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My memory is that you didn’t really like Trump, but felt it was more important to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House, so you voted for him. Id submit that Trump is a greater threat to how our country operates; one of the best things about the US is that we trust our succession, and that the person fills the position, not that the position is wrapped around the person. But that was threatened in 2020, and Trump has made it clear that he doesn’t intend to accept a loss this year, that he plans to pardon people who consider an invasion of the Capitol and the shenanigans that went along with it to be OK. In addition, his need for personal loyalty (rather than to the position) is very concerning. Personally, I consider this to be a significant threat to the structure of the country. Wendy P.

I get all my power from solar. California now goes hours getting all its power from renewables for weeks on end - and all that is time we are not burning natural gas, thus saving that gas for the less developed parts of the US. As a result, natural gas prices are dropping, and air quality is improving. Solar fabrication equipment is one of the few things we export to China. US companies that make solar equipment are making billions and employing hundreds of thousands. So the citizens of the US will - and are already - benefiting from this. Jealousy is such an ugly emotion. Become a scientist or engineer, discover/invent something important and you too can be a millionaire! Only in your imagination. I am perfectly happy for you to think I am stupid. Like George Santos calling someone dishonest, or like Trump calling someone a liar. It's more a badge of honor than anything else.

If the mandate of NPR is to report facts wouldn't republicans be excluded by definition?

The reality is that based on where we’re at today, Biden is the only alternative. Maybe in 7 months, we’ll look at President Elect Trump and wish that there had of been another option, but at this stage in the game, Biden’s our horse. No doubt that Trump is a threat, but I wouldn’t write Biden off as nothing more than the lesser of evils. He’s done some good thinks like the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPs act, student debt….that are materially improving lives for lots of people. It’s hard to imagine that the trend wouldn’t continue if he gets another 4 years.

As an outsider it's interesting to see the polarised debate. I am not sure that I would vote for someone in their 80's. Trump is awful, but I find it hard to believe Biden is the best alternative. Overall it is a really sad indictment of the state of US politics. The US have lost all moral authority on democracy and it's going to be interesting to watch.

This thread has been going for three years now. What is puzzling is the fact, that apart from his enablers getting verdicts and having to face some serious consequences, the main goon has still managed to escape all efforts to dish out a vital conviction that Puts him into the place any normal joe blow would have been in no time

Are you gonna tell that to the guy in the other thread who think taxes are just pointless envy? I don't think he wants to redistribute any money from wealthy people to poor people.

I will argue that the biggest things damping Tesla sales are: 1. Tesla lying about range. 2. Tesla lying about capabilities of "Autopilot", (and Elmo making annual announcement that FSD will be here in "a few months", for ten years running). 3. Elmo being a gigantic all-around asshole. There is no way in hell I will ever own a Tesla as long as Elmo has any control over it.

It might have been you who posted about the loathsome man who was called in the kill all of the rats in a city -- how no matter how loathsome he was, the rats were a worse problem. Of course, that was an analogy for Trump. Personally, I think that Trump is the loathsome man who will encourage worse pests than the rats that he was originally "hired" to kill. So I'll vote for whoever has the best chance of keeping him out of the presidency. No, Biden was never my first choice. But Trump is my last. I'd rather have RFK Jr than him. But barring someone dropping dead (if only!), the race is between Biden and Trump, so I'm voting for one of them. Biden hasn't done a bad job. He's by no means perfect, but with a Congress who's happy to hurt the country as long as it also hurts Biden's chances of being re-elected, I'm not sure what he could accomplish. Wendy P.

Curtis, you're profile lists you as jumping at AZ, with two jumps. It would be irresponsible for someone on the Internet to guide you on a purchase at this time. There are great Instructors and Riggers at the DZ there. Please ask them to give you some guidance on what you should be jumping this early. We don't know your skillset. My advice to new jumpers has always been - Finish your A License and then let's sit down and talk about gear choices. And, we would begin with your reserve size first and build a rig around that.

“A man came up to me - big man, strong man - with tears in his eyes”…..

No shit, Sherlock. That’s the problem not the potential or viability of renewables. By that logic why fight crime at home when Haiti is so ridden with theft, drugs, and murder?

1) He didn't fart 2) OK he farted but there's this explanation that it's not like regular gross farting 3) Obama did it first.

