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I'm glad I was able to remember my log-in! Thank you for flirting with me, all the way back in 2006. Have we ever paid Sangiro for his pimp fee? You had me at hello. Some of the best times of my life were with you in the sky, I miss it! I love you! Hi to anyone who remembers me!!

I hope you are trolling for the sake of spirited conversation, but I fear you are not.... Yielding to the lower jumper is NOT OBSOLETE! In fact, your suggestion is dangerous and I encourage jumpers to disregard it. The reasons we yield to the lower jumpers are simple. First, jumpers in the pattern are (correctly) focused on their landings, which dictates giving primary attention to what is BELOW them. Jumpers are ALWAYS responsible to clear the area in their flight path - like clearing the area to the left or right AND below before making a turn. This includes pattern flight and final approach. Second, it is often impossible to see traffic above us because our canopies block much of the view. Yielding to the higher jumper simply doesn't make sense and much of the time would be impossible because of the blocked view. It also distracts from the mission at hand - clearing the flight path ahead and below, and landing safely. The "low person has the right of way" is a basic premise in all of aviation. CFR 92.113.g states in part "When two or more aircraft are approaching an airport for the purpose of landing, the aircraft at the lower altitude has the right-of-way...". Additionally, the USPA Skydiver's Information Manual agrees with this rule. SIM Section 6-1.C.3.c states "the low person has the right-of-way both in freefall and under canopy". Deciding on our own to buck accepted practices leads to confusion, and that leads to problems. As for high performance canopies and the jumpers who fly them, they are ALWAYS responsible to yield to lower traffic. This makes perfect sense. The higher jumper has the best field of view of the jumpers below them, they can monitor lower traffic without looking away from their flight path, they have more altitude to make an avoidance maneuver if necessary, and it's consistent with aviation and skydiving norms. I am a former high performance canopy jumper (and still have a rate of descent faster than many others) and can say in practice that yielding to the lower jumper works. When I am descending faster than the jumpers below me, I have the best opportunity to observe what they are doing and have the best field of view to decide how to avoid conflict. There are a lot of great ideas out in the field. Suggesting lower jumpers attempt to yield to traffic above them is a really, REALLY bad idea. My suggestion to other jumpers - no disrespect intended - is to COMPLETELY ignore your advice.

Odd to even have to say this but - no blood libels. Your next ban will be your last. Either start discussing things without the Russian playbook in front of you or find a new forum to work on.

On June 6, 1942, Adeline Gray made the first jump by a human with a nylon parachute at Brainard Field in Hartford. Her jump, performed before a group of Army officials, put the world’s first nylon parachute to the test. The Pioneer Parachute Company of Manchester fabricated the new nylon material, which was developed as an alternative to silk. Working in concert with the Cheney Brothers Company of Manchester and the DuPont Company, Pioneer Parachute developed a material that combined “compactness with lightness, resiliency and strength.” Gray, who was 24 years old at the time of the jump, was from Oxford and worked as a licensed parachute rigger and packer at the Pioneer Parachute Company. She began jumping at age 19 and at the time of the nylon “jump test” had completed 32 jumps and was the only licensed female parachute jumper in Connecticut. https://connecticuthistory.org/first-human-test-of-a-nylon-parachute/#:~:text=On June 6%2C 1942%2C Adeline,nylon parachute to the test. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adeline_Gray_(parachutist)

Interesting how "life" is defined by these folks as a "heartbeat" at this point, but "not alive" is measured by brain activity. If you have to terminate a pregnancy at the 20th week, it's usually because there is no (or will be no) brain activity, but women have been forced to carry a non-viable fetus for several days/weeks because it is "alive." These morons should first agree on a definition of "life" that covers the whole span. If a heartbeat (don't even get me started on what that zygote really has at 4 weeks past fertilization) is the definition of alive, then we can stop learning CPR and dispose of all defibrillators. They're already dead, so you just have to call it when the heart stops. If you pound on someone's chest, or shock them, after their heart stops, then you should be charged with mutilating a corpse.

I'd counter that there's a virtually limitless supply of tools chasing this Hunter Biden angle.

Here’s my $0.02, for what it’s worth….if your faith makes your life better and you wanna share that then fill your fucking boots, I’m happy for you. If you want to start telling me I’m going to burn for eternity because I don’t believe in your imaginary friend, I’m happy to write you off as a person worth giving another minute of my time.

The Republicans should be forced to carry Trump to term, even if it threatens the life of the Republican Party.

Crimea river...

