dorbie

I'd always wanted to skydive but never did it, I wasn't really sure if I could actually jump when it came to it, or more specifically I thought I probably could but I was pretty sure I'd be crapping myself and wouldn't enjoy it. Then I had some time because I was between jobs and discovered that you could do your first AFF jump without a tandem or static line so I showed up at the DZ that weekend for ground school. My first jump was awesome, I was more worried about screwing up my dive flow than I was about jumping out at 13,000'. I was hooked, when the next day I couldn't get my second jump in due to wind I ended up paying for a tandem to get another jump in anyway, and it seemed surprisingly similar to the AFF jump at the time. I don't know exactly what triggered my decision to finally sign up for skydive training but I wish I'd done it years earlier.

That's not representative of all outsourced jobs and the U.S. does in fact have laws agains importing stuff made under such circumstances, particularly w.r.t. child labor. It has been used often to ban imported goods.

Notwithstanding Mike's excellent correction of your post, you refuse to admit that these events are unrelated and one was about national security. Unfortunately we have another thread on the disaster hijacked by the left's anti-Bush obsessive compulsive disorder. These arguments about "well you spent money on X so you're wrong not to spend it on Y" reminds me of my 4 year old niece arguing for an icecream. We don't have that money to spend and there's a difference between spending on national security and spending on other causes, like disaster relief, especially when it's treated like the U.S. is *expected* to contribute aid, like somehow it's owed. Excuse me for thinking that national security is a bigger spending priority than disaster relief abroad. Despite enduring months of rubbish from the left about spending priorities we've always known where their priorities lay w.r.t. national defense. Now with the election over and those debates in the past you can wear your true opposition to military spending on your sleeve. Thankfully the American public never fell for the whitewash. Every dime you send to the people stricken by this Tsunami will have to be paid for by your grandkids, so talk of America being the richest nation is completely bogus. That's my point, complaining about spending priorities doesn't alter that fact, America is not in fact a rich nation, so this attempt to 'guilt trip' her into spending money it doesn't have on people in need should be viewed in that context.

It's pretty clear this was a simple slip of the tongue. You have to look at the context of the statement. he was listing things terrorists had done and mentioned the flight was shot down, maybe a better term would be "brought down". Just offering that for illustration, not trying to put words into his mouth. Of course this will now go down in history and the conspiracy nuts will milk it for generations.

Is America the world's richest nation? We have a strange concept of rich these days. America is in debt up to it's eyeballs and every dollar America sends in aid will have to be paid for by generations to come. It only contributes to their national debt. America may infact be the worlds poorest nation if looked at on the basis of hard currency reserves vs debt. America is a productive nation, this is a good thing, does that mean it should dig ever deeper holes of debt whenever someone needs bailing out? There's something very wrong with this situation IMHO. If you give aid it should be given freely and it should be fucking appreciated. If there's one thing I don't like seeing it's America or anyone else giving money or aid to another nation that thinks it's entitled or that America isn't giving enough. The comments of the U.N. official calling the worlds "richest" nations "Stingy" are entirely inappropriate and started all this crap.

I would have known had I been on the beach. I don't think you can assume much from the available video. There were many places hit by the wave and the ones closest to the quake and with the right orientation and topography would have been hit hardest. Satellite images of Banda Aceh Beach show entire neighbourhoods, roads and bridges washed away with harbor walls and significant landmass just gone completely, the place is scoured and I doubt many survived. This wave was obvioulsy massive in some places, big enough to do more than wash crud into the pool or up the street. http://www.digitalglobe.com/tsunami_gallery.html The satellite images in the above page also seem to have caught images near the time of the wave hitting one beach showing the wave surging onto the beach in one and the receeding seas (possibly after the wave possibly before, both can happen and I don't trust the caption). In the images the sea seems to have receeded a heck of a lot at least in these shots (again may be before of after the wave).

