riggerrob

Disney figured out that their customers include more than just traditional, nuclear families with a husband, wife and 2.5 children. Nuclear families may have been the norm when I was born 64 years ago, but the world has changed a lot since then. Disney is following the money. Disney is far too wise to exclude single mothers. Which reminds me of a friend who is a single mother to two children. She was widowed after her husband fell from a ladder. Would it be wise for Disney to exclude her family? ... because they are no longer a traditional nuclear family? Would it be polite for Disney to exclude her non-nuclear family?

The larger the organization, the less likely a message will be passed properly. The more layers in the organization, the less likely the message will be passed properly. If management made a decision, but nobody told the man with the wrench ... did management really make a decision? I used to see this sort of foolishness every day when I served in the Canadian Armed Forces (1974 to 1987).

I agree with everything Wendy said except for her 5th point. Human birth rates are declining and populations will start declining around 2050. Human birth rates have been declining since circa 1970. Once young women get enough education that they can earn dollars outside of the house, they also realize that modern medicine has reduced infant mortality rates to the point that most of their children will survive to adulthood. Ergo little need to birth more than 2 or 3 children. First World birth rates have been below replacement rates (2.2 children per woman) for even longer. Second World birth rates have also been declining to below replacement rates. It is only a few Third World countries that still have high birth rates. See Nigeria which is the most populous country in Africa and projected to exceed the population of main land China by 2050. How Nigeria can feed that many mouths with a swampy Southern coast-line and an arid northern third is a mystery to me??????? Low birth rates force First World countries to accept thousands of immigrants per year to do lower-paying jobs. For example, British Columbia has to import hundreds of seasonal Mexican farm laborers (fruit-pickers) every summer because Canadian citizens do not want to work long days for minimum wage. Several first world countries are already experiencing serious labor shortages because of low birth rates. Main land China's "One Child Policy" may have solved a population problem, but it created other problems. Gender-specific abortions reduced the number of baby girls to the point that main land China now suffers from a shortage of brides ... conversely ... an excess of un-married young men. Un-married young men are far more likely to riot, etc. OTOH low birth rates can drive global politics in unpleasant ways. Consider the current Russian problem of too few young men of military age. If you look back a century, a Russian boy born in 1920 had only a 20 percent chance of surviving World War 2 (ended in 1945). Many millions of those deaths were during battle, but huge numbers also died during the Russian Revolution, Ukrainian Civil War,, Stalin's Purges, Holomodor Famine, occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s, Chechin Wars, etc. Russia also suffered low birth rates during the confusing period after the Iron Curtain fell. Current Russian birth rates are hampered by age, alcoholism and abortions. Age problems are the results of a series of waves of birth rate slumps echoing back to the 1930s. With shortages of young men of marriageable age, few young Russian women want to raise families as single mothers. Alcoholism is caused by all the cheap vodka causing "brewer's droop" and shortening the lives of Russian men since Tzarist times. Finally, abortion is the only form of pre-natal care available to to millions of Russian women. Mr. Poutine felt compelled to invade Ukraine this year, because he knew that if he waited another decade, he would not be able to field enough soldiers. Russia is reluctant to admit immigrants who are visible minorities. This xenophobia is understandable given all the times that Russia has been invaded by: Austrians, British, French, Germans, Hungarians, Kyrgyrs, Lithuanians, Ottomans, Poles, Swedes, Sythians, Turks, Vikings, etc. Moscow suffers from too few natural lines of defense across the North European Plain. THE NEP extends from the Normandy Coast all the way to the Ural Mountains. I want to make it clear that I understand the paranoia that drives Mr. Poutine's current invasion of Ukraine, but Mr. Poutine's paranoid does not justify the current slaughter in Ukraine.

