... they CHOSE to jump those kind of parachutes ... you can acquire a ram-air that has a very low probability of this kind of thing ever happening ... but they CHOOSE these parachutes... while I feel sympathy, I am certainly not going to get all busted up over what happens .. same with injuries... people CHOOSE this equipment, they don't have to and you don't have to .. but if you CHOOSE it .. and something BAD happens, I will feel sympathy and I will also think 'what a dumb shit' i think it is totally insane that 50% of all deaths are under flying parachutes (maybe they are flying straight at the ground, but let's face it, they CHOSE canopies that could do that) and there is no enormous uproar .... in the bad old days, the low pullers were castigated, 'that's bad for the image of the sport'... 'when they die, it just hurts us all' ... yet, I can't think of a single low-puller (and I knew a fair number of them) that EVER died low pulling.. motorcycles..yes, rolling cars.. yes, canopy collisions..yes (not the fault of the low puller, who might have been on the ground instead of getting run into if he had low-pulled in that particular jump) I know, the flood of replies will start about this or that bounce due to a low pull... just make sure in your examples it was not an intentional low pull by an experienced low puller, please) but 1 think I guaran-damn-tee is there was NEVER a year wher 12-14 people went in, intentionally low pulling .. but this equipment that so many CHOOSE is not being castigated as dangerous and unsafe .. the difference is of course, no one made a buck off a low puller the hypocrisy is breathtaking so, simply CHOOSE equipment that has a low probability of killing you (or that you are unlikely to get into a configuration that will kill you) CHOSE to land in such a way, that it is almost impossible to get in a life threatening state and when someone is hurt (or worse) because of their own CHOICES, shrug your shoulders and don't sweat it... they CHOSE that risk, you didn't

i was gonna say 'some of us' but I guess in reality, it's just one of us still thinks that .....

yep.. we is on a right-wing witch-hunt and since George 'uplawed' waterboarding we is gonna test them witches the OLD FASHIONED way

some how I just KNEW Hilary was an exception ... now don't forget to add Chelsea to that exception...

on any given jump, fuck up and the probability approaches 100%, in an asymptotic curve ( I hear you saying bullshit ... and your right ... I barely remember what 'asymptotic' is .... but the rest is true....) so ... just NEVER fuck up..... probability of death - almost zero (it can never be 0 because of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle). so go be perfect.... like me

so if we see YOU screw yourself into the ground we should just throw a cell phone onto YOUR carcass and say ' hey, call your insurance company, I'm sure you planned all this out' and walk away ? according to you we have NO responsibility at all and can happily watch you croak while we sip the latte's we pay for. oh, you didn't mean that extreme ?? then what exactly did you mean ? the whole point of National health care is NO one cares how you got ill, or injured or anything... you just get fixed ... I can't believe any skydiver wouldn't support that because I KNOW a lot of you 'I got mine' Jackists have not read the fine print on those lovely health insurance forms you have ... yes friend... just like life insurance, a lot of them have exclusions .... hope yours doesn't, the day you (god (if I believed in one) forbid) hit that CAT at 100'

I never said I did trust them, I just said I didn't trust the government either. I never said they don't need regulation, I just questioned who was doing the regulating. By your own statements you advocated an unregulated free market ... and if the gov doesn't regulate them ... who the hell will ?? same old double talk ... tell that to the employees (who thought they were working for a reputable company) and the retirees who had their life savings wiped out because A. ENRON management told them everything was fine B. ENRON management made sure they couldn't cash out of their stock plans for the 2 weeks it all took to tank... I'm sure they are overjoyed that the 'market' corrected the problem ... but that doesn't bother you does it .... because after all 'I got mine Jack'. typical AM radio maneuver ... 'I didn't say that, you're irrational' I happily stand by everything I've said here and NONE of it is irrational, and I don't have to put words in your mouth, the contradictions flow effortlessly ...

actually ... he is just an 'I got mine Jackist' any libertarian writings I have seen are fanatical flat taxists ... which I support wholeheartedly flat tax ... on the GROSS (just like your 'Individual' income taxes) NO deductions ... maybe ... ONLY... wages paid by a company (to prevent double dipping) ... otherwise, same thing, flat tax on the GROSS ... if it's good enough for me (the way it is right now) ... why isn't it good enough for large corporations and very rich people ??? then they will be lobbying to reduce YOUR tax rate (the only way they can reduce their own)

