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About 35 years ago I was a new skydiver, jumping at a tiny DZ on Long Island and dreaming about moving somewhere new. I spent some of my free time at work posting on rec.skydiving - a Usenet group that catered to skydivers. It was a different time back then. To be able to get to Usenet at all means you needed a modem and a computer, both pricey purchases, and you needed to be able to get them to work together, which meant you needed some tech experience. As a result, not many people were on Usenet - just me and a few other tech nerds. And there was hardly any spam! Slowly over the years more people figured it out and started joining. I remember TooyT, Barry Brumitt (wrote the first skydiving FAQ!) Lance Kirwin, Kevin O'Connell, Dave Appel and Jerry Sobieski. I also met Amy on there, which changed the course of my life in a big way. I moved to California in '94 both to escape a bad relationship and to skydive. And of course because I found a great company - Qualcomm - in San Diego. By that point Usenet was becoming a cesspool of Viagra ads and foreign bride offers, and filters had not gotten good enough yet to remove all that, so browsing it was painful. So when Willem announced he was starting DZ.com I felt a big sense of relief. He got in touch with me to see if I wanted to moderate S+T and Incidents, which I said yes to. We started with a complement of about a dozen moderators, some of which I got to know really well. I spent a day in San Diego with Andrea watching whales swim by the gliderport, and I spent a few days with Chuck and Katie at Raeford jumping. Derek once built me a tersh just because I was talking about how I needed one (thanks again Derek) and Remi, Karen and I would meet up whenever we were out at Eloy. Seven of us once got together at Eloy and did the now-infamous moderator jump, angled carefully so no one could see Willem's face on camera. I think Eric and Scott were on that one as well. I also met a bunch of other people from DZ.com in real life - Lisa, Keely, Gary, Winsor - and saw them at Perris and at boogies all the time. It grew my circle of friends from Socal jumpers to jumpers all over the US. And even the world; I met some people from the Irish Parachute Club and made a trip out there to jump with them. I recall a lot of drinking. Over time as moderators changed I took on moderation of a few more forums, but to me the S+T and Incidents forum were always the important ones. I got some sort of award - a "skydivers hall of fame" or something from Parachutist for running that, and got on a few podcasts talking about safety and incidents. One of my proudest moments during that time was reading an incident by a newer jumper flying a too-small canopy. He had read one of my many diatribes on "LEARN FLAT TURNS!" and had tried them once or twice. Then one day he found himself flying downwind by accident, and he tried to turn into the wind at 50 feet. He tried that flat turn he had heard about, but there was something off about it (he explained) because he landed hard, tore his jumpsuit and sprained his ankle. The fact that he was complaining about a sprained ankle after a turn at 50 feet under a heavily loaded canopy made me think that maybe this forum was actually doing some good. I learned a lot, too, mainly from the forums I wasn't moderating - forums like General and Gear and Rigging. Based on what I learned about wingsuiting here, for example, I bought a small wingsuit, taught myself how to fly it, started moving up in wingsuit sizes - then met Jari and became one of the first Birdman wingsuit instructors in the US. And over the years we lost people here too, of course. In some ways this place served as a memorial; you could go back and read what Shannon or Taz had posted while they were still alive, and remember them that way. Over the years traffic has started to fall off as people find more social-media options for skydiving, which is a natural evolution. I'm sorry that it will be disappearing sooner rather than later, but nothing lasts forever. It will be interesting to see what happens to the database; all these incident reports and threads on canopy flight have a lot of value (IMO) and I hope we can save some of it. Thanks to everyone who participated on this site over the decades it has been running, and thanks especially to all the moderators who I've worked with - Wendy, Lisa, Andrea, Chuck, Eric, Remi, Meso and all the others. And of course thanks to Willem for doing all the work to set up and maintain this site. See you out there.

The other card-carrying woman here (though I have been absent a bit!). Anyone impregnated should be able to get her own treatment from a provider who is trained and still willing to perform the procedure. "Late term" is not a thing. "Later abortions" happen after a fetus is expected to be developed to viability and can survive outside the uterus but are necessary due to something non-viable about the fetus (it will never be viable outside a uterus). To force someone to continue growing a fetus that will never grow a brain, or statistically speaking has a 98% chance of not surviving due to ruptured amniotic sac or other complications, or for myriad other medical issues that none of us NOT trained in obstetrics fully understand, is cruel, dangerous and unethical. Anyone trained in the science who is willing to perform the procedure in-office or by medications (has taken an oath to do no harm and still feels the procedure is appropriate), should be able to provide that health care to the patient who wants it.

