elfanie

Oh ewww ewww ewww..... no no no...no potato chips and hot sauce... Only CORN chips and salsa... only thing that should go on potato chips is BBQ flavoring..or maybe ranch, but even ranch is better on corn chips. -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings

Hip Hop music Unfaithfulness Beer (yes...I'm one of the 4 skydivers nationwide that can't stand beer and don't understand why anybody would like it) -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings

You will not be exempt for this reason. I got called for jury duty...told them I'm a student midwife and had mothers that were due that I was on call for.. they said tough. I could get one extension, but that's it. I said, "But I'm ALWAYS on call for clients.." Their response was "tough". And being a primary care provider for an expectant mom REALLY means that they can't do without you!!! Nope...not a good enough reason. Me? I served my jury duty proudly...1st degree murder trial (and an icky one at that)...and I'm proud to say that I did such a teeny tiny part that helps keep America the wonderful country that it is. I can't imagine what some of the people on this board who are serving in the military would think hearing people whine and complain about not wanting to take a couple of days out of their busy lives to serve on jury duty while they go off to war and put their lives on the line....(I know the original poster of this thread was making a joke about "what are some creative excuses we can come up with and laugh about.." but there are really people who seriously try to get out of jury duty because of the inconvenience of it...and I think they should be embarassed.) -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings

Buahahaha.... so true...everytime we're heading up to altitude it's like an army troop trying to go through a bunch of airport metal detectors.. *beeeep**beep**beeeeep**beepbeepbeep* Arizona: The only dropzones that make you WANT to stay in the plane a little longer at altitude in the summer. ("My God, I finally COOLED DOWN...I want to jump, but I also want to stay in this wonderfully cool temp just a few moments longer...") Arizona: Home of extreme dropzones - extremely cold in winter, extremely hot in summer. Arizona: What do you mean "off landing" - the whole state is one big landing area. -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings

I'm relatively strong on upper body strength..although not compared to most men. I can pull the toggle all the way down..but then the force of the turn is such that it becomes too much for my arm to hold all the way down (I usually end up pulling it up to about chest level because that's as far as I can hold it) It's more like the centrifical force pulls hard enough that I can't hold it full down... -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings

My problem is that once the spin starts, I don't seem to have the arm strength to hold the toggle all the way down...I can only hold it about halfway down. -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings

when a formation has funneled and you're near breakoff altitude...you just normally release and track away and pull. (the rules are different for big-ways...) As soon as you let go, you get stable and can get clear and pull... wanna see a funnelled exit? here you go...heh.. funnelled 5-way attempted horny gorilla -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings

I did...but as an accident. I didn't know that it would "collapse"...I thought it would "rock back". I'd never been able to stall a canopy even though I'd tried...and one time I pulled both toggles down all the way and held it...never did rock back, just slowed down and I spent some time going, "wow...this is so peaceful...." and looking at the scenery and enjoying the slowness of the canopy... then all of a sudden it felt like I'd hit turbulance..I looked up to see a mess of crap above my head that looked like a canopy in a snivel. I let my toggles back up, it reinflated, and I was done playing at that point with my heart racing...scared the crap out of me. haven't done it since... (although I did give myself line twists by pulling a left toggle down too far too quickly... ) -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings

There are a lot of people that agree with you, beleive it or not.