I see, because these medical professionals can't be trusted and will inevitably screw the system ... we should not have health care.. but business professionals (who by the way, have not spent years learning how to save lives) can be trusted and by your own argument don't need regulation, because they ar4e not really a problem .. is your name Madoff ? you go on and on about MY money should not be wasted on frivolous crap like health care for someone less fortunate that you and at the same time protest that free markets (haliburton, KBR) and no regulation (ENRON, Madoff) are the way to go ?? the big boys steal BILLIONS and you worry that some schlemp is going to overbill a little ?? I already said regulate the crap out of this stuff ... they have you wound right there pal, right where they want, spouting the same nonsense..

I see. You are a social Darwinist ... survival of the fittest in the big scheme.... Is that your attitude towards skydiving ? Should we eliminate AADs past student status ? lat natural law sort it all out ? get rid of the dead weight ? or does your Darwinism only apply to the BIG picture. you see, that's where we diverge, being a civilized person I think we should surmount Darwin in the BIG picture, because that would actually put us a step ahead of the animals ..... I bet you are perfectly willing to beat Darwin in the small picture (let's all have AADs and coach jumps and god only knows what) but in the BIG picture, good grief, how could you possibly want to contradict Darwin ..... are you an 'I got mine Jack' or what ??? personally, I see Health Care (now that it amounts to more than slapping a leech on you or draining a pint) as a BASIC HUMAN RIGHT

please, please enlighten me on how you can abuse a system where A. you are ill B. you go to a doctor C. he helps you and you pay nothing, beyond the taxes you pay anyway ??? I can't wait to hear how this abuse is going to happen ...

that was a very reasoned response .. just remember .... most of what you are taught in school is propaganda (I got an A+ in history once, demolishing what was being taught with a paper backed by a slew of references ... the teacher even said 'I really don't want to give you this' when he handed it back, but I respect him because he checked the references and realized he had no choice ... according to what was taught, he could have given me an F) you may be horrified (I doubt it, you seem sophisticated enough) to learn that most of american history that is taught is pure myth ... it doesn't have to be ... there is enough good to go around... they just refuse to admit any of the bad ... textbooks are 1 source, there is a whole lot out there ... I just saw you list of miscreants getting their just desserts ... with PROPER regulation they would have been caught BEFORE they destroyed untold thousands of lives (financially) as for corporations benefiting over individuals I simply refer you to a canvas of Supreme Court decisions since 'Teflon' Ron packed the court ... they keep saying any one of a 'liberal' bent is an activist and anyone of a conservative bent is a 'constitutionalist' but I think if you read many of the cases and arguments you will find A. in absolutely 'clear' cases where the constitution Specifies certain rights, the ruling is almost unanimous B. in any case, where 'interpretation' of the constitution is required (because it does not directly address the issue at hand, and how could it, 250 some odd years later) ... the ruling follows completely on who was nominated by who ... 'conservatives' vote thusly (generally for corporate interests) and 'liberals' vote thusly (generally for individual rights) ... and generally 'liberals' lose since Ron packed the court and yet, the 'conservative' faction claims and is believed in alarming proportions, that they 'uphold' independence and 'individual' rights and everyone else is a socialist yahoo.....and said often enough, with no denial and no acknowledgments of any other view (or facts) many people, with no incentive to actually check what's being said, believe it ... Goebbels already proved that proposition