You are WAY off base with that comment. USPA encourages skydivers to chase their passion, and promotes best practices regardless of the discipline. Is canopy piloting safe? Nope. Not even close. CP is dangerous - damn dangerous - but that doesn't mean USPA should discourage it. Is freeflying safe? Nope. How about CRW? FS? And then there's speed skydiving. Consider a premature deployment at 300 mph. Nothing we do is safe. The CP culture is the most peer-policed discipline in skydiving. Go to a CP comp sometime and observe. You will see the best pilots on the planet coaching, mentoring, and critiquing - all with the goal of keeping one another safe. CP has come a long, long way since the days of toggle hooks and ditch digging. Today's pilots have a deep understanding of the science behind the discipline and continuously hone their skills and education to stay as safe as possible. They are also acutely aware of the risks. From an organizational perspective, the ISC (International Skydiving Commission) and national-level organizations like USPA have and do modify competitions rules and practices to make safety a top priority. One great example is the change in distance rules that now require pilots to stay below a certain height for a portion of the run before climbing their canopies. This was done specifically because folks were getting injured by climbing so high that landings were becoming sketchy. I have been following the competition CP community for over a decade. My son is one of the top pilots in the world. Do I worry about him? Every single day. Would I ever dream of discouraging him from doing what he loves? Never. USPA does not "endorse canopy piloting competitions that encourage skydivers to land in very unsafe ways". USPA encourages skydivers of all disciplines to conduct their activities as safely as possible. Some disciplines are more dangerous than others, but none of them are safe. Canopy piloting is not safe. Neither is any skydive you have ever made or ever will.

We are really in a crappy place today. Justice Clarence Thomas is arguably in cahoots with his Qanon and conspiracy theory believing wife who participated in the January 6 insurrection. Both Kavanaugh and Coney-Barrett apparently lied to get their seats and, by any honest rational opinion, Gorsuch sits in a stolen seat. If you read this and think "sucks to be you libtard" or "it's about winning and we won" you are no patriot. You are no true American. You are a traitor to our fragile constitution.

I just had my retirement request approved. Come Dec 1, I'll be joining the club!

There are 2 speeds: Indicated airspeed and true airspeed. The speed that the jumper will feel in freefall is always indicated airspeed and for a jumper that falls at an indicated airspeed of 120 mph, he will fall at that same indicated airspeed regardless of altitude (except when going so high there is no air at all). If you could take an airspeed indicator with you in freefall, it would always register the same airspeed, indicated airspeed, regardless of altitude for a give body position. Your true airspeed will change with altitude and at 41,000' your true airspeed, with an indicated airspeed of 120 mph, would be about (depending on temperature) 245 mph. However, your body would only feel the indicated airspeed of 120 mph. Mike Mullins Oh yes I will. Mike

NINE YEARS!!!!! Flirting with each other here was the start, then the flirting at boogies and drop zones. She had my heart the second our eyes met. I love you baby, let's continue our adventure filled journey through life together. now to get her back here to see this.... *Chuck Blue was right. Thanks brother!

dozens of felony counts. Trump is not walking away from this with no convictions. Pardons still mean you are guilty, so they don't mean shit to anyone with a fucking brain. He's a fucking crook. he always was. He's a fucking con man. He always was. Arguably he is guilty of sedition, given the Seditious conspiracy convictions of Jan 6 already... and that may be coming yet. 6 dozen felony counts might give the other prosecutors the balls to proceed as well. This is as close to actual treason as we could find if there is ever evidence that he shared any docs with a foreign entity. Fuck that seditious cunt. fuck anyone that supports that seditious cunt at this point. Stop making excuses for the worst president we have ever had in the white house. There is no comparison to this fucking mutt of a human being. When he dies (and he will someday) I will be hosting a neighborhood BBQ and open an 18 year old bottle of single malt. that.....fucking....seditious.....cunt.....

A few months before I got out of the tandem game (after 10 years and probably 5000+ tandems): I exit on a handcam jump that had outside video as well, and right out the door I realize I didn't buckle my full face helmet. So I'm flying the entire jump with my right hand on my head, filming with my left, and cursing the camera flyer who decided (not for the first time) to film everything while carving around us on his head. Apart from that helmet annoyance and the freeflying camera guy, we get to 6000' uneventfully, whereas I reach back with my left hand (wasn't going to sacrifice my helmet for the opening shot), pull, and nothing happens. I switch hands, hold down my helmet with my left, and pull the right handle. Nothing. Now we're getting to 5000', and everything I know about release blockages and drogues in tow on Sigmas flashes through my head. I give the left handle another go, then say a quick prayer and fire the reserve past the trailing drogue. It clears, and we have a brisk, but totally manageable deployment, and I fly us down, hoping the people on the ground aren't too freaked out by the drogue dragging behind us, trying to get some good canopy HC footage to make up for what would definitely be suboptimal freefall. We land, and I look back to locate my drogue. And it's not there. And that's when I realize it's still in the BOC, where it's been the entire time because I was too busy holding down my helmet and filming the jump, and the camera guy was just trying to keep up with us, and we went straight to reserve from drogueless terminal. And I was generally pretty proud of myself for not being one of those TIs who need the drogue to get them stable, but the dumbfuckery I managed to cram into this jump still makes me a bit sick to my stomach.

