SivaGanesha

Generally I'd agree with you but one comment--baseball players are, in theory, supposed to be able to slide--and on a surface that isn't especially designed for sliding. I'm not sure whether all baseball players really CAN slide, but doing it well certainly seems like a difficult athetic skill with no equivalent in hockey. Baseball players slide on the hard dirt; hockey players have a zamboni machine to smooth over even the slightest imperfections in the ice every 20 minutes. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

While this laundry list of demands is quite unreasonable, I've been reading some of the news articles where the protestors are interviewed. In interviews, they tend to focus on a particular demand: reducing corporate influence over the political process. That specific demand seems quite reasonable to me, even if this longer list is pretty over the top. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

No problem :) sorry for any confusion ! Yes it can get touchy on here by times!! "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Wow. Not a very friendly response considering I was basically agreeing with you. I was merely pointing out that there are risks no matter what you do. A restraining order is a tool. A gun is also a tool. Both tools can be effective in certain circumstances. Both tools have risks involved in using them. If you have a restraining order against someone, and they come within a certain radius of your home, you can have them arrested. If they call you, you can have them arrested. If they email you, you can have them arrested. You can't shoot them in any of those situations, so a gun is an ineffective tool in those cases. If they actually break in, then the gun may come into play, restraining order or not. If you are living in serious fear of someone, IMHO you should have both a restraining order AND a gun to defend yourself against them. Both tools are useful in different situations. As others have quite correctly pointed out, if you DO have to shoot someone, having a restraining order on file will go a long way to proving that you acted in self defense. Also this thread has nothing to do with the Second Amendment. The question in this thread is about when a gun is effective in ensuring your safety. One's legal/constitutional right to own a gun is not the question under discussion in this thread. Not every discussion which touches on guns is about the Second Amendment. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

I thought that bin Laden was wealthy and financed these attacks--I thought that was the main thing he was seen as doing. Is there any evidence that al-Awlaki had access to the same kind of financial resources that bin Laden did? Since 9/11 I've seen no evidence that any terrorist leader has had the necessary resources to direct a network of terrorists within the USA. All we've seen is this solo 12/25 bomber who didn't even make it to US soil before his plot fell apart. We have quite a number of tools in place that we didn't have before 9/11. We have increased security at airports. Immigration, especially from nations with known terrorist tendencies, is more strictly controlled. We have the Patriot Act which makes it harder to transfer money into the country from unknown sources. I'm not suggesting we roll back all these changes. What I AM suggesting is that with all these tools in place to defend ourselves domestically, do these guys really pose the kind of threat to us that they did before 9/11? Do we really need to go around killing these people these days to protect ourselves? "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Yes, sometimes behaving in a civilized manner is a luxury that we cannot afford based on who we are dealing with. I think that in this particular case it was a luxury that we could have afforded--and it diminishes us that we failed to do so. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

How much better it would have been if he'd had, not a few seconds, but a few years of realization about what was about to happen. A jury of 12 men and women could have given him that. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Yes the war was over. If Congress votes for a formal declaration of war in the present situation, I will retract my statements. If not, my position stands. If we stop short of a formal declaration of war, then we must also stop short of the kind of uncivilized behavior that a state of war sometimes justifies. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Yes, that's the risk. But if you're dealing with an abusive person, you need to do something to stop the abuse. The risk is always going to exist that you push their buttons and the abuse escalates. I don't see a way to avoid that risk and still stop the abuse. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

It's certainly not a war on the scale of World War II, and we've already established a precedent of giving due process of law to alleged US citizens accused of Nazi war crimes involving tens of thousands of deaths. President George H.W. Bush--not generally considered a bleeding heart liberal--formally apologized for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. We ought not repeat our mistakes--again, given that we are faced with a conflict less serious than World War II. Yes, we should get indictments against (a) US citizens with a right to return to US soil; (b) anyone currently on US soil; (c) anyone we'd prefer to prosecute through civilian means. There aren't a lot of US citizens out there who are responsible for "thousands of" US deaths. It won't destroy us to follow due process of law for the few that are. If we are so superior to the other side then we have the luxury of conducting ourselves in a civilized fashion even if the other side does not. I don't think there was any question that Adolf Eichmann was a lead player in the Nazi movement--but Israel gave him due process of law. Admittedly Israel did go outside Argentine law in capturing him, but they issued a formal apology to Argentina, which Argentina accepted, shortly thereafter. I'm quite concerned with why we feel that rules of conduct by which civilized nations conduct themselves no longer seem to apply to us. We are acting like we are dealing with a situation so unusual, so unprecedented, that we can throw out the window a code of conduct by which civilized nations behave that has been developed over, literally, centuries. That's not an accurate assessment of the current situation. The world's a dangerous place but this isn't the first time that the world's been a dangerous place. Without an indictment he would have been free to get a US passport and freely travel to the US. He could have turned up at a US embassy anywhere in the world--not necessarily Yemen--where not playing by the book would have come at significant political cost. Also if someone is truly responsible for "thousands" of deaths, it might be prudent to spend more time on a formal indictment than you would on the guy who charges $100 on a stolen credit card before the theft is reported and the card is canceled. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

