dorbie

First, Arsenic is not radioactive, nor is it a metal. Uranium 238 is. It has a half life of 4.5 billion years. Maybe that is why you hear more about depleted Uranium than you do about arsenic. Seventy percent of the US soldiers who fought in Desert Storm have permanent medical disabilities, and the number is increasing. Thanks to depleted uranium, the Gulf Wars have contributed to more dead and permanently disabled US soldiers than did WWII. Depleted uranium poisoning can be passed on to sexual partner, via contaminated semen, and contributes to a significant increase in birth defects for the children conceived after a parent was contaminated. The residual uranium 238 left from US military use has given off 400,000 times the radiation given off from the atomic bomb the US dropped on Nagasaki. There's an interesting corollary, about half life, the longer the half life the less radioactive a material is. Half life is not just a measure of the decay of an isotope, it is the act of decay that makes an isotope actually emit radiation. Something with a short half life is generally much more radioactive and dangerous so it's pretty amusing when someone starts citing half lives in the billions of years as a risk factor. As for desert storm veterans issues there are lots of theories, including burning weapons dumps and the oil fired in Kuwait, DU is an implausible one. DU is produced in vast quantities, that it produces more radiation than teh Nagasaki a bomb is not shocking, your average beach has given off more radiation in the intervening time. Doesn't mean I'm going to get sick walking on it. Don't confuse the chemical effects of Uranium with the radioactive effects. P.S. never said Arsenic was radioactive (and it is a semimetal), but I don't consider DU to be dangerously radioactive. Ever heard of carbon dating? Carbon-14 has a half life of 5,730 years (remember the corollary) and it's inside you, everywhere.

It's a yorkie ned. All it needs is a bottle of buckie and a chib, if this confuses you see link, feel free to explore the site and soak up Glasgow culture: http://www.glasgowsurvival.co.uk/toys/glaNedagotchi.html

Yep they're nuts but then I consider the tradition in some places of cutting up then deep frying live fish with a wet towel around the head and serving it fried but alive to the customers just to prove it was fresh. That seems pretty sick to me.

You don't cook a fillet mignon. You show it the grill then eat it.

I know that even in peace time soldiers look forward to their ETS (end time in service) date like six year old anticipates Christmas morning during December. Soldiers are suing over stop loss. That is not a sign of high morale. Nor is it a good sign when units refuse support missions because they are not adequately supplied. That is to say nothing of the high rates of malignant growth for some returning units due to the depleted uranium ammunition that has (still?) been used in Iraq. Cancer is not the best incentive to motivate troops, or local populations. I wouldn't diminish some of those issues, and I think stop loss can be tragic for the individuals involved. I don't buy the DU scaremongering. There's a lot of nasty crap you can encounter besides DU. It's a heavy metal, so's arsenic but you don't hear people going crazy over that even though it's a poison like most heavy metals, probably because it doesn't have a fissionable isotope useable in A-bombs. Come up with an alternative self sharpening penetrator and and I'm sure the Pentagon would consider it. However I was searching for a single word resonse to your two words, this is about more than just conscription. Looking at Vietnam, many soldiers were convinced their country was not fighting to win. That does lots do damage morale so does spitting on them on leave and calling them baby killers when they're home. The morale in Iraq is not IMHO anywhere near as bad as Vietnam. I even know a guy out there who couldn't wait to "get some", but he's a young Marine. There are all sorts in the forces and you're always going to have morale issues, it's not a binary thing its a continuum with variations between individuals and units. Anecdotes don't make a morale problem. If the left cared about morale they'd show a bit more of the +ve side of the Iraq equation, but in fact they're hoping morale gets lower not just reporting it as low. It's another political lever for them, this isn't about concern for morale it's about feeding your political agenda again.

Would that be conscription as in a new draft? Or conscription as in the government commandeering assets of citizens in order to finance the war? I don't see either fixing the problem of low morale. No that would be conscription as in, during Vietnam we had a conscripted army and morale was much lower then.

Conscription.

