TomAiello

+1 on the Vang Comp. Also, if your budget allows, look into an Enidine shot stock. Allows you to mount a standard AR stock (the Magpul CTR is popular) and greatly reduces felt recoil for much faster follow up. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Wow. What's the source on that one? I'd be pretty upset if my kids were singing that in school, too. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I believe the SBA (Swiss BASE Association) was going to take up a collection. I haven't checked in the last 24 hours or so, though, so I'm not for sure on that. I'd PM Mikki, although I think he's on BASEjumper.com more than he's on here. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I think that there is a significant style contributor. A president who consults with the other party tends to be seen as more of a unifier. One who just basically tells the other party to get lost and does things his way tends to be more divisive. In fact, I think GWB is a great illustration of this. In his earlier years, I think he generally created more divisions in the country, because his party controlled Congress, and he was therefore more likely to go it alone without the opposition party. Once the democrats took control of Congress, I think that Bush was forced to work with them more, and therefore was less divisive. The election of a President of the same party that controlled congress (Obama) has swung us back to the some of the same feeling we had in the middle years of the GWB presidency (more partisan divisions). I think the early post 9/11 years don't really follow this reasoning, because the shock of 9/11 essentially swept the partisan divisions under the carpet for a while, just the same as they made us all Yankees fans. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I'd love to know who, specifically, these local jumpers were. Could someone provide actual names (and contact info)? No one else seems to have heard from (or even of) them. Right. Because chopping down trees that are in the way of your camera shot totally makes you look like sportsmen and artists, and in no way like a bunch of yahoos. This argument (which runs through Mike's post) seems to boil down to: "Since other people are screwing things up, it's ok for me to screw things up too." That's a lame excuse. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

A better question would be "how have we come to such a bitterly divided state of affairs?" It might have something to do with the "I won" attitude that feels that approval of 51% of the population means you can ram anything at all down the throat of the entire citizenry. More and more, it appears that President Obama is the Great Divider. He seems able to instantly polarize our national discourse. That's not really a very desirable trait in a leader, especially a leader of such a large and diverse population as ours. Now might be a good time to step back and try to find ways to unite people, instead of pushing on with the things that have proven divisive. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I'm an atheist. I'd feel the same way about both of these things. I'm having trouble following your point. Can you elaborate? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Given that one of the people concerned (enough to start a Facebook group about the issue) was a Swiss jumper, who lives in Switzerland, that makes very little sense. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Saw this on the TV in the locker room at the gym today. It's people like this who make America great. This is also an excellent illustration of how immigration helps this nation. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

While I believe that is possibly true, and have contacted the company, I really think that won't matter. In the past, I've talked to a Red Bull marketing guy about this kind of thing, and he was very clear that Red Bull actually pays them to create controversy like this. In his words "any publicity is good publicity." -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

For me, there is a huge difference between illegal activity and unethical activity. There are many illegal activities that I, personally, do not find unethical (for example, making illegal BASE jumps where nothing is damaged). Conversely, there are many perfectly legal activities that I find unethical (a dropzone mocking up spoof web sites to divert tandem passengers to themselves, bypassing other DZ's who are nearer to the actual customer, for example). I'm not trying to rationalize anything. I accept that many things I have done are illegal. I accept that there will be legal consequences for those actions, should I be caught at them. I do not believe that those actions are unethical. I do not believe that the law is the ultimate source of ethics, or even that it is a source of ethics at all. Some laws may have their own source in our common ethical code (although many may not). Ethics have their source in our shared human values (or, in the case of BASE ethics, in the shared value system of BASE jumpers). -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

More like all the suddenly pro-war Obama supporters, who've only recently discovered that they support more killing and dying in Afghanistan. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

No problem. If you think I'm a tree hugger, you should go poke your head into Speakers' Corner. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

BASE jumping has it's own code of ethics, which are largely independent of laws. We do many things that are illegal, but perfectly ethical (within our context), like trespassing onto buildings to jump them. On the other hand, there are many (perfectly legal) behaviors that are unethical from a BASE perspective (calling the police to arrest another jumper during an illegal jump, for example). -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

