nigel99

I totally agree about the cell phone thing. Although it is just a symptom of people not paying attention. People chatting, smoking, eating, shaving, putting makeup on, performing sexual acts while driving - I have come across all of the above and it ticks me off (although the one incident was very entertaining!). People not paying attention are lethal. Our local police and council run a safety day for people on sports bikes - police and advanced instructors passing on knowledge, which I went to last week. The topic of people not paying attention came up and the most vivide example was a woman putting makeup on AND talking on the phone. She cut the guy up and he kicked her door 3 or 4 times and she didn't notice him!! Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

The US military in general has an extremely poor image abroad. Personally I fell in with the US are a bunch of arrogant & incompetants, until I had the opportunity to work with members of the US Army & Airforce (commercially). The people I met were very different to the image presented (in general although there was a guy who typified the image of the inbred redneck!). The UK seems to love the term "institution ..." to describe things (e.g. institutional racism") and I think this sums up the US military as it is the entity of the US military that is perceived as bad. I don't think that the image is driven by jealousy/or as a few people have suggested in past discussions that everyone else in the world lacks "freedom". I have found that the UK military (especially the SAS) are held in very high regard, and I have never heard the Canadians and Aussies knocked. I am sure that you are right that it is a tiny minority that are actually bad, but the US deals with them terribly (e.g the friendly fire incident where the US lied about evidence), Canadians bombed etc. At the very least the US military should co-operate with allies when they kill them - hell its not like Canada & the UK are some 3rd world dictatorships that have it in for the US. As long as the chain of command is complicit in these "coverups"/protections whatever you want to call them then an enormous part of the world will continue to hold Chuteless's view. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I don't think it was a mistake. I think that Bush had made up his mind to go to war and to hell with the rest of the world. While I was & am completely against the war, I think that Blair had a choice - the chaos caused by the USA joining the ranks of "Rogue Nations" and going to war alone - or stepping in alongside them and DESPITE political opinion at home (remembering that the war option was VERY un popular here - all along). I think that despite being a socialist tosser Blair did the right thing and prevented a greater world catastrophy. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Please understand that a formal inquest found the pilot made mistakes - not some internet chat room verdict. Also regarding peoples opinions of US soldiers - I personally find it very interesting that the UK including some parts of its military find the US military attitude lacking in their general respect for human life. Remembering that good intentions and "nice people" does not equal being perfect or having an attitude that is out of step with the rest of the world. Here are 2 links with comments from UK sources on GENERAL US military attitudes regarding human life. I don't have the time to filter through all the stuff that has been written regarding Matty Hull to find some of the UK military comments on previous incidents and the attitude towards it. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4574983.stm http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2004%2F04%2F11%2Fwtact11.xml In short the US should be above the "spray and pray" mentality that they appear to display. I would really like to know if there are statistics out there to show if the US really is out of step in terms of the ratio of deaths that they produce, or if it simply is a volume issue. And also in case you think that I am implying that the US is purely careless about its allies - about 25% of all US casualties are from friendly fire from what I have found. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Much like skydiving I think that the risk is heavily biased towards how YOU act. I ride a bike everyday and have found that it is tempting to use the bike to its limit. Things like riding between lanes get you there quicker but up the risk immeasureably. My wife was undercut at 80+ Mph on the motorway - she very nearly pulled over to the slow lane to give the guy right of way because he was flying along. Lucky for him because I ride she knows that bikers do that stuff and checked first. So long as you remember that NOBODY can see you EVER then you are pretty much alright. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

The news report on BBC radio at lunch time was IMMEDIATELY followed by a report that the US "accidentaly" killed some Afgan policemen. In the report is was also stated 1st Gulf war - some 9 out of 24 UK deaths were caused by the US In the 1st Gulf war 25% of all US deaths were caused by the US! I don't care how many wars I have or haven't been in the figures point to the fact that the US military appears to have a severe problem in this area. I am tempted to say that they have a disproportionate rate compared to everyone else in percentage terms but while I feel that this is the case, I can't back it up as a "fact". Perhaps instead of being defensive the US should start to look at what they do wrong? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

It was explained to me when I first started jumping: 1) Most skydivers get a rush/fear otherwise it would not be worth the money. 2) Our fear of heights is because we want to "jump" from the height. I have always been scared of heights above 10 foot, and what I was told makes sense. I often find that if I look down a stairwell, building related height I find myself wondering how long it would take to fall. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

There is a Holiday Inn and a "Premier Travel Inn" both close. I have stayed in the Holiday Inn and it was fine. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

New Friendly fire incident http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6346901.stm seems that they mistook Iraqi Soldiers for an al-Queda Cell. Regarding the discrepancy between the 24 and 47 I found this list - maybe the one figure does not include "accidents" of which there are quite a few - road and air. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/03/british_casualties/html/default.stm Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

