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I can't wrap my head around the right wing celebrating Musk's potential takeover of Twitter as a triumph of free speech and the 1st amendment, even though the 1st Amendment never applied to Twitter. As well as, celebrating a state government punishing a company for expressing an opinion, which to me is a clear violation of the 1st Amendment. Another example of the right really having no interest in the constitution or freedom or anything of that nature. All they care about is power for themselves and punishing those who are either not like them, or do not like them.

Russia and the Russian people adore and respect strongmen. There is no core democratic belief that multi-racial and multi-cultural populations can be ruled by democracies. Many still rue for the days of Stalin. Perestroika was but a blip in Russian history. Thats not to say that there are not democratic believers in Russia. But they are few. Until Russia has a free, open, press and a transparent government. A majority of people who accept the cleansing of corruption benefits that free elections bring about. Russia will remain dangerous. As will China.

Instead of calling it the “don’t say gay” law, it’d probably be more accurate to call it the “don’t teach my children that saying faggot is wrong” law. It’s also wrong to teach children that the n-word is bad, that might embarrass their racist parents, and racists’ feeling trump everyone else’s. Wendy P.

Indeed - and again now Russia's idea of a 'neutral' Ukraine would be a completely demilitarised one with a puppet govenrment installed and if the people start getting restless? Well here comes the Russian army again with nothing to stop them this time. To expect them to abide by any real neutrality guarantee would be insane. Less than a week before the invasion Putin was dressing down his intelligence chief for some reason. When pressed on the status of the Donbas the spy said 'Yes we should recognise Luhansk and Donetsk and send in the Army to help occupy the territory' and Putin said 'Hohoho Sergei don't be silly, no one is talking about occupying Ukraine!' but here we are...

In fact, when you teach them such things early on, it becomes just another factoid about their body, no more upsetting or world-changing than how their liver works. A while back our 7 year old asked about how his penis worked. Amy explained its role in reproduction, how men and women were different, how fertilization happens etc. At the end he still looked puzzled. "No, I mean, where does the pee come from?" But at least now he knows, and it wasn't traumatic or upsetting.

Hi Peter, Re: Did you miss the video? I have watched a few of them. My question was more to the individuals involved rather than the spectating public. Jerry Baumchen

It's what he does - bait with some cherry-picked links, then challenge people to refute it, even if he hasn't done any work since it's someone else's points in the first place. If someone actually does the work to refute it, he'll just drop it and move on to the next topic. That's all he's got to contribute. Rinse, repeat, ad infinitum.

Why would I want to refute that? I am waiting for you to provide evidence of the correlation and causation. You seem to think that less people dying from falling of buildings must mean gravity doesn't work, or people have learned to fly.

My best friend from high school is a staunch Trump-supporting conservative. You may be unable to conceive of being friends with someone who doesn't share your worldview, but believe me - it's possible. You might have to discard some of your prejudices, though. ?? I am talking about the people who now are so angry at Disney that they want to cancel it. I do not want to cancel Disney. Do you? They will likely fail, yes. The right wants Disney cancelled because they won't be the bigots they yearn for - but honestly Disney is too big to be brought down in that way. But the right wants very much to cripple them - as their calls for a boycott and the laws they are passing demonstrate. I don't oppose parental rights. I oppose laws that prevent teachers from teaching or even referencing genders. That's what this law does. "Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards." So if Johnny wants to use the girl's bathroom? The teacher is prohibited - BY LAW - from talking about that. If the teacher says to use the boy's room, she is fired - if you go by the law. Now, right wingers are going to say "that's silly! Of course the teacher can tell him to use the boy's room." That's because the real purpose of this bill is not to prohibit teaching gender standards - it is to prohibit teaching any other standard other than the straight/cis standard. Of course, conservatives knew they couldn't get a law that actually says that past the Supreme Court, so they used dog whistles to tell conservatives "don't worry, we really mean that they just can't talk about anything gay." Which is why "don't say gay" is a fairly accurate way to describe this law. We heard exactly the same thing when TV shows started showing interracial couples. When they started having gay characters. We heard that "the evil activist corporate entertainment cabals are trying to ram black men down your DAUGHTER'S THROAT! Do you really want your beautiful innocent daughter to end up with one of THEM?" Back then, white men were terrified that black men would defile their daughters. It was the worst thing they could imagine. Those same men of today are terrified that their children will "go gay" - and that is the worst thing they can imagine. So they are lashing out against Disney, formerly a beacon of right wing values. So it's not only a bad law, since the right expects it to not be enforced the way it's written. It's homophobic and targets gay/nonbinary/trans kids. I know you don't. The more important question is - are you going to try? Or are you just going to keep repeating the right wing propaganda that's been fed to you?

Big enough for the front page of CNN. Slow news day I guess.

