JeanJeanie

Jumpin Jack Flash.... Spent many good time with him. He will be missed dearly. ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

Perris Valley Skydiving Center Sunday, Aug 23rd, 4:00pm for a skydiving tribute and then gather around the pool for a celebration at 6:00. Please help us get the word out to anyone you think is interested in attending. I hope to see you all there! Kansas: Wichita family and friends are gathering on August 1st and 2nd. Wichita, Kansas: The big celebration will be at 2pm on August 1st, at the Wichita State University campus in the CAC Theater. After the celebration we will hang around to visit, have snacks and drinks. At 5pm we will move to the restaurant, Hanger One, for whoever wants to come. On August 2, Damian's birthday, his friends will spread his ashes at the drop zone where he first started skydiving. ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

Damian passed in a wingsuit incident in Switzerland this week. He was a pilot, skydiver, competitor, skysurfer, boat captain, but most importantly, he was a brother, son, uncle, and friend..... https://www.facebook.com/DamianHrdlickaLTD His family has set up this memorial site for him as he deleted his FB page a few months ago. Please share and post photos and stories.... For all who knew him he was LTD (Livin' The Dream)..... but gone to soon! ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

Blue Skies, Van... one of the first people I met in the sport and he and Alberta became a best friend of my father's years later. SO, the entire Schumacher family send condolences and love...... ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

It's 'cause they make it so damned easy! ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

And I don't like paying for old men to be able to achieve and maintain erections. Nobody is yelling about Viagra. ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

A few weeks ago my 6 year-old son was having a hard time following directions (actually, he seems to have this often); his teacher told me that he was doing exactly what he was told NOT to do. He then was doing the same to me. When I asked him, "why is it that you insist to do exactly the opposite of what you are asked", his answer, "I thought it was OPPOSITE DAY!" I almost pissed myself. . . just a little. I guess that it "oppositional defiance" defined by the perpetrator. ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

Honey, you left out us single, unwed, welfare moms leaching off the system...... yeah baby, full ride. No loans no debt! I am sure my brains have nothing to do with my admission to this mediocre institution. Maybe it was my boobs! ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

http://opa.berkeley.edu/statistics/enrollmentData.html ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

I apologize, I have nothing better to do until school starts on Tuesday. I think I will have a drink. http://dontevenreply.com/view.php?post=93 ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

I guess this author answers Craigslist ads with a bit of troll humor. His 'trollees' are not so amused. This had me in tears. http://dontevenreply.com/view.php?post=84 PeaceOut! Jeans No, I was not drinking; I am just easily entertained. ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

Please define "liberal"? Who do you suggest? Conservative Saints like Robertson? We are all fucked because of polarizing discourse and myopic views that create division, hatred and fear. ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

Thanks for this Grimmie. . . but how quickly the crowd has digressed. . Let's get back on topic kids and talk about the "criminal ideas" of atheism! I swear. this guy makes me wanna go "atheist" on y'all!! . . . "I want the full portrait of evolution and the people who came up with the ideas to be presented. It's a worldview and it's godless. Atheism has been tried in various societies, and they've been pretty criminal domestically and internationally. The Soviet Union, Cuba, the Nazis, China today: they don't respect human rights," he said. "As a general court we should be concerned with criminal ideas like this and how we are teaching it... Columbine, remember that? They were believers in evolution. That's evidence right there," he said. ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

I do not know where else to post this. April 22, 1992-April 22, 2012 Perris Will be hosting a 20-year memorial the weekend of April 21, 2012 in order to honor our friends lost on this day. Here is the FB Event Page I started, just to get the ball rolling. https://www.facebook.com/events/179423282110647/ And a memorial Group to post your photos of you fallen Perris friends. It has morphed into something interesting. . It spans decades of friends. . . https://www.facebook.com/groups/115489765199490/ ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

April 22, 1992 Perris California Perris Valley Skydiving Center Twin Otter PV22 lost an engine after take off. A Memorial Event is evolving which will take place over the weekend of April 21/22 - dedicated to 16 friends and family who were lost on this day and to the six survivors. The response has been overwhelming with people traveling from across the globe to attend. Please join us. https://www.facebook.com/events/179423282110647/ Here is a page for posting comments and memories of our fallen friends. It has morphed into its own beast with memories from Perris spanning decades. . . Join and Invite. . . https://www.facebook.com/groups/115489765199490/ Peace, Love and Light!!! ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

For Ford Motors, a human life was not worth the $11 per unit it would require to fix an exploding fuel tank. ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

