GQ_jumper

Not to hijack my own thread, but I did a tandem in 41 Kt winds, so you have no excuse. Wind speed was unbeknownst to me until I reached the ground and learned the owner just didn't want to refund the money so he "massaged the numbers". Anywho, back to the case at hand. Is there any way we could put an end to opportunistic lawsuits such as this without taking away the rights of people who genuinely deserve large sums of money? It seems like one of those double edged swords where no matter how you write a law someone will undoubtedly suffer. History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

All I hear is excuses, sack up, put a headlamp on and get out there. If it ain't rainin' we ain't trainin' History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

when are the elected representatives going to realize they need to answer to us? this is the kind of representation that caused the first revolution, it's high time for another. Please don't, I may be leaving active duty heading to the National Guard soon and I don't feel like hunting skydivers History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

I have another brain burner for you guys. What the hell is everyone doing on this website on a Saturday instead of at the DZ??? History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

I happened to make a near fatal mistake in an ambush one time where I stopped as I was running through the middle of the kill zone as we were being hit from our left side and moved to the side of the vehicles where all the fire was coming from. I saw a muzzle flash from a house and moved towards the house unloading through the window. When my senses finally kicked back in I realized I was standing in front of the armored vehicles that I should have been using for cover out in the open taking fire just so I could settle my beef with the people in the one house. You get overwhelmed very quickly and the only thing that gives you the ability to see the whole picture is repetition.. But, of course, a kindergarten teacher is perfectly equipped to deal with a crazed gunman. The kindergarten teacher responded in a manner that had a positive impact on the situation you are 100% correct. Now I want to word this carefully because I feel that her bravery should be commended and people are still grieving from the tragedy, but if we look at her reaction closely I'm certain we could have found better courses of action for her to take. There is always a better course of action in hindsight, and that is the same in the situation with the officers, the unfortunate incident in Newtown, and my personal experiences that I mentioned above. Point being is nobody makes the 100% correct decision when the adrenaline is flowing, but in both the case of the officer, and that brave teacher I think they both should be commended for making good decisions under pressure. Armchair quarterbacking in most cases is the wrong answer. Now if those officers had decided to shoot the woman that came out screaming I would say that they went too far, but to ensure the safety of themselves and those around them prior to providing aid to someone who presented enough of a threat that deadly force became the option was the right call. Would you rather the officers immediately start whipping out band-aids and take a knife to the gut in the process because they failed to search him? Would also like to add another personal experience note. The longer a situation develops the more time you have to make a good decision. the officers were still in the immediate situation, while the teacher had time, albeit very little to take a second and absorb the entire situation as she made her calls. The longer the situation persists the better your reactions are. The fist minute or two of an engagement are terrifying, for anyone, and you are surviving on instinct. As soon as you have a split second, even amidst the chaos to take a breath and look at what is happening around you the proper decisions start coming to you. Again, I am taking nothing away from that brave teacher, just trying to put the scenarios into perspective, they are vastly different. Plus nobody can be trained to react to taking a life, it affects everyone differently and you don't know how it will hit you until it happens. Saving your own life, and in some cases protecting others is human instinct, but taking a life is not. History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

Yep, I could feel pretty good on a whole lot less than $100 Million. EXACTLY!!! I feel that our justice system has fostered a climate in this country where people feel that exorbitant amounts of money are a reasonable way to help deal with pain and suffering. Our system needs a major overhaul. History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

Personally I think this is crying wolf. While I understand people wanting to see politicians not receive pay raises while we are in a deficit people are ignoring the small amount of the raise. Some of the people will be receiving barely a 1/2% raise. That is less than the CPI has increased the last two years, and despite the fact that they will receive more money they are essentially still taking a pay cut given the current rate of inflation......economics 101 people, come on now and yes some people are recieving closer to 3%, but in the grand scheme of things I think there are more pressing issues to worry about. If I saw politicians receive a pay raise that was well over the CPI's total increase since the pay freeze began then I would be up in arms. In my opinion though allowing someone to maintain their spending power is not an issue to me. History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