Reference the debate about NATO allies not paying their fair share .... May I compare with the notion that the USA is many billions of dollars behind on their payments to the United Nations? The USA pays its UN commitments in other ways. For example: "5 I" countries (Australia, Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and USA) lose money every time they send troops on UN peace-keeping missions. The UN pays a fixed number of dollars per soldier/police peacekeeper serving in the disputed country. But "5 I" countries "go heavy" supplying their troops with trucks, APCs, helicopters, mortars, heavy machineguns, snipers, field hospitals, surveillance drones, extensive communications, intelligence officers and robust supply chains. Those robust supply chains "push" forward water, food, clothing, tents, sleeping bags, blankets, bandages, toilet paper, batteries, ammunition, truck spare parts, petroleum, oil and lubricants, and hundreds of other consumable supplies. "5 I" peacekeepers quickly out-spend their UN budgets. The advantage is that the vast majority of "5 I" soldiers return home at the end of their UN missions. In comparison, poorer nations (Carribbean or African) collect the same number of dollars from the UN, but their officers pocket most of the dollars. Junior ranking peace-keepers arrive in-country with barely their rifles and the uniforms on their backs. Junior soldiers rarely see their UN pay. Meanwhile, they need to request supplies through lengthy UN supply chains that include sending out requests for bids, evaluating bids, etc.

Canadian Royal Commission inquires are frequently excuses to delay decisions for many years - sometimes decades - until funding becomes available. Meanwhile, the ongoing bureaucracy wastes millions of dollars. Just look at the long string of Canadian Defense procurement fiascos: Sea King helicopter replacement, DHC-5 Buffalo replacement, CF-18 replacement, CH-47 Chinook helicopter replacement, Centurion tank replacement, Leopard I tank replacement, etc.

You may call me a boring old libertarian, Unitarian/Universalist, but I get embarrassed when right-wingers talk loudly about a third-party's sexuality. What need-to-know do they have about some third-party's sexuality? I don't believe that I have a need-to-know about some one else's sexual history until we agree to sexual intercourse. Even then, my need-to-know is limited to sexually-transmitted-diseases. May I suggest that nosey right-wingers get their noses out of third-party's sexuality?

Which reminds me of the latest political silliness in Canada. Some critics complained that a recent political (federal Conservative Party) rally in Alberta contained too few visible minorities. First off, Canada contains a much smaller percentage of "visible minorities" than the USA, so it is silly to try to hold any Canadian political rally to the same racial quotas as the USA. Secondly, African-Americans are scarcer in Canada because slaver was never profitable. Thirdly, Canadian law restricted immigration of non-whites until 1962, ergo we still have fewer visible minorities. Fourthly, within a few generations of immigration, most immigrants inter-marry with other races, blurring racial distinctions. I cannot be bothered to waste brain cells to determine whether some-one is a half-breed, quadroon, octroon, etc. Finally, since Alberta is far from the coast (traditional immigration entrances) the province has fewer visible minorities than coastal provinces. Granted, Alberta does include small numbers of African, Asian, Jewish, Muslem, South Asian, Polynesian, etc. but they are still a tiny percentage of the provincial population. Bottom line, trying to hold Canadian politicians to American racial quotas is silly.

What? I have dropped hundreds of static-line and IAD students from 2,800 or 3,000 feet because that was the norm (USPA and CSPA BSRs) back then (1982 to 2006). Dumbing-down AFFers first hop-and-pop to 4500' is a dis-service. Maybe do their first hop-and-pop from 5,000' - to get them over their fears - but then step down hop-and-pops to 3,000 feet because the primary reason for hop-and-pops is to get them over the fear and hesitation of doing hop-and-pops if they are limited by low clouds or an engine quits. I once had to spend half a day sewing back together a student container because a recently graduated freefall student tumbled an exit from a King Air flying at 4,000 feet. He deployed his main while tumbling and partially tore the reserve container away from the main container. He tumbled the exit because he was flustered about having to exit so "LOW." They were limited by low clouds that day. I have had to do similar repairs to Javelins, Sidewinders, Talons, Vectors, etc. after unstable openings. I later talked the Sidewinder manufacturer into adding triangular flaps to reduce the risk of main lines ripping off reserve containers. Then I sewed those little triangles onto our dozen student Sidewinders.

Does anyone remember how Russia quickly dispensed with all those troublesome, Muslim "stans" (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrghistan, Tajikistan, etc. after the Iron Curtain collapsed? Russia tried to retain across to Chechnian oil, but they proved a bloody process. Russia tried to retreat to the old Russian-speaking, Orthodox Christian, white-skinned core of Russia after the Iron Curtain fell.

