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As promised. Video about the Clara letter. It’s about 45 minutes. The first 30 are about Stylometry and how it refutes the claims that Barb is Clara. The last 15 are on Barb in general. You should be able to play it at 1.25 or even 1.5 to get through it quicker.

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.

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.

I have one question. When Donald Trump told America that he had 400 million dollars in cash, how long did it take Allen Weisselberg to stop laughing?

New Episode out now! DB Cooper's Bomb with Sergeant Major Mike Vining, US Army Retired. https://thecoopervortex.podbean.com/e/db-coopers-bomb-sargent-major-mike-vining-us-army-retired/ Enjoy!

Here's what I have, data from about 30 years back when I was new to the sport and a bit obsessed with collecting data and understanding the sport. 1. Two pages from I guess the Italian skydiving magazine in 1992 listing the early tandem fatalities in order. (Apparently there was also one on a European Galaxy rig sometime in that era, that isn't in those stats.) First tandem fatality is shown as the one with one snap not done up, TI spent entire jump trying to hook it up, without deploying anything (even the drogue). 2. An html file from UPT listing tandem fatalities and causes in order (but with no dates). From 2008, back when they listed that on their web site. 3. Scribbled pencil notes of mine from the early 1990s, where I listed a bit of the evolution of tandems (eg the date when Strong & Booth got their FAA exemptions to allow tandems), plus all the early fatalities and dates. I think most of the data on dates comes from an article in Parachutist,July 1989. (Which I can't find at the moment.) That list puts that first tandem fatality -- with the snap not done up -- as Oct 19, 1986. Back in those days people were wondering what the heck was going on with Vector tandems, as in the first dozen fatal accidents, there were 10 on Vectors, and 1 on a Galaxy, before there was 1 was a Strong Dual Hawk. There sure were a lot of different causes of accidents -- Stupid stuff we're not allowed to do with tandems now, main bags that much more easily came out of the container early, plus a lot more casual training and attitudes towards tandems. Which brought in the idea that 'it isn't just another skydive'. It also took a while to come up with the first tandem CYPRES, and eventually the idea of making one mandatory for tandems. (Wish I had the dates for those.) RWS tandem fatality list as of Feb08.htm

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.

The agency follows whatever 'continuous improvement' guidelines/rules they are provided with by congress and legislation and within the boundaries of the funding they have to do just that. I am pretty sure that the majority of the problem is capitalism and the false belief (generally in the USA) that it has a solution for every problem. The goal should be healthcare, but the goal is not that, it is about money/costs and funding, much like the private system. We do not have a healthcare system in the US, we have a profit driven money making system that sometimes provides healthcare if you can afford it.

Effectiveness of N95 Mask in Preventing COVID-19 Transmission Plus if both parties are wearing masks; the transmitter and the receiver protection is doubled?

That one's going up on the wall in the moderator's lair.

As some of you know, I am now at a startup (Smartville) designing systems that let you use old EV batteries as energy storage for your house, business or grid. This is a way to: 1) Not have to throw out/recycle all those old EV batteries 2) Have a way to store energy from renewable (solar, wind) 3) Provide grid backup during times of high demand. A while back, none other than Scott Miller called me and asked me to do a podcast with him on what I'm doing with Smartville. It's up now at the link below. https://creatingacoolerworld.com/

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.

Nope, if Trump wins we'll all be looking back at these as the good old days.

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.

This whole subject is highlights such a contradiction in the right wing world view. The case study of Brent (a true believer in trickle down economics and being nice to billionaires because they make all the jobs) and Musk (a billionaire who employs lots of people) is pretty weird. Musk: Builds Tesla into the most valuable company in the world with 140,000 US employees, which I'd imagine are skewed heavily towards highly paid tech jobs. Brent: Tesla is a joke and I can't wait for it to fail! Musk: Builds SpaceX into a $100Bn company with 15,000 US employees (again many well paid tech jobs) and resurrects the US from a country who could no longer reach the ISS on their own back to the undeniable global leader in space. Brent: Only a liberal moron would think SpaceX is what success looks like! Musk: Buys Twitter as a going concern, tanks its income streams, wipes 75% off its value, and fires 80% of its workforce (often illegally), making thousands of people unemployed and publically mocking any of them who dare complain. Brent: These are the greatest days that the world of Business has ever seen and Elon Musk is a god like genius! Almost like he's not really judging the merits...

Good for you, a PBS show. Jonathon Haidt gave a TED talk in 2008 that sounded smart and ended with the claim that enlightened liberals could by means of moral humility find common ground with conservatives. Well, that didn't age well. He was talking some light lifting with understanding Bush conservatives, of course, not MAGA. I did like this prescient slide he posted at the beginning of his talk though:

I’m listening.

Only you would say that.

Provocation Fridays: Anyone care to put their imagination to work? Should you choose to take this on. The assignment for the next 2 weeks is to write a fictional account of Cooper starting form one of these lead ins: - What I have to say goes like this - I landed in - It were my grudge that were my trouble - I noticed that Or chose your own lead in.. Thinking 500-800+ words or more, should take 2-5 hours to write. Narrative style from the view of Cooper or from another characters view... Will check back in two week time to see what stories percolate up. This is all for fun.

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

There are plenty of issues with uncontrolled immigration; it's just that an increase of per capita crime isn't among them. It's an easy thing to point to, but it's kind of like pointing at the one car wreck where seat belts were a detriment, and saying that proves that seat belts are bad. Wendy P.

Well, this didn't go so well for Trump. The entire thing is worth reading so I won't paraphrase it. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/21/trump-new-york-trial-evidence-motions-business-merchan/

Because the judge didn't go on TV and say it. If it wasn't on TV, Donny probably isn't aware of it. If it was in print, Donny definitely isn't aware of it.

Stick around! I enjoy your thoughts!!!

Also know as Real GDP growth. Real GDP defined as growth factored for inflation. The US chart here. Which of course shows the only real dip when trump was president His presidential term of Real GDP pictured below. Brent I know you try your best and its appreciated. But is it not too late for a refund?