I think the issue is the "knowing" that something is seriously wrong. Many folk just don't know the workings of the system in order to articulate it. I would like to see an 'educate the masses' wing of OWS that does just that. Shows the laws and relationships in the upper echelons of society that make the machine a corrupt one. There are fantastic articles by many educated, knowledgeable people outlining these points. It would be prudent of the organizers to use these as talking points. I have been to a few events and do not agree with the polarizing language of some "enemy", "hate the rich" etc. Unfortunately, this is all that is shown in the media, as well as the poorly groomed. I have heard countless articulate arguments and seen droves of educated and well-dressed people in business suits that are not shown. That the group has no goal or articulated purpose is a mighty fine indication of the issues with our society. I could perhaps have an easier time with OWS IF they could articulate their reasons. OWS is like the Iraq War - pissed at Hussein. Now what? ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

You are such a troll! Handsome one at that! ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

This is about "Liberal Democracy" ; not about pitting Democrats against Republicans, they are different sides of the same rusty old f***ing coin! One pushes agendas with a sword, the other a smile (with a sword hidden behind the back in case the smile does not work!). Matt Taibblog from Rolling Stone put it better than I ever could. At the bottom find the link. "When you take into consideration all the theft and fraud and market manipulation and other evil shit Wall Street bankers have been guilty of in the last ten-fifteen years, you have to have balls like church bells to trot out a propaganda line that says the protesters are just jealous of their hard-earned money." "If we hate the rich, why are there 250 millionaire elected officials in Washington""People aren't jealous and they don’t want privileges. They just want a level playing field, and they want Wall Street to give up its cheat codes, things like: FREE MONEY. Ordinary people have to borrow their money at market rates. Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon get billions of dollars for free, from the Federal Reserve. They borrow at zero and lend the same money back to the government at two or three percent, a valuable public service otherwise known as "standing in the middle and taking a gigantic cut when the government decides to lend money to itself." Or the banks borrow billions at zero and lend mortgages to us at four percent, or credit cards at twenty or twenty-five percent. This is essentially an official government license to be rich, handed out at the expense of prudent ordinary citizens, who now no longer receive much interest on their CDs or other saved income. It is virtually impossible to not make money in banking when you have unlimited access to free money, especially when the government keeps buying its own cash back from you at market rates. Your average chimpanzee couldn't fuck up that business plan, which makes it all the more incredible that most of the too-big-to-fail banks are nonetheless still functionally insolvent, and dependent upon bailouts and phony accounting to stay above water. Where do the protesters go to sign up for their interest-free billion-dollar loans? CREDIT AMNESTY. If you or I miss a $7 payment on a Gap card or, heaven forbid, a mortgage payment, you can forget about the great computer in the sky ever overlooking your mistake. But serial financial fuckups like Citigroup and Bank of America overextended themselves by the hundreds of billions and pumped trillions of dollars of deadly leverage into the system -- and got rewarded with things like the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, an FDIC plan that allowed irresponsible banks to borrow against the government's credit rating. This is equivalent to a trust fund teenager who trashes six consecutive off-campus apartments and gets rewarded by having Daddy co-sign his next lease. The banks needed programs like TLGP because without them, the market rightly would have started charging more to lend to these idiots. Apparently, though, we can’t trust the free market when it comes to Bank of America, Goldman, Sachs, Citigroup, etc. In a larger sense, the TBTF banks all have the implicit guarantee of the federal government, so investors know it's relatively safe to lend to them -- which means it's now cheaper for them to borrow money than it is for, say, a responsible regional bank that didn't jack its debt-to-equity levels above 35-1 before the crash and didn't dabble in toxic mortgages. In other words, the TBTF banks got better credit for being less responsible. Click on freecreditscore.com to see if you got the same deal. STUPIDITY INSURANCE. Defenders of the banks like to talk a lot about how we shouldn't feel sorry for people who've been foreclosed upon, because it's they're own fault for borrowing more than they can pay back, buying more house than they can afford, etc. And critics of OWS have assailed protesters for complaining about things like foreclosure by claiming these folks want “something for nothing.” This is ironic because, as one of the Rolling Stone editors put it last week, “something for nothing is Wall Street’s official policy." In fact, getting bailed out for bad investment decisions has been de rigeur on Wall Street not just since 2008, but for decades. Time after time, when big banks screw up and make irresponsible bets that blow up in their faces, they've scored bailouts. It doesn't matter whether it was the Mexican currency bailout of 1994 (when the state bailed out speculators who gambled on the peso) or the IMF/World Bank bailout of Russia in 1998 (a bailout of speculators in the "emerging markets") or the Long-Term Capital Management Bailout of the same year (in which the rescue of investors in a harebrained hedge-fund trading scheme was deemed a matter of international urgency by the Federal Reserve), Wall Street has long grown accustomed to getting bailed out for its mistakes. The 2008 crash, of course, birthed a whole generation of new bailout schemes. Banks placed billions in bets with AIG and should have lost their shirts when the firm went under -- AIG went under, after all, in large part because of all the huge mortgage bets the banks laid with the firm -- but instead got the state to pony up $180 billion or so to rescue the banks from their own bad decisions. This sort of thing seems to happen every time the banks do something dumb with their money. Just recently, the French and Belgian authorities cooked up a massive bailout of the French bank Dexia, whose biggest trading partners