To me, the FAA question is kind of like balancing your checkbook (remember those?). If it doesn't balance, it's by definition wrong. Yeah, the rules might be onerous, but the time to fix them is before. I'm assuming the pilots in this case were aware that their licenses might be forfeit. And I'm quite sure that Red Bull has the resources to execute the stunt somewhere where the rules either more accepting or malleable. Publicizing how much income was generated by doing this stunt would be one way of applying pressure. Reminding them of the communication snafu at the Capitol would be another to make it clear the FAA is not perfect. Wendy P.

Well, Joe B is optimistic he can save a bit more of the earth with a climate friendly military fleet , considering all those recharge stations on the battlefield and the time that can be afforded to stop and use them. Or perhaps hydrogen? Large tanks of it on a battlefield? Sounds splendid. Maybe the mid-air refuelling of other aircraft will soon be an electric cable dropped from a KC135 Tesla big battery... 'cause climate change is a graver concern than an enemy at the gate.

Got a video that’s a bit higher res and closer to the crash site. No, I didn’t record it. It was just sent to me. FullSizeRender.MOV

Oh they are supposed to work in any attitude, using the rocket deployment, pulling the canopy out. Still a chance of the bridle getting caught up in something, but a good 'angle of fire' should minimize that. It's more about airspeed limits for the deployment. Seemed like a good idea to reduce the crash speed in case "an airplane got away". But it was a bit more of a snivel than there was time for with that activation altitude, however they rigged up an AAD to the pull system. Edit: Probably designed to snivel a bit with its slider, to keep the loads down during higher speed deployments. Not easy to build a parachute that is light weight and can work with the kinetic energy of a regular sized Cessna or Cirrus etc. I don't think there's a hard standard on how fast aircraft recovery parachutes are supposed to open under different conditions. One is expected to not pull them too low, whatever that is. Some FAQs for the BRS for Cessnas, if that's the system that was used: https://brsaerospace.com/questions/ I think the FAA is pretty dumb, they just don't seem to cater their system to 'fun' things like jumping BASE rigs from ultralights, or stunts like this. Even when public safety is taken care of. (Unlike the dumbass Trevor Jacob.) That being said, it really isn't a good idea to blow off the FAA either.

Let's have a discussion of the Luke Aikins stunt, maybe even speculating on possible penalties Wendy P.

The larger the organization, the less likely a message will be passed properly. The more layers in the organization, the less likely the message will be passed properly. If management made a decision, but nobody told the man with the wrench ... did management really make a decision? I used to see this sort of foolishness every day when I served in the Canadian Armed Forces (1974 to 1987).

Ok, I'll try to put this 'properly'. I don't see any issues with those people in 'positions of power and responsibility' reacting strongly to this. They were in their offices, minding their own damned business when they were told (more or less) 'run for your lives, there's an airplane about to attack us!!' From a supposedly responsible security force, that's not a warning that's going to be taken lightly. To later find out that it was: A - Not a threat at all. B - A plane operated by the US Military. C- That the people investigating it are starting to falsely lay blame (story says that "Officials believe, based on a preliminary review, the pilot may have not properly reported taking off or had appropriate clearance", yet also says "Air traffic control recordings capture the army plane coordinating its flight with the control tower at nearby Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport."). Would be rather infuriating. To insist that those responsible for it be held accountable is not unreasonable. I have no clue who screwed up. I doubt it was the GK. They've done this too many times in too many places not to know the drill. And, being 'the Army', I'd bet very heavily that they have a written procedure that details all the steps, including those that cover notification of proper authorities. Did the FAA fail to notify the security people? Perhaps. I don't know the procedures and such for authorized flights into that sort of restricted airspace. For the plane to be in contact with ATC AND in that restricted area means someone at the FAA knew about it and was ok with it. That doesn't necessarily mean that the FAA passed the info onto the security folks, but I think it makes it less likely that the screwup was at the FAA. My first instinct is to blame the security guys. They are the ones who never bothered calling the FAA (control tower) to see what was up. They are the ones who over-reacted and ordered the evacuation. Did the message get sent and never read? Did the person who received & read it not pass it up the chain of command? Did it get 'lost in the shuffle'? I don't know. I'm rather curious to find out.

Sorry for the double post, I appreciate the observation, but John was loved by a lot of people, I just expected more responses. Thank you Wendy. Warmest Regards, Dean

Hi Chuck, Re: the verb, not the title Yet, you used it not as a verb but as a noun. Re: If you think he's foolish, so be it. I would prefer that you not put words into my mouth. Re: You guys can pee on the parade all you want. I am definitely not trying to do that. Andy & Luke are very gifted skydivers with an insane amount of experience. I think that if anyone can pull this off, these two can. I wish them well. I just do not like the term 'engineer' being tossed around willy nilly. Some of us worked very hard for that title. Jerry Baumchen

It's been done a few times already. Here's one of them:

If you can’t think of anything else to say about her, just go with ‘Peppermint Patty’. Conservatives love going after women for their appearance.

The biggest briefings, with the biggest crowds, with the best hand-drawn maps.

Did the other side hold press briefings in the Trump days?

Stop being lazy Joe! Go over to Foxnews and get that info yourself

You're just your usual fountain of shit opinions and bad advice, aren't you.