StreetScooby

Anyone out there looking to do a 4-way competition team in the Northeast? I live just outside of NYC, and am willing to drive 2+ hours for a good crew. Intermediate is fine, advanced with the right people. Looking for a multiple year commitment with people that want to be on the podium. We are all engines of karma

I ride NYC subways every day now, and I don't particularly care for it. We are all engines of karma

Pretty shocking. We are all engines of karma

Otherwise referred to as culture, which is what your mom and dad teach you at the dinner table. We are all engines of karma

For Christ sakes, Missouri is north of Arkansas. How could it be in the south? We are all engines of karma

Through his skin, didn't you know that? We are all engines of karma

If you want to worry about something a little more immediate, here's a recent WSJ article. This gets my attention... ================================================== Opinion The Growing Threat From an EMP Attack A nuclear device detonated above the U.S. could kill millions, and we've done almost nothing to prepare. By R. James Woolsey And Peter Vincent Pry Aug. 12, 2014 7:14 p.m. ET In a recent letter to investors, billionaire hedge-fund manager Paul Singer warned that an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, is "the most significant threat" to the U.S. and our allies in the world. He's right. Our food and water supplies, communications, banking, hospitals, law enforcement, etc., all depend on the electric grid. Yet until recently little attention has been paid to the ease of generating EMPs by detonating a nuclear weapon in orbit above the U.S., and thus bringing our civilization to a cold, dark halt. Recent declassification of EMP studies by the U.S. government has begun to draw attention to this dire threat. Rogue nations such as North Korea (and possibly Iran) will soon match Russia and China and have the primary ingredients for an EMP attack: simple ballistic missiles such as Scuds that could be launched from a freighter near our shores; space-launch vehicles able to loft low-earth-orbit satellites; and simple low-yield nuclear weapons that can generate gamma rays and fireballs. The much neglected 2004 and 2008 reports by the congressional EMP Commission—only now garnering increased public attention—warn that "terrorists or state actors that possess relatively unsophisticated missiles armed with nuclear weapons may well calculate that, instead of destroying a city or a military base, they may gain the greatest political-military utility from one or a few such weapons by using them—or threatening their use—in an EMP attack." The EMP Commission reports that: "China and Russia have considered limited nuclear-attack options that, unlike their Cold War plans, employ EMP as the primary or sole means of attack." The report further warns that: "designs for variants of such weapons may have been illicitly trafficked for a quarter-century." During the Cold War, Russia designed an orbiting nuclear warhead resembling a satellite and peaceful space-launch vehicle called a Fractional Orbital Bombardment System. It would use a trajectory that does not approach the U.S. from the north, where our sensors and few modest ballistic-missile defenses are located, but rather from the south. The nuclear weapon would be detonated in orbit, perhaps during its first orbit, destroying much of the U.S. electric grid with a single explosion high above North America. In 2004, the EMP Commission met with senior Russian military personnel who warned that Russian scientists had been recruited by North Korea to help develop its nuclear arsenal as well as EMP-attack capabilities. In December 2012, the North Koreans successfully orbited a satellite, the KSM-3, compatible with the size and weight of a small nuclear warhead. The trajectory of the KSM-3 had the characteristics for delivery of a surprise nuclear EMP attack against the U.S. What would a successful EMP attack look like? The EMP Commission, in 2008, estimated that within 12 months of a nationwide blackout, up to 90% of the U.S. population could possibly perish from starvation, disease and societal breakdown. In 2009 the congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, whose co-chairmen were former Secretaries of Defense William Perry and James Schlesinger, concurred with the findings of the EMP Commission and urged immediate action to protect the electric grid. Studies by the National Academy of Sciences, the Department of Energy, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the National Intelligence Council reached similar conclusions. What to do? Surge arrestors, faraday cages and other devices that prevent EMP from damaging electronics, as well micro-grids that are inherently less susceptible to EMP, have been used by the Defense Department for more than 50 years to protect crucial military installations and strategic forces. These can be adapted to protect civilian infrastructure as well. The cost of protecting the national electric grid, according to a 2008 EMP Commission estimate, would be about $2 billion—roughly what the U.S. gives each year in foreign aid to Pakistan. Last year President Obama signed an executive order to guard critical infrastructure against cyberattacks. But so far this administration doesn't seem to grasp the urgency of the EMP threat. However, in a rare display of bipartisanship, Congress is addressing the threat. In June 2013, Rep. Trent Franks (R., Ariz.) and Rep. Yvette Clark (D., N.Y.) introduced the Secure High-voltage Infrastructure for Electricity from Lethal Damage, or Shield, Act. Unfortunately, the legislation is stalled in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In October 2013, Rep. Franks and Rep. Pete Sessions (R., Texas) introduced the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act. CIPA directs the Department of Homeland Security to adopt a new National Planning Scenario focused on federal, state and local emergency planning, training and resource allocation for survival and recovery from an EMP catastrophe. Yet this important legislation hasn't come to a vote either. What is lacking in Washington is a sense of urgency. Lawmakers and the administration need to move rapidly to build resilience into our electric grid and defend against an EMP attack that could deliver a devastating blow to the U.S. economy and the American people. Congress should pass and the president should sign into law the Shield Act and CIPA as soon as possible. Literally millions of American lives could depend on it. Mr. Woolsey is chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former director of the CIA.Mr. Pry served on the EMP Commission, in the CIA, and is the author of "Electric Armageddon" (CreateSpace, 2013). ================================================== I read this fiction book about this scenario. It's horrifying... One Second After We are all engines of karma