Ah...but you do. If legislation made infantcide legal, I'm certain you'd fight to make it illegal again. And I'm sure you support the legislation making rape and murder illegal, right? If you truly think that abortion after brain activity was killing a baby....I'd bet that you'd want to impose your morality on others just like we impose our morality against killing adults or sodomizing children.... If I'm wrong I'm sure somebody here will be kind enough to correct me... but I don't believe this to be true. I beleive in order to be operated on to remove organs for donation you must be declared legally dead...which is not the same thing as brain dead. You can not operate and remove organs for donation until they have actually died and been declared dead. And I just looked it up... "The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act also states that it is necessary for the donor to be declared dead according to the legal definition of death before organs are retrieved." This is not the case right now legally. Big stink was made not too too long ago over an anencephalic baby (no brain ever develops - just a brain stem, but the brain stem is responsible for the autonomic nervous system, ie breathing, heartbeat - no measurable brain activity because there's no brain in the skull) that was born...brain stem kept baby legally alive, and the parents wanted to donate the baby's organs. Organs will slowly deteriorate the longer baby is "alive" and eventually get to the point where they are no longer usable...so parents wanted to euthenize the baby and remove the organs. Baby had absolutely NO chance for long-term good outcome...none...zero. They knew for an absolute certainty that baby would die...maybe today, and maybe as long as 2 months...but baby would absolutely die as organs failed and the body finally failed. yet they couldn't harvest organs from this baby with no brain because baby was still considered alive. parents petitioned the courts who in turn denied them... baby lived 5 weeks...organs not salvagable... so long as baby was breathing on his own with his heart beating...they could not legally deny the baby basic support (food, water, oxygen) and could take no steps to end his life. Now, there is a point to be made that an anencephalic baby DOES have brain activity (brain stem)...and therefore would fall under the "any brain activity and they deserve protection" thing that you just said...so that would make sense. "Presently, under current legal and ethical guidelines, anencephalic infants cannot provide donor organs until all brain death criteria are met (Cady, 1999)." So you're right in that anencephalic babies aren't 100% "brain dead".... but if an adult is 100% brain dead, they don't need to withold food....their heart and lungs would stop. You need at least a brain stem to have your heart and lungs working.. (I'm starting to ramble now..so I'll shut up) -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings

Aahhhh... And here is where we become quibbly with things, Bill... The brain begins to function at about 10-12 weeks of gestation (where you can measure brain activity). Medical abortions (as opposed to chemical abortions) can be obtained after 7 weeks of gestation... with that information, there's more to think about. first off...the brain is function at (lets be generous) 12 weeks...yet abortions can be obtained in some states up until birth. Do you believe in legislation that would make abortion after 12 weeks illegal? And lets go another step... people who are brain dead (adults) can be taken off life support machines...but no, they can not be killed. If there is someone who is brain dead..I can't go in there and shoot them in the head. Legally, that's murder. However...abortion involves not removing the fetus...but actually killing it ahead of time. Do you think that it should be manditory that abortions be performed in a way that the embryo/fetus remains intact and is not killed by the removal of life support? (let me clarify: like with a brain dead adult, do you think that it should be illegal to kill the embryo/fetus, but legal to take them off of life support ie. out of the uterus intact?) and now lets go into hypotheticals...if we were able to "jumpstart" the brain like we now do with the heart...would still feel that we should be allowed to take brain-dead people off of life support (since the potential for regaining full health is there)? or, more specifically, do you think we shoudl be allowed to take direct steps that we know will result in the end of their life? And if brain activity IS deemed the qualification for being a "human being", does that have a minimum requirement? What about anencephaly babies born without a brain but with a functioning brain stem....they are legally protected and we cannot euthenize them with the current laws...do you think that should change? (oh what a tangled web we weave when we try to explain the abstract philisophical idea of "what makes us human beings and what makes us special to others".

*flips back to the other side* masturbation spills sperm cells...cells with DNA that matches only the father...much the way his fingernails contain DNA tht is only his, or his hair, or his appendix if he wants to take that out... sperm is a part of him. Egg cells have DNA that matches only the other...(same explanation of things on her that belong to her and have only her DNA). Sperm and egg are as much a "human" as your blood that runs in your veins are. However...when sperm meets egg, an embryo is formed. It has a unique DNA, different from anyone else walking the planet...it is growing and thriving... Prolifers aren't prolife because of the POTENTIAL life an embryo posesses... they are prolife because they believe the embryo IS a life, equal in value to a 12 week fetus which is equal in value to a 28 week fetus which is equal in value to a newborn baby. it's not the POTENTIAL that makes them prolife...it's the realization of that potential. Just like we don't value newborns because they are POTENTIAL adults...we value them because we view them as little human beings worthy of protection even though they haven't reached their full stage of development yet (adulthood). And prolifers don't value embryos because they are POTENTIAL babies...they value them because they view them as little human beings worthy of protection even though they haven't reached their full stage of development yet (adulthood). so being prolife and yet ok with birth control and masturbation is not hypocritical... -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings

*gigglefits* don't mean to kill you...just beat you up a little bit. And the moment that a sperm is ejaculated into a woman (of course, under the right conditions), it will meet an egg and it will grow...so therefore the potential for a human being is there. I disagree that the question is when does physical human life begin...because that's inarguably "conception"...it's human DNA, it fulfills all of the requirements for life...but that's not the question. My spleen is living, human DNA, and can die... the question is when is a human being created? When does it become a human being worthy of protection from harm....THAT is the question. And it is more a philisophical (and, for some, religious) question than a scientific one... when is it a human being, given value as a human individual and therefore worthy of protection from harm.... THAT, my dear, is the $25,000,000 question. -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings

Nope... to most prolifers, RU486 is killing a human life. Very different from the morning after pill(s). VERY few prolifers view the morning after pill(s) as abortion since it works the exact same as birth control pills (attempt to prevent ovulation first, THEN attempt to prevent implantation of a fertilized embryo) RU486 is, inarguably, an abortion...it's a chemical abortion. After implantation has occured and a positive pregnancy is confirmed, RU486 causes the pregnancy to end... big difference between the two. -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings

And if you're going back to the dish... an embryo in a dish won't grow into anything, either. After it becomes a blastocyst it WILL DIE, unquestionably, unless placed into a host uterus. A sperm, in a host woman at the right time of the cycle, will grow into something. In other words..sperm/egg/embryo....each one needs the right environment to continue on... -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings

You mean current viability of 22 weeks? Or do you mean previous viability, which was 28 weeks? (not that long ago) or viability a few years from now of 18 weeks? And does it have to be able to sustain its own life without assistance from machines and physicians before it is "a life"? The #1 reason that viability is where it is is due to lung development... so is an adult who loses the ability to breathe on their own no longer a life? We can shoot them in the head? And going back to the embryo debate..the embryos are living inside a petri dish, no help from a host woman. Are they 'a life' until such a point as they are placed into a woman...where they stop being a life until they could survive being removed? Just wanting you to clarify your position... -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings

As much the same thing as the embryo. the sperm needs the egg. the embryo needs the uterus/woman/endometrium. -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings

wouldn't you like to know. seriously...I have very strong feelings when it comes to this issue, but (like you said) I can see both sides and can understand both. If I shared which side I was really on, the other side would automatically invalidate everything I say.. I used to be STRONGLY on one side when I was younger...now I'm STRONGLY on the other side. However, which side I am on is irrelevant when discussing the issues and such...

*heavy sigh* I disagree....kind of. Depends on what you mean by "really bad". If you're going to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges, if things go really bad driving OR skydiving, you're likely to be dead. there are accidents, and then there are catastrophic accidents...in both activities. You have your broken legs and your twisted ankles and you have your bruises in skydiving...and you have your fender benders with cuts and bruises, your broken legs, your relatively minor injuries with driving. You have your total malfunctions, your downplanes, your entanglements in jumping... and you have your freeway rollovers, your falling asleep at the wheel, your hitting a tree, etc while driving. You have your idiot who cuts you off under canopy and tangles with you, who is freeflying and corks up into you knocking you out, etc while jumping. You have your head on collisions, your fast-food-eating distracted driver who crosses lanes and hits you, the jerk who pulls right out in front of you without looking, etc while driving. Not all skydiving accidents are fatal...thank God. Total malfunctions are almost always fatal, true...but so are freeway headons. thankfully, both are relatively rare. I agree that skydiving can be terribly unforgiving - but I also agree that so can driving be. When I drive, I use my seat belts, have airbags, keep both hands on the wheel (I will not eat while driving - although I have spoken on the phone), am constantly looking around for the idiot who's going to try to kill me, don't drive if the roads are too bad, don't "hot rod" the car, etc. And when I jump, I safety check my rig, am constantly looking around for the idiot who's going to try to kill me under canopy, I don't heavily wingload, don't jump if the wind is high, don't swoop, etc. I don't see driving and skydiving as a totally erroneous comparison. I see driving on the freeway as freefall, and driving on city roads as being under canopy... if on the freeway you get a tire that blows out, you could be in serious trouble. someone swerve in front of you? Hit a patch of ice? Lots of things can be deadly on the freeway very very quickly with very little reaction time. On city roads you are likely to have slightly longer to react, but things can still happen quickly. while on city roads, more accidents are likely to result in injury than death (unless your'e being stupid about driving) - but it can still be deadly if you aren't careful. Maybe I just drive in the wrong part of the country. But I take driving very seriously...as well as skydiving. -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings

Far be it from me to be afraid to admit that I am wrong when I'm wrong.