Personally I think that this is pathetic and opportunistic. The school system should be willing to pay for the counseling for the survivors, and the victims' families. There should also be funds set up to help the families that lost parents with regards to income support. Somebody looking for $100M because they are traumatized by the events is ridiculous. It is a selfish move given that most states are in a fiscal crisis right now and doing this could very well cause reductions elsewhere in the state's budget that could damage other welfare programs or state employees. Our country is full of pathetic people. "I'm upset, make me rich and it will help me feel good".......disgusting. http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/29/16233914-lawyer-for-newtown-shooting-survivor-seeks-to-file-100-million-lawsuit?lite History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

And believe me I can see your point completely, no argument there. I was just trying to add some personal experience into the mix. I've been in the situation where you see the body of someone you are engaging hit the ground and you get sucked in to it. The only thing going through your head is that guy and everything else around you is irrelevant for a moment. I happened to make a near fatal mistake in an ambush one time where I stopped as I was running through the middle of the kill zone as we were being hit from our left side and moved to the side of the vehicles where all the fire was coming from. I saw a muzzle flash from a house and moved towards the house unloading through the window. When my senses finally kicked back in I realized I was standing in front of the armored vehicles that I should have been using for cover out in the open taking fire just so I could settle my beef with the people in the one house. You get overwhelmed very quickly and the only thing that gives you the ability to see the whole picture is repetition. given that this was probably his first time taking a life that officer likely hasn't had the repetition of a situation like that to make all the necessary calls in a quick manner. I am certain he would have gotten to it(calling medics) later down the line, but luckily there was another officer there with an outside viewpoint that got the ball rolling. As for his reason to open fire. He will forever be the only person that knows exactly what he saw the man reaching for. The camera angle masked a lot. although as others have mentioned he was told to put his hands up and rather than stay seated and put his hands out of the car while the officers did their job he chose to stand and make sudden moves. Overall may take would be that although there are learning points that could have made the situation better, given the fast-pace and intensity of the confrontation the officer did nothing intentionally wrong. History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

As the uneducated runneth a muck..... After initially shooting the guy a hysterical woman ran to the vehicle, so obviously they had to deal with a woman that could have been going for whatever weapon may have been in the vehicle. And after she was cleared they still had to ensure that they were not under threat before they helped him. And everyone saying they "cuffed a dead guy", duh......thats what you do. Once someone has been deemed to be a threat they don't get any sort of aid until you have ascertained that they are no longer a threat in any way. You would be surprised at the people that have continued to put up a fight after being shot up. Keep a weapon on them while you search them regardless of their status. These guys did nothing wrong, quit looking for excuses to burn them at the stake. And it is to be expected that the first cop to bring up calling for medics is the one that wasn't involved in the shooting. Killing someone is a once in a lifetime event for probably one out of every hundred police officers, the guy was still amped up and traumatized from the situation. You get "tunnel vision" when something like that happens. I've seen guys run straight through the middle of a room because they engaged a target across from them when there were other people to engage in the room. You get sucked into an intense situation like that, its overwhelming. Just to add, this isn't to a particular person Skyrad, just replying to the thread as a whole. History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

And when they do that they can claim that the fact the bill is filled with things they didn't want was a necessary evil to avoid the cliff thus saving them from thw wrath of their constituents. Such a broken government we have. History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

Uh, he's an American; so he was doing what he shouldn't. Do. But "should" doesn't rhyme with "caught". Damn....well played!! History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

If the tea party keeps moving that hard-line stance further to the fringe it is going to spell the demise of the GOP. We all need to make sacrifices and people in all corners of the country need to tighten their belts and accept some hardships if we are too succeed. This however, is ridiculous, refusing to accept ANY tax increases is not the way to save our country. And this is coming from a registered republican! i really wish Boehner could have received more party support. History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