I've made it through the first paper, and related articles. Been very busy with a new job, so this took longer than I expected. Is there a scientific consensus on global warming? As presented, I have no problems with this paper. As has been summarized before in this thread we know the following: This discussion/argument is really around points 3 and 4, at this point in time, IMO. billvon has made the point that humans are the only sustained driving force in climate change right now due to our increasing CO2 emissions (...I am NOT talking about the United States here, I'm talking about the entire planet). That is a valid point, though I'm not sure I'd agree we're the only sustained driving force. Watched an interesting science channel show last night about the various phases the Earth has already gone through. One of the most catastrophic changes happened when cyanobacteria (Wikipedia Cyanobacteria) started producing massive amounts of oxygen. Completely destroyed most life forms that existed then. So, there can be non-human driving forces to climate. Which others are out there now doing so? Cows, ants? What else? To be clear in my understanding, without a doubt CO2 impacts the climate. Without a doubt humans are increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. There is doubt whether this is going to be catastrophic as being "sold" by politicians. Without a doubt, there is nothing being proposed by any American politician that is going to have any impact on this problem, other than taking more money out of our pockets and giving them more control over our lives. I agree the planet should reduce CO2 emissions. If it really is as serious at stated, then nuclear is the only viable option right now. Within 10 years, we can dramatically reduce CO2 emissions while we continue looking for non-nuclear forms of energy. The big problem here are the politicians, and the uninformed people who are blindly following them. Here are just some recent examples of "politicians" that have no clue of the impact of what they're talking about: Electrical Workers vs. the EPA The EPA is out of control, and people are beginning to realize it. Actually, they are flat out crazy. This decision is going to have a real impact on real people, and it's going to be a massively negative one while having a negligible impact on global warming. This is happening now in my area: New York environment regulators seek summer shutdown at Indian Point Indian Point: Summer shutdowns pitched to protect fish It's actually fish EGGS, they are looking to protect. They seem to have forgotten that Indian Point provides 25% of the power in the lower Hudson Valley, which includes New York City, and the shutdown would occur during the 3 months of summer. This effort is being driven by Robert Kennedy's Riverwatch organization. THIS IS BAT POOP CRAZY. Robert Kennedy, and his political friends, are in dire need of adult supervision, IMO. This begs the question wrto someone who is BAT POOP CRAZY. How do you have a conversation with them about being BAT POOP CRAZY? You don't, it simply won't work. The EPA, Robert Kennedy, and associated people who are advocating absolutely crazy solutions to a non-catastrophic problem are out of control. And you can't talk to them about it. I don't see any adults on that side of the room, and it frightens me far more than the possibility of a 2 degF hike in global temps over the next 100 years. We are all engines of karma

ROFLMAO... By the way, PLFKING, Les has a lot of home grown talent in Louisiana to work with. They may not be able to read well, but they can definitely play football... We are all engines of karma

I thought I did something wrong... We are all engines of karma

As controversial as this is, that was pretty cool.