Keep in mind that someone, somewhere also calculated the percentage of those that would not comply with the mask mandates, so additional mandates were added. At that time, we did not know what we were facing, how bad it was going to be, if it was natural or manufactured, nor could anyone forecast the extent up to and including the end of human and/or animal life. I had no issue with every arrow in the quiver being used to defend against whatever this "was" to be, mask mandates, social distancing, accelerated vaccines, and lockdowns and will still maintain that the lockdown was a month too short. I am not a science guy, so for those with advanced degrees - we rely on them to guide us. Which they did. Were mistakes made; yes. But, we had to try anything and everything. And, to this day; I look around and think, "We made it through it." ~MINO

New episode out now! DB Cooper and the JFK Assassination with my good friend John Limbach. https://thecoopervortex.podbean.com/e/db-cooper-and-the-jfk-assassination-john-limbach/ Enjoy!

Our office was in the path of totality..big boss catered BBQ and we all went out and watched it together. Was a great show, but I'm in the same boat for lack of photos. I figured there'll be literally millions of pictures, many of them taken by better photographers than me. I'd prefer to watch it with my eyes rather than through my phone.

Hi Keith, Re: I don't think either team has a good choice and am faced with not voting for a P at all. The best instructor I had in college was a math teacher. His position was that if had not tried your homework, you could not ask questions about it in class, later. My position is that anyone who does not vote for POTUS, should not comment on the outcome. Once I became eligible, I have never failed to vote in ANY election that I was allowed to do so. IMO it is our most important civic responsibility. Jerry Baumchen PS) I've voted for POTUS 15 times; IMO only 3-4 times were there good choices. C'est la vie.

Indiana provides an example of unintended consequences: ‘Severely decreased their sexual intimacy with their husbands’: Indiana appeals court uses Mike Pence’s religious liberty law to block abortion ban

And that's mostly always a good thing. An exception would be when the nation is on the verge of an autocracy by electing a demented, narcissistic, madman who is being enabled by a corrupt political party that, at best, represents a minority of Americans. In that situation it's important to see the other side of the aisle for what they have become: blindered and brainwashed enemies of the nation, not a font of good ideas. Later, after we beat the bastards back down into their holes, we can reengage in polite and meaningful dialogue.

I'm glad to maintain my sense of open-mindedness to receive and consider good ideas from both sides of the aisle.

They're probably just ticked off at some troll trying to be cute

I think personal transfers of weapons should take place at an FFL or the local Cop Shop. Background checks on every weapon movement of ownership. Well regulated should actually mean something, and be enforced.

Unfortunately you can WALK from Chicago to a gun store in Indiana in 15 minutes, buy a gun in a state with weak gun laws (ranked 30/50), then 15 minutes later be back in Chicago with a gun that you couldn't legally buy in Illinois. With a car you can do it even faster. Which is why a national solution is the only one that will work.

I always have an issue with the idea of 'illegal guns'. There is no such thing as an illegal gun. That's like saying there is an illegal car. It is another gun lobby/NRA talking point distraction. Remington, Winchester, S&W do not have an assembly line that creates illegal guns for criminals to use. We have guns that are obtained, trafficked, or owned illegally BECAUSE we do not have any laws to track guns. If we tracked every gun from its manufacture until its disposal, we would go a long way to finding out how guns get into the hands of criminals. But we don't do that, nor do we even try to.

Comparing any gun law to 'the rest of the country' is meaningless given that the rest of the country has ineffective guns laws as well. If the country wants to reduce gun violence, then we need to model gun laws on the countries that have less gun violence and stop pretending that the causes are judges, or mental health, or open carry, or good-guy-bad-guy, or suicides or whatever. The reason we have so much gun violence is that guns are readily accessible to pretty much anyone in the country and there are no laws worth talking about. Look at what it took to get two parents convicted of manslaughter when they bought their mentally ill kid a semi-auto rifle and then he shot up his school. In any other civilized country, that original purchase would never have happened.

Ask your canopy coach. If you're thinking crossbraced, you should definitely be working with one. I can see a few things potentially wrong with your plan. 1. You are jumping from a super docile canopy (spectre) to super aggressive (xb) with no intermediate planforms. Usually people will jump an aggressive elliptical non cross braced such as a katana or crossfire or x-fire for a long time before cross braced. 2. 1.6 seems too low wing loading for cross braced. Go work with a canopy coach, don't ask the Internet for advice.

The FBI was so honed in to the skydiving community and the community itself then was so tight knit, that I doubt "one of their own" would be able to pull it off and either A. not be found out or B. not eventually spilling the beans.