$70 is pretty low. When I had mine I was paying nearly $110/mo with one of the smaller voice plans. And this is the thing that pisses me off about the issue more than anything else - when people 'can't afford' health care, but seem to be able to pay for fancy cell phones and flat-screen TVs. I wonder how many people really mean "choose not to pay for" when they say that they "cannot afford" health care. I am betting of the 'millions' not that many have HDTVs and IPhones. There are always abusers and you talk radio parrots always harp on them. What ? 3 people abused this ? then cut off those 343,284 people. I'm not putting up with that !' I have supported an ex for several years (even though under no obligation to) because if I didn't my son would and I wanted him to try and get an education ... I don't have HDTV I don't have a flatscreen TV I don't have and Iphone I have a 13 year old car ... and she has even less ... we finally talked her into applying for state mediacal care (like I could afford insurance for anyone, including ME) because she had NO INCOME NO assets NO way to make a living because her knee was shredded... the injury dated back 25 years ... you've heard of Cruciate ligament tears taking out football players... she snapped hers and snapped tendons ...(this was on a parachute landing but she had set up the mess skiing for years) .. way back then they had to drill holes thru her knee and thread cut off hamstrings thru to build her a knee .. later she became a flying instructor and an aerobics instructor and after that a certificated personal trainer all on a shoddy knee and none of these careers provided any kind of health care... finally she could hardly walk and needed a knee replacement (the doc later said it tied with the WORST knee he had ever seen, she could barely walk) she spent YEARS in pain until her financial situation was bad enough to let her qualify for state care..... and she doesn't have any of that nice crap, you bonehead, and neither does almost anyone else that uses that avenue , sure, some abuse... but the effort should be catch the abusers... not condemn the whole thing .... in Canada, she would simply have got her knee fixed this is a great country, but make no mistake about, to a lot of the world, there are things about America that are just an insane joke...

And yet like so many Americans, you choose to believe everything they told you in schools without question. I remember being taught that the American economy was based on capitalism and that the government was limited in its actions by the constitution, which with every passing day seems further and further from the truth. I challenge you to find Capitalism or Corporation in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution or the Bill of Rights YOU as individual have all rights guaranteed .. Corporations should BOW to the individual when there is a conflict ... otherwise ... you simply have Fascism which, by the way, was Italian, not German and Mussolini was quoted as saying he sometimes wished it had simply been called CORPORATION ... and he started it .... and I've paid US taxes for 27 years and Social Security and live here ... but I am a Canadian (gotta keep your options open)

Totally disagree. A true free market economy with 0 government intervention or regulation would sort itself out. People would vote with their wallets. of course if their wallet is EMPTY due to unregulated yahoos (and you can have a Wharton MBA and be a yahoo... i've met them) then your vote means nothing and regulation and anti-trust was supposed to prevent EXACTLY that ... of course 8 years of 'anti-trust? regulation? what's that ?' from an administration that just didn't care as long as Haliburton and KBR did ok pretty much ended all that ....

obviously, like so many Americans you don't even know you're own history, in my day we had rigorous (meaning no easy grade) 2 years of 'AMERICAN' history before we got out of high school ... and this was in Canada ... these days all you have to do is click (but I knew this from 8th grade history... in Canada) http://www.civics-online.org/library/formatted/texts/interstate_commerce.html it may have taken more time to get proper enforcement but the intent was obviously to end collusion, price-fixing, and monopolization (i.e. throttling of you sacred free market) perhaps your intent was to say 'no one actually started enforcing the law until the FDR administration'?? or is your contention that free range pillaging of the populace in the style of ENRON, Madoff, et al is OK because that's just 'business' ?

not necessarily, I want you to elect NEW yahoos ... and their job isn't to run the health care system, it's to come up with the money to pay for it (and I don't mean select an insurance company, I mean get rid of the bloodsucking middleman) try the Canadian system, is there a committee that decides in what order people get care ? of course, just like EVERY one of your insurance companies (all 13,000 -- number from Arizona Republic so is suspect, they are such radicals) now, what consists of the typical provincial committee in Canada... 4 doctors (volunteers, although probably paid for time) and 2 government representatives ... Gee guess who has the majority now your typical Insurance company ... guess who makes up their committee ?? I know, we'll soon here, Canada, some posted that system is now screwed.... sorry, but ALL my relatives are up there and are perfectly happy with the health care they get .... one uncle, at 82 needed a bypass, (also tended to imbibing way to much beer during lifetime) ... they just said, well, you don't take care of yourself, and you don't deserve it, but you'll die if we don't do it... so they did, quickly and efficiently and he is back to having his beer ... so we tax more to get health care ... big whup... jam the rich, they got money because the tax code favors them (they paid for that, which is why it's unlikel;y we'll see that change) go after the rich !!! target 1 segnment of society get over it people, the Income Tax was brought in to ONLY tax the rich who could afford it ... it was never meant to be universal (yes, in America, that's how it started) ... years and years went by and now everybody pays ... because the number didn't change and inflation folded everyone into the net ... just like the Alternate Minimum Tax which was invented because someone realized a lot of the very rich paid 0 taxes because of all the nifty laws they paid congressmen to enact (deductions and credits) ... this was supposed to ensure the VERY rich paid some damn thing.... unfortunately, the number was not indexed and now a lot of people who should not pay for it are ... tax them tax them I say

