Leaderboard

So, she went low on her first big way and she's in the Black/Gay/Immigrant sector. Not good, but it happens to the best of us. By thinking it proves something, you show us more about yourself than her.

Weinstein is gone. Epstein is gone. Franken is gone. Cuomo is gone. Could you have done a better job demonstrating the difference in how the two parties view sexual misconduct these days?

I'd go further and say that politics before the 1950's or so is now irrelevant since the parties have effectively swapped ideologies. But to the larger point, I think you can trace much of this back to the 1970's. In 1978, Newt Gingrich (then just a college professor) gave a speech to a group of college republicans about the problems republicans faced, "One of the great problems we have in the republican party is that we don’t encourage you to be nasty." He went on to tell them what they would have to do to succeed - “raise hell” and treat politics as a “war for power.” His goal was to destroy bipartisan politics in America, so that he could then point to the government and say how evil and dysfunctional they were. Then the electorate would want to dump the democratic majority and bring his party back to power. His idea "was to build toward a national election where people were so disgusted by Washington and the way it was operating that they would throw the ins out and bring the outs in.” His goal was to use the media to garner power. "If you’re not in The Washington Post every day, you might as well not exist" he told a colleague. His work in Congress was far more destructive than constructive. If the GOP was working on a bipartisan bill with the democrats, he would scuttle it to avoid giving the democrats a win. If the GOP was pushing a partisan bill that wasn't partisan _enough_ he'd attack the republicans sponsoring it as weak. Such efforts, in his view, "represented a culture which had been defeated consistently." In 1988 he decided to start taking democrats down. So he targeted the democratic speaker of the house, Jim Wright. Gingrich tried to gin up some sort of sex scanal involving an underage page. It failed. Then he tried to attack him for shady lobbing practices. That failed. Finally he found $60,000 that Wright had made selling books, and managed to convince everyone that was a scandal. Wright resigned. This set the stage for the GOP for the next 30 years. Politics in the US went from boring CSPAN-worthy coverage to front page news involving sex scandals, accusations of treason and constant name-calling - and that has persisted to this day, Initially democrats had no response for this, since they had no desire to drop what they had been doing that had been working. (Working for both parties, at least up until Nixon.) But then they started losing. And losing a lot. To quote Aaron Sorkin - "You know why people don't like liberals? Because they lose. If liberals are so fuckin' smart, how come they lose so goddam always?" So democrats started using the same tactics. And it worked as well, although they weren't as good at it. With someone like Trump it works fairly well, because he's so immoral and unprincipled that it was easy. When a former wife accuses him of rape, and 13 other women accuse him of sexual assault, it's not hard to build a case that he is, in fact, something of an evil guy. But on the harder nuts to crack, they are simply not as good at those sort of attacks that the GOP is. But they are learning. And what Gingrich set in motion over 40 years ago is now coming to fruition - a two party system, where the party that can be the most nasty wins. (Which is one of the reasons I am now an independent.)

Yeah. Several other companies are doing a lot with sensor fusion - using vision plus (bad) LIDAR plus radar - to get a lot of information out of a scene. And Intel has had a remarkable success with its realsense system (just two aligned stereo cameras.) Always seemed foolish to me to ignore all those possibilities. "But people drive vision-only just fine!" has been his go-to explanation. But we don't just use one eye. We generally use two, which gives us information similar to the realsense system. We use our ears for horns, road noise, and minor impacts (hitting a rumble strip for example.) We use our sense of touch to get a sense of wheel and brake pedal pressure and to feel acceleration/braking/cornering. We have decent memories which allow us to recall what happened last time we drove a dangerous stretch, and where the hazards are.

The thing is that no one needs to state they’re a white male in a position of power. It’s the default. People don’t talk about the default. Moving the needle to “human” being the default would be nice. But it’s clear that isn’t the case as long as the clothes and hair of females are analyzed and mentioned, and not that of males. And yes, sometimes women do want their clothes to be noticed, but that’s partly because that’s how womanly worth is defined for many, and partly for the same reason that men hold their paunch in when posing for a picture Wendy P.

When Russia sends its trolls, they're not sending their best. :-(

Although AON2 is not a member of the PIA at the moment, we have stopped doing business with companies and individuals in Russia since the 23rd of February. Slava Ukraini!

What's not to understand? USPA says a TI has to have a valid medical. There are behaviors/conditions that would invalidate the medical. If USPA becomes aware of such, they are obligated to look into it. While they do not have the authority to revoke the medical, they do have the authority to suspend the rating.

Hi Doug, I could not have said it better. Jerry Baumchen

"Guns at home were four times more likely to cause an accidental shooting, seven times more likely to be used in assault or homicide, and 11 times more likely to be used in a suicide than they were to be used for self-defense." It's like getting a wild orangutan and keeping it as a pet for home protection. I mean, no one is going to break into a house with a wild orangutan in it - right? https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/more-guns-do-not-stop-more-crimes-evidence-shows/

Hopefully you hear the bad guy coming before he gets to drop on you. Unfortunately that’s not likely for you is it?

That's your choice. I'm sure you are ignoring the fact that they are far more likely to do you harm than good. You doubtless think you are an exception, same as everyone else.

buy the domain and i'll host it. anytime you want to update it just send a new one to me and i'll replace it. i have unlimited web hosting so it's cool. a domain only costs like $20, or it did a few years ago anyway.

This is NOT a political forum. There is to be no discussion of the political situation in Ukraine. We have a whole forum (Speaker’s Corner) for that, with threads conveniently titled things like “Ukraine.” Wendy P.

HH- I completely understand where you are coming from on this, but I still have a question on this. Even in the example you gave, doesn't this serve as a type of service to the jumping public by letting them who has what going on, that might save them some deniro? I know it is a little bit of a grey area, and I am not suggesting that the same apply to gear, etc. but discounted jump days, weekends, etc. would maybe seem to have a little bit of a leash because of the afore mentioned service. It's just a thought. As always, your time and efforts are greatly appreciated. Blue 111- Jeff "When I die, I want to go like my grandmother, who died peacefully in her sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in her car."