How do you confront this kind of ignorance, it's so indefensible that it just leaves you perplexed. People hired for a buck can always quit and do something else, or nothing at all, it has nothing to do with slavery. In some parts of the world a buck is a decent wage, that's *why* Americans lose their job to them or more realistically someone else from a slightly better off region loses their job to them. The alternative is not to pay them more (the job would go elsewhere for better skill/infrasturcture) The alternative is to take their job away making it impossible for them to compete even if they want the job. Taking their job away to appease some confused American liberal wouldn't be something they'd appreciate. So, you're not doing them a favor by advocating this, the result would be abject poverty for the people you pretend to support.

You can see that in that bad video? I think most people do know about lost of bowel and bladder in death. My dad used to work at that police department, I'll drop him an e-mail and see what he has to say about it. Edit to add: I wanted to see if I could send dad a link and found this one. Thanks for the link. This for me makes this all the more incredible, the background is that the guy was arrested near the scene for shooting a cop during a traffic stop and they didn't find the .45 stuffed down his crotch!

That's a good argument, but I think it only holds water if the Iraqi's don't believe we want out ASAP. I'm sure many HAVE bought into the propaganda that we are there for the oil and want to stay forever, but I think it is pretty well established that we wanted out as quickly as possible from the very beginning. Perhaps we need to articulate that message better to ensure our success. This is a double edged sword for us. While we want to convey that the Iraqis will control their own destiny they need to have confidence that their democratic system will be viable and have support. If you overplay the exit strategy you merely bolster the enemy, letting them know they need only wait for you to leave before intimidating and strangling whatever regime remains. It's really about the Iraqi mindset, and the impression they have of their own system and its viability. It's a very difficult equation but the answer is not to leave early if you want the long term outcome to be a positive one. That's not guaranteed by staying of course, therein lies the dilema.

Well said. The evidence for evolution is everywhere, just grab a shovel or a microscope, there's mountains of evidence, literally. Arguing over missing links completely misses the point, evolution as a theory is well established with plenty of supporting evidence. We know much more today than Darwin did w.r.t. the celular biology of DNA and there's extremely good genetic evidence supporting evolution in addition to other observations. It doesn't take the production of a "missing link" to "prove" evolution. If most other primates were extinct and we suddenly discovered their fossils would they be a "missing link"? If there was a giant ape alive in a remote environment that was half human would we be looking for a "missing link" that was 3/4 human? Arguing that you need a missing link to prove evolution ignores the vast evidence linking diverse species, their similarities and genetic relationships (with DNA evidence) and evidence of adaptation in isolated populations of species. It also implies that mankind is unique, that other species are evolved but somehow we uniquely made some kind of leap. I mean there are thousands of examples of "missing links" between other species. There is an antropological obsession in the search for a missing link, but there are links out the wazoo that help establish evolution as the only working theory we have, and that puts it in better standing than most scientific theories laymen consider to be "proven". Besides all this there have been discoveries of "missing links" anyway, i.e. fossil/archeological evidence of early hominids, several distinct types in fact, but that seems to get ignored by opponents of the theory.

Not personally maybe but this has happened in America, and is an ongoing struggle. The underlying implication that this is just one sided is therefore false. It also ignores the central point of separation (not that I agree with its application). Separation is the law, arguing that you don't sue over issues of non separation and so are being persecuted over issues of separation totally misses the point. Most people don't go out and sue over prayer/symbols etc, just as most people don't want to sue over the teaching of Darwin's theories, but there are always a select group of assholes out there. If they thought they had a snowball's chance in hell of winning, more cases would be brought against the teaching of evolution. Hearing American Christians blather ignorantly about Darwin's theories and advocating the teaching of creationism is the one thing that makes me think the ACLU has some value. It would be a triumph of ignorance over science to outdo all others. I remember the outrage over the Taliban blowing up the ancient statue of Buddah in Afghanistan, this would be infinitely worse. The discovery of evolution is possibly one of mankinds greatest achivements and some Americans are still in the darkages when it comes to it, merely repeating the same horseshit that it hasn't been "proven".