As I have contemplated the end of this forum it seems like facing the prospect of losing a large partly dysfunctional family all in one fell swoop. Of course it has been slowly dying anyway but some of the participants that are still here are outstanding in many so ways. At this time however I would like to thank the mods for their decision to let pretty much anything go in the dying days. The resultant decline in the quality of the discourse by allowing people of such low ability to think rationally is making it a lot easier for me to prepare myself for the loss. Seriously, it was the right thing to do for other reasons as well. I certainly will miss the chance to interact with some great people in a way that I will probably never be able to replace but at least I will also never have to deal with the crazy nonsense that comes across my screen.

Heya all, Dropzone .com has been sold. This site has been part of my life for 27 years, so it was obviously not an easy decision. A huge thank you to every one of you (especially those relentless mods!) who supported Dropzone.com and myself during the years. Things change. The friendships I made here will outlast the tech forever, and for that i'm grateful. It's been real. Safe swoops Sangiro

BOROWITZ: Stormy Daniels not surprised Trump’s defense was small and didn’t last long

https://skydivingmagazine.org/browse-issues/ I started skydiving around 1987 and reading theses old magazines have given me such great pleasure and sadness. There is so much that I missed before I started skydiving and since then, so many great people are no longer with us. On the plus side, I really enjoy the history and the great memories of all that has happened. I knew Mike, but not very well and now can really appreciate the writing and history. Thank you Sue for making them available.

Hi, Jerry, If he weren't a strong contender for the office of POTUS, I would be laughing. Unfortunately, the situation doesn't make it funny right now. Maybe when he loses the election and continues to "lose it," we can laugh at him.

Hard to believe I’ve been coming here to Speaker’s Corner for 20 years for my daily dose of enlightenment and aggravation. It’s really been the best place to hear a diversity of opinions from real people, a diversity I can’t encounter at work or the drop zone where it would be inappropriate to talk about so many of the topics we can kick around here. I’ve learned something from all of you, and I’ll really miss getting perspective from you even if sometimes it makes me gnash my teeth. So I’d like to wish all of you fair winds and following seas. Don

Brother, that's quite a leap. "Sick fuck pedo's" will pose as anything to gain access. Nor, are they just male. I don't understand the trans/cross dressing thing, but I also know my framework lies in the constituion - the right to pursue happiness. If they wanna do it and it's not hurting anyone - how is that my business.

The funny thing is that at exactly the same time Brent is arguing that Fascism is Socialism, Winsor is arguing you should vote Fascist to prevent Socialism, and they will both back each other up without a hint of irony.

That kind of describes Hillary Clinton. If she were a man, she'd be considered a hardass who can get things done. Since she's a woman and a liberal (sort of), she's the bitch-devil incarnate. Wendy P.