I've recreated all of the witness and crew testimonies in their unredacted format and put them all in one place. Many of the copies floating around the net look terrible and have gross watermarks, etc. norjak.org/testimony

Penn & Teller are from this time period. If you're trying to use the "Well Regulated" meant "Well Organized" argument - I'm not even sure where that originated. The colonialists (the people) were the militia and not any part of a standing army (which caused Hamilton great concern for the US to have one - but we do). In his Federalist Papers No. 29, he outlines all "three sides" of the coin. The militia, a standing army and the people. "Well Regulated" meant training to a military standard. It was proposed, that the people from each state would gather once or twice a year and train to military standards, but make no mistake they were "the people" of each state - not a paid military. In fact, they could be made to support another state in the event that other state were invaded by a standing army. There is an ongoing myth about what the forefathers "meant" about a "well regulated" militia and "the people" being separate by a single comma. "The people" were "the militia." The right to bear arms was to allow the people to support the militia UNTIL a more formalized militia could be developed at a later date to protect these US from a standing (foreign) army. If you don't believe the government can regulate weapons and ammo, then how has the NFA stood as a law for so long. Did you know that the Supreme Court didn't acknowledge individual gun ownership as a right until 2008. 219 years after the US Constitution was adopted. If you don't think the US can ban certain weapons, then why is there still a ban on gravity knives. Why is there still a law on who can or can't own machine guns and a rather lengthy "well-regulated" process to own one. Having said all that, I personally, don't like the "left's" attack on the 2nd Amendment, but I also don't like the "right's" belief that gun ownership comes without some form of responsibility or accountability, or regulation. The "left" needs to agree to leave the 2nd Amendment alone and the "right" needs to agree that children getting killed in school warrants regulation of firearms to prevent it from happening again. We claim to be morally superior to other countries - let's start with protecting children from even having to have "active shooter" programs by regulating ownership - not banning guns, but banning nut jobs from owning guns AND ensuring everyone who owns a weapon gets the proper training as Hamilton outlined as "the People" being "Well Regulated."

An excellent example. By reframing the Civil War as a "war of northen aggression" having nothing to do with slavery, whites in the south could avoid any residual feelings of shame associated with the position they took on slavery. They could instead take pride in their ancestors who stood up to an evil north, rather than trying to reconcile their heritage of slavery with a more modern view of civil rights. We are seeing the same thing happen today with the attempted cancellation of both CRT and the 1619 project. These studies of history make many white people feel bad, because it reminds them that a significant part of this country came from the labor of slaves. This make them feel - not bad, exactly, but like they cannot be as proud of their history as they otherwise could be. "Make America Great Again" doesn't work if those halcyon days included slavery (or enforced segregation, or redlining, or any of the other structural racisms that the early and mid US incorporated.) So they try to ban it. They realize that banning history is something of a bad look, so they dress up the ban in flowery language and mix in a few "won't someone please think of the children" memes. We've seen these a lot lately - "why are teachers teaching our children to hate themselves?" CRT teaches kids "to be ashamed that they are white." One theoretically real child tearfully asked her far-right mother "Why am I hated so much?" - and then supposedly needed therapy to overcome all the damage that CRT did. (How fortunate that that child did it just in time for Marsha Blackburn's political campaign.) Others spend thousands of words trying to define CRT to mean something other than CRT. It's an "unremitting attack on Western institutions." It teaches that "America is systemically racist and must be dismantled." It was created by Karl Marx to destroy democracy. It is a "monstrous evil" that gives black people "the whip handle" over white people. (That last was from Pat Robertson; what a fascinating metaphor to use when one is advocating ignoring what slavery did to the country.) Underlying all this blather is a simple belief common amongst the right - that education can and should be curtailed because it makes some people feel uncomfortable or threatened. We have seen several examples right here on this forum. George Orwell once said that "he who controls the past controls the future." Conservatives are trying to take control of the past and alter it to something that works better for them. The question is - will we let them?