A restraining order won't stop a murderer. However, if the person's crime or intended crime is anything short of murder, a restraining order can be a very effective tool in ensuring that they will be arrested. Once a restraining order is in place, mere contact--as opposed to behavior that rises to the level of stalking or threats--is sufficient justification for the person to be arrested first and asked questions later. A lot of crimes in this kind of situation are of a "he says, she says" nature. A restraining order moves things out of the "he says, she says" arena and legally establishes that any contact, regardless of its nature, is a crime. Proving mere contact is generally much easier than proving intimate details of what that contact involved. A restraining order is a legal tool. Again, if someone is bent on murder and nothing else, they won't be stopped by a restraining order. But if you're dealing with someone who is likely to gradually escalate their abuse if they aren't dealt with in a firm way by authority, a restraining order is a tool that can help. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

I'm not sure about what is politically correct, but failing to get a civil indictment against this guy was abysmally stupid. I am not necessarily suggesting civil prosecution instead of military action--but I am certainly suggesting that it is necessary in addition to military action. This man was, legally, a US citizen. He has also spent time in the USA, presumably has connections in the USA, and seemed fairly savvy in terms of the ways of the modern world (that isn't true of some of these Arab terrorist guys). His weapon of choice was bombs. But, as someone who was legally a US citizen, he could have changed his weapon of choice from bombs to lawyers at any time. And sometimes a good lawyer can do more damage, in certain ways, than a bomb can. This guy, it seems, chose not to pursue the legal angle. But it was--as I say--very stupid for the administration not to have a "Plan B" in place in case he did. Suppose, for example, he'd showed up at a US embassy unaccompanied (except of course for a lawyer) and unarmed (except of course for a camera to pass on to the press). Suppose he'd then announced that he was a US citizen, did not admit guilt, but certainly both was willing to and insisted upon facing civilian justice on US soil. How would that situation have been dealt with? The administration needed a "Plan B" to deal with that situation, given that he was a US citizen. I have no problem with "Plan A" if he is encountered in hostile circumstances on the battlefield. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

It may not be either side's intent, but I think Occupy Wall Street is a good thing in one sense, in that it gets people in Lower Manhattan focused on a different kind of controversy from all the 9/11 stuff. I see that as a healthy thing in general no matter who actually wins. Grieving over our losses on 9/11 was appropriate at the appropriate time but it is time to move on to other matters. Economic pain is a more pressing issue today for more Americans than the risk of a new terrorist attack. It's time for Lower Manhattan to focus on the real present issues. That said--I'm not sure who's right and who's wrong in the "Occupy Wall Street" protests. I claim only that it is a debate whose time has come. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

If it were me, and given that the rules would appear to give the female business (and marital) partner a huge advantage, I would only agree to be involved if I knew that there was some skill that I was bringing to the company that only I had and was indispensible to the company's success. I would need to bring something to the table that would give me personal power to balance the affirmative action power the woman had. Otherwise it would just be too easy to force me out. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

My personal experience (your mileage apparently differs) is that the hi tech industry is actually significantly MORE male dominated than it was 20 years ago. 20 years ago it would be the guys and one or two token women. Today it's just the guys. Now a lot of the guys are Asian but there are certainly more white guys than there are women--because there are no women at all. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Exactly. Their (the white males') handlers are smart enough to treat the men as poorly as it is possible to treat them without the men feeling justified in actually complaining and fighting back. Men should be calling them on that game. The bus driver at the time probably thought asking Rosa Parks to sit at the back of the bus was just a small indignity and she wouldn't fight back. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

I think that the men who are the victims of such discrimination are foolish to go along with the program by signing their rights away to their wives. I'm a white man and I make good money. I'm single but I would certainly not give away my personal power to my wife if I were. Maybe that's why I'm not married--a lot of men today seem willing to go along with the program of giving their power away to their wives, but I've never been willing to do so. Sex must be more important to most men than it is to me, I guess. I have great respect for women and that is why I would not presume to deal with them as anything but as equals. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

It's not happening because of the "sins of our fathers". It's happening because of the attitude that "there's not a whole lot to be done about it". You'll notice that people like Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King Jr, and Rosa Parks didn't throw up their hands and say "there's not a whole lot to be done about it". Nor did the white males--eg George Washington and Thomas Jefferson--in an earlier phase in our history. White males today are weak because they act in weak ways. It's largely their own fault. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

In the old days a terrorist was someone who was trying to achieve a particular political agenda through acts of terror. It wasn't defined by the number of people killed. For example, the SLA (the group that kidnapped Patty Hearst) was considered a terrorist group despite "only" killing two people. In those days often multiple militant groups would claim responsibility for a given action because it they saw it as a way to coerce people into listening to them--even if they actually weren't responsible. "Terrorists" today seem to have very vague agendas--to the point where I would call most of them mass murderers but not terrorists. "Making us behave like sheep at airports" seems like an odd objective for a terrorist to have since (a) it has already largely been accomplished and (b) successfully achieving it limits terrorists ability to carry out further attacks. Originally the distinction between terrorism and ordinary crime was that in using crime to achieve political ends, a terrorist puts the integrity of our political system into jeopardy in a way that ordinary crime--no matter how serious--does not. That distinction seems to have been gradually lost over the years. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

I'm mainly trying to define at what point something becomes "terrorism" and extraordinary action becomes justified. For example, why does the attempted Dec 25 bombing qualify as "terrorism" whereas a guy who shoots up a convenience store in Arkansas is "not terrorism". We seem to devote extraordinary resources--on a lot of levels--based on the label "terrorism" so I'm asking what, specifically, justifies such a label being used. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

The national murder rate remains at about 15,000 people per year, although it has been dropping in recent years. That's about five 9/11's per year from Americans carrying out individual acts of terrorism against each other domestically. Why do we tolerate this but give so much attention to foreign terrorists who haven't pulled off an attack in 10 years? Isn't it time we pulled some resources away from these far flung battles and put it towards fighting crime domestically? "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

The terrorists have lost. There hasn't been a significant terrorist attack on American soil in over 10 years. However, until we are ready to declare victory and move on, we aren't going to reap any benefits from our success in this matter. This is not to say that we roll back all improvements in national security that we've made in the past 10 years. But it is to say that we need to move beyond the immediate post-9/11 crisis atmosphere. There are higher priorities today. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

What, specifically, qualifies an action as "terrorism" and justifies suspending someone's constitutional rights? I can appreciate that there might occasionally be extreme situations--and 9/11 may qualify--where a President's duty to defend the American people might trump other constitutional requirements. The problem is that there is a slippery slope where far less serious crimes are being seen as justification for suspending constitutional rights. I can see that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, it may have been difficult to justify full constitutional rights for the terrorists. I have a harder time justifying suspending the constitution over, say, the attempted Dec 25 bombing--a far less serious terrorist attack. Yes a lot of US citizens died on 9/11. A lot of US citizens died at Jonestown, too--and we didn't suspend freedom of religion as a result of it. America's immediate reaction to 9/11 was understandable. America's failure to bounce back from adversity like we've done in the case of past crises is quite disappointing. It's been 10 years without a significant terrorist attack on American soil. It is time to move on from the immediate post-9/11 mentality. The world is a dangerous place, but I simply cannot see anything whatsoever that would justify groping Grandma at the metal detector just because some powerless angry old man in Yemen or Pakistan happens to be pissed off at America. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

But giving the ball only to one guy because he is the best at scoring touchdowns doesn't really help his teammates improve their skills either. Calling a wider range of plays when they have a comfortable lead probably IS the best strategy to teach them to improve. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

Originally the idea of "getting back on the horse" wasn't so much about the psychology of the rider--it had more to do with the psychology of the horse. If you let the horse get away with throwing you it will soon think it can always get away with throwing you and will become unrideable. "It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014