(Warning - long) Winsor recently refloated the always popular nuclear-is-expensive-because-of-those-goddamn-hippies argument. Since he's not reading my posts any more, and since that's not relevant to the woke-bashing that's going on in that thread, I thought I'd break it out into a separate thread. First off, of course there is an element of cost associated with protests. When people don't like nuclear power (or aviation, or skydiving, or drag queens, or whatever) they protest, and those protests invariably make it more difficult/expensive to do whatever those people wanted to do initially - through demanding more regulation, or lobbying to deny permits, or promoting the bad over the good. In the case of nuclear power, however, that has very little to do with the rising costs. As a pilot and a skydiver, one thing I learned early on is that most aviation regulations were written in blood. The FAR that requires pilots to check the weather before they take off if they are flying to a different airport? That's not there because "bushy tailed Liberal Arts types in Boston/Cambridge" hated airplanes and wanted to screw up aviation. They are there because of the deaths of pilots who were surprised by weather after they took off. There are similar reasons for many of the regulations involved with nuclear power. The limits for worker exposure? That's not there because scaredycat liberals want to shut down nuclear power. That's because early on several people were injured and killed by radiation from poorly designed experiments and reactors. The Demon Core, for example, killed two people working with it. At that point, the risks of gamma radiation were known, but no one had been exposed to a fatal dose of neutron radiation before - something you can only get from a nuclear chain reaction, or via a very complex sort of particle accelerator. After those two deaths, more work was done on neutron radiation risks, and new limits were put in place. More regulations! Side note here - the reason most nuclear reactors are possible at all is due to a quirk of physics called "neutron cross section." It's basically the probability of a neutron hitting the nucleus of a fissile atom. Einstein's work made it clear that the slower the neutron, the more likely it was to hit that nucleus. This is important because "prompt criticality" - the sort of chain reaction we all learned about in school, and how nuclear bombs detonate - is VERY hard to regulate, since the reaction waxes and wanes over the course of hundreds of microseconds, too fast for humans to reliably control (as the physicists working with the Demon Core learned to their dismay.) However, it is possible to design nuclear reactors that cannot go prompt-critical, and can only reach criticality with delayed, or thermal, neutrons. These are neutrons that pass through a moderator (like water) and are slowed, as well as neutrons that are natually emitted from fission, just more slowly. This allows design of reactors with power time constants of seconds or tens of seconds, which makes regulation via control rods possible. Even better, if they lose their moderator (i.e. they lose coolant) the reaction slows automatically. In fact, if the reactor even just gets too hot and boils the water, the voids in the water moderator automatically reduce power generation (i.e. it has a "negative void coefficient.") This gave early reactor designers perhaps a bit too much confidence in the inherent safety of nuclear power. As people started working on reactors for power in peacetime, we saw some of those irrational emotion driven types Winsor was referring to in his post - but initally they were on the side of nuclear power. Nuclear power was so safe, easy and efficient, according to Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Lewis Strauss, that "it is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter." He saw so much of the promise of nuclear energy (both fission and fusion) and so little of the drawbacks that the future looked rosy indeed. Turns out, though, nuclear power is hard to do well. For example, if there is a LOCA (loss of coolant accident) in water-moderated reactor, the chain reaction does indeed stop. But the fuel is now full of short lived isotopes due to the neutron bombardment during operation, and those isotopes also decay and release neutrons. Not enough to sustain a chain reaction, but enough to cause additional fission and a LOT of heat. So although the reactor has technically shut down, it will still happily melt into a puddle of spent nuclear fuel, nuclear waste, moderator and steel. And it's hard to keep a reactor full of that stuff safe. And reactor designers started discovering this almost immediately. In most parts of the world, those designers have been very lucky that their mishaps have, for the most part, not resulted in large public health threats or loss of life. The first meltdown occurred at reactor EBR-1 in Idaho in 1955. This was a breeder reactor, so different design and different coolant, but same basic idea. A power excursion caused a partial meltdown, but cooling was restored and the core solidified before anything worse happened. The next occurred at the same facility, but in a different reactor - this time an experimental boiling water reactor. It was designed to not go prompt-critical for all the reasons listed above. However, when a technician removed a single control rod from the reactor, it did indeed go prompt-critical. Fortunately the core disassembled itself before nuclear weapon yields were reached, but the power excursion (20 gigawatts in a reactor designed to handle 3 megawatts) caused an explosion that killed three men in a fairly gruesome fashion. How could this have happened? This reactor was designed to be SAFE! It could not go prompt critical! Turns out two factors allowed this. One, some of the neutron poisons inside the reactor (that reduce reactivity) had corroded and flaked off. Two, it turns out that it takes water some milliseconds to boil, and this event happened in microseconds, so the voids could not form fast enough to shut down the reaction. Lesson learned. More regulation of nuclear power plant operation. In 1977, the nuclear reactor at the Millstone Nuclear Power Plant had its coolant level drop while the reactor was powered down, exposing the fuel elements to air (actually steam.) A hydrogen explosion occurred, which damaged the reactor and seriously injured one worker. How could this have happened? There's no hydrogen in a reactor! Where did it come from? The hot fuel elements, clad in zirconium, reacted with the steam to generate the hydrogen. Lesson learned. More regulation of nuclear power plant operation. Then Chernobyl happened. Fortunately for us the RBMK reactor is so different from US designs that a similar accident almost certainly can't happen here. But again the accident was due to something that no one had considered - that there is an operating regime for a reactor where poisons build up so quickly that it shuts down the reactor, and when they burn off (as they do eventually) then the reactor can restart so violently that it, again, goes prompt critical. So probably no effect on US reactors; ours can't go prompt critical. Although we initially thought the same thing about the SL-1 reactor in Idaho. Lesson learned. This time, no new regulations for the US. There are about a dozen of these. Three Mile Island, the most visible US incident, was the result of two mechanical failures and three coincident operator errors. And despite all the reassurances from the utility, the incident came very close to a containment breach - most of the core did in fact melt down, and a lot of it ended up on the bottom of the vessel. During the investigation, it was discovered that valves to the emergency feedwater supply were closed and never opened, there was no clear indication on the reactor status panel that the PORV was stuck open, and an operator actually shut off the emergency high pressure injection system. So failures of training, equipment and instrumentation. Lesson learned. More regulation of nuclear power plant operation. Then outside the US came Fukushima. A textbook case of how to shut down a nuclear reactor in an emergency, and everything looked good. But then a tidal wave damaged - not the reactor, not the control room, but the power lines and the generators that provided cooling water for the reactors when shut down. And THEY melted down. So failure to take into account protection of the entire plant - not just the reactor. Lesson learned. More regulation of nuclear power. These new lessons are why it's so hard to build new nuclear power plants. Recently the first nuclear reactor in decades opened at the Vogtle facility in Georgia. This was a simplified Gen IV design that's referred to as "walk-away safe" - no power needed to cool the reactor after an emergency shutdown. It was so simple that an early ad from GE for the reactor's original design touted "first concrete to fuel load in 36 months." From the beginning of the planning to the first operation took 20 years and came in $20 billion over budget. No protesters, just contractors screwing up, companies folding, and the usual very high level of quality required at a facility designed to safely contain a nuclear chain reaction. I keep hoping that, someday, we will get a Gen IV reactor design (or, heck, even a fusion reactor) that does indeed meet the promise made by Strauss all those years ago. What keeps us from getting there is not those goddamn hippies, and it's not evil liberals in suits toting briefcases. It's the fact that nuclear power is hard to do well, and we as a society have (wisely) demanded that it's done right.

