TriGirl

Further evidence to the theory that the Trump candidacy and follow-on administration has been driven and guided from the onset by Bannon. He gets to play in the White House, but he used someone else's money to do it, gets to stay out of the line of fire, is required to produce nothing, and will suffer zero lasting public condemnation afterward. Genius. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

This should be on every desk in the White House. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

FIFY See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

Saw a report on CNN last night -- the anchor was talking to a group of five Trump supporters. Four of them gave his performance thus far an "A" (one even said if he had a marker, he would add a plus). The fifth gave him a B. All five said their satisfaction was because he was "trying." One was very adamant that the Muslim ban should be implemented. They gave him a total pass on ethics, experience, truthfulness, diplomacy, temperament ... but he's trying to implement the policies on which he campaigned, and for which they voted, and therefore is doing a bang-up job. Just... Wow. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

I have a friend in the region who was tracking a proposed DZ in Qatar (which has been delayed). She'll check on the Bahrain story. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

And the sad thing about the whole exchange is that the reporter was trying to ask him where the WH wanted to redirect its communication plan -- with these issues dominating the news cycle, what plan did they have to get beyond these issues? She was trying to give him an opportunity to focus on something else, and how were they going to get the focus onto the things he thinks matters, instead of the Russia connections. Instead, he focused on the Russia connections. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

My belief is you are partly right. The second factor was Comey's stunt. And thirdly the Trump/Putin/Wikileaks conspiracy. But I think the first two were the main things. Another explanation (or contributing factor) to the report of "low voter turnout" claims is that in fact, those voters registered in two districts actually only voted in one district, or the voters who died never had votes cast in their names.* Example 1: Ivanka Trump was reported to be registered to vote in two states. She cast one legal vote in one of those states, while the other state reported that she did not vote at all. Example 2: Prince Rogers Nelson was registered to vote in Minnesota. He unfortunately passed away before the election, and no vote was cast under his name. I think if all the voter registrars do their thorough audits as they pledged to do after the November election, and the duplicate registrations and deceased citizens are removed from the rolls, we're going to see a noticeable rise in the percentage of registered voters contributing to the process. Not to mention, we can stop all those accusations of people voting illegally because of these duplicates and deceased persons on the rolls. *I'm not saying it's going to go to 100% participation, but if the claims of duplicate registrations and deceased person registrations are so prevalent, then the percentage at the very least should rise once the rolls are cleaned up See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

Yeah that's fair. Though I'd say there's a huge difference between attacking Parliament and attacking close to the Parliament building. Fair clarification (I wrote the last in a hurry). Although considering at the time, no one knew whether anyone else was involved, and the perpetrator was moving toward the Parliament building (IIRC). Local officials were worried enough that they locked down everyone IN the building for hours. That's news. We know that now (see reply above). Had the perpetrator access to firearms, we also know the impact could have been much worse. So in a place without public access to firearms, in a country at the top of the US friends list, and in a location within that country that has some of the highest security, an attack of this nature is unusual, and therefore "breaking" news. Or at least, it should have been to US news outlets. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

Come on, John. You know that won't stop the nutters from continuing the diatribe. Case in point: all the agencies who have stated categorically that the president's claim of Trump Tower being targeted for surveillance during the campaign and directly after were bullshit, and yet you still have those asking, "but can you prove it didn't happen?" Besides, just because PP offers patients the full spectrum of health care services, including the ones some don't agree with, we'll always have that vocal minority screaming that they're all about killing babies. Just because this attempt a demonizing fell through, doesn't mean they won't keep repeating this one and trying to "find" others. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

Fine, I'll respond. 1) I was responding to this specific incident because that was the thread. I replied to the OP. 2) I didn't think a dissertation on the "nature of news" was required in my reply. Again, it was in context of the OP. But since apparently it is, then yes, you're correct: there are a lot of terrible things going on in the world, and Americans are woefully ignorant of most of them. However, if you're talking who in the world is closest to the US in terms of allies, the UK is right up there (Canada too -- and yes, I do recall the Quebec attacks, and am disgusted by them as well. And Kenya. And Mosul. And Yemen. And in the FATA of Pakistan). So therefore, if the U.S. news was going to prioritize any foreign late-breaking news, you'd think the UK Parliament attacks would certainly rate. It was a disappointed analysis that if the U.S. news could barely be bothered to cover this attack, how the hell can we expect that the American public would be aware of anything else going on in the world? See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

It's not just the US Govt - the fucktrumpets on the right in the UK like Farage are just as bad. Agreed, but with the media here pretty much talking all day/every day about the shenanigans in our own government, that's almost all I get to compare it to. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

FIFY. (DHS is Department of Homeland Security) See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

Fair argument, Bill. Thanks.