LOL, that was a thoughtful response on their part. We are all engines of karma

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This is an article in the 27-Jul-2014 weekend WSJ. This guy apparently followed Jeb Corliss around. It's not a flattering portrait of base jumping/wingsuiting. Wonder what the public will think, and if there will be an "outcry". ================================================= Wingsuit Insanity Book Review: 'Bird Dream' by Matt Higgins Wingsuit-wearing daredevils slash through the sky like flying squirrels, at more than 100 miles per hour—without a parachute. By Gregory Couch July 25, 2014 4:33 p.m. ET In dreams we soar, not like the Wright Brothers harnessed to mechanical contrivances, but like birds, swooping and gliding on the wings of whim and imagination. To fly like that in waking reality became the holy grail of hyper-adventurous BASE jumpers in recent years, as advances in "wingsuits"—with aerodynamic fabric stretched between arms and legs—made the dream seem possible. The quest to glide through the sky and land without using a parachute became known as the Wingsuit Landing Project, and cutting-edge practitioners around the world raced to be the first person to make it happen. Gary Connery leaps from Monte Brento in Italy in 2012 while preparing for his parachuteless landing on a stack of cardboard boxes later that year. Getty Images BASE jumping, parachuting from fixed objects, is likely the world's most extreme sport. Buildings, Antennas, Spans (bridges) and Earth (cliffs) make up the BASE quadfecta. Jumpers leap with no reserve parachute, from so close to the ground that second chances are irrelevant, fighting off the ever-present fear of "going in," as the discipline's nonchalant patois describes unplanned impact. The sport became even more outrageous with the advent, in the 1990s, of modern wingsuits, which make human gliders of skydivers and BASE jumpers. They slash through the sky like flying squirrels—at more than 100 miles per hour. In "Bird Dream," Matt Higgins cracks open this astonishingly dangerous sport and captures the spectacular adrenaline surges it delivers. He tells this riveting tale primarily perched on the shoulders of jet-setting Southern California rich kid Jeb Corliss, one of the sport's rock stars. Mr. Corliss, Mr. Higgins writes, was an angry, awkward youth who felt rejected at all turns. His life "lacked a plot" until he began BASE jumping in the late 1990s. The sport gave him purpose and direction, and "by risking his life he knew he would win something else: psychic relief and a growing sense of self-awareness and self-confidence." In the coming years, Mr. Corliss would make more than a thousand jumps from some of the world's most famous landmarks, including Venezuela's Angel Falls, the Eiffel Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge, as well as from a jimmied window on the 50th floor of New York's Palace Hotel. He grew into a brash, abrasive BASE-jumping advocate so obsessed with the color black that a girlfriend once had to talk him out of painting his bedroom walls black—to match his clothes, sunglasses, helmet, wingsuit, parachutes, furniture. Developed in the 1960s and '70s by secretive skydiving enthusiasts looking to push back the frontiers of the possible, BASE jumping has skyrocketed in popularity due to the spread of social media, the invention of wearable point-of-view cameras, and especially the development of high-performance wingsuits. Mr. Corliss has proved particularly successful at publicizing his spectacular stunts online. His gobsmacking video "Grinding the Crack" has received more than 27 million views. Inevitably, there is also graphic carnage, the dark side of the often graceful flights. And there is no episode in "Bird Dream" more stomach-churning than a wingsuit flight that Mr. Corliss made with pioneer BASE jumper Dwain Weston at the suspension bridge that spans Colorado's Royal Gorge. Their plan called for Weston to soar over the bridge's suspension cables in his bright yellow wingsuit while Mr. Corliss, wearing characteristic black, flew beneath the bridge deck. They jumped from a plane and angled out of the sky toward hundreds of spectators crowding the bridge. Mr. Corliss aimed underneath, as planned, but Weston, rather than flying over both bridge cables, decided to shoot over the near cable and duck under the far one. Instead, he hit the far guardrail at well above 100 miles per hour. His body exploded, and his parachute opened directly in Mr. Corliss's flight path. Mr. Corliss "swerved hard to avoid a collision and passed through a shower of debris," Mr. Higgins writes. Deploying his 'chute, Mr. Corliss landed next to the river below the bridge, not yet comprehending events. He "spotted a severed leg not far from where he stood. Recoiling, he touched his wingsuit and noticed it was wet. Looking down, he saw that it was drenched in a dark liquid. That's when it hit him that he was covered in Weston's blood." In the wake of the fatality, Mr. Corliss spent many hours wondering if jumping "was worth dying for." He decided it was. He created another Internet sensation flying a wingsuit through a hole in a mountain in China for a Red Bull promotion. "The Wingsuit Landing Project," a term coined by Mr. Corliss, seemed the logical "next step." He envisioned a multi-million-dollar stunt in which he would land a wingsuit without any parachute at all, on a ramp mounted to the side of a Las Vegas casino. Unbeknownst to him, an unheralded English BASE jumper and wingsuit pilot named Gary Connery harbored a similar dream. Driven to make his own mark, Mr. Connery had imagined a totally different, low-budget, low-tech solution. Mr. Connery scraped together a living as a stuntman, and in his world it was routine to take six- and eight-story falls into big stacks of cardboard boxes, which prove excellent at absorbing impact forces. He envisioned simply landing his wingsuit on a much bigger pile. According to Mr. Connery's calculations, he needed 18,600 cardboard boxes to be confident his fall would safely be broken. After many anxious weeks trying to keep his boxes dry while waiting out a long spell of horrid English weather, Mr. Connery used mass emails to mobilize a barn-raising-style work force that assembled the boxes into a 12-foot-high, 40-foot-wide, 350-foot-long pile in a farmer's field. On the afternoon of May 23, 2012, with his wife and children watching, Mr. Connery jumped from a helicopter 2,400 feet over the English countryside and swooped down to a flawless landing. He emerged from his cardboard aircraft carrier unscathed, beaming, having fulfilled a dream—he had done something no human being had ever done before. Gracious in defeat, Jeb Corliss called Mr. Connery's feat "the greatest stunt ever performed." Little wealth accrued to Mr. Connery in the aftermath, although he did parachute into the opening ceremonies of the London Olympics beneath a Union Jack canopy dressed as Queen Elizabeth, an feat witnessed by millions. Mr. Connery's great friend Mark Sutton —who had done much to help him land his wingsuit—jumped as James Bond. Tragically, Sutton was killed while wingsuit flying in Italy the following year. —Mr. Crouch is the author of "China's Wings: War, Intrigue, Romance, and Adventure in the Middle Kingdom During the Golden Age of Flight." We are all engines of karma