Sexual immorality is just a construct. The only immorality would be if someone is taking advantage of a child or a person otherwise not able to give informed consent. Homosexual sex is not immoral. Men entering the priesthood then using the posistion of trust to take advantage of children is immoral. Likewise it is not immoral for a boy or a girl to feel they don't fit your expectations of their sexuality. It is a struggle, and it may be very difficult for them, but it is not immoral.

I thought all the QAnon, MAGA nutters quit watching football when that negro boy took a knee.

A good man. Maybe not the greatest president, but a good man who lived a good life.

About 35 years ago I was a new skydiver, jumping at a tiny DZ on Long Island and dreaming about moving somewhere new. I spent some of my free time at work posting on rec.skydiving - a Usenet group that catered to skydivers. It was a different time back then. To be able to get to Usenet at all means you needed a modem and a computer, both pricey purchases, and you needed to be able to get them to work together, which meant you needed some tech experience. As a result, not many people were on Usenet - just me and a few other tech nerds. And there was hardly any spam! Slowly over the years more people figured it out and started joining. I remember TooyT, Barry Brumitt (wrote the first skydiving FAQ!) Lance Kirwin, Kevin O'Connell, Dave Appel and Jerry Sobieski. I also met Amy on there, which changed the course of my life in a big way. I moved to California in '94 both to escape a bad relationship and to skydive. And of course because I found a great company - Qualcomm - in San Diego. By that point Usenet was becoming a cesspool of Viagra ads and foreign bride offers, and filters had not gotten good enough yet to remove all that, so browsing it was painful. So when Willem announced he was starting DZ.com I felt a big sense of relief. He got in touch with me to see if I wanted to moderate S+T and Incidents, which I said yes to. We started with a complement of about a dozen moderators, some of which I got to know really well. I spent a day in San Diego with Andrea watching whales swim by the gliderport, and I spent a few days with Chuck and Katie at Raeford jumping. Derek once built me a tersh just because I was talking about how I needed one (thanks again Derek) and Remi, Karen and I would meet up whenever we were out at Eloy. Seven of us once got together at Eloy and did the now-infamous moderator jump, angled carefully so no one could see Willem's face on camera. I think Eric and Scott were on that one as well. I also met a bunch of other people from DZ.com in real life - Lisa, Keely, Gary, Winsor - and saw them at Perris and at boogies all the time. It grew my circle of friends from Socal jumpers to jumpers all over the US. And even the world; I met some people from the Irish Parachute Club and made a trip out there to jump with them. I recall a lot of drinking. Over time as moderators changed I took on moderation of a few more forums, but to me the S+T and Incidents forum were always the important ones. I got some sort of award - a "skydivers hall of fame" or something from Parachutist for running that, and got on a few podcasts talking about safety and incidents. One of my proudest moments during that time was reading an incident by a newer jumper flying a too-small canopy. He had read one of my many diatribes on "LEARN FLAT TURNS!" and had tried them once or twice. Then one day he found himself flying downwind by accident, and he tried to turn into the wind at 50 feet. He tried that flat turn he had heard about, but there was something off about it (he explained) because he landed hard, tore his jumpsuit and sprained his ankle. The fact that he was complaining about a sprained ankle after a turn at 50 feet under a heavily loaded canopy made me think that maybe this forum was actually doing some good. I learned a lot, too, mainly from the forums I wasn't moderating - forums like General and Gear and Rigging. Based on what I learned about wingsuiting here, for example, I bought a small wingsuit, taught myself how to fly it, started moving up in wingsuit sizes - then met Jari and became one of the first Birdman wingsuit instructors in the US. And over the years we lost people here too, of course. In some ways this place served as a memorial; you could go back and read what Shannon or Taz had posted while they were still alive, and remember them that way. Over the years traffic has started to fall off as people find more social-media options for skydiving, which is a natural evolution. I'm sorry that it will be disappearing sooner rather than later, but nothing lasts forever. It will be interesting to see what happens to the database; all these incident reports and threads on canopy flight have a lot of value (IMO) and I hope we can save some of it. Thanks to everyone who participated on this site over the decades it has been running, and thanks especially to all the moderators who I've worked with - Wendy, Lisa, Andrea, Chuck, Eric, Remi, Meso and all the others. And of course thanks to Willem for doing all the work to set up and maintain this site. See you out there.