included, surprise, surprise, Goldman, Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Here's how the New York Times explained the bailout: To limit damage from Dexia’s collapse, the bailout fashioned by the French and Belgian governments may make these banks and other creditors whole — that is, paid in full for potentially tens of billions of euros they are owed. This would enable Dexia’s creditors and trading partners to avoid losses they might otherwise suffer... When was the last time the government stepped into help you "avoid losses you might otherwise suffer?" But that's the reality we live in. When Joe Homeowner bought too much house, essentially betting that home prices would go up, and losing his bet when they dropped, he was an irresponsible putz who shouldn’t whine about being put on the street. But when banks bet billions on a firm like AIG that was heavily invested in mortgages, they were making the same bet that Joe Homeowner made, leaving themselves hugely exposed to a sudden drop in home prices. But instead of being asked to "suck it in and cope" when that bet failed, the banks instead went straight to Washington for a bailout -- and got it. UNGRADUATED TAXES. I've already gone off on this more than once, but it bears repeating. Bankers on Wall Street pay lower tax rates than most car mechanics. When Warren Buffet released his tax information, we learned that with taxable income of $39 million, he paid $6.9 million in taxes last year, a tax rate of about 17.4%. Most of Buffet’s income, it seems, was taxed as either "carried interest" (i.e. hedge-fund income) or long-term capital gains, both of which carry 15% tax rates, half of what many of the Zucotti park protesters will pay. As for the banks, as companies, we've all heard the stories. Goldman, Sachs in 2008 – this was the same year the bank reported $2.9 billion in profits, and paid out over $10 billion in compensation -- paid just $14 million in taxes, a 1% tax rate. Bank of America last year paid not a single dollar in taxes -- in fact, it received a "tax credit" of $1 billion. There are a slew of troubled companies that will not be paying taxes for years, including Citigroup and CIT. When GM bought the finance company AmeriCredit, it was able to marry its long-term losses to AmeriCredit's revenue stream, creating a tax windfall worth as much as $5 billion. So even though AmeriCredit is expected to post earnings of $8-$12 billion in the next decade or so, it likely won't pay any taxes during that time, because its revenue will be offset by GM's losses. Thank God our government decided to pledge $50 billion of your tax dollars to a rescue of General Motors! You just paid for one of the world's biggest tax breaks. And last but not least, there is: GET OUT OF JAIL FREE. One thing we can still be proud of is that America hasn't yet managed to achieve the highest incarceration rate in history -- that honor still goes to the Soviets in the Stalin/Gulag era. But we do still have about 2.3 million people in jail in America. Virtually all 2.3 million of those prisoners come from "the 99%." Here is the number of bankers who have gone to jail for crimes related to the financial crisis: 0. Millions of people have been foreclosed upon in the last three years. In most all of those foreclosures, a regional law enforcement office -- typically a sheriff's office -- was awarded fees by the court as part of the foreclosure settlement, settlements which of course were often rubber-stamped by a judge despite mountains of perjurious robosigned evidence. That means that every single time a bank kicked someone out of his home, a local police department got a cut. Local sheriff's offices also get cuts of almost all credit card judgments, and other bank settlements. If you're wondering how it is that so many regional police departments have the money for fancy new vehicles and SWAT teams and other accoutrements, this is one of your answers. What this amounts to is the banks having, as allies, a massive armed police force who are always on call, ready to help them evict homeowners and safeguard the repossession of property. But just see what happens when you try to call the police to prevent an improper foreclosure. Then, suddenly, the police will not get involved. It will be a "civil matter" and they won't intervene. The point being: if you miss a few home payments, you have a very high likelihood of colliding with a police officer in the near future. But if you defraud a pair of European banks out of a billion dollars -- that's a billion, with a b -- you will never be arrested, never see a policeman, never see the inside of a jail cell. Your settlement will be worked out not with armed police, but with regulators in suits who used to work for your company or one like it. And you'll have, defending you, a former head of that regulator's agency. In the end, a fine will be paid to the government, but it won't come out of your pocket personally; it will be paid by your company's shareholders. And there will be no admission of criminal wrongdoing. The Abacus case, in which Goldman helped a hedge fund guy named John Paulson beat a pair of European banks for a billion dollars, tells you everything you need to know about the difference between our two criminal justice systems. The settlement was $550 million -- just over half of the damage. Can anyone imagine a common thief being caught by police and sentenced to pay back half of what he took? Just one low-ranking individual in that case was charged (case pending), and no individual had to reach into his pocket to help cover the fine. The settlement Goldman paid to to the government was about 1/24th of what Goldman received from the government just in the AIG bailout. And that was the toughest "punishment" the government dished out to a bank in the wake of 2008. The point being: we have a massive police force in America that outside of lower Manhattan prosecutes crime and imprisons citizens with record-setting, factory-level efficiency, eclipsing the incarceration rates of most of history's more notorious police states and communist countries. But the bankers on Wall Street don't live in that heavily-policed country. There are maybe 1000 SEC agents policing that sector of the economy, plus a handful of FBI agents. There are nearly that many police officers stationed around the polite crowd at Zucotti park. These inequities are what drive the OWS protests. People don't want handouts. It's not a class uprising and they don't want civil war -- they want just the opposite. They want everyone to live in the same country, and live by the same rules. It's amazing that some people think that that's asking a lot." Fair? Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/owss-beef-wall-street-isnt-winning-its-cheating-20111025#ixzz1c3QAemg4 ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