D'Souza also points out that America is the only country to have had a civil war over slavery, and we ended it after the loss of 500,000 lives. This was done so blacks could enjoy the fruits of their labor. We are all engines of karma

Well, if you're charged with writing laws it's kind of important that you know what you're doing, IMO... My perception is Democrats like to right vague laws and hope they get put in front of an "activist" judge who can use his "wisdom" to decide what it means that day. That's not the rule of law, as I understand it. We are all engines of karma

You're wrong, jakee. There's a series of business that Holder, et. al., don't like and are definitely targeting. It is happening, and has been going on for a little while now. We are all engines of karma

I knew I could rely upon you for a simple answer. Such things take considerable skill, IMO. Love it. We are all engines of karma

Ouchy, that stings... but it's a fair statement . I've gone back through this thread and collected the various articles you've posted. Had to track some down. Before I post them as a double check, a few quick questions: 1) What do you think of these climate sites? Climate Central Climate Etc. 2) You refer to a "Survey of Scientists" in post #404. Do you have a link to it? Here's a summary of links to the actual papers you've quoted. Let me know if they're wrong, or if I've missed one: Is there a scientific consensus on global warming? The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change Expert credibility in climate change Thanks. I look forward to reading these. On a side note, my wife and I have looked into the NY State program that supports putting solar panels on your home. A lot to figure out, yet, but it's on the project list. Unfortunately, I am no where near as skilled with my hands as you are, so this project is still "long term". BTW - I tracked down the Nature Archive. Wow, that looks great! We are all engines of karma

Are you saying this isn't happening in America right now, that it's a figment of someone's imagination? We are all engines of karma

Hey, thanks for the reply. My interest is not in what might be known about me, I want to know what my employer knows about me. Full disclosure. It's a right I've exercised before, and I think it's good practice. We are all engines of karma

Well, I've been rooting around the internet for a while today trying to track this down. Seems like, in general, you are _not_ entitled to a copy of the background "report" as received by your "employer". You are entitled to a background "file" from the consumer reporting agency hired by your employer, assuming they didn't do the checks in house. There can be a big difference between the two. Before running a check, the employer must ask your permission. Then is the time to get them to agree to give you a copy of the full "report" (wording is important here) as a reasonable condition to your permission. This assumes you're comfortable with the people, because they can legally deny you employment if you don't agree to the background check. California is different, and New York is different. In New York, I'm entitled to the "report" (vs "file") from the "reporting agency", not the employer itself. At least, that's my current understanding. But, consumer reporting agencies don't keep the reports, and their files on a person can be small. In California, I believe you are entitled to the actual "report" from the "employer", which is the way it should be. Anyway, time for me to find a lawyer and asked some informed questions if my current employer wants to be an ass about this... Ahck... Thought I'd put this out here in case anyone was interested. We are all engines of karma

I reread your Post #423, and agree with you on this one. I was projecting

The background checks that I've received have typically been over 1/2" thick, double sided printing. It was shocking to me the first time I saw how much and in depth they went. Here's a good site that talks about this: "Other" Consumer Reports: What You Should Know about "Specialty" Reports The PrivacyRights.org site is good, and contains a lot of information. Every one should know what is out there in "the system" about themselves, IMO. You'll probably find this URL of interest, also: Background Checks & Workplace The law's text can be found here: Fair Credit Reporting Act We are all engines of karma

Yes, vote while you can. And pray that we aren't forced into an alternative. We are all engines of karma