This site is apparently going tit's up. As the gal who had the biggest thread ( except db) I want to say thank you to all of you for the discourse over the years. It's been fun!

That's what I was talking about. They were not worse, and your example is a great one. Gary Hart had an alleged affair. It was never proven, but there were press reports about it. His campaign also owed about $4 million. Based on those two issues, as publicized by the press, his campaign was sunk; most people did not want to vote for someone like that. Trump had three well documented affairs. One was proven in court. The other two resulting in his marrying the woman he was having an affair with. He has cheated on all three wives - again, very publicly. Trump is an adjudicated rapist, and has stated he enjoys sexual assault. 26 other women state they have been sexually assaulted by him. Trump is a 34 times convicted felon, convicted of crimes of election interference. Trump owes billions to people ranging from banks to contractors to individuals that he has never paid back. He forfeited on a $280 million loan - then sued the people who gave him the loan, stating they made a mistake in loaning it to him. And not only did all that not sink his campaign, it increased his popularity. It has often been said that it's inconceivable how people could support Hitler, or Mussolini, or Lenin, or Stalin. How could that happen? Now we know.

This coming from the people who think vaccines don't work, that climate change is a Chinese hoax, that windmill cancer is a thing, that women can "shut down" a pregnancy if they are raped, and that Haitian immigrants are eating people's pets in Springfield. I prefer actual reality, even if alternative facts conform more closely to conservative agendas.

Yep. I saw that this morning. It was fun while it lasted, and I really wish it were as vibrant as it once was. To me it was a much more democratic (in the sense of participation) format than FB, Reddit, or whatever else is out there. There’s an awful lot of good information here Wendy P.

People who state Harris can’t articulate anything seem to have prejudice/misogyny, comprehension problems or the inability to speak English. As for Joe 2.0, he’s done a pretty good job, peacefully handed over the reigns to a younger candidate. I’d say he’s a pretty good act to follow.

Really? Biden created more jobs than Trump Biden created more manufacturing jobs than Trump Biden drilled more oil than Trump Biden had better stock market performance than Trump Biden added less debt than Trump The economy does better under Democrats and Democrats generally add less to the debt than Republicans. But sure, you don't go by feels, you go by facts.

(not just to you, Phil, but yours was the easiest post to reply to) Funny, I just saw his PAO from his Iraq deployment on CNN, talking to Brianna Keiler, the other day. Shawn Haney and I go way back to OCS, then were both Marine PAOs (the officers in charge of combat correspondents). She's a good egg, and a way better PAO than I ever cared to be. I agree with what she said -- combat correspondents are called that because they have to go out to the areas to get the information to write in their reports. Additionally, enlisted CCs were nearly as likely to accompany embedded media as the officers were, and were always packing. Another colleague of ours died on one such escort when she stepped on a hidden IED; definitely not a safe job. Not to mention, especially in Iraq, there really wasn't any "rear area." Yeah, definitely safer than others, but not a safe job. I'm not saying JD Vance is a standup guy -- I despise everything that guy says and stands for, especially his accusations toward Tim Walz's service. But I had to give the Marine PAO perspective on combat correspondents and at least defend his service. Yeah, it was easier than that of many other Marines, but he did his four years honorably, just as Tim Walz did his 24 years, just as I did my combined 32 years.