It's actually a small point of earth clinging to the side of a cliff. The trees help to prevent it from eroding completely away, which could destroy the exit point and render the cliff unjumpable. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

When the trees are not yours? Or even in your country? When they are on public land, and you haven't sought any permits? When thousands of other jumpers use and enjoy the site? When one of the trees is actually used as an exit point? The last time BASE jumpers cut down trees like that was in Yosemite, in 1981. The end result was that parachuting (of all types--including BASE, paragliding and skydiving) was virtually banned in National Parks in the USA. Those who do not know history, and even some who do, appear to be doomed to repeat it. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Close to half of the Tea Party folks I've talked to have been opposed to both the current US wars (Afghanistan and Iraq), and generally suspicious of sending the US military overseas. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

I tried to find a hotel room in DC on Saturday night. There were none available, so I ended up driving the 4.5 hours back to our house in Roanoke. Let me repeat that: there were no hotel rooms available in the Washington DC metro area on Saturday night. In a city the size of DC, that doesn't happen from 10 or 20 thousand visitors. www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/sep/14/blog-posting/blogger-claim-photo-shows-millions-tea-party-prote/ Hey, dude. I was there. It wasn't like in that photo, no. But I didn't say it was. What I said was that there were a lot more than "tens of thousands" of people. The photos here are pretty accurate, from what I saw, in person, with my own eyes. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Attached are some photos of the handiwork of the Red Bull Air Force. Apparently, they wanted to clear out some "trash" that was getting in the way of filming the latest radical video for their web site. Nice work, guys. You've got to love the Red Bull "I'm So Rad I don't give a Crap about Anyone But Myself" Air Force. These are the same guys who wanted to take over the USPA. Great spokesmen for parachuting sports, aren't they? Discussion here. Next time you see someone selling themselves to Red Bull for a few bucks, I suggest you kick them in the crotch. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Supporting competition is not the same as supporting the compromising of your personal ideals. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

From an economic standpoint, it would be better if it supplanted the employment-based system, as well. The employment-based healthcare system we have in this country is a bizarre anomaly created by WWII wage caps. One way to transition would be to have employers contribute what they are currently putting toward health plans into the MSA for each employee, instead. Better, from an economic efficiency standpoint, would be to simply end the tax advantage of employer provided healthcare, and have employers simply pay their employees those dollars instead. The point isn't really that it will change costs in one way or another right now. It's that it will set up a system that puts a downward market pressure on healthcare costs, instead of our current system, which drives costs spiraling upward by essentially incentivizing people to consume as much healthcare as they can (since they "pay" the same amount regardless of their use). The best way to control costs is to have the actual payment done by the party receiving the services/goods. The third party payment system is a disaster, from a cost containment perspective. The only things that have balanced it (to an extent) in single payer systems is the monopsony power of the single buyer, combined with rationing imposed by that buyer. A first party payment system would push all the effects in the same direction (toward lower costs) in the long term. A single payer system has some effects pushing costs upward (third party payment, no cost sensitivity, built in incentives to overconsume) and some pushing downward (monopsony power, rationing). -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

The reason is often that you've repeatedly been accused of racism. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Nah. You'd just need to scratch up the sponsorship to move Jeb's giant waterslide contraption from Vegas. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Honestly, dude, at this point I'm having this discussion with Wendy, hopefully. You're welcome to listen in, but I'm more interested in an actual discussion where I learn things than an argument on this one. See, this is why I want a discussion. Wendy and I already talked about that. You'd fund the HSA of every citizen, and cover them all with a high deductible, government funded insurance policy. Indigent people get covered there, too. But you're just ignoring the answers to your questions, because you want to argue. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Ideally, I think you'd have a set deductible of around $3000, then fund each person's HSA to about $1000 each year. If your HSA balance exceeds $3000, you're allowed to transfer the excess to your personal bank account. It gives everyone an incentive to save money, because it's going to be their own money. The most anyone faces out of pocket is $2000 in a year, which is unlikely to cause a bankruptcy or home loss (hospitals already take bills like that and turn them into $50/month payment plans). Of course, the chance of getting that through Congress is negligible. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com