Yes, but they are simultaneously profoundly similar. Naturally, no war is going to be exactly like the last one, but it would be foolish to believe that there are no similarities from one war to another. When the debate is over why we lost a war then differences like division strength armies in untouchable territory infiltrating in dense jungle and superpowers funneling arms to the ememy and providing air support and air defenses and an administration not willing to prosecute the war effectively matter a lot. They matter sufficiently that they make comparrisons w.r.t. less relevant and even fancifull issues impossible. Even comparrisons over local ethnicity are flawed, the situation is almost reversed in Iraq on some metrics. The one constant that is relevant is a political left doing their utmost to convince everyone that the war is unwinnable. It is a political strategy that has nothing to do with the facts on the ground.

I've already explained what's wrong with this. It's not that these conflicts weren't exactly alike. It's that they were profoundly different, I've listed the ways, and not just opinion, e.g. division strength opposition in untouchable territory, air support and opposing superpowers. Your final assertion is based on the same false premise. It is worth pointing out that we were told Gulf War I would be a Vietnam, and that Afghanistan would be a Vietnam. Applying a single ill formed lesson to every problem does not make a nation smarter, it does the opposite. You still refuse to aknowledge that the only data you posted to support your claims was a flawed comparrison as anyone can see if they look at troop deployments. This is important stuff Bill, if you post misleading data and keep throwing out claims refusing to admit your graph was misleading then where does that leave us? Will you at least acknowledge that the graph you posted was a politically motivated cynical manipulation of the data?

I didn't you read what you wanted to read from what I wrote. I never cited WMD's as a justification post facto, I was citing it purely as a political issue w.r.t. none being found (you did realize I used the word "lie" in there albeit purely for comparrison) . Once again you have ignored the numerous big issues I mentioned and gone back to your favorite single issue. The WMD one which everyone in the USA knows about but you pretend is a stealth issue. It's old dude, it's like listening to a broken record, and it wasn't the only issue going in, its main purpose was in getting the UN to tag along. Bill you've used specious comparrisons and refuse to admit it. The graph you posted showing casualties ignored little things like troop deployments. It's pure propaganda and pretty indefensible. The rest of your comparrisons remain irrelevent, just some Political Science fantasy fed to you by moveon.org & the blog sites. There are *vast differences* between Iraq and Vietnam, all the comparrisons points you mentioned just ignored most of what actually went wrong in Vietnam as I have pointed out. As I have said applying the Vietnam lesson to every war the US gets involved in is not illuminating. There have been numerous wars throughout the ages, won, lost or drawn, continually citing a single conflict that the USA withdrew from as the one that applies to whatever conflict the US is engaged at the moment in is a cynical attempt to influence public opinion. It's pure politics based on biased analysis. Your graph of casualties demonstrates that, it cynically exploits the ignorance of most Americans when it comes to the actual events and troop dispositions in these conflicts, and you posted it anyway.

No, the government explicitly stated it's goals w.r.t. opposing communism, or are you denying that the North was communist and the US mentioned this frequently and often. Again, everyone knew what the domino theory was as it related to geopolitical strategy in the region. Well you can keep spinning it like that but many don't see the war as the bill of goods you claim and not because they aren't informed. Once again you blatantly beg the question, your whole premise is based on flawed assumptions. In addition you talk as if the facts w.r.t. WMD are not clear to the public after a national election that raised the issues to the fore. You also ignore the overt publically announced geopolitical strategy of bringing some form of representative democracy and civilization to the Middle East. You and others insist on ignoring the big picture but this is infact the most compelling case in my opinion and it has been stated clearly by this administration for anyone with ears to hear. You ignore iron clad facts about Saddam's support in several forms for terrorists. You want to spin the administration's case as a total lie because it suits your political agenda. I've already listed many differences between Iraq and Vietnam. There's real people out there with guns planes bombs and support they win wars and the physical disposition of forces matters. To sit back and say we'll lose a war because some irrelevant lie about the Maddox is somehow similar to a lie about WMDs is pure fantasy. It reeks of the kind of political science conceit you see from your average journalist at work in the USA today.

A device could fail in theory but a reserve can entangle a main and become a ball of crap in theory too, infact it doesn't seem that improbable. It's an odds game and a skyhook changes the odds, no I wouldn't plan on relying on it but I might chop lower if I knew I had a skyhook. My life, my decision and my odds of living & dying. When you're down to your last contingency you're taking a chance either way and if it's between relying on a reserve not entangling a spinning main and a skyhook working I'd pick the skyhook, it's just *seems* like better odds of surviving and/or landing uninjured IMHO. Its performance changes the altitude at which I transition to another procedure. You roll your own dice, but ask yourself in advance what option you'd rather gamble on as you fell through 1000 ft with a low speed mal, SkyHook or two out? With no Skyhook I'd go straight for the reserve, but I hope I never have to put this to the test. Procedures and decisions shouldn't ignore equipment that has radically different performance characteristics, it sounds decisive but that's just too dogmatic for me. Yep I jump an Odyssey, but I might switch for a skyhook, it impresses me a lot. P.S. If you're jumping multiple rigs with & without then a single procedure/thinking process makes more sense. I'm talking about what I'd do if that were my rig and why.