I think we should all be rather shocked an offended by the fact that Wal-mart is selling belts that hold ammunition and many other potentially fatal fashion accessories, oh the humanity. This was one of the most ignorant and pointless articles I've ever read. I feel dumber for having wasted those minutes of my time and would like to request that portion of my life back from the original poster. History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

Once teachers are known to be armed, who do you think will be the first target for a loony with a gun entering a classroom? I am a teacher and I have no wish to set myself up as the primary target of a nutter with a gun. So you're saying kill the children first? History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

Don't forget that you are going to need to adjust the camera angle and your heading depending on the sun's location. In terms of issues I never had any with regards to a handcam other than accidentally turning it off in the door one time! Over time I worked out different ways to adjust the angle to get the best shots at different points of the jump(ie. dive exits I tried to get the plane in the background, on opening I held it below the students chest facing up to catch their face and the opening canopy, etc.). I had a lot of fun doing handcam jumps, plus it lets you interact with the student a lot instead of trying to steal their attention from the video flyer. Have fun History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

Also, you already can't write off millions in interest from four or five homes. You get two homes and up to $1M in interest you can write off. And, iirc, you can't write off the interest on the second home if you're renting it out.*** Just a note on this comment, renting a house out comes with an entirely new set of tax benefits. I rented my primary residence out when I was stationed elsewhere and once it became labeled as a "commercial property" I started receiving large write-offs, so multiple properties comes with a lot of benefits! I have also recently ventured into real estate investing as a means to replace my income when I leave the military, and its mind boggling how many new tax benefits I am seeing. Just trying to bring everything to light. Back to the original point though, I think we have drawn a line in the sand with what is considered a high-earner that is completely misplaced. People pointing to six-figures as being a high earner are off the mark IMO. In the 90's that would have worked, but nowadays we need to adjust the standards, especially as you mentioned for people living in high-cost areas. While I admit that any idea I come up with is going to be far from perfect as I am not a lawmaker or Economics major(although I might pursue the second major for fun

so that's the new discussion, and lacking specifics so far, it looks like a way to get even more money out of the blue states that contribute far more than their share. I heard the figure of 30 or 40k put out as a maximum - anyone with more deductions then that must be wealthy motherfuckers. And I thought Romney floated an idea about 17k in something (dividend income only, or all deductions?) being protected. The problem - a typical home owner in California is paying 2k a month in interest. It's a bit better right now with the historically unusual interest rates, but that's still the case for the average home in San Francisco. at 8% (rate in 2000), that was the case for loans at half the amount. Take on property taxes (1.xx % of home purchase price) and a 9.4% marginal tax rate and my deductions for these alone already push 45-50k. Protecting the dividend/LT capital gain list while implementing a cap on everything else is as bald faced as it gets for protecting the millionaires. The working class don't have even 10k in such income per year. Most of their retirement wealth, for those who have it, is in tax sheltered accounts. Would you be more open to the suggestion of non tax-advantaged accounts for high earners being taxed at the same rate as their income? Lower and middle-class workers maintain the lower rates for dividends and capital gains and upper-class tax payers who, as we have mentioned before get a large sum of their annual income through different types of investments pay the same for their investment income as they do for ordinary income, and put a cap on deductions for them. The class warfare that has been perpetuated for the last few years has created an unhealthy lust for punishment of those with more zeros at the end of their account statements. We need to find a way to correct this issue without the emotion that is usually tied to it. I'm all for ensuring that high-earners pay more than they are currently putting into the system, but I don't think the proper way to go about it is to increase the tax rate while maintaining the current web of deductions that people can hide behind. And the deductions for mortgage interest payments, I agree that it can create some unfair tax shelters for those who own multiple expensive homes. Or at least that is what I interpreted your comment to be eluding to, my apologies if I misread it. With regards to that, what about a cap on the mortgage deductions? Take the median amount in mortgage interest paid by middle-income families and there is your cap. If you choose to own four or five homes worth $10 million a piece you shouldn't gets millions in deductions, you are obviously doing find without. Again, my point is we shouldn't find ways to add to the current tax rate, but to enforce the current rates for those who don't rely on the deductions to make ends meet. And to throw one more curve ball into the mix just for fun I wouldn't be opposed to a small reduction in rates across the board for ALL tax payers and replace it with a minimal VAT. If only for the purpose of making people who visit our country, or reside here illegally are still contributing.