Agreed. However, I don't see a murder by an illegal immigrant to be any better or worse than a murder by a US citizen. Hopefully this means you will support the next border control bill. They do. I volunteer at a homeless shelter here that targets the over-55 and homeless veteran population in San Diego. There are hundreds of others who volunteer there as well. And as a nation we spend $250 billion a year on veterans in the form of pensions, VA benefits including medical care, education, rehab, loan guarantees, construction of new facilities and housing support. You mean conservative border policies. Republicans just killed a bill that would have gotten billions for more border patrol, more overtime for them, better unmanned assets (drones) better scanning technoloy at ports of entry and more judges/jails/lawyers to process them. They opposed it to hurt Biden, but the result is that they are hurting Americans. I didn't say anything about ignorant red states, just that they are (on average) less educated. Yep. Heather Heyer REALLY got a taste of Southern hospitality (at the hands of a Trump supporter.) And when Trump supporters marched to vandalize, deface, loot, kidnap and kill in DC, they learned how the US Justice system works. My electric bill is $6 a month and I pay less than $100 a year for fuels (mainly natural gas for our stove and hot water heater.) But yes, on average they are lower. So are electrical reliability rates. Red states also tend to have much higher pollution levels than blue states. You get what you pay for. Same here. The people who have worked in the startup I am at now are Asian, white, black, Hispanic, Arab, cis, trans, straight, gay, male and female. The people who live at the homeless shelter I volunteer at are a similar mix, and are unfailingly polite (if sometimes a little odd.) My neighbors are Italian, Chinese, Filipino, Mexican, Pakistani and Iraqi immigrants, along with a bunch of San Diego natives. The other kids at my kids' school are also fairly diverse, and include nonbinary kids. I like it that way. And I am glad the trans and nonbinary people I know are not living in a place where conservatives mock and attack them, and try to pass laws against them.

New episode out now! DB Cooper is like playing Best Ball with my good friend Chris Broer. https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-mdyit-15c5483 Enjoy!

Man, that’s just appalling. Unless, I suppose, that you think people do not as a matter of their true nature adopt a different approach to their gender than is listed on their birth certificate. Unless, that is, that you do not believe our perceptions of ourselves and the world around us happens at the level or our brains. And unless you are convinced that any deviation from an accepted norm is a matter of choice. If that’s what you think, oh well. What I see are people trying to live the only life they will ever have as comfortable with themselves as they possibly can.

I want to say that she joined the convent sometime in the very early 80's, because I believe she worked for NWA for another 9 or 10 years after the hijacking. I think a lot of the Cooper witnesses and participants were somewhat media shy because of what happened in the late 70's with the Coffelt stuff. Flo, Tina, Rat, and others were talking pretty freely to this movie producer from Hollywood who was trying to make some production based on Coffelt's story. There's a 302 where the FBI admonishes all of them and basically says "we can't stop you from talking to whomever you wish, but you need to understand that if you provide anyone with any information that could hurt the investigation in any way, you can be prosecuted." So I think that shut them up for quite a while. Tina was always a very religious and empathetic person. I don't think her going to the convent had anything whatsoever to do with Cooper. My list of suspects is just compiled of names in the FBI Files and names that others have put forward. I'll PM it to you.

Perhaps read his reply again, and see if you can figure out what rhetorical device he was using there.

Brent acknowledging reality, not happening

Easier to toot the horn than to step on the accelerator. Apparently those just fall off.

I know Dan Cooper’s “grudge” - he had $200,000 less than he desired. The whole lay-offs thing, the “grudge” is too deeply read. It was a financially motivated crime. Darren had a lady on his podcast saying that he did it to show it could be done. If so, why not ask for a Mickey Mantle Baseball Card and four parachutes. Or a Monet and four parachutes. Both easier to transport. The guy was a greedy MF who wanted money. I like the whole CIA/Interpen Goon angle. I really do, but it’s what makes a better story and fiction can be more enjoyable than the fact that a lone middle aged man wanted money, got it, and was so unremarkable that he had nobody to tell or wasn’t missed if he slammed into the ground or took a swim.

Yes, and we all thought that the Russian military was competent. We were wrong.

That is an impressive enough resume I suppose. What is your opinion on the direction given to the public by the NIH? are they some sort of scammers? Is your posistion influenced by the politics around the pandemic, or is the rest of the scientific community just plain wrong and only you are correct? https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2021/11/face-masks-covid-19 You may think that we don't already know about the Dunning-Kruger effect but you are wrong in making that assumption. The bottom like is that face masks can and do play a role in reducing the spread of droplets containing viral particles therefore reducing but not eliminating the spread of viral infection. At a time when the health system was overwhelmed with cases of covid leading to sever overtaxing of the system anything reducing the infection rate was very much welcomed and needed.

Beside the bronzed copy of WaltAppel's final post?