I'm not missing it but you make better points than the post that started this thread although the situation is actually closer to the reverse (the Catholic rulling minority in Vietnam vs Buddhist majority is one obvious issue that springs to mind). Let me point out that before every US engagement the US public is warned by chicken littles that it'll be another Vietnam quagmire, its one of the national constants. We were told Afghanistan would be remember? The facts w.r.t. the conflict won't influence the hysteria. It's a domestic battle for political will, and specious comparrisons to other conflicts aren't illuminating, they're designed to confound rational judgement. Intentianally missleading graphs of casualties with no reguard to the troop dispositions are used to undermine that will, not inform anyone. w.r.t. the vietnam quagmire it had more to do with untouchable neighbors than local culture, but it was even more ridiculous in that the mighty U.S. didn't even seriously threaten the political center of it's direct enemy when it had the capacity to do so. Iraq would be more like Vietnam if Saddam was ensconced in say Fallujah and the US wouldn't touch the place meanwhile he was free to fly to Paris and meet with 'diplomats' while Russia and China funneled arms and provided close air support and defence over Fallujah in the North rivalling US Air superiority, while his standing army consisting of multiple divisions attacked the US in the south then retreated over to Iran as the US refused to follow it. Compound this by an incompetent west wing that ties hands with unreasonable rules of engagement that frustrate US fighting ability. Iraq is nothing like Vietnam. The comparrisons are ludicrous. Where you drop a bomb is just as important as the fact that you dropped it.

That's is fantasy war as it's taught to journalists in political science class. There are many areas where Iraq differs from vietnam and that observation has to be about the least scientific analysis it's possible to come up with. Apart from blatantly begging the question you're grabbing at a few unrelated facts and a comparing statistics of a small policing action to those of a massive invasion and occupation force. America lost Vietnam because it allowed the enemy to retreat into Laos without pursuing them and made other disasterous decisions, including tollerating overt sedition and fighting with one hand tied behind it's back, and believed that they had taken a blow during the Tet offensive when they'd actually delivered a crushing defeat to the enemy. There was a willingness to sacrifice the lives of young conscripted soldiers on the alter of international etiquette. The only time America prosecuted the war with the right vigor was when they were bombing North Vietnam to the negotiating table and the left still hates Kissinger for that (bombing the enemy, what an outrage!). It's unfortunate the way this has been whitewashed and propagandized for years because most Americans don't have a clue why they lost in Vietnam. As for pretexts and the Maddox, that's irrelevant, Americans knew they were there fighting communism and absolutely no secret was made of this (domino theory anyone) and they were there by the invite of the legitimate government at the time (by any standard then or now), abandoned by France (surprise, surprise). Iraq started with a massive land invasion followed by a significant occupation. Vietnam started with a small contingent of advisors and snowballed gradually. The real losers in the Vietnam war were the South Vietnamese who some Americans were all too willing to abandon to communist thugs. I have a vietnamese buddy in America, he's visited relatives back there and he's almost twice the height of the others there thanks to their wonderful economy. The underlying problem here is people object to killing when they see it on their TV but the quiet suffering and murder of millions is OK as long as it doesn't make the headlines. In some cases war is the lesser of two evils. There is one interesting and relevant parallel between Vietnam and Iraq. In both cases America had left wing propagandists doing their best to undermine the political will to prosecute the war. The question is will it work again.