Mr. Poutine is just using the Russian Orthodox Church to support his bloody regime. The Russian Orthodox Church are little more than puppets in this respect. ROC rank right up there with Mr. Poutine's pet Night Wolves. Hah! Hah! One thing the USA got right - from the start - was separation of church and state. They did it for two reasons: first, the Pope was too many thousands of miles away to make timely decisions about the 13 Colonies. Secondly, many American colonists were descended from refugees who had fled the numerous religious wars that had ravaged Europe: Spanish Reconquista, 30 Years War, English Civil War, suppression of Hugenots, suppression of Jews, Spanish Inquisition, Siege of Vienna, Great Northern War, etc. and the last thing they wanted was a return of that same foolishness. Thankfully, the majority of Canadians have adopted American attitudes towards religious wars and belive in separation of church and state. I don't know if it is enshrined in the latest version of Rights and Freedoms, but the average Canadian citizen wants gov't to stay out of religion.

Agreeing with Billvon ... Over the last decade I have seen North American media severely dumbed-down. The decline started back during the 1990s when I worked in the Southern California skydiving industry: California City, Hemet. Perris and Elsinore, I soon concluded that the Los Angeles Times fixated on stories originating in the LA Basin. The LA Times only occassionally mentioned events in other states and largely ignored Europe, S during my days off, I drove 1 hour to a newspaper store that carried: Manchester Guardian, Paris Match, der Spiegel, Toronto Globe and Mail, etc. to understand the global picture. These days I read a half-dozen internet feeds and keep a PAPER copy of The Economist in my pocket. We have also seen North American severely polarized to the point that right-wingers only have to listen to their version of the "correct" news on a dozen different conservative news feeds. By the same token, I have to bite my tongue when my left-wing, tree-hugging friends get too excited about the latest "woke" news story. Bottom line, current trends towards polarization are scary because they only push voting blocs farther apart. .

If you can fix the problems created by lawyers charging too much ... then I will take you seriously. My experience has been that lawyers create more problems - than they solve - during personal injury lawsuits.

That brave Russian missile cruiser successfully intercepted a pair of Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship missiles. Russian airplanes bombed the Neptune factory to prevent a reapeat.

Stop worrying about the money. Worrying will only make you tense up and mess up a dive. The schedule is written for the perfect student while most students require an "extra" dive or two complete all of the targeted learning objectives. I have concluded dozens of student logbook entries with "Go for a modified Level 2 with a few more practice pilot-chute touches near the top." When I suggest more PPCTs, that is because leading Canadian skydiving schools have been equipping students with hand-deploy pilot-chutes for more than 40 years.

Sometimes "green washing" is about burning the same amount of fossil fuel, but in some one elses' valley. For example, we see smog over Vancouver every summer. Most of that smog is created by automobiles burning fossil fuels. Electric cars help displace that smog to some other valley .. perhaps in the Himalayas where Chinese miners get much of their lithium. Who knows how "clean" Chinese mining practices are????????

Welcome to one of the few industrialized nations that lacks universal health care. The only people who benefit from this are lawyers. Since the poor cannot afford to pay for emergency health care, they simply default on medic bills. Some cheapskates try to blame doctors by filing "medical malpractice" lawsuits. While a few doctors make mistakes, the vast majority are competent and do the best they know how to cure patients. In a few cases, the wounded arrived so badly mangled (e.g. car wreck) that the best surgeon on the planet could not "make the victim whole." Since hospitals predict that a certain percentage of patients will default on medical bills, they up their rates make everyone else pay. Meanwhile, lawyers grow fat arguing the more obscure points of medical care for badly mangled patients ... time that would much better be devoted to paying surgeons, X-ray techs, physio-therapists, etc. The middle and working classes always get stuck with the tax bill.

Glancing through that manual suggests that those military Javelin free-bags are sized for reserve canopies in the 281 to 385 square foot range. Some civilian Student Javelins contain 280 square foot reserves, so you might be able to sell those military-surplus free-bags to a skydiving school. At the large end of the scale 385 gets into tandem weight ranges, but since Javelin never certified a civilian tandem, those sizes are not relevant for civilians. Sometimes you can substitute the next larger size of free-bag, but consult your local Master Rigger or the Javelin factory to confirm compatibility. With 500 pound bundles, military free-fallers get into tandem weight ranges, but again not relevant for civilian sales. Selling military surplus Javelin reserve pilot-chutes is easier because all Javelins use the same size of (rigid) pilot-chute cap. Double-check with the Javelin factory to confirm that military pilot-chutes are compatible with civilian Javelin containers.