OK, Slick what's your fucking plan other than throwing "follies" around? Wait you just want to throw rocks at everyone else's shit. Go play with the other kids - the adults want to have a conversation.

Response to the nipply one: Your first jump will be a recurrency. To make sure that you obey your jumpmasters, you'll be required to wear eye shades along with the face mask. The instructors will pull off the eye shades when they deploy you. With a frap hat, the options are endless. I'd go with the standard little blue face shield, and just let freefall blow it off. Then you can wait for it to land and re-use it again. Make sure you weight it appropriately -- you do want it to come back down on the airport, after all. There's a whole new sport of mask accuracy, with people building special accuracy masks, studying the wind currents in detail, and adjusting the mask weight based on the exit altitude and direction. Wendy P.

Wow, you found the "Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency" document. When anti-vaxxers give themselves a fancy name and buy a URL with a '.org' domain they can post all types of bullshit and people looking to confirm their biases will eat it the fuck up! Here's a link to the original document: https://phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/5.3.6-postmarketing-experience.pdf These guys got a bit crafty trying to make it look like a legit Pfizer doc: the header has the research name of the vaccine, they're lawsuit-seekingly close to claiming that the whole thing was prepared by Pfizer on page 1, and they even put a file-path stamp on the side of the document...from that stamp, you can clearly see that it was in the 'approved' folder, so you know it is extra verified and totally good. Come on, Doctor! Put that big, multisyllabic brain of yours to use before you regurgitate this type of shit

I thought all the QAnon, MAGA nutters quit watching football when that negro boy took a knee.

And have a great holiday season.

Texas AG Paxton is threatening to prosecute regardless of te court's order. Beto O'Rouke summed it up nicely: “This is Texas AG Ken Paxton saying he’ll throw a woman’s doctors in prison for life if they perform a *court-granted* abortion on a *nonviable* pregnancy that risks causing her permanent infertility and death,” he said. “Still think the GOP is pro-life?” O’Rourke added.

BREAKING; James Comer announces that they have found proof that Christmas presents Hunter Biden received in 1976 Were actually from Joe Biden And not in fact from Santa Claus Several elves are expected to give depositions

These are the same people who think that The Donald is well-characterized by their T-shirts likening him to the second coming; who think that it's better to hurt someone you disagree with than it is to improve your own lot, because perception is reality. Me, I moved to a place where I can buy local produce and meat much of the year, and support local businesses instead of big box stores. Where I can hike and bike from close to home, and where small towns DO try things. Like setting up community care departments, to offload mental health calls from the police. Like improving rather than defunding their libraries. Like buying hybrid vehicles for public departments. Like helping to fund public transit. Like having local newspapers. Like valuing education to the degree that nearly every kid in the state has access to a good vocational school (most with a waiting list) as well as a regular high school. And, yes, studying reparations. Life is good. Wendy P.

Donald Trump called Georgia looking for 11,780 votes. Fani Willis is only going to need 12.

People like you that take great joy in such issues are what is dividing America. You lack the intelligence, empathy and courage to look at all sides of an issue. You think it’s fun that an entire section of America makes fun of a kind, loving, funny young girl. You have zero insight into why a music video with lyrics aimed at denigrating black America is disturbing. And energizing MAGA world. Filmed at the site of a lynching. Because you back the blue, unless they are defending the Capitol from a bunch of white folks you side with. Because those asshats spit on cops and used flags to beat them. I guess that wouldn’t have happened in a small town. so do you love or hate cancel culture? Such a conundrum. It must be painful to live life viewing everything through a left or right magnifying glass.

No you won't

Believing in a Creator is not following the science.

So, being able to get pregnant is your standard. Okay. I can't get pregnant either. Does that make me a man? Then again, I did just retire from several decades in the Marine Corps, so maybe I have been mis-identifying all this time? I'm so confused.

We shouldn't have for profit prisons either. More financial reasons than legal reasons seems to lead their thinking. Even some State guidelines on incarceration are odd. Unless it's been changed, Ii Florida, if you're taken to jail, you will stay there for a minimum of 48 hours in order for the county to receive State funds for the cost of housing you. This simple rule has cost people their jobs, which can create a cascade of financial disaster for them.

It's a barbaric, mistake prone process that serves no real purpose other than to "punish" someone to make the victims relatives and bloodthirsty onlookers feel better. It's more expensive than life in prison I believe, It's irreversible and I suspect the wrong people get caught more often than they should. All civilised societies no longer do this..

Intro As there are not a lot of ressources regarding a transition from skydiving to paragliding/speedflying available online, I decided to share my experiences and impressions in this post here. Even if you are not planning to get into paragliding yourself, it might still give some interesting insights. If you like, I can keep you updated on my journey. About my skydiving background Originally from Austria, I started skydiving in southern Germany back in August 2012 and got pretty hooked on it. After spending every weekend at the dropzone for about a year, I decided to quit my regular job, move to the dropzone and pursue a career there, although I always had to support it with at least a part time "normal" job. Living off skydiving alone is almost impossible within Germany. After about two years (as soon as legally possible) I got my coach and tandem instructor rating. I was able to earn money with skydiving from that point on, mainly doing videos, tandems and coaching jumps. My AFF rating followed soon after. My favourite discipline in skydiving has always been canopy piloting, why I invested lots of time, money and effort into that. I quit skydiving in the beginning of 2020 as I was starting to burn out after 7 seasons of 7-day-weeks during the summer and moved back to my origin in the Alps of Austria at the beginning of this year. Alltogether I did about 3500 jumps of which about 2000 have been on solo-canopies. My canopy progression was: * PD 170 (~150 jumps) * Pilot 150 (~150 jumps) - started working on high-performance landings with that canopy * Pilot 132 (~200 jumps) * Katana 120 (~200 jumps) * Velocity 96 (~300 jumps) * Valkyrie 84 (~1.000 jumps) - loaded with up to 35lbs of extra lead (total exit weight around 220lbs) (sample landing) Do not take my personal path as advice for your own downsizing. I went through some downsizing steps rather fast, but keep in mind that I did many of these jumps in shorter timespans than many other people and always had direct mentoring from more experienced pilots available. In retrospective I have to say, that the step from the Pilot 132 to the Katana 120 was the most challenging. My paragliding experience until now I started my training at Cloudbase, a professional, commercial paragliding school in Zell am Ziller (Tyrol, Austria) - huge recommendation by the way - last Saturday and completed my final exam yesterday. Usually training takes a bit longer (40 flights) but due to local regulations a shortcut for licensed skydivers is possible (15 flights, although practically not appropriate in many cases). Theoretical instruction is easy, but covers topics that many skydivers have likely never had any contact with. It might have helped that I also hold a commercial pilot license for airplanes and have quite some knowledge regarding meteorology and basic aerodynamics, but I doubt that my skydiving experience gave me an advantage in that area. During training (and some test flights today) I had the chance to fly the following paragliding wings (surface area in brackets although less relevant): * Mescal S (240 sqft) * Masala S (235 sqft) * Susi 23 (213 sqft) * Susi 21(190 sqft) * Kode P 18 (173 sqft) * Tonic 2 S (172 sqft) How do paragliding wings compare to skydiving canopies? I was surprised how much performance even large student paragliding wings offered in comparison to skydiving canopies for students. While a skydiving canopy for students (and to be honest - also most intermediate skydiving canopies) allows the pilot to hang in the harness like a bag of water and yank on the steering lines without any requirement for sensitivity, a paragliding wing requires immensely more coordinated inputs by harness and brakes to achieve an acceptable amount of control. I suppose a docile student paragliding wing would likely still not kill you, but it will be a very uncontrolled ride, if you fly it the same way a skydiving canopy allows you to fly. Techniques required to fly real high-performance skydiving canopies transition very well to paragliding. From the first flight on paragliding felt very natural and I had the feeling of having a good amount of control over the wing. I got lots of compliments to be the very first skydiver at the school with sensitivity for brake inputs. Aside from techniques like doing big ears, that are not used/available in skydiving, a huge difference is the possibility of (unintentionally) inducing extended rolling and pitching oscillations and the inputs required to stop these oscillations. Standard skydiving canopies do not really require such inputs and will quickly self stabilize (or at least keep the oscillations low). High-performance skydiving canopies require such inputs but still stabilize quicker than paragliding wings. While angle-of-attack control is not necessarily required to safely fly a skydiving canopy, like it is on a paragliding wing, it certainly allows much better flight path control even on less performant skydiving wings (Did you ever feel your controls become "mushy" after recovering from a turn input? Surprise! There's ways around that...). Some skydiving pilots might bring that skill, some might not. Paragliding wings are a lot easier to flare than their skydiving counterparts. I did not see a lot of really bad flares during the course on my coursemates without any pre-experience. That is likely due to the much lower sink rate and more lift that paragliding wings provide. I would not expect any skydiver to have much trouble correctly flaring a paragliding wing. Paragliding wings seem a lot less critical regarding low turns. While even very docile student skydiving canopies react with a good amount of dive to any turn, I have seen safe turns at heights that sent shivers down my former skydiving instructor spine during the past week. There are other dangers that come with paragliding wings, but the risk coming with low turns seem a lot lower with paragliding. I do not have any numbers on that feeling, so take it with a grain of salt. Conclusion I have a hand full of paragliding flights by now, so my opinion might either be false or have to be revised by myself in the future. High-performance canopy flying experience transitions very well to paragliding and should allow you to feel comfortable on a paragliding wing quickly. Controls are different but follow very similar principles. If you got the feeling for a high-performance skydiving canopy, you will likely have the feeling for a paragliding wing. At least a docile one (like to ones I used to fly during the past week) and at least in my case. I doubt that limited, other skydiving experience will give you a huge advantage on paragliding. Some things might feel similar, certainly taking away a good amount of stress. Some of your habits might be very counter-productive. And it is very well possible that you will have to seriously extend your "toolbox of canopy control". Recommendations In any case, do not assume that you know how to fly a paragliding wing, because you know how to control a skydiving canopy. It's different. I for my part decided to go with the Tonic 2 S for now. It's very slow in comparison to the Valkyrie 84 I used to fly, but it still behaves reasonably agile and I have the feeling that I got a good amount of work to do until I can fly it perfectly to its limits. It outperforms similarly sized skydiving canopies by far. Speedflying is my goal, but I do not see any reason to rush it. Doing some paragliding training could be a good addition to becoming a great skydiving canopy pilot. I can see paragliding skills and knowledge transition extremely well to skydiving canopy control, if you already bring some skydiving experience. Paragliding training is super cheap in comparison to skydiving. And it's a huge amount of fun.

