Meso

Wow, if we're going to go into the semantics of translations in the bible and the way it skews people's interpretations of the meaning we may need a whole new thread. The translation and use of the word Lucifer being one that stands out.

Not really, considering I think they're both fictional characters I gain nothing from painting either one any way. What I was getting at is that as soon as one believes God is what the bible says he is, it's easy to justify anything he does, regardless how cruel and inhumane what he does may be. One can pass it up with a "It's his will, don't question it" or a "He is far too powerful for us to understand his plans". And if God had the attributes of Satan, one could still paint him to be this great and almighty being. Sure he would supposedly be shifty and sly. But that could be passed off with a "It's his will, don't question it" or a "He is far too powerful for us to understand his plans". It's basically just a universal 'get out of jail free' card for people who can't explain why God allows something to happen. To be God is a parent who by looking at his actions, beats his children and tortures them so that they will listen. After which he then looks at his other children and says "You see that? He disobeyed me... If you ever disobey me the same will happen to you". He is quite frankly a bully. While I am not a father, I believe that parenting should be a combination of understanding and a relationship, while still holding a firm hand. And when your child fails to initialize that relationship with you, you should reach out to them in any way you can, you should not take God's way and instead of doing anything you can to initialize that relationship- when he fails to, you threaten him with tails of how bad he will suffer if he doesn't, and when he fails to see your side that you should try your hardest to show him what you mean. Not tell him "You have to have faith in what I say, it's your choice in the end, but if you don't trust what I say - your life is going to be hell, you will suffer, and while I'll have the power to help you along the way, because you turned your back on me I will not help you, I will watch you suffer."

That's been my take on things. If he does exist and is as the bible paints him, I'd much rather spend eternity in hell. I won't be intimidated into bowing down to a sadistic narcissist, call me proud but that's just not an option. Yet the whole Satan entity gets all the grief when someone is suffering. It'd be quite easy to flip it around and paint Satan as a good guy and God as the mean enemy. I'm not big into following people who require one to have faith and blindly follow. Sounds like a used car salesman or a pyramid scheme.

Vids or it didn't happen. Definitely ear-plugs though. They've saved my life numerous times. Though so has the fist-sized disco ball which hangs from the tent. Leopard print bedding and soft jazz optional.

Same thing happened to my friend a few weeks ago. She had bought it 2 days earlier. Good thing she's a spoilt brat who despite being in her 20s, has her mother provide her with $2000 a month to sit at home. Needless to say, the next day she went out and bought 2 new ones.

Utter nonsense. You're trying to say that God makes people suffer for natural selection, you then relate the natural selection process to religion. You clearly don't know what Africa is like then and are basing your theories on your own uneducated views of Africa. South Africa has one of the largest HIV positive demographics and yet South Africa is an extremely Christian country with about 80% of the population being Christian. Seeking God doesn't change the process of natural selection. Nor is there any evidence to support such a theory.

We've now removed the ad tags from the parts of the site which we deem to be high priority. Classifieds, Forum and media. They should be working fine, this is a temporary fix until the ads themselves are fixed and do not hang the site.

You sure you want to support Amanda Palmer's anti-religious quirks? As for God's reason for aids. To think that God created aids for a purpose would just prove how sick he is. You know how many of the aids victims are actually rape victims? Far more than one would think. So not only do these women get to suffer the trauma or being raped, but they get to be infected with HIV and have HIV infected children. Sounds like a beautiful plan.