Naivety. Middle class student, attached to parents $100,000 income can enjoy a debt of $16,000 per year in debt, just for tuition. For the opportunity of giving the child an education in a "public" institution. 16% of an income. For a person making $1,000,000 per year the tuition accounts for a mere 1.6% of income. Fair? A private institution, my Sister and Brother-in-law, raised their sons to know they would be attending college and took the necessary steps to afford this. They paid off their house in 10 years, saving an enormous sum of money. Held their personal debt down. He was accepted into a private university in the Northwest. After his grants and financial aid, they get to pay over $25,000 per year. Family of 4. Equal Opportunity? Another sister, family of 6, she has been a stay at home mom, living within their means so she could do so. First daughter off to college, accepted at a great university - in state - over $10,000 per year in addition to her financial aid. Had to send her to a community college where she is thriving, but non-the-less, almost 20% of salary. Now, my sister has taken on a part-time job, and it is working against them. Fair? Another niece, on her own, no support from parent, in order to attend the university of her dreams, she will be in debt $50,000 by the time she completes her bachelor's which is not worth that much in the marketplace. She live very frugally, she works in work study. Level Playing Field? I know many university students working to pay for school on their own, rent, food, supplies, the works, they are all in serious debt. For a mere BA / BS What does this debt accomplish? It takes a huge pool of people that may have begun college with a desire to go into service not making money their #1 priority, are now 'forced' to search for a job that pays enough to pay down loans. TO take themselves out of the charity market, that in these times is needed more than ever. One of the repercussions of the Bayh-Dole Act, among others. Is this the image of the American Dream? To dream of a career but be unable to enter into it because of enormous debt? Privatization in Public Institutions only invites the wealthy to afford a quality education. Fair? ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

In 1920'a the tax rate on the wealthiest Americans was more than 90%. The playing field was more level, not only in this way. Access to resources, lack of privatization, tighter communities, are just a few reasons why our grandparents were able to come from a foreign land with pennies and make it. **disclaimer** I do not agree with 90% taxes on the wealthy, I do believe they should be required to declare all earnings and held accountable for the actions of their corporations and for environmental and human rights above those of shareholders. ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

special occasions ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

I was raised Catholic, no bad memories, just went through the motions. I Went to a watered down catholic school. Never finished confirmation, to my parents dismay. But I never really questioned the existence of a god. At 13 I was 'witnessed' to on a corner and began attending a Pentecostal church. 3 times a week, twice on Sunday and on Wednesday. I was attracted to the sense of belonging. Went to numerous revivals and prayed and prayed to feel the spirit of God move through me like it did the others. I had an epiphany about the selfishness of prayer. Prayer for a job, prayer for a healed marriage. Prayer for money. Never a prayer for those who did not have the luxury of praying for anything but a meal to hold their family just one more day. But Pastor would jiggle his fat self on stage, start rambling in tongues, and pray for these things. Looking around, I began to feel like a hypocrite, I realized I did not believe. I stepped out. Never looked back. Not going to hell. Even in all my years as an atheist, I am often heard to cry, "oh, God. . . Oh, God" on occasion. ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

If it is the god taught by christianity reaching out to me, I would have to give him a pass. Just as I hope to be free of jealousy, ego and destructive traits, I hope my God would too. For me, life is good enough and I have no fear of hell-fire nor do I look forward to heaven and I am ok with that. ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK

The real problem is I tried to believe. Tried to feel the holy spirit move inside me. I realized I was faking it out of fear of hell-fire and brimstone. So I stepped away. Why is it that when you don't believe in God you are somehow 'fallen' in nature, unrighteous? I live ethically and honestly. I live well aware of the consequences my living has and how far it resonates at times. If I am only guilty for being true to myself, to those around me and not living a lie, then so be it. I am not worried about my salvation. ~~We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly~~MLK