nigel99

Why is it that some people either have continuous bad luck/accidents and the like and others lead a charmed life? I’m not talking about being born with a disability or winning the lottery, but rather a life long bias in a certain direction. Within my direct family it spans from living in a UK council house and lots of shitty things for that person, through to being worth over a billion dollars (and Joe before you hit me up for dz.com I’m closer to the council estate than the private jet). Take Elon Musk as a prime example. He’s not that clever, in fact he’s socially awkward and not all that bright. Yet he has gone from relatively little to being one of the richest and most influential people on earth. Trump is the same. I can see how Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs ‘won the lottery’ and were bright and in the right place at the right time. It’s surprising how often in my life I’ve taken a course of action that has then become invaluable in unforeseen ways years down the line. At the other end of the scale there are people who appear to have drawn the short straw and no matter how much they try life just beats them down. Of course life choices influence us. To quote the bible ‘you reap what you sow’. I don’t believe in predestination and that your life path is essentially laid out for you. On the other hand it feels like there is more to life than random chance. Maybe I’m falling foul of the gamblers fallacy. This shower thought is brought to you from sleep deprived musings on the meaning of life…

Easily my mistake. If that is all it is then like Joe I’m happy to throw in a once off donation. Bearing in mind there are the mods who give a lot of time. Maybe Bill or Wendy can clarify? If it is the case then I suggest we start up a go fund me (I don’t know how it’s done). In fact I would support that regardless of outcome as a thank you. As Bill has pointed out this is the most actively posted in forum - but the true value is in the skydiving forums that are the most comprehensive source of skydiving knowledge anywhere

Pretty sure in Bonfire Sangiro said operating costs are $3k a month

I wonder if Comical Ali can become press secretary?

I generally look for a few qualities in people to employ. Integrity, competence and character. Putting a guy in charge of the legal system who has an ethics complaint that even the spineless republicans would not wipe away. Invalidates any competence he may or may not have. As an atheist I don’t follow the biblical model of promoting rapists and murderers to high office.

You guys are going to need Jesus to get through this. Let’s just hope the late great Hannibal Lecter isn’t given a cabinet position. America has taken the crown as the leader of Banana republic’s.

I thought you were joking. I guess he’s the right pick for AG if you want to lower the age of consent

https://youtu.be/H_JoE2GioXY?si=VKE5Wt8ppF47xseO You mean Family Guy is a documentary?

https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/japan/japan-naoki-hyakuta-remarks-conservative-party-b2644795.html On medical treatment and women. Japan conservative floated the idea of mandatory hysterectomies for women over 30!

You sure did. it’s on the coverslip of the Trump bible just above his signature

If god looks at my heart and not my actions. I assume that I am predestined for heaven or hell? So what stops me from living a life of debauchery and making the most of my time here?

Back to the topic. There has been an unbelievable surge in misogynistic posts. Talk about the American Taliban. It seems the world has suddenly got permission to beat on women.

The autism argument is alive and well. Although I recently came across a new twist- there’s a new fad of mothers here giving toddlers THC as an alternative to vaccines (THC not CBD)

I had forgotten that. It’s fascinating how I was brought up that atheists had no moral compass. 40 years later I’m an atheist discussing with a Christian who is defending a person of no moral compass. i can’t even begin to understand Christian morality.

I’ll admit I don’t understand what you mean. I was raised Christian and a few verses spring to mind regarding Trump. 1. By their fruit you will know them… 2. Thou shalt not steal, covert thy neighbours wife, take the lords name in vain 3. Defend the weak and the fatherless 4. Whatever you did for the least of these you did for me… 5. Blessed are the poor/ harder for a rich man to enter heaven I really struggle with the fact that evangelicals support a convicted rapist, conman and generally vulgar person, over a church goer who tends to follow the word of god.

I would happily part with $10 a month. Of course on a paid subscription we need to allow for a couple of bottles of whisky a month for Bill and Wendy to drown their sorrows at being stuck with all of us

The noise drowns out the gunshots :) How long since we’ve had a really heated argument about the 2nd amendment?

How do you reconcile Trump’s behaviour with your Christian beliefs?

Take 30 seconds to look at the last time forums other than SC were posted in. There are times bonfire which used to be vibrant goes a week or so with no posts. As much as you say it’s a liberal echo chamber, this is one place where posters do get a mix of political views. Unfortunately for quite some time the ‘alternative view’ posters have posted with the express purpose of trolling. Breaking my self imposed rule of not naming posters, there are some interesting right wing posters who tend to stand by their convictions - Bigun and Ron being top of the list, with you and base being relatively new to frequent posting as well.

Not in one hit, but happy to commit to a subscription

I’ve thought about it. For many of us this has been an online home for over 20 years. The site has been a staple of skydiving for a long time. I would definitely pay a monthly subscription, but I suspect there aren’t the numbers to make that viable. I’m guessing this is a passion project and the rise of reddit, Facebook and YouTube mean that resources are spread more widely now. Speakers corner is one of the most active forums and that poll I did a while ago shows that I’m a youngster at 50.

Generally speaking knocking posters doesn’t add to the conversation. I’m not talking about your specific post. The ones I find most annoying is scrolling down half a page of ‘he’s on my kill list’, he’s blocked so I can’t see what he posts’ etc. Unfortunately for some time now most right wing leaning posters have been trolls out for a reaction. While I strongly disagree with the views of some of the recent posters, they have refreshingly not been trolling.

Other than you stating it isn’t a vaccine, I’m pretty much in agreement with you. i don’t think people should have been forced, I would have lost my job if I didn’t have it and yet our state was in total lockdown and we had not a single case at the time. I wanted to take a risk based approach and when the risk of a vaccine injury is 1 in a million, but there is NO COVID, then the risk is higher. The dishonesty of our government was exposed when there was still quite significant resistance and so they banned going through a drive through bottle shop to purchase alcohol without the vax. Aussies are committed enough to drinking that this got another 8% vaccinated. My housemate at the time was very anti vax (and has since got worse and is in with a crowd who give their toddlers THC to prevent 5G damage). Because of her strong views I did a bit of digging into the Canadian who they hailed as the truth teller and read the actual paper he wrote. Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of misunderstanding and what he said had been twisted. But one of the reasons I like being around alternative views is that I did learn something. He lays out in the paper that in lab experiments they found that under certain circumstances vaccinating against a specific strain of virus (using traditional vaccines) could increase the severity of a different but closely related strain. From memory I think it was called antibody dependent enhancement. He stressed in the paper that this had not been seen outside of lab conditions. But the concern he raised with mRNA vaccines, is that by being so highly targeted that specific risk might be greater. He made it clear it was a risk, not a fact. He simply highlighted an area requiring more research. The risk and science of his argument seems reasonable to me. Consequently when forced I got the non mRNA (Astra Zenica).

I like having the right wing/alternative views, It’s a pity they were silent for so long prior and we just had a lot of trolling. I spend quite a bit of time in Reddit these days and it’s a total echo chamber. I’ve been on dz.com for over 20 years and never had a single days ban. Got a lifetime ban from a subreddit on my second post :)

My experience of Christian’s has been that in general the evangelicals take no responsibility for their actions, don’t typically have strong convictions that don’t blow in the wind. Conversely traditional Christian’s (Roman catholic or Anglican etc), tend to have high ethics and standards of morality- albeit quite dated. They also don’t tend to try and force it down your throat.