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To be fair, you can't claim that a 1 year spike in severe weather is related to climate change. It was bad enough in 2005 when the Atlantic Hurricane Season was active and it sent everyone in the media running to stories about 'Global warming has arrived!" type hype. Since 2005 there have been some of the most boring (forgive me, I'm a tracker), I mean quiet years in ages. We don't need claims that this years tornado season was a result of any global warming. One just needs to understand mesoscale and synoptic meteorology. There will be years when things spike - in severe thunderstorms you need cold air, warm air, moisture and wind shear. The trick is for these attributes to overlap at the right time in a way that the cold and warm air create instability along the boundary line and that moisture will feed into it. Now naturally the cold air is usually the result of a cold front with an associated trough which moves in from the west, the moisture typically in from the gulf (assuming we're talking tornado developing supercells). To the point, these low pressure cold frontal systems which move in from the west are not tropical in nature, and so they do not rely on warm water for cyclogenesis. An increase in SSTs wouldn't have the same effect as it potentially has with hurricanes which rely on warm water for 'fuel'. I bring this up because I fail to see how the claim to global warming can be associated in any way with tornadic activity. There has been no evidence of increased tornado activity in the recent passed. Even for the past 10 years you can look at the statistics from NOAA: And it is important to note that the number of spotters and chasers (who report many of these tornadoes) exist in much larger numbers over recent years. Looking at natural disaster fatalities records I find useless as they give hardly any indication of the situation. I would be surprised if over the past 60 years the number of severe weather fatalities hadn't continued in a steady incline. We have about tripled the global population in that time, more houses equates to larger chance of fatalities, as well as an increase in tornado reports themselves. The same applies to costs. Expansion is the reason, not an increase in severe weather. One could argue that increase in warning technology means that it should have reduced the number of fatalities and counter for the expansion of communities, but the truth is that it's been quite some time since there were any real advances in tornado warnings and that is why there is still such large tornado research missions. We will likely see costs of natural disasters continue to rise, that is what happens when the area becomes more dense and fields that used to be empty now house large towns. These tornado outbreaks occurred because there were ripe conditions for a few weeks. And it only takes one outbreak for there to be hundreds killed. In 1973 there was the super-outbreak which was very similar to this years outbreak and in 1933 there was an Atlantic hurricane season very similar to 2005. Until people can show an increase in the actual development of severe systems that actually follows an upward trend and not 1 anomaly here and 1 anomaly there, I will definitely not believe that any potential global warming is creating that. With that said, the Atlantic ocean SSTs (sea surface temperatures) have been above 'normal' for almost a decade now for the most part. But warmer water still doesn't mean an increase in severe weather, there's so many other factors. Not to mention that it's not just about SSTs for tropical development but how deep that warm water goes. Ocean water heated only a few meters will not help a hurricane.

That is... odd. There's no more scorecard research related tags in the footers which I just checked. It may possibly be a new campaign that slipped through. Any screenshots of these from anyone will help in getting the bastards removed.

I'm jelly... What I wouldn't do for just 1/1000th of that.

No doubt, the Christian teachings have largely been changed and adjusted through the centuries. But if I had to go through the list of things that developed hundreds of years later through misinterpratation and bad translation - it'd pretty much change the whole of the religion as people think of it. Fact of the matter is vast majority of Christians believe in the fire filled pits of hell, and is often used as a primary means of getting people converted. Especially when one is younger, the idea of burning forever is a scary one, so scary it'll make you believe. I'm merely assuming, in my posts, that the vast majority of Christians today are right in what they believe.

You'll find that I am not out to protect anyone, and my correspondence with the moderators is limited. As I stated, I do not know the details of the circumstances of each post, it is my job to trust the moderators general decisions. And while I don't owe you any explanation or transparency I will provide it none the less. I was part of the discussion to ban Rhys and my first question to the moderators was "has he actually broken any rules?", as I want to avoid banning people for unpopular opinion. It was then that I was supplied information as to his posting and banning history. He had been banned several times over the months prior in various forums for personal attacks on users, he received private messages from the moderators asking him to tone it down, he responded aggressively and refused to change what he was doing. As a result a final ban was the last option. The conspiracy theories were merely a small part of the decision and the personal attacks and the unwillingness to co-operate was what got him banned. This has nothing to do with 'protecting Airtec' and I haven't even visited that thread. If you're unaware, Rhys was banned from the photo forum and speakers corner first for his behaviour prior to his username being disabled. So this is definitely not a case of trying to shut anyone up. And we have no worries about any lawsuits as any decent lawyer would see that we cannot be held responsible for anyone's opinion posted on the forum and that we cannot be held liable for moderating on our site as we see fit. With all that said, personally I do believe you are not Rhys and I do want to work at getting the IP ban possibly removed. But at the same time, if someone continues to post in the same vain as Rhys did that got him banned, they too will find themselves in that situation. You're trying to say that we censor people with a different opinion and yet Rhys is the only account I've been asked to disable that was a user related to that thread. It's funny how then all the others have the same opinion. As I mentioned before, if anyone has any objections to moderators actions they're welcomed to e-mail support and discuss why they feel as though they were wrongly banned.

If there was a +28% chance (amount of claimed Christians worldwide, of which only a minority are actually even saved) of them spending an eternity in pain, you're damn right I'd keep them locked up. The analogy doesn't really work well since the pains of earth cannot even be compared to the suffering of eternity in hell. Children can make mistakes and learn from them. Once you make the mistake of living and dying without Jesus, according to Christianity there is no chance to learn from your 'mistakes'. Because as I mentioned above, with religion there is nothing to learn from your mistake in the end other than that you were wrong. As far as I know repenting isn't an accepted method of payment in hell. Theistic or LaVey? Technically I like some of LeVays ideas and definitely support LaVey Satanism over other 'religions'. The teachings of not harming animals for anything else than self-defence and food appeal to me. I also support his ideas of sexual freedom and the lack of guilt that should be associated with so-called 'taboo acts'.As well as the idea that you should treat someone well until they do something that warrants otherwise, then instead of turning the other cheek, you get revenge. An eye for 2 eyes kind of mentality. On the other hand, I think a lot of what he wrote is a bit insane, and I don't follow LaVey's teachings outside of what I do naturally anyway. LaVey basically just promoting Atheism, living on your instincts and making yourself your own god. Sadly many people seem to associate Satanism with murder, violence and sacrifice, when these are things that LaVey Satanism teaches against. The thing is that many people think Satanism believes in Satan as an entity, which would be theistic Satanism or 'devil worship', a vast minority of Satanists (like under 5% I'd estimate). Satanism is an extremely peaceful 'religion', I fail to see LaVey Satanism as a religion though. I am not a Satanist though- no, despite the Sigil of Lucifer on my arm. I'm merely an Atheist who has an interest in parts of the occult, while still viewing them as fairy tale.

