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Public support for three recent major conflicts was bolstered by what later turned out to be false claims. Vietnam - Gulf of Tonkin Gulf War 1 - Iraqi troops reportedly massing on the Saudi border; Iraqi troops reportedly removing Iraqi babies from incubators Gulf War 2 - WMD Perhaps this is why one might view the official govermnent line in these matters with some scepticism. John

...because that's what they are/were. true, if you include civilians in that "and such". The IRA and its various splinter groups have killed hundreds of "non-combatants" as they call it...people no different from those who died on 11 September or in various cafes, buses and discos in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.

Slight alternative to Masher's method, but basically doing the same thing... You might want to (depending on the OS) do a right click on any XLS file icon and select "Open with" (if you have Win2000 or XP this should work - if you have 98 you'll need to hold down Shift whilst right clicking on the icon). It will bring up a list of applications, make sure the box "Always use this program to open these files" is ticked, select MS Excel from the list and click OK. Good luck

Isn't that a Luftwaffe Tornado rather than a British one? Love the paintjob!

I reckon if you get some first jump courses going in the near future then you can get over 100 of them going. As the financial realities of student life sink in skydiving looks less and less affordable. So, I'd suggest getting those FJCs arranged as soon as possible before beer and books start to eat into their budgets. When I was at uni, we had about 200 people showing up initially, got about 60 of them through training in the first term. You'll probably also get your very own groupies, who just turn up to club nights and buy the club clothing Good luck with it!

There was a Cypres save just like that quite a while ago...CRW wrap. http://www.cypres-usa.com/saves05b.pdf For some reason (reserve handle tucked under harness maybe?) the lower guy thinks his reserve is part of the shit wrapped round the upper guy and screams at him not to cut him free. Not hearing, or ignoring the plaintive wails, the upper guy starts hacking away at the lines and canopy around him. So, our hero, back in freefall and thinking he's now without main and reserve, starts tracking for a lake... I wonder if he'd have made it, and what he did when he caught up with the other guy Cheers John

Hey Alana, You might want to check out the BPA site: http://www.bpa.org.uk/dropzone/dzone.htm Closest would probably be London Parachute School but the one time I jumped there it was literally just a field with a couple of trailers and a C206...more of a student operation than anything else. The bigger DZs are Headcorn, Netheravon (Army Parachute Association), Sibson (Peterborough) and if you're prepared to travel a couple of hours British Parachute School (Langar) and Weston on the Green (RAF Sport Parachute Association) are pretty big operations too...at least by UK standard.. Weather will probably stink, but we do get some beautiful but Baltic clear days. Cheers John

Please see my previous post to the Blue One. Just addressing yer points though: - Yes, giving should really be voluntary, otherwise it's not giving. - I suspect there aren't that many missionaries because most people (myself included) aren't prepared to give up the perks of life in the developed world and would rather send off the odd envelope to UNICEF or whoever. Cheers John

I think Erica pretty much hit the nail on the head, either I've been unclear or you guys are a tad too defensive. True, you get a lot of flak from all and sundry, but I wasn't criticising. So, for the nth time: I didn't say that what the US was giving wasn't enough. What I said was that you weren't giving as much as you perhaps thought. Not a criticism of US foreign aid, just an observation -which, if I'd foreseen the shitstorm it caused, I would have kept to myself. I hope that this has cleared things up and exempted me from the buttsex thread. Cheers John

I'd say that, to an extent, the burden rests on us because we're better off than they are. Call me old fashioned but making at least some effort to help out the less fortunate is something I believe in. The way I see it that's a fairly major element of Judeo-Christian culture - some degree of concern for the wellbeing of others. And no, I don't believe that suffering has necessarily exploded since the advent of the media, but I do think that doing bugger all to alleviate that suffering is less and less excusable now that it's there for us all to see. Cheers John

True, from my experience Scandinavian countries -and the likes of Holland and Germany - are far closer to the "welfare state" than either the US or the UK. Do people there work less hard than in the US? I don't know. In any case, they are among the wealthiest nations on earth and seem to be able to support their people and provide a little for developing nations etc. Having said that, their taxes are pretty crippling... As for letting the government decide where your money goes, that already happens through taxation. I think the leap from a degree of redistribution of wealth to equal distribution of wealth (communism - which I don't believe in either) is a fairly large one... Anyway, I'm not begrudging anyone their hard earned cash. I'm not bellowing from my soapbox that the US should hand over more aid. Just sayin that you aren't handing over as much as you perhaps thought you were (not aimed at you in particular, Erica, just trying to clarify my slightly battered position ). I appreciate you joining in, but could really do with someone joining in on MY side, damn it!! Enjoy yer travels