Yep. Or put another way - If you think giving rights to other people will erode yours, it's not equal rights that you want - it's privilege.

Went to a talk last night with George Takei and John Cho (both Sulus from the Star Trek films) at UCSD. George was very eloquent. They both talked about the role a bit. Then the moderator asked them about their childhoods, and George talked about growing up in an internment camp. Then they went over to John who didn't say anything for a second. "I have no idea how I follow _that_" he finally said. George Takei was taken from his home in LA to a Japanese internment camp when he was 5, because he was Japanese and the Japanese had just attacked Pearl Harbor. All his family's money was taken. Their house was sold. All their possessions were taken. They were stripped naked. They were first imprisoned in a horse stall; their family of four was in one stall. They all got sick from sleeping on dung, but fortunately survived. They were then moved from camp to camp over the next five years, ending up in a mosquito infested camp on a bayou in Arkansas. And every morning they'd line everyone up in the mud and forced them to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. And every time he got to the "with liberty and justice for all" part he'd look around the prison camp they were in and think that perhaps that America was fibbing about that part. He also talked about growing up as a gay man, and how he had to hide who he was for decades from a Hollywood that would have fired him instantly if they had known. Finally he was able to come out in 2005 and admit to the relationship he'd had for the past 20 years. In 2008 they were married, and when they re-outlawed gay marriage in California later in 2008, they were both amused, thinking about what a fun court case it would be if republicans tried to forcibly divorce them. Then Prop 8 was overturned and it was a moot point. His unique perspective - a man who has had his rights taken away TWICE by America - has led him to be very politically active. When the US government finally paid him reparations for throwing him in jail for four years he donated it all to an Asian civil rights group. He's also very aware how tenuous people's rights are and how easily they can be taken away. He talked about FDR, a guy he otherwise respected, giving in to fear and starting up the internment camp program. And he cautioned that if you start with a guy that does NOT have the sort of morals that FDR had, then the damage he can do to civil rights will be that much greater. His words - “I consider it my responsibility as an American citizen to actively participate, particularly because I know my childhood imprisonment - the unjust imprisonment. If we don't participate, if we don't educate our fellow Americans to the vulnerability of our democracy, how fragile it can be, then we're not being responsible citizens.” Sometimes we forget how fragile our rights are.

I can't. Biden is boring and old, but has done well so far. He will get more boring and more old, and likely not survive his next term, or will be 25th'ed out. In which case the presidency will be in disarray and nothing much will get done. Which is not the worst outcome. Trump is an active danger to America. He has long campaigned on retribution and vengeance, and has stated he will be a "dictator" for a short time, and that he wants to "terminate" the "phony" Constitution. That's an active threat to America. One could claim "well, he won't be able to do that" - but ten years ago I am sure no one would have thought he could mount an insurrection, get abortion de-legalized or put Putin on a pedestal, either. If he accomplishes even 25% of what he sets out to do, he will have damaged the US significantly. Also, he is just plain evil. You can explain away greedy business decisions ("it's for the stockholders!") having a drug addict son, treating your kids poorly ("they're just not good kids") even working to take rights away from women ("the states should decide.") But you cannot pursue a stranger into a changing room and rape them without being inherently evil. And I don't want the US led by an evil man. The choice, for me, is very clear. The US is too important to me to ignore the threat.

As per SOP, you're coming here and telling a group largely made up of moderates what moderates believe, based on what you've been spoon-fed by your right-wind media diet. Does it take a lot of effort to remain so willfully ignorant that you post this in a thread where several people, including me, have detailed their support for Biden? There's zero doubt that he's increasingly looking like a horrible campaigner right now, but that doesn't negate what he has, and could continue to do as President.

I read that she won her primary. Georgia Trumpsters are probably gnashing their teeth....Oops!....tooth.

