yoink

umm. Congrats? But then, Billy probably did too, I'd guess. And he murdered his entire family. And I'm certain he probably would have said EXACTLY the same things you have done. 100% I'll NEVER do that! It's for protection only. You might want to step away from the keyboard for the night. I'm still catching up with the 40 other posts you've made.

Most places in the US you need to be at least 21 to rent a car.... 25 isn't unusual. You know. Because of the damage and liability you can incur. But owning a gun? Fuck yeah! 18 and up for a rifle. 21 for a handgun. But of course that's not insane.

Homepage of TheOnion.com is brutally honest today...

Yup. As is having a gun taken off you and used against you.

This has absolutely solidified my opinion that guns have no place in a residential home. To those of you who do own guns and keep them around for personal protection, I'd ask you to honestly answer this question to yourself. What's more likely to happen to you at some point in your life - that you get attacked in your own home and need a gun to resolve the situation, or that you suffer a single bout of depression? Look at the statistics - this isn't an uncommon situation. It CAN happen to you. Studies have shown that suicidal impulses are (generally) fleeting. People who don't succeed mostly don't re-attempt, but when you use a gun you almost never get a do-over. .Jakee hit the nail on the head - Billy owned a gun for protection and killed himself and his family with it. That's the tragic bottom line.

But, with respect, that doesn't mean he gets a free pass.

It never occurred to me that he DIDN’T vote Republican. He’s a white billionaire who owns a global company, deliberately manipulates stock values and seems to court scandal. I’ve always assumed he was a GOP voter. *shrug Even the environmental stuff he’s done Iis never altruistic. It’s always done through the lens of profit. The guy is an asshole - I honestly thought everyone knew this?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61484222 And this is on (effectively) the Russian state news show. Personally I doubt it was unplanned, and it's very carefully worded. I guess we'll know if the retired colonel 'disappears' in the next couple of days.

I agree 100%

True. Turkey has been complaining for years that Sweden and Finland support the PKK terrorist groups in their country, but have never provided any proof. I suspect that a promise that ‘we won’t do that’ is probably enough to get past that hurdle.

Finland have announced their request to join NATO, with Sweden not far behind. You can’t help thinking that maybe this war is having the opposite effect to part of Putins reason for starting it in the first place - certainly Russias geographical defensibility will be worse in the long run now than it was previously. Hopefully it doesn’t push him to do anything rash.

Thanks Paul. He's got a great personality and obviously carries knowledge from both skydiving and GA, and that comes across brilliantly. I have no beef with Luke. In fact I don't even really know who he is. But I do have an issue with something @chuckakers said early on. Luke might be a meticulous engineer, and may well follow the letter of the law as Chuck states, but what's been proven here is that this project team, who Luke is the face of, followed the law right up to the point where they disagreed with it, and then broke the law anyway. For me, personally, that's an unforgivable level of arrogance. Whether you agree with the FAA rules in general, or this particular ruling in specific, abiding by a set process and then deliberately breaking it when it doesn't go your way shows a lot about the character of the people involved.

I might have missed a post discussing this: Great video here: - I don't know who this dude is, but I love his presentation. Summary: 2 skydivers plan to put their individual planes in a dive, exit, and then transfer to to the other plane then recovering it. Cool stunt - IF they can pull it off. But there are always those pesky legalities. CFR 91.105 - 'Be at the crewmember station unless the absence is necessary to perform duties in connection with the operation of the aircraft'. CFR 91.13 - 'No person may operate an aircraft in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another.' The team did SPECIFICALLY apply to the FAA for a waiver to 91.105 and were rejected. They did the stunt anyway and it went to shit, ending with one plane crashing into the desert. Unsurprisingly the FAA isn't particularly happy. And this is just the latest in social media stunts involving skydiving developed to garner 'likes' from a platform. See the recent Trevor Jacobs episode as an example Personally I hope all involved lose all their licenses. Skydiving really doesn't need additional FAA scrutiny over what we do for video....

Once again, Brent shows that he doesn't understand the simple concepts of finite vs infinite. It's embarrassing - This is something my 5 year old gets.

Fingers crossed.

I did engage on the substance of your post in the Ukraine thread. You responded with a PA and got warned. And you wonder why people call you a troll? Once again I’m done with you. Hopefully this time I’ll learn my lesson.

With you, who knows?

Not a chance. None. Putin needs a way to save face and declare a victory. That means no Ukraine in Nato and a gain in territory. Try reading this instead of whatever fiction you have been: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60756993

It’s about time.

Ignoring the fact that this isn't NOAA data as you originally claimed, (nice edit by the way), you STILL don't get that looking at short term data doesn't tell you anything about long term trends in a complex environmental model. People have told you this again and again and STILL you post stuff that makes you look completely ignorant of high school level statistics. You need to be looking at trends over decades and centuries. Months are well within the normal variability. At this point I think you must actually enjoy being laughed at. Certainly any post that you make that talks about 'data' goes into my comedy bucket. It's basically a certainty at this point that when you make a post about climate data that you're fundamentally WRONG about either the source, the math, the conclusions or even the data itself, or any combination of the above. You're batting a thousand on that record.

Probably. But lets strive for later, eh?

Put it this way, I’m not 100% sure they wouldn’t, and like Joe said, I’m not convinced a tactical nuclear weapon being set off in Ukraine would trigger a nuclear response from NATO. I’m fact I’m almost certain it wouldn’t. MAD only works if both sides are equally insane.

I'm sorry, but these comparisons to WW2 are mostly meaningless, and IMO, distracting from the current conversation. Germany was not a nuclear power in WW2. They didn't have the ability to basically end all life on the planet in a fit of pique if they were losing. Yes, there are some lessons we can learn from history, but we shouldn't be constrained by them. While the general topography of the landscape is similar, the detail of the landscape is very, very different. Would the declaration of war and immediate response have been different if Germany had possessed 6000 nuclear weapons? Of course it would have been... Focus on what the current situation is, not what was done nearly a century ago.

I've thought for a while that he might take Kiev then negotiate a ceasefire along with recognition of the two breakaway regions and Kiev as Russian, along with denial of membership of NATO for Ukraine which he can sell as a win, then spend the next 5 years preparing to take the rest of the country.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/top-wrap-1-europes-largest-nuclear-power-plant-fire-after-russian-attack-mayor-2022-03-04/ I can just see the press conference now. ’I did not nuke Ukraine. Ukraine nuked itself’ states Putin.