I agree there are just too many of us, but considering that we're the ones using far more than our share of the earth's resources, perhaps we should cut down on our excesses first - aviation fuel excepted of course I dunno really...mass sterilisation sounds a little fascist to me, didn't they try that in India a while ago? Is it up to us to forcibly do something like that? Again...I don't know... Until some kind of solution presents itself the only thing I can think of to try to help (and in the process salve my conscience) is to throw money at the problem and hope it goes away... Cheers John

Well, that's where we disagree...if interfering with Darwin means stopping people from starving then I say we can't interfere enough. And if we're to just let evolution have its way, then there's an argument for not healing the sick etc...a whole different kettle of fish. Now, shouldn't you be contributing to GDP rather than slacking around on dz.com? Cheers John

Well, I'm not an economist, but if you were to "call in" your debts I imagine several third world economies would collapse, lots of people would die...that sort of thing. To be taken with hefty amounts of salt, but from what I gather, the US spends around $10 billion annually on foreign aid...works out at around $35-40 per person per year (so, not quite the 5 jump tickets that Titaniumlegs was hoping for .) The Danes, to pick a nation from the other end of the spectrum, pay around $300 per person per year. I'm not looking to make the numbers less significant, the GDP/GNP/per capita method is generally how these things are measured. It's wealth redistribution and, like taxes, is generally evaluated according to how many of you there are and/or a percentage of what you earn. Cheers John

I'm not sure "obscene" is the word I'd use given the context, but it would be *lots*, absolutely. IIRC, the link I posted earlier pointed out that France and the Netherlands combined contribute nearly as much as the US. About 75 million people in total, the US about 280 million...so they're handing over what, just under four times as much per head? As I said, judging these things by GDP or per capita seems to me to be a sensible way of going about things. If you don't fine, I'm sure we can both live with that

As I said, it's still a pot of cash and more in absolute terms than anyone else, looking at it in the way that usaid.gov does, i.e. by GDP, the US isn't quite as benevolent as you might have thought. I don't have a breakdown of these figures and I'm not going to bother looking for them just now. It's just a fact that most Americans consider their country to be significantly more generous than others when it comes to foreign aid, when this is not the case, quite the opposite in fact. Should contributions or evaluations thereof be based on GDP? I think so, you may disagree. It's not my intention to bash the US, and if it were this isn't the place I'd do it. Just presenting the facts. Cheers John

The great thing is, the US isn't always the "Rich Uncle". It's something of a myth that the US is stupendously generous in terms of foreign aid when in fact, it contributes less per head than most other Western nations. http://www.usaid.gov/environment/whatwespend.html ...for example. "in terms of gross national product, the United States provides the smallest amount of foreign assistance of any major industrialized nation". 0.5% of GDP rather than the 20% that Americans think they provide. It's still heaps of cash, of course, but the US isn't as generous as one might have thought. Apparently it's places like the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries that fork out most. Cheers John

hehe, worst one I remember (and there were a few) was first test jump on Sabre 150 - saw the flag in front of the hangar blowing down the runway. was wondering why all the other fools (including some really experienced fools) were landing "downwind". only realised at about 100ft that I was really tanking along and that the engines of the plane sitting by the flag were running - blowing it upwind. came screaming in downwind and ran out flare a couple of feet short of large wooden fence. howls of laughter from assorted onlookers...

Hi Folks, Thanks for all your thoughts, greatly appreciated! It's good to know that it aint necessarily all over. Blue 'uns John Thanks too for the joke, Greg. I'd heard the bath one, but guess you already knew this one: What's blue and doesn't fit? A dead epileptic

Hi Folks, A veritable tale of woe. My not particularly distinguished skydiving career was cut short a couple of years ago when I was diagnosed with epilepsy. Fortunately, of all the possible real bastard varieties of this condition, mine is purely nocturnal and has been totally under control ever since diagnosis. I realise that I should be checking with my doctor and the relevant parachuting authorities with regards to jumping again. I was just wondering if any of you are, or know any jumpers who are, epileptic. i.e. does it disqualify you from jumping (exc.tandems...yeugh) altogether for life, or are there exceptions? To be honest, the thought of jumping again scares the c#$p out of me right now...but with summer on the way you do find yourself staring longingly at the sky now and then. Any thoughts, general sympathetic wailing, epileptic jokes etc. much appreciated Blue 'uns John