Got an official response, the FBI has nothing relating to Max Gunther.

Wow. You are really out in left field. I didn't assume the conclusion; I provided it. You have been provided facts and your response is Twitter and YouTube opinions from those that align with your position. They are wrong. You are wrong. Try reading the depth of research rather than regurgitating the gospel of others who are wrong. It's like JohnRich and 100th Monkey had an illegitimate son.

You have a common misconception that seems to be rooted in the right. The Constitution does not tell people what their rights are. The Constitution tells the government what rights they may take from people. For example, Article 1 Section 8 tells us that the Constitution can tax the people to provide for an armed forces and for the general welfare; that takes away the right to not pay taxes. If the Constitution does not describe what rights may be taken away, then those rights revert to the states or the people. In this case, women had the inherent right to an abortion, just as they have an inherent right to marry someone who is not their race, or get cosmetic surgery, or sue someone, or become pilots. None of those rights are called out in the Constitution, nor do they need to be States may on occasion try to take those rights away, The Supreme Court's primary job is to protect those rights. We are now entering a phase where the Supreme Court will begin removing those rights for people in pursuit of the politiical ideology of their benefactors. They have already removed the protection on a women's right for bodily autonomy. They have signaled that they will try to do something similar with other currently-protected rights, like the right of women to get birth control, and the right of black students to go to the same schools as white students. Other republicans have signaled that the right to marry someone outside your race will be reconsidered as well - and given the political connection between the SC and the republicans, it's fair to say that that right is at risk as well. The US has had a long tradition of increasing rights for all. We ended slavery. We affirmed that women have the right to vote. We said that blacks to attend the same schools as whites. We guaranteed the right for blacks to marry whites, for gay people to marry each other, and indeed for gay people to exist at all. We have now reversed this trend. And if you think that they are going to stop at abortion - or that they will never get to a right that you value - you haven't been paying attention.

It's worth remembering that the only really consistent Trump policy was to cancel every program, treaty, policy, or law from the Obama administration, and replace it with nothing. He cancelled the CDC's collaboration with the Chinese to monitor for emerging viruses, with the result that we were unaware of the Covid outbreak for months. He ignored the national pandemic response plan that was developed after the H1N1 outbreak, and failed to develop any national plan of his own. He went so far as to tell states they had to order their own PPE, setting up a scenario where states had to bid against each other and drive up the price, then he seized shipments destined for blue states and sent them to states whose governors sucked up to him. It's true he did allow the government to fund fast-tracked vaccine development (though that was a "no-brainer") but then he failed to develop any sort of a plan to distribute the vaccines, and blocked the incoming Biden administration from getting the information they needed to develop their own plan. Apart from Covid, he cancelled the program for dealing with black lung disease, and replaced it with nothing. He withdrew the US from the WHO, leaving us with no mechanism for collaborating with other countries to deal with a world-wide pandemic. He withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and replaced it with nothing, with the result that Iran stopped abiding by the deal and is now closer to a nuclear weapon than the have ever been. I could go on and on and on. Hatred of Obama is not a substitute for a national policy on anything. Hundreds of thousands of people died as a result, and people will be worse off for a long time because of Trump's obsession with erasing Obama from history.