*does her arnold horshack impression* Ooo...ooo...I know..I know... the difference is that the twin studies weren't identical twins for one thing.. and the other thing is that the twin studies were SO SKEWED as to make them scientifically invalid. in other words...they fit the study to satisfy their desired outcome. they asked tens of thousands of questions of the Minnesota twins during the study.. then published the similarities to prove that nature was bigger than nurture. Problem was when meta-analysis were done they found that the stimilarities weren't statistically different than similarities found between any random two people.... but they've already looked at identical twins in the same household and been alarmed at the differences identical twins even being raised in the same home have (although being raised in the same family does NOT mean you have the same experiences and such) -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings

IUDs main job is not to prevent conceptions. We are now offering hormonal IUDs....but still, the #1 way that they prevent pregnancy is by preventing implantation of fertilized embryos.... -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings

Nope...the 25% of miscarriages includes failed implantation, genetic abnormalities, blighted ovums, etc etc etc... there is no other 60%... In other words...for every 4 embryos created naturally, one will fail. Yes...IVF rates are much lower than naturally occuring rates for many reasons.. first off, you're hormonally hyperstimulating the ovaries. then you're fertilizing in a petri dish then you're trying to make sure to keep all conditions optimum while they cleave and divide if you're trying to get them to blastocyst stage, you have a two-stage culture medium which can lose some then you have poor quality embryos that happen because many of the women are older then you have to somehow try to transfer them into the woman who may or may not have a good endometrium due to many factors.. when looking at IVF..you're already looking at women with fertility issues...so with just that you're going to look at a higher failure rate. Heh...knew you were a wise man, Bill. Me? I'm an idiot..and I always get in trouble with both sides of the debate...because I understand both sides. So when someone attacks prochoicers I step in..and when someone attacks prolifers I step in. People USUALLY can't figure out which side I'm on. -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings

Ah...but an embryo, left alone, won't grow up to be another person... we haven't been able to get them past the blastocyst stage without a woman and a uterus. When did I ever say that? I never said that. I said that for some people, that is part of their criteria. And they aren't talking about killing a 26 week old fetus for stem cell research and cloning. What a 26 week fetus can do is irrelevant to the conversation... Depends on who you ask.. But most 2 year olds can live on its own...can feed itself, etc. Hormonal forms of birth control has three functions.. 1. attempts to prevent ovulation (I can get into the how and whys if you really want me to) 2. thickens cervical mucus to attempt to prevent the sperm from being able to meet up with the egg should it be ovulated and 3. thins the endometrial lining to prevent implanatation should fertilization occur One of the risks of hormonal birth control methods is spontaneous abortion of a fertilized embryos. it's one of the ways in which it works (ALL of the hormonal methods) -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings

Average rate of conception in any given cycle is closer to 24%. Our IVF clinic had an 80% success rate. We transferred two embryos...because twins were acceptable to us, and if one of them by some wild freak of nature ended up an identical twin, then triplets would be acceptable to us. therefore we transferred 2 embryos and froze the rest in an effort to protect and save them. *looks at her 4 year old daughter running around* average embryos transferred are 2-4 per IVF proceedure. High order multiples are actually RARELY from IVF. They are usually from IUI combined with an overlystimulated cycle (mom takes injectables like Gonal-F or Repronix or Pergonal, and then does IUI -IntraUterine Insemination - which is a totally different proceedure/protocol). As a side note: high order multiples is considered an infertility clinic failure, not success. They do not WANT to have that as a result...and it actually does not happen that often. Again...not entirely accurate. Many do discard them, yes...but many do not. there are four options when you have embryos frozen.. 1. use them in the future 2. place them for adoption for another couple to use in the future 3. donate them for scientific research 4. destroy them. the thing is...you grew a pancreas, not an embryo... and whether it would be acceptable would depend on who you asked. I think most people wouldn't have a problem with creating an organ to replace a failing one.. I think the controversy comes when you're talking about using embryos for proceedures and research...especially if there are other options (such as umbilical cord stem cells, for example) -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings