Lawndarter

I'm hoping that Kushner and Flynn are the cheese and bacon on the nothingburger. I bet both of them will roll on Lord Cheeto.

I'm pretty sure none of our logbooks include details of the personalities on the DZ or their racks. Mine's just about the jumps I did. With 120 and a B, definitely start grabbing other people and jumping with them. If you don't have the Rhythm 101 app on your phone, get it - it's got a lot of great and simple 2 and 3-way dives on it. Grab people and go.

This brings back fond memories of the improvised kitchen we had in my uni rez - one day we cooked up a whole bunch of bacon that one of the lads brought from his family farm, the whole place smelled like heaven to us, but not so much for the token vegan in the place...

Well done, with ketchup. I can't wait to watch the dominos fall.

That's certainly not universal. I'm relatively new, like you, and have gotten out to a number of different DZs - I'm fortunate to have a bit of opportunity to travel a bit, and I've made a point of trying to find new places to jump and I've found pretty much everywhere has a bit different character to it - I'd hypothesize that every DZ has a different sort of culture. That said, there's constants. "Y" exists, to some degree, almost everywhere. At bigger DZs, you may not notice her so much but she's there. The thing is, there's no real need for you to concern yourself about her too much. If you're female, don't be her, and if you're male, keep your distance. That doesn't mean don't be polite or friendly or whatever, just don't get into the weeds there. Nothing good can come of it. Yep, "Y" gets more attention, but who cares? Everyone can get their moment to be "X" - but not if you're just a fun jumper who shows up and jumps once in a while and doesn't really get involved. Ask questions, take an interest in people there, stay for the bonfire or dinner or whatever else. Hang out on the rainy days and listen to the Skygods talk. You want to know how to get through the forcefield? Just keep being there. Bring out coffee once in a while. Or beer. Or other goodies. Those get conversations going, that's what builds rapport. I remember when I first returned to jumping (after a really shitty injury while I was a student), after the day was ending, the regulars were planning to go for dinner in town, and I asked rather meekly if I could come along. One of the more outrageous characters (I can't think of a better way to describe him, he's a legend of sorts...) hollers back, "WHY DO YOU KEEP ASKING? OF COURSE." That's really it - become part of that pack of cool kids the way they did - show up. In my (again, not massive) experience, I've found that asking some of the Skygods questions has led to them offering me all sorts of coaching and advice. I got invited onto a bigway that I totally blew the exit on. I was pretty dejected afterward, but then a couple of them showed me video they had, which showed some of what I did wrong, offered some advice, and then, instead of just never including me again said "we need to get you on some four ways to work on some of this stuff", and now they'll come to me to offer to jump with me. It's pretty awesome. There's lots of really good advice in the comments - when you go to the Boogie and when you travel to other DZs, meet everyone you can - and make sure you keep in touch. I did Flight-101 at Skydive Elsinore, and most of the people on the course had travelled for it - I keep in touch with most of them now, and whenever any of us travel, we tell each other so that we might cross paths. From that, you'll realize it's a fairly close community and there's a lot less than six degrees of separation amongst skydivers - that helps to get people to bring you along. The turnover rate is pretty high, so it pays to help keep people in the sport. If the Skygods don't help rookies get better and feel part of it all, they eventually will run out of people to jump with.

Strange thing. It seems to me that liberals simply are willing to realize that there are in fact problems in the world, and that they do in fact require effort to solve. But it's because we don't live in a world of pessimism and negativity that we do that - in fact, when I see pessimism, fear, anger, outrage, etc, it's generally from conservatives. Liberals tend to be more likely to say "something's wrong, what can we do?".

It's been clear for a while (to me, at least) that Manafort would be the first to go down, and his little underling is being indicted most likely to roll on Manafort and anyone else. Trump, the total loser he is, will likely wind up implicating himself in something before long. And the uranium story, I can't believe anyone is dumb enough to fall for something like that.

When I look at society, specifically "western" society, I realize that pretty much everything positive about it is because of progressive liberalism - from paid vacation to social security to public education to police and fire services, (in my case) universal healthcare, capped work with, workplace health and safety standards, clean drinking water, clean air, etc etc etc.

Thanks buds, I can cut and paste the dictionary definition, too. Not really what we were going for here.

I have ten bucks that says you have no idea what entropy is.

Most people who shriek on endlessly about "sharia law" have no idea what the term actually even means. It's not some kind of codified law. It literally means "the way". and it's basically the equivalent of Catholic Canon Law, a whole set of laws, customs, and traditions, many of which have no relevance in most societies, including most Islamic majority states.

Time spent in the tunnel is seldom wasted. If you use it to hone your belly flying skills (and if you get beyond that great), it'll make your remaining AFF jumps easier.

They're not immune, but fear and anxiety are far more dominant themes among conservatives, and their media is entirely geared toward feeding their fear and anxiety. It's part of why they're so much more likely to be duped by fake news and hoaxes. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mind-in-the-machine/201612/fear-and-anxiety-drive-conservatives-political-attitudes https://newrepublic.com/article/119895/psychology-fear-increases-conservatism Conservative political machines in every country know this and harness it. And it's not because conservatives are "stupid", either. Some unquestionably are, but so are some liberals. http://www.danielmtfessler.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Fessler-et-al-in-press-Political-Orientation-Credulity.pdf https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/02/why-fake-news-targeted-trump-supporters/515433/

When a man with the blood of a million innocent people on his hands calls you a piece of shyte, you've really stepped it in!

Thanks for the laugh, I needed that this afternoon. The Economist is clearly but only a bit right leaning, though I suppose it should be mentioned that even the American left is to the right of most countries' right in a lot of ways.

Yeah, I took the bait. Damn.

Can you cite a single example of an Democratic leader in Congress ever in any way, directly or indirectly, suggesting that gun confiscation as their goal? I don't think you have, actually.

Well, no. He is. Like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and a number of other successful businessmen, he's using the fortune he has amassed to advance productive and good causes beneficial to humanity. So we're clear, you're bothered by a self-made man who went into business, and harnessed the free market to make a fortune. And you're trying to suggest that that's some how wrong? That's pretty much the archetype of conservatism, in a lot of ways - he's just using the wealth to make the world better. Which is is then directing into building better societies. Yep, still good with that.

Yes. Soros had no direct supporting role in that. The best anyone could find is a comically tenuous link between an organization he's supported and Adbusters, which happened long before OWS was a thing. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wallstreet-protests-origins/whos-behind-the-wall-street-protests-idUSTRE79C1YN20111014

No, they are not. "Gangsta" is a racist dog whistle, and not even a subtle one. "Inner city" is a racist dog whistle. And like most of your fantasies, this too is hogwash.

That's entirely what Open Society does - and what Soros has been doing for years. The work they've done is pretty significant, and start with Soros' work to help the transition to free markets in post-communist Europe. You can actually read about what he does on the Foundation's site - a lot of really good work. Contrast that with other plutocrats whose money funds fake news, repressive governments, and legislative efforts that screw the average citizen just to give the rich more.

Indeed. Republican values are getting further and further out of touch with American (and indeed, just decent human) values.

You sound dumber with every post. It's unbelievable. I live in hoodies when I'm not at work (where I wear an army uniform, conventionally). I didn't realize that defines me as a "thug".

Plenty of people subjected to this sort of nonsense aren't dressed like "thugs". What a shock you'd use a racist dogwhistle term though. I'm shocked, truly shocked.

By making firearms a whole lot less accessible. Australia's experience is instructive. After their post-Port Arthur gun buyback, firearm suicides dropped significantly. Non-firearms suicides did increase slightly, but on net suicide rates dropped. There's a fairly simple explanation for why, too. Suicides are generally impulse acts. Suicide by firearm is normally is completed, while many other methods have higher survival/intervention rates. There is a reason, for example, that while females attempt suicide far more often than males, more male suicides are completed - they choose methods more likely to be "effective". Further, someone who survives a suicide attempt is actually quite unlikely to die by suicide - "Says HSPH Professor of Health Policy David Hemenway, the ICRC’s director: “Studies show that most attempters act on impulse, in moments of panic or despair. Once the acute feelings ease, 90 percent do not go on to die by suicide.”" https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/ http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0805923#t=article The link's pretty clear - particularly the Harvard study mentioned above which compared states with varying rates of gun ownership. Want less suicides? Have less guns.