Melania comforted the president by yelling him that when you're older it's harder to maintain an inserection

I sent this to every member of the USPA Board on May 5, including Luke. (Luke was the only Board member to respond. The USPA Executive Director did respond.) The issue here is one of credibility for USPA, the Board and most importantly, the membership. The ability of the skydiving community to operate and conduct itself with little FAA involvement is key. If Luke does not resign, or the Board does not revoke or otherwise legally suspend his USPA membership, ratings and licenses, the FAA is going to assume we need more oversight. And, USPA will find it very difficult to impose enforcement action against any member without this issue rightly being used to stop that action. "May 5, 2022 To: Board of Directors, US Parachute Association 5401 Southpoint Centre Blvd. Fredricksburg, VA 22407 From: Ron Lee, Skydiving Innovations USPA Member # 34394 S&TA, PRO D-16357 Dear Board of Directors, I am an active skydiver, 40-year member of USPA and CEO of Skydiving Innovations, (www.skydivinginnovations.com), a San Diego-based professional aviation entertainment and event company founded in 1986. I am writing to you regarding the recent Red Bull/Hulu “Plane Swap” stunt that took place on April 24, 2022. I have no doubt I am not the first person to communicate with USPA and the Board of Directors regarding this event. While the event itself may not have been completely successful, it was unquestionably compelling, and no doubt was the result of endless engineering, development, and hard work. It was also, thanks to the decision by Board Member Luke Aikins to execute the stunt after receiving the FAA’s exemption denial, an undeniable middle finger to the FAA and USPA membership. (See further.) We all know that skydiving’s ability to exist, let alone thrive and conduct itself with little government oversight is thanks to the fact that the FAA can trust USPA and its members to operate according to the FARs and USPA BSRs: that we will abide by the regulations and police ourselves accordingly. If we do not like certain rules or regulations or feel they are unnecessary or onerous, we can lobby for change. What we do not do is simply ignore them for the sake of anything other than immediate safety – not a big streaming deal with a content provider or to further our relationship with our longtime product sponsor. (This is where I insist that no-one try to assert the nonsensical idea that this was a “STEM project. You don’t tell the FAA it is a STEM project then charge six bucks and change to watch the result of your STEM project on Hulu.) I have talked with many skydivers and pilots about this situation, and by a large majority they believe that Luke made make the decision to do the stunt without the FAA exemption knowing full well that the worst that could happen (from an FAA enforcement perspective) is that he (and fellow-stunt-pilot/cousin Andy Farrington) would lose their pilot’s certificates for a year. I do not know if that is what they were willing to accept in order to fulfill Luke’s commitments to Hulu, Red Bull and Honda. But I do know that when he published his admission of responsibility for not “sharing” the FAA’s exemption denial with his team, Luke was attempting to convince everyone that he did not share the exemption denial with even his cousin or the underwriters of his project. While I find that hard to believe, if it is true – it can only mean that he was certainly willing to risk the pilot certificate of his fellow pilot and close family member. That alone should bother everyone. If Luke did share the exemption denial with even one person involved in the project, then his mea culpa on Instagram was a blatant, very public lie. That is troubling as well. More importantly to USPA and its membership: Luke Aikins has damaged the bond of trust that exists between USPA and the FAA. He thumbed his nose at that critical relationship for the sake of his own personal and financial interests. Luke is not just a skydiver or USPA member. He is a very recognizable forward-facing Board member and representative for the interests of the skydiving community, including commercial skydiving entities. (Personally and professionally, I deal with the FAA on a very frequent basis. After 36 years of working with and cultivating a mutually trustworthy relationship with the FAA, no-one within or outside the USPA organization has the right to arbitrarily risk that trust, especially a Board member.) I know that many of you may be good friends with Luke Aikins, and this situation has made things difficult for everyone, especially Luke. However, you have a responsibility to the interests of the skydiving community and USPA’s efforts to protect and further enhance our sport. It is for this reason that I am calling for Luke Aikins to resign from the USPA board and vacate his position as a Regional Director. (He can run again, and will very likely be re-elected thanks to his very loyal following in his region.) If he does not resign voluntarily, he should be removed from the USPA board and his RD position at the earliest possible time. USPA (and Luke) must demonstrate to the FAA and membership that it will not allow anyone, even a highly accomplished and respected, extremely well-liked Board member to risk the critical trust USPA and its members share with the FAA. If you do not take meaningful action, or if you just give Luke Aikins a slap on the wrist you will be signaling to the FAA that further oversight or regulation may be required because even a Board member cannot be trusted to go by the rules. You will also be telling members that FAA regulations and BSRs can be ignored with little or no consequence, and that will open the door to legitimate challenges to USPA’s authority to exercise enforcement action against members when necessary. That is a can of worms no-one wants opened. Very respectfully, Ron Lee Skydiving Innovations"