Flaring 4 feet too high is a minor error when it comes to landings. As for the radio quitting ... it is more like your ears quit listening when you got highly stressed just before landing. I have radioed down hundreds of students and dozens of them complained that the radio quit a few seconds before landing. Meanwhile I am helping another student daisy-chain their lines and listening to the the next student's radio (less than 50 meters/yards away). The second student also complained that their radio quit, even though both of us heard it clearly from a few meters away. Hah! Hah!

Wiser jumpers manually and mentally review emergency procedures on a regular basis. Tandem instructors are REQUIRED to rehearse the hand movements of EPs before every jump. Rob Warner Strong Tandem Instructor Examiner Also certified on Vector 1 (pre-drogue) Vector 2, Sigma and Racer Tandems.

A reserve pilot chute only has to launch 1.5 meters ... perhaps 2 meters ... to clear the low-speed, turbulent air around a skydiver. Once out in smooth, fast air, it will inflate and pull hard. I cannot remember the last time I pulled a reserve ripcord and the pilot-chute launched less than 1.5 meters. Most extend most of the reserve bridle before hitting the floor ... more than enough to start reserve deployment.

The next step involves us punishing those evil French vintiers for restricting the naming of alcoholic beverages to one specific region of French. For example, only bubbly wine made in the "Champagne" Region of France can be labelled "champagne." Every other similar bubbly drink must be labelled "sparkling apple cider" etc.). Hah! Hah! Evil Frenchmen! Next thing you know, French cooks will claim to have invented certain recipes! Hah!

The Javelin reserve pilot-chute spring is based upon an old Military Specification. A MIL SPEC MA-1 spring is supposed to require 18 pounds to compress it to only 1/2 inch. Some other modern skydiving rigs use stronger springs, but most of them are buried under many more flaps versus only 2 flaps covering Javelin reserve pilot-chutes.

Spread rumors about Ukrainian women having a wide variety of doubly nasty sexually transmitted diseases. Any Russian soldier suspected of rape will have difficulty getting laid after he returns home! Cue evil laughter!

I was ruminating about the almost blank south wall of the Canadian Aerospace Museum at Rockcliffe, a suburb of Ottawa. They do have parts of an ejection seat in one corner, but the museum guide's description of the ejection seat left me under-whelmed. What if we assembled a series of antique parachutes to display a history of parachuting in Canada since 1888? Start with a half-hull model of the hot-air balloon that Mr. Larsen jumped from back in 1888. Since the wall is 40 or more feet high, we could install an almost full-scale model of the balloon ... but it only needs to be a half-hull model to give the correct impression from the far side of the hall. Come to think of it, most of the balloons, jump-planes and parachute canopies only need to be half-hull. These models can be sewn with soft fabrics and inflated with fans to achieve realistic inflation. Perhaps include another full-size display of barnstormers like Frank Ellis jumping from a fragile biplane before World War One. The World War One display will be the most spectacular with a flaming observation balloon and occupants doing static-line jumps over the side. Perhaps a few inter-war barnstormers, then on to World War 2 with the First Canadian Parachute Battalion jumping into Normandy, across the Rhine and their forced march to prevent those evil Russians from invading Denmark. Cold War displays could include freefall cylinders, Search-and-Rescue Technicians and ejection seats. We wonder if the RCAF wants to brag about how many of their CF-104 pilots were saved by ejection seats???? Finally the last panel can focus on Canadian-born Domina Jalbert's greatest invention. The last panel would be dominated with Jalbert's Para-Foils bringing medals home from World Meets (Kathy Cox and Pierre Fourand). The last display could include 3 or more Skyhawks displaying their canopy formation skills. What are your thoughts and suggestions. The goal is to give museum visitors a quick, big-picture view of parachuting in Canada over the last 140 years, but remember that most museum visitors have short attention spans, so keep commentary to a minimum. The display will probably need a few big-screen TVs to display the more dramatic parachute descents. Can you imagine the crowd's reaction to a video of Jay Moledski pond-swooping past them at 60 mph.? Perhaps add a nozzle spraying water to complete the "experience." Hah! Hah!

Domestic cats still kill more song birds than wind turbines. Raptors (predatory birds like falcons and eagles) often collide with wind turbine blades while chasing the smaller birds that become their supper.