John Sherman Obituary Published by Legacy Remembers on May 9, 2024. Skydiving Pioneer, Innovator Dies at 85 Skydiving legend John Berry Sherman (born Engle) was born February 1939 in Chicago to John E Engle, GM engineer, toolmaker and turkey farmer and Sara Jo Berry (Sherman), NBC fashion editor and radio personality. He was raised first on his father's turkey farm before moving to live with his maternal grandparents in Monterey, TN and eventually to North Attleboro, MA. He joined the Army in 1957, serving in Germany as one of the Army's first LRRPs (Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol) for nuclear target acquisitions. There, he made his first parachute jump in 1958. He attended Tennessee Technical University to study engineering but soon found himself engrossed in the folk music scene of Nashville, leading to a stint as a folk musician. An accomplished guitarist, John made his way out to LA in 1961, rubbing noses with budding folk artists such as David Crosby, Peter Paul & Mary, The Kingston Trio and The Smothers Brothers while living and working at a famous LA nightclub called The Troubadour. He met his first wife back in Nashville where they owned the first folk bar and venue called the Third Floor. He eventually settled down in Michigan, working as an engineer for Chrysler Corporation. He was an early advocate for the turn to front-wheel-drive based architectures including his concept for what would eventually become the K-car-based minivan that Lee Iacocca introduced in 1984, a concept for which he was forever proud. In the late 60's, he was reintroduced to skydiving and became obsessed, often leaving work on a Friday afternoon, driving overnight in his custom Dodge van to a weekend skydiving boogie to jump all weekend and hop back in his van and make it back to the office Monday morning. Tired of jumping old, retired military equipment, as was common in the day and already being an accomplished parachute rigger, he began to experiment with equipment design. John invented the first modern "piggyback" harness/container system to be issued a single-unit certification by the FAA. It was dubbed the SST (Super Swooper Tandem, based on a nickname given to John by legend of the sport Ted Strong), which later became the Racer, revolutionizing the sport. As a leader in the skydiving industry, he introduced new design concepts, such as the pull-out pilotchute, main riser covers, anti-line-strip deployment bags, Teflon cutaway cables, the anti-float bag and container concept, the first truly elliptical main parachute, first tandem system with a 3-point drogue release incorporated into the cutaway handle and countless other safety features that have been emulated by other parachute equipment manufacturers. He was a founding member of the Parachute Industry Association, served as Technical Committee Chairman of the PIA, created the first PIA electronic bulletin board system, including the popular "rec.skydiving" forum on the Internet. John was the first U.S. skydiving competitor to Medal in what was then, all of the disciplines of Speed Style, Accuracy and Relative Work, in National Competition. He was instrumental in introducing Relative Work as part of U.S. National Competition, having written the rules for the original 4-way event. He pioneered Ten-Way Speed Star techniques that are still in practice today, designed the first 3-Dimensional skydives, and was largely responsible for the successful design of the first 200 Way World Record Formation as well as many other monumental skydiving formations. John was meet director for the first Thanksgiving Day "10-Man" Meet in 1969, later the "Turkey Meet". Notably, John has been a teacher and mentor to hundreds of riggers who now serve their skydiving communities around the world. He has trained some of the most successful riggers in the world. Virtually every major U.S. manufacturer has trained under Sherman or has consulted him to improve their products and processes. 1987 he started a new company called Decel and was awarded a grant to redesign the Mid-Air Refueling "Probe and Drogue" system used by the U.S. Marine Corps and Air Force. John received a U.S. Patent, for the design, which was to become the NATO standard. John lived many lives, more than most, and like a cat, survived many deaths including a car crash in 1964 where he died for six minutes, a plane crash, several parachute test-jumping incidents, a heart attack in 1990, a stroke in 2021, but ultimately met his match with a carton of milk (he loved milk) from McDonalds. John is survived by his wife Nancy, sisters Patty, Marty & Judy, daughters Margaret (Chase), Eliza Beth (James), son Johnny and grandchildren Quela & Thomas.

Within days? I can name someone who is fined for contempt, and does it again the same evening.

New episode out now! DB Cooper was a Metallurgist with my good friend Drew Daniel. https://thecoopervortex.podbean.com/e/db-cooper-was-a-metallurgist-drew-daniel/ Enjoy!

My memory is that you didn’t really like Trump, but felt it was more important to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House, so you voted for him. Id submit that Trump is a greater threat to how our country operates; one of the best things about the US is that we trust our succession, and that the person fills the position, not that the position is wrapped around the person. But that was threatened in 2020, and Trump has made it clear that he doesn’t intend to accept a loss this year, that he plans to pardon people who consider an invasion of the Capitol and the shenanigans that went along with it to be OK. In addition, his need for personal loyalty (rather than to the position) is very concerning. Personally, I consider this to be a significant threat to the structure of the country. Wendy P.

As promised. Video about the Clara letter. It’s about 45 minutes. The first 30 are about Stylometry and how it refutes the claims that Barb is Clara. The last 15 are on Barb in general. You should be able to play it at 1.25 or even 1.5 to get through it quicker.