This trend - the dumbing down of discourse to the level of angry soccer fans - is something that was predicted years, even decades ago by authors like Al Gore, Mike Judge, Susan Jacoby and Carl Sagan. I'm sure you've seen Carl Sagan's quote from 1996: I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or my grandchildren's time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance." Replace that with "clutching our crystals and consulting our horoscopes" with "taking Ivermectin and reading Twitter" and you have today's level of public discourse. And 10 seconds? That's forever by today's standards. Today what people consider "substantive content" includes "Let's go Brandon" "Hunter's laptop" and "I did that!" Under a second.

It's not like he banned K-Y Jelly, Mr.concerned about Biden's behind. Reaching around to a more topical area of concern did you notice, in your excitement, how masterfully Biden played Putin in the lead up to the Russian invasion? Instead of constantly thinking that guys nuts you might have noticed that when everyone else was buying Putins legerdemain Biden consistently stated that the Russians were in fact going to attack. By doing so he denied Putin his own Überfall auf den Sender Gleiwitz pretense and coalesced international opinion against Putin at the get go. So, in that sense he most definitely took Putin from behind.

Let's be honest, for you it really won't matter what he says. Like most republicans you don't stand for anything anymore, all you know is you are against anything the Democrats do.

She was tested for President and the results came back negative. Actually, the results were quite positive. More Americans voted for her than for her opponent.

I think this thread should be renamed to "old man yells at cloud".

Have you been taking “false news spreading” lessons? I love the technique of sprinkling just enough true statements among the complete bullshit anecdotal based lies in this rambling unfocused post.

So, you joined 4 hours ago to bash Icon? Welcome to the forums and thanks for your valuable insight. Perhaps you shouldn't buy any rig - they've all had reserve issues. Skydiving is not for everyone.

I do indeed. Your sources for what CRT is are about as authoritative as that whuffo's ideas of what skydiving was from years gone by. Yep. No wonder you believe the right wing strawman version of what CRT is. I am only surprised you did not include George Carlin, Andrew Dice Clay and Bobcat GoldThwait as sources for your understanding. Nope. But race played a role. Attempts to understand what role it played are worthwhile, and are not Monty Python-esque, or Marxist, or racist. I do indeed support it, and I am just fine with you thinking I am a humorless twit. Due to my work in it, I have realized a few things. I used to think I understood transgender people. Then one of the women who works for me came out to me as trans. She did this because of my support for DEI, and it was a good thing - I could be a better manager if I understood her perspective a bit better. From her I learned that I was not "woke." I did not understand what trans people go through, nor do I understand now, since I am a straight cis guy. But at least I understand the issue a little better now. I used to think that rape was a rare crime, and that it was something that happened when women got careless. Then an old friend told me about her rape. It shook me a bit. When I talked to another friend about it, she told me about HER rape. Now half the women I have talked to have their own stories about it - including women who are tough as nails, and are about as far from a careless pushover as you can get. I used to think that blacks (and other minorities) had had it bad centuries ago, but nowadays all those laws had been changed, so now it was 100% up to them. Then in high school I got to know the Indian kid next to me in band. He was one of four non-Christians allowed entry. I also got to know one of the four black kids in the school, and we're still friends on Facebook. I did a little digging, and found out that if my high school admitted a certain percentage of non-Christian and non-white students, they qualified for a federal financial assistance program. (One of those 'structural' things that you think is a joke.) I don't really understand what it's like to be a minority, but after talking to them I at least understand it a little bit more. From your posts it sounds like you believe you know it all, and are smugly confident that you have nothing left to learn on the topic. Black scholars who research the structural basis of racism are Marxists, and their work is comedy. Trans people are mentally ill. Muslims are violent, insane criminals. Black people who talk about racism are the real racists. If that lets you sleep better at night, then I guess that . . . works for you. Rest assured that I do not have the vast, superior and unquestionable understanding that you do. The more work I do on understanding the issues under DEI (and for me it does take work) the more I understand how much I have to learn. If that means I am a humorless twit in your eyes, so be it. Feel free to, in the future, disregard my posts, and converse only with people at your (much higher) level.

OK. Bill, I'll own that and apologize to the group. Not the impression I was trying to give, but obviously missed the mark.