I've seen lots of UFOs but just because I can't identify it doesn't mean it's an alien spaceship. I used to think most of this stuff was garbage except for a few inexplicable events with 'professionals' claiming adamantly that something is there or they saw something. Then I had first hand experience of people claiming to see a ghost on a security camera. Lots of people "trained professionals" saw the taped recording and nobody could explain it, the securrity guard went out to inspect the place and he was on the tape too with the ghost (or so it was claimed). Management locked up the tape for fear it would cause hysteria, so I insisted on viewing it, this was too good to miss. The tape was black & white and on it there was an out of focus shape moving to and fro with blurred whisps around it. It looked **exactly** like something suspended in a spiders web right in front of the camera with the wind blowing it around. No Ghost, I was disappointed, but surprised by the reactions of others. The thing never moved beyond a jiggle in the wind and was never occluded. It was something obscuring the lens. The fact is when seeing strange stuff most people are useless at analysis. They jump at some whacked theory instead of really trying to find an explanation, or with a lack of an explanation assume that there's some "gap in our understanding of the universe", no there's a gap in our understanding of one event that you have very limited information about. Others reinforce their whacked theories with layer upon layer of unfounded conjecture ignoring mountains of evidence. Whitley Strieber runs with a cabal of fools who believe the most questionable garbage while insulting the belief systems of skeptics, but the truth is that real scientists and physicists actually believe and can experimentally demonstrate stuff more profoundly mind blowing than something as mundane as aliens in flying saucers. Most astronomers (and probably most scientists) expect there's life on other worlds, perhaps even intelligent life of sorts in places, this is not just some idle conjecture but based on mountains of scientific research *and* some conjecture. That doesn't lend credence to the likes of Whitley Strieber. According to his own admission Whitley recalled abductions lucidly after hypnotic regression (I think by a UFO abduction hypnotist). This is actually not that uncommon among abductee reports, there's a cottage industry of hypnotherapists around the phenomenon.

I don't know how rare it is but I'd guess it's a significant portion of real saves. I have heard that cutaways with no reserve deployment used to be a significant contributor to fatalities before AADs. If saves are underreported then it casts even more doubt on the results. One thing we can't be sure about for every two out is what the outcome would have been without the AAD firing. I expect a small fraction of those are still saves.

I think my friend who shot up into the air at nearly a 45 degree angle at the end of a botched swoop under his highly loaded Onyx would have to disagree... Excellent diagram

Where's the cutaway and cypress fire? I thought this used to be a common cause of fatalities (low cutaway & no reserve pull) but there's no poll entry for what would be an important mode of cypress saves.

I had a similar thing happen with a knee injury recently. After treatment etc they handed the case off to a recovery firm. It seems like medical insurance firms automatically do this after an accident related injury. They asked if it was an auto accident (maybe to chase the auto insurance) or if anyone else was to blame etc. I just gave the facts plain and simple. "Was anyone else to blame for your accident/injury?", "No.". Never really filed any formal injury report with the sport I was participating in but I did let the owners know what I'd done.

I don't hate the show, but I get annoyed when they get it so obviously wrong. Even a whuffo could look at the screen and see there's something wrong with a spiel and for my money the show would be better with accurate information not invented B.S.

You mean that's not the luggage compartment? Who knew, I'd better go get some pointers from a rigger. Where do you I get one of these 'mains' you're "supposed" to put in it?

I suppose you had to see it. I watched it several times focusing on his arms, they did not impact, the way he rolled was almost perfect. Legs.... you can never tell, he did plf and needed to so it's possible he hurt his leg, it didn't show you any aftermath, but I'd bet he didn't. The real flashpoint of course was the accompanying commentary. "Descending dangerously fast because he opened low". No, the guy was riding a perfectly good reserve and he landed it perfectly in nice grassy field right where the camera was expecting him.

Well I just watched a new jumper "Jim" who had a mal on his first static line jump followed by a cutaway and a round reserve ride on RealTV, the guy saved his own ass and did a great PLF. The commentator concluded by saying that the guy broke both arms and fractured his leg. On the video the guy's arms barely touched the ground and he was pulling on his risers just before the PLF, and his PLF was perfect, he absolutely did not break his arms they only touched the ground during a roll. Unless this guy is made of glass he didn't fracture his leg either. One more shot at skydiving when the guy seemed to come out unscathed. Yea I know I'm crazy for getting annoyed with RealTV, it's like getting angry at a retard for drooling, but I'm pissed off.

Got mine recently too, with booties, already jumped it. It fits like a charm and the booties are perfect with a normal pair of nikes too, I'm very happy with this suit. I was measured by Sally at zhills and she must have done something right.

One murdering scumbag sent to the hereafter...... priceless. Can't they get a volume discount by offing a batch of them at once?