Oh please, there was preparation out the wazoo, your gripe is that there wasn't prescience. Your overriding issue as you've already let slip is that America went to war in the first place. Your whole attack is framed by political blinders. The fact is I like the job Rumsfeld is doing, it's not perfect but he does a lot right. Claiming an attack on Rumsfeld is supporting our troops doesn't lend credibility to a flawed case. Nor does the claim that those who disagree with you are fools or don't share that support. More fun reading: http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson122304.html

It has been articulated many times and I don't think it has changed recently. A representative government, prefferably a stable democracy with domestic credibility and a gradual reduction of forces in the region with defense and civil order duties handed over to Iraqi units. How soon is completely undetermined, nothing short of years. The deadline for the elections hasn't changed (it wouldn't surprise me if it did), that's just the first step.

He went straight for the silver. Says they were pretty low when he got it.

I think they got the cake walk prediction pretty close for the first phase of the war, this all reminds me of Arnett saying the US was bogged down when they paused for resupply after the first weeks' stunning advances, and plenty of pundits (still called experts today) universally taking that view seriously at the time. It doesn't matter how wrong the left was it still tried to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory. Prediction after pessimistic prediction was wrong and then finally we have terrorist resistance (early on the dire outcome was looting but nobody gave a crap) and this is held up as the example that the pessimists were right all along, no they weren't right. And it's STILL not clear that extra forces solve the problem, in fact it's pretty clear they wouldn't, nor would they have mitigated it if the initial invasion had been larger IMHO. Once again, there were many dire predictions by experts that didn't come to pass. Your claim that there was universal disapproval of the plan is exactly the kind of false impression you're hoping a few dissenters leave the public with. It's wrong but the guys who agreed with the plan don't get on a soap box and bitch about it, they just execute it and present it. We've seen those individuals day in day out and you want to pretend they don't exist. I've seen reports on force protection the bottlenecks in production and the measures taken to increase production in what was basically not far off a cottage industry. I've even seen the modest manufacturing facilities for the ceramics so don't pretend I'm completely unaware of this stuff. Rumsfeld was right when he said America has always gone to war with the Army it has not the one you wish it had. If congress had wanted that force protection and a better safer army they could have paid for it, but it would have to have been done years in advance not at the 11th hour as you blame Rumsfeld for now. The left blaming Rumsfeld for this now is the height of hypocrisy. It's well understood which side of the house is keen to invest in a strong military when it counted, in the years leading up to this conflict. As for the HMMWVs the numbers on upgrades are being improved, the problem is being worked successfully. Anyone with a clue knows this takes time and has a budget, it makes good emotional fodder for the peanut gallery saying cost doesn't count but there are multiple demands on budgets many of them life saving and sacrificing one for the others can be counter productive. Not to mention if shortcuts were taken with adverse consequences there'd be hell to pay. Nobody in the administration has said there's a single coherent group fighting us or that cutting the head off will defeat it. If fact they have said the exact opposite. Whenever they've captured a big figure (like Saddam) they've been intentionally cautious and cited the distributed nature of the enemy, even in the face of inane questions from the press on the matter (one of the reasons Rumsfeld does such a good job). Setting up an invented mythology about this administration like the claims they make about our enemy and then attacking the mythology is not reasonable criticism. It's an anti-Bush irrational fantasy.

http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/hampton/12212004/news/55149.htm Now a private individual attending a school party can't dress in a Santa costume because it violates the separation of Church and State according to this moron. How about the offense caused to the student who missed the party? This has gotten well out of hand, now we have morons like this guy forming and enforcing ad hoc rules about what individuals can & can't do based on nothing but B.S. Santa has nothing to do with Christian belief, he's the guy who jumps down the chimney with the presents and eats the cookies. It's a cultural tradition practiced by folks who are atheist, but even ignoring this, if he'd shown up dressed as Jesus Christ himself he still shouldn't have been excluded from the party.

There you go confusing the two issues again. The issue over force protection is entirely separate and is merely the catalyst for the political witch hunt. If you look at the numbers on that issue alone I don't think there's much to indict Rumsfeld with. This actually centers on McCain and his political opportunism, positioning himself to replace Bush by backstabbing Rumsfeld. I don't think it well go unnoticed. As for blatantly ignoring advisors, the alternate view is he listened to many advisors weighed their conflicting advice in the ballance and with the recent Afghan experience in mind arrived at a concensus listening to very experienced leadership within the Pentagon and inevitably alienating others. Now with hindsight the Monday morning quarterbacks are trying to second guess that but once again even now it is clear that more troops won't resolve the conflict. The argument used to revolve around the post conflict looting, now it has morphed into the resolution of terrorism within Iraq, but those too are actually separate issues that Rumsfeld's detractors would like to blur the boundaries on.