What surprises me is that there hasn’t been much coverage of how Trump’s hotel was taken by the courts due to tax fraud. The timing of Trump’s statements seems to be more about personal grievances at being held accountable than any altruistic concern for Americans

Actually there are people who have different views to the majority and are not trolls. They are sincere in their beliefs and disagree strongly while still being able to hold a rational conversation and make a point (people like Bigun etc). The childish trolling adds no value and is frankly not entertaining after you’ve left kindergarten.

You know what, we are often on opposite ends, but I appreciate the humanity you bring to the table, which tends to be missing these days.

Hey everyone, Dropzone.com has been acquired by a non-skydiving party. The site will remain active and available in its current format until the end of the year. Please back up your DMs and data before December 31, 2024. Some of you have been asking about the data: As part of the deal, I will retain all the data and content. We'll explore options to see whether it's viable to make it available in some format again. That being said, there may very well be a period where nothing is available. Ultimately we may not find a solution to put it online again without just returning to the same cost and support issues that brought us to this point int the first place. That's quite likely. If we bring any of the data online again, you should expect it to be different... Go follow Dropzone.com on Facebook, instagram or X. (links in the site footer) If there are any developments or updates, we will use those platforms to announce it. Safe swoops Sangiro

Hey everyone, I wanted to give you a heads-up that I'll be putting Dropzone.com on the market. It has been a great 27 years, but for the last few years this has simply not been my focus, and the site is showing that neglect. It's time for someone else to pick up the ball and run with it, or take the domain in whatever direction they decide. There are still costs associated every month with keeping Dropzone.com up, that has become hard to justify. If you have PMs that you'd like to keep, now would be a good time to copy those as there is no telling what the next owner might do to keeping it up or not. If you're interested in buying the site or domain (serious buyers only) feel to get in touch PMs.

All breaks. Sweet. Everyone on that load has many reasons to be proud. Kudo's to the organizers, too. Well, well, done everyone.

I think it’s quite simple: he’d prefer a candidate who can just unzip their pants to get to 11.

It would take a helluva lot to dethrone the USD as the world’s most accepted currency, but one potential way to get there is incessantly shitting on any world leaders who aren’t ready to kiss the brass ring…which, in praise of Harris, is something she’s too smart to do.

Almost anyone would be preferable to a crooked lying rapist self-aggrandizing narcissistic felon.

Nobody who still uses the term 'woke' should expect to be taken seriously.

DEI something something socialist something something Woke etc.

thanks for not answering my question..... I have come to expect that from you. Trump did in fact suggest suspending parts of the constitution. And he is in fact, 'Satan in human form'. He attempted to overthrow an election and still to this day denies the outcome of the election. He did in fact steal millions from his charity, his corporation did indeed get convicted of 13 felony counts of fraud, his associates and confidants are in fact convicted felons... I could go on with a dozen other factual examples or more, Of course you, like all the other trumpie supporting types cannot even bring yourselves to admit that these things happened, thus saving you the respectful civic duty of justifying your support for this human piece of fucking garbage seditious cunt.

Yeah. Jakee of course I am. See, this is why I block you at times - not contributing solutions, looking for bits and pieces of what people post just to keep it going in an ongoing circular loop. Setting up for the spike. Just add to the conversation, man.

The Scotts have realized Trump can no longer enter Scotland.

If it's a whim? No. If it just might save their life, or solve a serious problem? Yes. When Hanne Gaby Odiele was 10, her parents took her for surgery to remove her testes - with her support. That officially transitioned her to female. She's now a supermodel. Genetically male, but phenotypically female. Cases like that are very rare. Countrywide there are fewer than 20 bottom surgeries on kids aged 13-17 a year, and most are like the above - dealing with someone who was born intersex, or repairing a serious Prader-scale problem. Puberty blockers are much more common, and allow the kid to wait until they are 18 to make the decision. 99.9% of the time they are a much better option.

Speaker Johnson giving a press conference outside of Trumps trial today. America the land with a judiciary separate from politics is a thing of the past. Never mind the Supreme courts political actions of late. From Fox News “It’s a remarkable, if not unprecedented, moment in modern American politics to have the powerful House speaker, a constitutional officer, turn his political party against the U.S. system and rule of law by declaring a trial illegitimate” I’m not sure the US will ever regain its moral high ground after the Trump era ends. I don’t know if Trump broke the system, or simply exposed a broken system. Regardless, he appears to have done a great job of it. I never thought a first world country would have a diaper wearing lunatic as a serious contender for President.

3 loads went up today-I got on jet 2 and jet 3, too cool!