Most people read the article prior to commenting...... Did you completely ignore why it is that those multi-millionaires have tax rates that begin to lower? If you hike the tax rates for investments you are going to make those of us at the bottom of the bracket suffer in order to force more money from the wealthy. Someone paying 20% that is making 20 million is paying their share IMO. Or is millions of dollars in tax revenue per individual not enough, should we bleed them dry to punish them for their success? Because encouraging people to find even more tax loopholes and shelters overseas by trying to wring them out for cash is always a sound plan right? Close the deductions, but leave the tax rates the same, or even lower them slightly if it still increases the revenue after taking away the deductions. And don't touch the capitol gains and dividend tax rates or you are going to hurt the working-class more than the super rich and force people to avoid investing their money for retirement. History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

What a sheltered life I lead. Where do you guys learn this stuff? Good sir I refer you to the greatest reference outside of wikipedia.......urbandictionary.com. Log on now and thank me later.......you're welcome! History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

I'm thinking you could probably ply your trade pretty much anywhere. Well as much I dearly love the work ethic of most people's moms I tend to have trouble getting work visas for that sort of profession, its more of a closed borders operation History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

QuoteNetanyahu ordered the Israel army to be combat-ready and called in an additional 75k troops for a possible invasion of the Gaza Strip. *** One of my close friends left the US military after Desert Storm because he didn't see any combat on the horizon for us so he joined the Foreign Legion looking for action. I'm starting to think the Israeli military might be in the cards for me if they keep sticking us on the shelf. On that note, anybody know of any good Hebrew language schools in the area?! History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

So now we are saying that it is a good thing to not make people responsible for the debt they incur? Whatever happened to personal responsibility? History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

The reasonable ones would understand what Frum is saying, but the reasonable one's lost control of the party long ago. Until the GOP starts listening to the silent majority of the right, instead of the crazies in the tri-cornered hats, that are frothing at the mouth, their party is doomed. Then again, what's the definition of insanity? AND ANOTHER THING. The righties need to stop using code words to disguise their bigotry. Like they think the rest of us are too stupid to understand. If the power holding individuals on the right would stop clinging to ideology and start using their position to advance the fiscal and economic solutions they have in their back pocket we would get so much more accomplished in a much more bipartisan manner. I've been saying for the last three years that the tea-party had the potential to be the greatest thing to hit US politics in my generation but the idiots like Palin took it over and mutated it from a position of fiscal responsibility and turned it into abortions and gay marriages. People need to put their social arguments on the back burner until we are on more stable economic grounds, until that happens the GOP is going to fail. And this is of course coming from a registered Republican, even I'm turned off by my party's actions. History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower

The ironic thing about Clinton's attempt to shield himself by claiming to fall under the UCMJ is that the sanctions against adultery in the military are more severe with increasing rank. A PO3 who makes niknik outside of marriage might get punishment under Article 15 at worst. An Admiral will routinely get cashiered. *** Maximum punishment for adultery according to UCMJ is actually two years of hard labor, and yes Leavenworth still has gravel pits! However, the maximum punishment is rarely enforced. As a matter of fact I have never seen it enforced and have even seen instances of senior leaders being involved with subordinate's wives. Usually the individual is simply forced to retire because nobody wants to taint someone's benefits. History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid. --Dwight D. Eisenhower