ENRON was not a problem at all... i loath non-productive 'middlemen' organizations (sort of like Skyride) but the business was not particulary the problem... the problem was the leaders of that business illegally hiding debts and generally screwing up with NO accountability Communism is a flawed idea because for it to operate correctly you need perfect people in charge ... and we know that ain't gonna happen Unregulated Free Market capitalism is a flawed system because you need perfect people in charge .. and we have seen that not happening ... regulation is imposed because corporations have been allowed to become so BIG that no one can afford the failure when 'unregulated' Titans of industry screw the pooch .. back to Medical Insurance .. I read (somewhere back when) in the Arizona Republic (that radical leftist tabloid) an article that an interview with a Hospital company executive (who refused to be named) ... stating that, the base costs for care were inflated X4 because insurance companies insisted on only paying 1/3 of the base costs... so you, you uninsured twat, are being charged 4 times what they really want to chargeyou because YOU don't happen to work for a company that provides insurance and YOU can't afford 300+ dollars (more if you have a family) per month for private insurance yeah, Free Enterprise.... what a lovely idea ... where is the competition ??? why does your computer cost 3-500 dollars less every year but health care goes up ???? competition is a myth .... and where there is no competition there is no free enterprise ... so nationalize it and be done with it ...

Translation: this government program would be great if it weren't for the government. I notice you doing the same thing as talk radio... say 'this is what that meant' (even thought it's not) at least you didn't repost that 100 times, proving this is not talk radio. the 'Government program' is NOT the the government (the yahoos you people keep electing) there very much is a difference..

Do you really believe that Social Security is "working"? If it were working, it would be earning a positive return on the largest investment fund ever created in human history. Or at least it would still have some of it's initial capital left. Social Security makes Bernie Madoff look like a kid stealing candy from a grocery store. now that is damn naive ... social security would be fat and happy with no problem at all ... if the government hadn't tapped every cent of it every year for 'bridges to nowhere' ... social security isn't the problem ... it's the swine who raped it repeatedly and you Americans keep electing them over and over because they are 'for family values' (when not busy with the mistress) or 'the proper man to be hard on terrorists' (he couldn't bother completing his National Guard tour to keep his ass out of Nam but he's the man to be tough ??? lmao ) and I say 'you Americans' because I am a Canuck but I have a dog in this race because I have pored a shitload into Social Security since 1982, since so don't go all jingoistic on me.

People, people, people. The 'socialism' boogie man drivel has really got your shorts in a knot. When this great (and I use that term unreservedly) country was founded the wise men in charge reserved for the Federal government, power over practically any aspect that affected ALL of the citizens. Diplomacy with foreign powers. Defense (although state militias were allowed, it was with the provision that they could be called up by and subject to command of the FEDERAL authorities). I supreme judiciary that would be the final say on what was and was not subject to Federal control. Added later was Interstate commerce, when it was realized that, who would of thought, the Titans of industry (read railroad barons) were perfectly happy to screw anyone, anywhere, anytime and competition be damned (yes, competition, what makes aFREE market work and what most corporations view with horror). So interstate commerce, affecting ALL the people was brought under Federal regulation. In the complete spirit of the original intent of the founding fathers (there were no railroads when they wrote their original documents). So, did they mention HEALTH CARE ?? or ENERGY ?? of course not, HEALTH CARE consisted of finding the hungriest leech and ENERGY consisted of owning a horse (owning one for some may have been a struggle but was not insurmountable and you could always walk). They could not in their wildest dreams have imagined what proper Health Care could provide.... or it would have been written right into those documents as RIGHT due to all citizens and a service that the FEDERAL government was obliged to provide. Had they thought for a minute that ENERGY would be what it was ... the same thing would have occurred. So shove your socialism argument, those original constitutional dudes KNEW that the purpose of the FEDERAL government was to control (and even provide, if that was necessary) those things that were essential to ALL of the citizens, and they made that very clear in a couple of pieces of paper called the CONSTITUTION and the BILL OF RIGHTS.

.. down by the river ?? I feel so motivated.