Yep. When you factually report on the trial that found that Trump sexually assaulted E Jean Carroll, it makes him sound like a rapist (since, objectively, he is one.) Then when you factually report on the sexual improprieties of Joe Biden, the report sounds . . . not that bad, since he has not sexually assaulted anyone. Conservatives demand that the media make both reports sound the same. Even if you report on the accusations, it makes Trump sound worse, since 13 women have accused him of sexual assault (one of which was proven) and he's admitted to sexual assault on TV. Then you report on the one woman who's accused Biden, and it makes it sound like Trump is much, much worse. Trump supporters demand enforced equality. If you spend 15 minutes listing all of Trump's accusers, you have to spend 15 minutes on Biden's one accuser. If you make it sound like Trump raped someone, you have to make it sound like Biden raped someone too. They want rapists made equal to non-rapists, criminals made equal to non-criminals, and people who pay to cover up their banging a porn star made equal to people who don't bang porn stars. This demand for equality in everything is, ironically, something they vociferously oppose when applied to the rest of society, and indeed regularly claim that people are NOT equal and should not be forced to be. Unless their last name is Biden. Then they should be made equal to Trump.

And who can forget Moses, who told his troops to kill all the women and kill all the children in a city, but keep the younger virgin girls "for their use." But he looks upon that with fond forbearance, just a historical quirk of years gone by. And sucking little boys' penises has a long tradition, and you have to understand X and Y and Z, and if you don't, you don't get to have an opinion. It's very nuanced, requiring a lot of study to understand the context. Muslims, though, worship a sick pedophile, and they're all mentally ill, period.

These Countries Have the Most Income Equality Happiness rankings follow closely, as does health care rankings, longevity, general education, trust of government, peaceful society, functioning justice system, etc. Everything else, i.e. "freedom", guns, free speech, military power, foreign influence, is just b.s.

Newsweek: Letitia James to Begin Claiming Donald Trump's Properties She's going to grab him by the properties; Because when you're Attorney General, they let you do that.

When MAGA types are asked about the mythical "Again" time they want to return to, they generally vaguely refer to the post-WWII years. Back when Men were Men (or cowboys, or test pilots), women knew their place (baking cookies while barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen), and the color line was in full force. Another interesting aspect of MAGA dream time is that during the Eisenhower Administration the top marginal income tax rate, which applied to income above $200,000 ($400,000 for couples) ($200,00 in 1954 dollars is equivalent to $2.3 million today), was 91% (!!!). Of course, that was the taxes applied to the portion of income above those limits. A couple making $465,000 would have paid an effective tax rate of 75%. (source) So I'm curious, if there is any truth to the argument that expecting the very wealthy to pay anything more than an incredibly low tax rate would result in them refusing to invest in business, leading to the collapse of American society, how is it that those years of 90% tax rates are the very same years that are held up as the best years in America's history? And Brent, I'll see your "envy" and raise you "greed".

I’m listening.

Hi folks, IMO we need more people like this: Only five years after graduating from Lewis & Clark Law School, Peggy Nagae received a phone call from Minoru “Min” Yasui, a lawyer and civil rights activist she deeply respected. Yasui wanted to challenge his 1942 conviction for violating curfew laws targeting Americans citizens with Japanese ancestry during World War II. Today is Minoru Yasui Day. For this Oregon attorney, it’s been a life’s work - oregonlive.com Jerry Baumchen

Unless they were asking for some preposterous amount, the hijackers usually got what they asked for. LaPoint asked for a measly 50k and got it Hahneman wanted 303k and got it McNally asked for 502k and got it Heady asked for 200k and got it Francis Goodell asked for 450k and got it Holder and Kerkow asked for 500k and got it The only one who I'm aware of who was short changed (who wasn't asking for millions) was Melvin Fisher He was the copycat who had the money tied to him with stairs lowered but lost his nerve and didn't jump. He asked for 550k and got 200k

Yep. And still do. And we fight against those who say they will "terminate" it. Wait. I thought our religion was climate change? Or vaccines? It's tough to have to change your religion so often when conservatives change their mind . . . But seriously no liberal I know worships government. It's good at some things, bad at others. It is at its best when it protects the rights of everyone - women, minorities, LGBT people - against the tyranny of the masses. It is at its worst when it's used to support and enable individual strongmen. Sure. I support better control of our border, for example, even though I oppose Trump. That being said, it's ironic that what triggered this anti-liberal diatribe was the mention of one particular politician.

He hits that sweet spot where the far end of the left wraps around and meets the far end of the right. Wendy P.

Another loss for the GOP fuelled by abortion rights issues - this time in Alabama. https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/03/26/democrats-republicans-abortion-ivf-alabama-election/ Democrat Marilyn Lands on Tuesday decisively won an Alabama state House seat in a long-held Republican district, notching a special-election victory after centering her campaign on promoting access to abortion and in vitro fertilization. "So much winning"