The link I posted had a long section of the tape not just 20 seconds. There is an update on on BBC today as this story seems to have taken off http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6337137.stm and the pilots were cleared in the US investigations. In accordance with what some people have said here an ex US Navy pilot has said that the PILOTS should have acted based on the Orange panels and NOT opened fire. Which raises an interesting question - if it is public knowledge that orange = friends then surely the bad guys are doing this as well? Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I want one of these http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6333729.stm Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I didn't get that the answer indicated "friendly" I thought that it was confirmed that there were none in the area. You are obviously more clued up on protocol and the likes in these situations than I am (I had no idea that Orange had any relevance) neither did I realise that they were jumping between locations in the conversation. Isn't this the same friendly fire incident from 2003 - just that the authorities have been exposed for lying (claiming that no such video existed?) As per one of my earlier posts - it does seem that us "allies" are the biggest victims of US friendly fire incidents. I would be interested in figures to show foreign friendly fire/US friendly fire incident ratios. Also it is surprising that with the over whelming number of US troops that there are to my knowledge no incidents of the US accidently being targeted by allies... Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Don't know I really thought that the pilots were quite cautious and asked a number of times for confirmation. I suppose the scary question out of this is - if the military can't identify an allies vehicles - and not a backwoods 3rd world ally - how many innocent Iraqies are targeted? What sickens me is that there are drones etc with hi-res imaging that should be able to pick out the Union Jack etc and I would have thought that the US military machine was sophisticated enough to see identify friend or foe. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,11021-10043,00.html I feel sorry for the pilots. I usually feel that friendly fire where the US is involved is due to a gung-ho, we don't know our arse from our elbow syndrome - as it seems that often it is the allies who get hit (Canadians in Afganistan, Tornado in Iraq and this incident). The US military should be ashamed of themselves for witholding this video and information from the Coronors office. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Brilliant article on BBC site today. It turns out that the "brilliant" security in Vista is not so great after all. Hacks have apparantly appeared been tried where MP3 files are e-mailed or played on a website and the speech recognition and control software will follow the instructions. Someone demonstrated deleting files and emptying the trash can. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6320865.stm Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

The problem in a public forum is that kids stumble across stuff. Our 10 year old girl was looking at a forum with kittens etc, and got curious about pictures that involved sex/anatomy. The thread titles are a reflection of the content and I don't see that the titles are any cleaner than the content - if the content is banned then the titles would go with them , I don't see the point in separating the two. Ultimately it comes down to a basic choice of whether you want that type of thread in the bonfire. As I think most of us visit those types of threads as reflected by the number of views they are probably here to stay. This type of content is certainly not limited to this kind of forum and however embarrasing some content may be it does reflect the general wierdness that can be found at some DZ's (In a similar vein my parents visited the DZ when I was a student and being were pretty taken aback that there was a woman sitting reading Penthouse). Perhaps a suggestion would be that a separate forum related to memories & condolences was created? This would enable those who are not interested in the nonsence to avoid it. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

following other comments: the pearl is a decent phone. Build quality is not as good as my old Nokia though and trackball is susceptible to getting dirt stuck in it. as mentioned battery life is not so good but you can get more life out of the battery using it's automatic on and off mode (so that it switches off at night/weekends). I get an extra 2 or 3 days doing this. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I don't follow your question. My point about being on Radio 4 was that Dawkins was on home turf with people who whole heartedly agree with him. If you are expecting me to excuse a weak counter argument, because you agree with him - then I disagree. I do realise that much like here in speakers corner debate doesn't actually change anything - just create alot of heated emotions and tend to harden peoples views, but I would expect more grown up behaviour on a national radio interview Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

It was quite along time ago and involved evolution being taught in schools and so my memory is hazy. Rather than dealing with facts he was like a zealous evangilist who just attacked a specific viewpoint. I find it difficult to portray as so much context gets lost when repeated over the web. The radio interview was in the UK radio 4 which has a very negative view on anything that remotely questions evolution and so he was not on "enemy turf" where you could excuse him coming across as almost defensive if that makes sense. Sorry this probably wasn't the any examples you were looking for... Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

I haven't read the book - but have heard him interviewed on radio and he was biggotted and refused to argue rationally which totally discredited him in my opinion. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6181788.stm Don't know if it will reduce accidents but will certainly slow traffic. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Wow that figure works out at 2100 a month, I expected the argument to be that they were better off cause under Saddam there was 1 more a month not 1000 less... As to the cut and run comment - you broke it, you fix it. It is not like everyone in the world felt that Iraq needing to be invaded. I figure its time the US government admitted they cocked up big time and asked the Arabs for help on finding a solution (not help in implementing the US solution). Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

You're missing the point - it is much better now under Saddam it would have been at least 3701 in October... I am sick of this whole saga and hope that we see Bush & Blair in the Hague at some point in the future. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Point is that I don't believe that illegal drugs are a right. However I do believe that the government infringes my rights (personal data to the USA if I fly there, CCTV are probably my 2 biggest gripes). I suppose that to a large extent I am resigned to the fact that governments don't listen to the people and abuse our rights. I don't believe that modern democracy balances the government as the political parties are so similar. As I am not about to sue the government over the above to issues, I don't have a simple answer. I suppose bluntly governments deteriotate to the point where the abuse of civil rights is so blatant that they get overthrown. I think that the west has had a honeymoon period where individuals had a lot of rights and I believe we will see these eroded rapidly over future decades. But that is probably a different thread. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.

Thats cause being dutch drugs should be legal and therefore my argument is invalid as it would be a legal substance. mr2mk1g - I take the point about methadone being legal. Small point is that it doesn't say that they all were however. Personal belief is that people should be helped off drugs in prison - I just disagree with the sueing the gov part. Experienced jumper - someone who has made mistakes more often than I have and lived.