Thanks, Dan. You got to this before I could. And additionally, IMHO, isn't it interesting that the perpetrator was natural-born British? And in his 50s? Sort of diminishes the scare tactics rhetoric the US government is spouting about those "dangerous young men posing as refugees" in order to wreak all the havoc possible in western countries. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

I work in media (sort of), so my officers and I have our TVs tuned to various news programs throughout the day. The true tragedy of the current American isolationism is that this incident was only shown as an inset video with barely a label and no sound, while discussion continued with "did they or didn't they" regarding the Trump campaign and possible collusion with Russia, and the scandalous behavior of a member of Congress rushing to the White House to tell the President members of his team were mentioned (vaguely) in intelligence products. I had to wait to hear the details of the attack until I could tune into National Public Radio during my drive home. I'm sorry you've had another senseless attack. I hope you can find answers soon, and I hope we pull our collective head out of our dark spaces and give more of a shit about the rest of the world very soon. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

I heard Rook may be raising the price this year, as some guys did an insane number of jumps on this. I believe he limits the number of unlimited passes bought, but again, check the website or call the DZ. The price also increases in the summer months. If you can go in April, or wait until September, you'll get a lower cost (at least, that's how it worked last year). Some guys who reviewed their experiences on Skydive Radio were super aggressive in getting a lot of jumps, but some just liked knowing they already had the month paid for and could hop on a load anytime they wanted. Of course, the best bang for the buck is to live on the DZ for the month. You can survive in a tent, but an RV (you can rent those and split the cost with someone else) offers a bit more comfort during inclement weather, and provides facilities to prepare many of your own meals. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

It is the first real indication he may not be able to do what he said he was going to do. Lots is riding on this for Trump, specially since he decided to go "all in" on this one. Like "temporarily ban all Muslims from entering the country"? See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

Is it really the possibility of a failed health care bill that has confidence dropping, or could it also have something to do with his manic temper, claims of conspiracy, and reliance on news commentators instead of his own vast resources? IMHO, it's disingenuous and misleading to heap all the credibility blame on a bill in Congress. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

And a SIS event, too! I mean, who's going to argue against a SISTERS in skydiving event? ETA: they're setting themselves up, really. I mean, restricting skydivers in a place called "Sisters"? Not to mention "Deschutes" National Forest! See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

As the article explores, while nearly half of that increase is being spent on that issue, we don't know how much will go actually to the Trump organization as payment for rents, or improvements in security and infrastructure to the building. Of course, the building is probably (totally my analysis) able to lay off some of its own security personnel because 1) they are no longer allowed on many floors, and 2) the place is already crawling with Secret Service. Why keep the other guys? See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

And in other news...

Example: when I would fly home from Turkey, I would fly from Ankara to Munich via Lufthansa (usually) or Turkish Airlines (Star Alliance). Munich international departures has enhanced screening of carry-on bags, even if you're already "through security" because you're transiting. Therefore, before boarding my Lufthansa or United flight to Newark or Dulles, I would have my carry-on stuff screened again. Only passengers with valid boarding cards for THAT flight could enter the passenger lounge, and once you were in, you weren't to leave. I usually had to take things out of my bag in Munich that I also had to remove in Ankara, such as my laptop. I've also had camera equipment inspected and been asked to turn on the camera at both airports (although to save space, I usually packed the large camera in my checked bag anyway). Istanbul had the same checks (on rare occasion, my flights took me through Istanbul instead). Going from a domestic arrival to an international departure, you have to get screened again, and you can't come back out after being screened. They also had random searches and bomb residue screening at the gates (they "randomly" seemed to screen a lot of people, regardless of your passport origin). Anyway, it seems they aren't satisfied with Istanbul's procedures these days, so there ya go. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

(source: http://globalnews.ca/news/3323468/americans-build-the-wall-cancun/) "The incident adds to a “growing number of complaints” from tourism workers who say that spring breakers have been “offensive, rude and haughty towards Mexican people.” Stupidity knows no bounds. Say and do stupid stuff to people that serve you food. ... and clean your room (with all your stuff in it), and serve you drinks. Pretty easy to mess with jokers like that. [Customs official: "excuse me sir, please step aside with your bags. Did you pack these bags yourself?" k-9 team approaches, dog visibly attentive Spring Breaker: "uh, yeah. What's the problem? I'm an American!"] See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

Umm... but what does Ray say about the "red, seven-headed dragon" and the woman's wing-growing followed by being "swallowed up by the earth"? How will that be represented by/around the constellation of Virgo? Seems like a bit of cherry picking to me. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!

I have three words for that: Flying Spaghetti Monster. See the upside, and always wear your parachute! -- Christopher Titus Shut Up & Jump!