Because we don't need to bow down to users in order to make our decisions. Lazy. The answer is lazy. I don't care who you are, you are not going to get us running around to fit your desires. I'll tell you straight that no one outside of the team room would get your identity information, but if you think we're going to spend the time drafting, printing, scanning documents so that you can post, you are wrong. What? I fail to see how advertising comes into this at all. In fact you're being treated quite leniently compared to how your username would have been handled prior to the site gaining advertising. When Sangiro originally was primarily active in the management in the beginning, I can assure you he wouldn't have entertained your requests. As he always says "Dropzone.com isn't a democracy". Look, the burden doesn't land on us. If you want to post here you must do what is needed to. If you're unwilling, your posting privileges will be removed, it's quite simple. So you're saying you want to carry on in the manner of something that a user was banned for? That's not a very promising start for you. And in regards to the bolded part: You agree that this is private property and you are our guest, and that Dropzone.com reserves the right to delete any message. Membership on Dropzone.com is a privilege, not a right. That sounds like a threat to me, cute. I think you'll find that majority of people are perfectly happy with the moderation on dz.com and that it's only a select few who have felt that they have been unjustly punished. If a moderator performs an action that is controversial, one can contact [email protected] and discuss the matter. If it is seen that a moderator stepped out of line, we're always willing to have a word with them and reverse the decision. You're right it's not cool, and you'd think that considering you knew the results of Rhys's posts, you'd refrain from continuing in that manner. If one user gets banned for something, you take over with the same posting nature and expect the same not to happen to you? We respect people's opinions and do not want to only have one train of thought, but with that said - when a users posts deteriorate the nature of a thread and start focusing on people and not the topic at hand they are likely to get a warning. If they continue, that is grounds for removal. If anyone else at your dropzone is banned that is entirely your fault for continuing to post in a way that you knew gets users banned. The bigger picture? To me, so far it has appeared that someone was banned, a close friend came along and tried to take over from where the other friend was. Call me crazy, but continuing with that extrapolation, that user getting banned would be a logical progression. With that said, I do not moderate outside of spam and let the moderators do their jobs and if they come to me saying a user has broken the forum rules and request that they be disabled I cater to that request and because of this, I do not know the exact details of Rhys's banning and the exact offences you have committed. But I was made aware that you were attacking users. So even if we were to believe you're a separate character, you'd be warned for your offences and need to change the general act of attacking users and need to take a turn from the posting style that got Rhys banned.

From your post I still see no difference in God's way of thinking, a disturbing way of thinking. So God created man to have free will to fulfil his own narcissistic desires to have people worship him out of choice. And he is willing to have those that don't follow his cryptic 'evidence' of existence sent to hell for eternal suffering, merely so that he has the ability to get what he wants. I don't know about you, but if I love something I try to keep it from an eternity of pain and suffering, regardless of the decisions they make - nevermind a decision that's based on faith, a weak concept that is right next to being gullible. Surely if God cared about these people he'd stop being so cryptic. So-called miracles wouldn't most of the time be able to be explained by other means. It seems fun to him to hide back and hope that people have faith on their own, oh you know, what's a few billion souls suffering when you get to be truly worshipped in return. All in all, I've said it before and I'll say it again. If the bible's teachings are anything to go by - God is a narcissist and sadist who claims to care, while his actions say something completely different. And one can reply with "oh but God did this for me, God did that for me, God helped me in life", all of that is meaningless compared to the eternity of suffering he lets occur simply to have his 'relationship' with his followers. The freedom of choice is hardly a good thing. Choose me or burn in hell? - It's like an abusive husband saying "Do exactly what I tell you and I won't beat you... but if you try leave me or disobey me, I'll hurt you". And I ain't even mad. This is just the way God appears when one isn't deluded into thinking he is some special, caring, loving God.

The following scam has been reported: Click here to read more about these kind of scams. Remember: DO NOT do business with anyone who offers to send you payment for a higher amount than your selling price with the understanding that you'll send back the balance. Be suspicious of anyone claiming to be acting on behalf of a "client" or another "customer". Be suspicious of anyone claiming to be from Nigeria or West Africa If you agree to accept a check payment, then do not send anything, gear or "change" before the check cleared. And be careful, if you manage to clear a fraudulent check then you may be liable for the damages if the bank finds out later. Make sure your bank authenticates the check. If it sounds to good to be true, then it probably is.This username has been disabled.