There may several reasons for not being able to delete a file, it might be in use, or you may not have file permissions set to do it even though your account has the power to do this. Installing good anti-spyware software should do the trick, they will check executables and kill them delete files and dll's and startup entries and registry keys. dll files and executables cannot implement spyware/adware unless they are invoked through startup entries etc or unless it's some trojan inside a kosher executable or dll (that would be more than merely spyware) vagrant dlls are not the core problem per se. Don't try going around deleting suspicious stuff on your computer by hand unless you're really sure it's undesirable, especially dll files. I use several anti-spyware programs, there's no reason not to. I use adaware and spybot. I also purchased PestPatrol and it seemed at the time to do some additional good (don't think I've actually run adaware in an age). I use a firewall in my router, keep my system and router patched with the latest updates and run Macafe antivirus and firewall software. I don't think this is paranoid, most of this stuff you'll never see running, a lot of it is free and I run most of the scans occasionally when it springs to mind. You can choose to automate scans with all this stuff at night etc. if you leave your system on. Bottom line, have a milti-tiered approach, it really ain't as difficult as it might seem and there are excellent free AV and anti-spyware software options out there & patches are free & automated too. There's no particular need to rely on a single anti-spyware tool.

I've just acquired a full face paraglidng helmet that doesn't have an excessively pronounced chin (compared to other paragliding helmets it is probably more than most skydiving helmets) and has a low profile flip up visor. The ears have recesses that would fit my audible and it is lighter than most skydiving full face helmets I was considering. Like most paragliding helmets it has firm foam padding (maybe 1/2 inch) that's more than a comfort liner without adding too much weight or volume so I think I'm going to jump with this. The only obvious issue is air flow into the region under the chin. I may improvise some padding after seeing how it performs. http://www.icaro2000.com/Products/Helmets/Skyrunner/Integral.htm Hmm, I'm going to think about this a bit more, I don't fancy catching a rised under this chin. I might just reserve it's use for paragliding.

I've read some of this and the only thing I see is that there was some dissenting opinion. This is latched onto by people who opposed the war from the outset as a political case against one of it's planners.

I'm sorry. I thought we were in Afghanistan first. Maybe Shrub and Rummy forgot that when they were crunching the numbers. Wait, that would be incompetence, as well, wouldn't it? Your response is clear as mud.

The dates as they relate to multiple conflicts would seem to be an important factor here. Revisionism and ascribing a single convenient meaning post facto to an event isn't always accurate.

If you're implying that everyone within the DoD disagreed with Rummy, that isn't the case. I don't doubt there was a diversity of opinion on many issues.

I wasn't selling a war, but I am very much sold on it, even today. The fact is this had a lot of public support, the notion that a few individuals "sold" us all the war while false does get back to your central beef here and betrays your real motivation here, you just couldn't help letting it slip out. This is not about armor upgrades or any other specious nonsense, it's about the fact that Rumsfeld was running the Pentagon when America went to war, a war that you oppose. Many of the same people you want to laud were issuing dire warnings about troop strengths in the Afghanistan campaign and warning of a quagmire and they were dead wrong. You're not baying for their blood or commending Rumsfeld because he was right. Nor did your visionaries warn of a lack of force protection gear pre Iraq. It's still not even clear than greater troop strengths wouldn't just present more targets of opportunity to an elusive enemy as we work to win this war so the underlying case has not been made convincingly.

Which one's? There are many senior military officials and many of them on the eve of invasion told Bush they had everything they needed to do the job. Besides all this, those who are the most vocal critics of Rumsfeld around here aren't saying we can win with more troops etc. they're saying it's unwinnable and we should never have invaded. I'm not prepared to look at their arguments independently, they form part of a political whole that has nothing to do with a sincere attempt to evaluate Rumsfeld's performance. This is a manufactured political witch hunt.