Andy9o8

Great piece.

I set up an LLC, got an IRS EIN and set up a separate small business bank account. Only business income goes in there, only business expenses come out. Also have a separate credit card just for my business. I made this arrangement partly to make record keeping easier. ...The other part being: to (hopefully) limit your liability and thus protect your personal assets from being jeopardized by business liability.

Maybe you haven't heard about what the Russians did to the Chechen civilians. It was a horror show. http://www.christusrex.org/www1/icons/russ-atrocities.html What the Russians did in Chechnya was nothing short of genocide. Treat people as inhuman and that is what they will become. Agreed. Looking at the whole history, and not just cherry-picking what the Russians allow to be reported, it seems like finger-pointing more at one than the other is quite unfair. The parlance is also unfair. Governments and their military (who have far more access to and control of news reporting) are always about "security campaigns" and "law and order"; while armed civilians fighting the government are always "terrorists" (or, before, WWII, "anarchists). We shouldn't be so quick to jump on the Chechen-bashing bandwagon without looking at the other side, too.

I think I read they were going to do a controlled demo of the suspects' house. don't we have robots for this? http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rz1d63DccRM/T2y0RVsaVxI/AAAAAAAAJGs/jRH4eWsPVIA/s1600/Simpsons.jpg

I hear the women there have a lovely glow.

If they can't afford to replace the canopy, what good does a written agreement do for you? You want to spend money to sue a guy who can't afford a used canopy? How about in the case of injury? Forget about you being sued because it was your rig, but let's say the guy breaks a leg, plevis or whatever. Now the EMTs may cut the rig off of him, and if the guy doesn't have insurance, repairing your rig is going to be at the end of a very long list of bills he has to pay. Even with insurance, the loss of income is going to leave you with a cut harness and not much else. DZs and gear stores rent gear because it facilitates other business. Even then, they have other streams of revenue to offset any looses they might incur based on a 'problem' during a rental situation. As a stand-alone business proposition, it just doesn't make any sense. Post the rig in the classifieds, and just sell it outright. This time of year, used gear tends to sell quick, and you'll get cash in yout pocket with no 'ongoing' situations to worry about. Annoying lawyer here. Agreed, for all these reasons. With or without a written agreement, renting's too risky (versus benefit) for the private owner, unless you know the person well, AND he lives locally, AND he has plenty of money and a good job. I agree with "sell it outright" if a need for money is your prime motivator. If not, you can always just keep it in your closet to have jumpable gear on hand if the itch to get back into the sky needs to be scratched in a couple-few years.

What kind of beer?

Filibusters in the Senate have existed since the early 19th Century. The US Supreme Court impliedly sustained the practice in 1892 in US v. Ballin. Through history, each party has used it to its advantage. All depends on whose ox gets gored, I suppose.

Blame the Germans (which, you have to admit, is always fun).

As an aside, in most states "the local approach" is usually defeated in court on grounds of "preemption", because the subject matter is already governed by applicable state law. (Just as federal laws preempt state laws, state laws preempt local laws.)

A gun shoots bullets like a hammer pounds nails. You are free to decide where to put those bullets and nails...the tools don't care. Are these guns primarily built to kill people? Nope. They're designed to shoot at whatever the competitor is pointing at (hopefully NOT a person) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISSF_shooting_events You're engaging in semantic masturbation, Dave. I'm surprised because you usually don't do that.

Hells yeah. Out flag has titties on it, too. Looks ambiguously androgynous. Could be man-boobs.

Picking nits, "Sic semper tyranus" means "Thus always to tyrants", not death to tyrants. Consider: an entire state whose motto basically translates to "Stick it up your ass." Classic.

I can't believe that 89 posts on, we have intelligent people seriously disputing the premise that the principle design of a firearm is to serve as a weapon. Very Twilight Zone surreal, I have to say. Kind of like arguing with the religiously devout over a point of pure faith. Yes, the bush actually burned with actual fire, but was never consumed. Yes, Mary gave birth to Jesus, even though she was a virgin. Yeah, ok, whatever.

One purpose is for market/issue research, where the results are generally not made public. The client has a high interest in keeping this type of poll accurate, since they may act in reliance upon its results. A second purpose is to deliberately sway public opinion. Obviously, that's not going to be objective. A third purpose is journalistic reporting. If done by a news medium with either an issue-bias or a general bias, the results must obviously be scrutinized for potential bias; sometimes the bias will be there, sometimes it won't. If done by an independent polling company whose brand name depends on its reputation for sound methodology and objectivity, then, in theory at least, the poll-taker has an interest in keeping the poll as neutral and accurate as possible.

Oh, that's too bad, I was expecting a 'social justice' argument. Well, I can always hope DreamDancer or one of his sock puppets come out.... (but I don't, I don't wish that on all the good people here) Damn!! I shoulda named the title "Corporate Social Justice". Oh, well, locked is locked.

That kind of thinking is paranoid and irrational. Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't conspiring against you.

Aw, jeez. So much for that DZ out in international waters I was thinking of starting.

You're simply determined to dismiss it out-of-hand, by any rationalization. No thought process; just dismissal. Whatever.

Completely false, the Boston marathon bombs have shown that pressure cookers can be used as weapons and therefore are protected by the second. Duh Taken to its logical extreme, that argument can be made. Most technically, anything that can be considered to be within the category of "arms" can be argued to be protected under the Second.

Now that's just racist, What they ever do to you. http://www.livingelectro.com/files/images/s/36977/139783.jpg

Most non-rural people probably don't realize that the (broad) agriculture industry is one of the most hazardous environments to work in. Tragedies like this bring that home.

Still risky. The IRS considers "1099 abuse" to be endemic, and they're cracking down.

Good point; I changed it to "Decency". Ok the title is locked.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/ceo-shares-bonus-employees/story?id=18981639