You seem to assume Christianity holds any logical thought pattern. A Christian will reply saying that God provides free will and that people's actions are their own decisions and that God will not interfere. Yet even then, God clearly thinks that free will is more important than people burning in hell. It is very much entrapment. It's how God works, right back to the bible. Instead of just taking away temptation and making for a happy world, he figured adding temptation would be more fun. Considering God created the thought process and the essential groundwork of human thinking, he did place homosexual desires. Though his desire is that we would reject any such desire and not give in to temptation. God only knows (quite literally) why he'd even present that option if he frowns upon it so. I see it much like having a child, placing a new toy in his or her room and saying "If you touch that new toy I'm going to beat you."

+1 The Cramps are great ;)

So we've decided to join social networking sites twitter and facebook. You can find us on twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/dropzonecom or on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/dropzoneskydiving Through these pages we hope to be able to provide relevant discussion topics, news updates, events and articles to users. Though we are also hoping to use these platforms as ways to get more involved with users. You may start seeing competitions again - already now we are kicking off by introducing a 'photo of the week' each week on our facebook page. The best photo submitted during any week will be featured on both our facebook and twitter pages, so start submitting. Some may ask the question why we'd decide to do that when one can just visit the site and see for themselves. The reason is that social networking has become such a big part of many people's lives that it's often used as a primary source of information streaming. There are also many people who don't have constant access to a computer to browse all day and thus use their mobile devices. We hope that these pages will help those who frequent their mobiles more than their computers get more information on what's happening on the site.

I quite like this position Dance puppets! DANCE!

Anyone who does not say 'meso' will be disabled. Just sayin'...

What's all this joking in a joke thread?! This is SC! THERE SHALL BE NO LAUGHING!!!11 I'd like to liken guns to cars. Both are capable of taking life and both do, daily. Yet one can appreciate the worksmanship and the beauty of the design as well the quality of it's 'output', when performing the way it was made to. Maybe it's different in the country I live, but with the amount of illegal guns on the streets you can be almost guaranteed that if someone enters your house to rob you, they're going to be armed and in many cases they will shoot unprovoked, and if they don't ,they have been known to tie you up, torture you, rape you and then rob you. Even 14 year olds find the idea of torture and murder 'fun' according to interviews with the ones convicted. I see no reason why a gun is a bad thing if one uses it responsibly. It's irresponsible people that end up with their children shooting themselves, if you left a razor on the ground next to a toddler you may well end up with the same result. They should be stored in a combination safe clearly out of the reach of children. There will always be a large blackmarket gun trade and it will always be in the hands of criminals, nothing is going to stop this, the only option I see is to defend yourself. If someone came into my house armed, I know I'd rather go out fighting and shoot back than have them tie me up and rape the ones I love, while they force me to watch (all too common a procedure) - if I were to get killed in the process, so be it. But in many cases a gunshot alone will send burglars fleeing. Am I scared of being robbed, not to the point of obsessing about it. But I do realize that it's very possible and that it happens in every neighbourhood every day, and as such I'd like to think that I am not at the mercy of whoever walks through my doorway. But with that said, if people don't like guns I complete support their choice to not own them and if someone in the house is against them then it's something that should be addressed. I certainly think it's wrong having someone else in the house live in fear so that you can have peace of mind. All I can say is that I fear the police and their guns and the criminals and their guns far more than I fear the next door neighbour and his guns - and given the happens here, I feel that's a reasonable approach.

The weather agencies everywhere tend to be moving away from raw data which sucks for us storm chasers and severe weather enthusiasts, though relying on global model data can be useful as well. Things such as CAPE, LI (lifted Index), Velocity values, K-Index are easy to get hold of in model output format, most typically the GFS model. Just an example since I have this bookmarked: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/african_desk/swdfp/day0/00/ I rarely rely on local products because of how pathetic they are, and when I do it's usually through aviation charts. Luckily the cloud information is limited and easy to learn. Though most text books fail to note the 'fun' clouds (mammatus, roll clouds, shelf clouds) When you start breaking down into the sub-categories of clouds it can get a bit tricky though. Fact of the matter is the best information I've found on clouds was on wikipedia, they have a dedicated list of names and if you search each of the names you're usually linked to an indepth article on how they're formed, what precipitation if any they bring etc: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cloud_types With regards to ridges, troughs and cut-off lows and their wind directions, it's also pretty easy to learn. The fun stuff still begins with hurricane formation, how environmental factors such as shear, dry air and SAL affect them. Severe thunderstorm and supercell development and then tornadoes.