chucK

Yep, and they can walk as slow as they damn well please. Doesn't mean it's courteous though. Actually I believe peds have the right of way at all "implied" crosswalks, which is any corner.

When I'm a pedestrian I usually don't want the cars to stop. I wait at the corner and let the car pass, then I go across. It's much easier for a pedestrian to stop and wait 2 seconds than it is for a car to stop and wait 15, then get back up to speed. If it's a big line of cars and the ped would be waiting forever if someone didn't stop, that's when you should stop for the peds. What really pisses me off are the peds you stop for, then they take their goddamned time walking painfully slow. Some even seem to be trying to walk slow, to emphasize their power or something Talk about courtesy, or lack of it. Sheesh.

It's a Wonderful Life "Deservin's got nothin' to do with it."

Yeah, like you stop every time someone is standing by a crosswalk. Suuuuuure.

KkkKk is a little slow on the draw for this one, so I'll attempt to explain the general (though possibly not KkkKk's peronal) appeal for these popular films. People in our society are faced with vexing complicated problems. Almost universally, they wish that if only would their problems have quick easy solutions. The Dirty Harry films cater to escapism in the form of McDonald's-quick problem solving via the trigger of a big gun. Escapism is greatly valued in the theatre (remember all those movies about rich people in the depression, and, hell, even now?), as is prowess in gunplay. In real life the vigilante justice glorified in Dirty Harry movies is not as highly praised, because often it is anything but just. In the world of the theatre-goer enjoying a DH flick though, the moral quandary is not present as the film makes us, the viewer, fully aware of who is deserving. We are presented with numerous scenes in which these people commit heinous acts, any one of which would be deserved to be repaid by a slow agonizing death. We are also clued in that Harry is omniscient about who does and who doesn't deserve to be sentenced. Moral dilemmas thus avoided we are free to enjoy the movie in great suspense until the final joyful climax of "problem solved" accompanied by memorable witty tagline.

If we had perfect foresight as to everybody who was an evil terrorist this would hold water. But we don't. All the evil terrorists are not telegraphed to the world as obvious bad guys as in Dirty Harry movies, and all the people turned over to the US or Pakistani Army for huge indiscrimant bounties are not high-level terrorists with access to Al Qaeda's organizational chart. Also, not all personnel overseeing US detainees are all-knowing, and some even are probably sadists and/or mentally unstable due to being in a war zone. Innocent until proven guilty, works for us, why not them? I think you should have a very high standard when you're talking about the, if not inhumane, then very close to inhumane treatment we are subjecting many of these detainees to.

Oh, okay. Hitler's disregard for human rights was completely worthwhile. Executing the handicapped, retarded, and homosexuals in the name of the good of Reich was a wonderful idea. You are indeed right. I stand corrected. I apologize. :kisss: You seem to have a problem with logic. But you do seem nice :kisss: back at ya

Hasn't Bush already said that waterboarding got valuable information out of three detainees? He must think it works. I think Bush is a jerk, an incompetent and looking out for a lot of peoples' interests before that of the country, but I don't have any reason to believe that he supports torture just because he's a sadist. There's nothing new about Bush finding his own path and ignoring experts on the matter.

There you go with your specious argument again about Hitler, spanish inquisition, Khmer Rouge, etc... Just cause Hitler said something doesn't mean it's wrong. Think about it, Hitler probably had a beer now and then, does this imply that beer is evil? Probably drank milk as a kid too, etc. ETA my comment refers to Lizard Brain's, not Tvash's. I am not attempting to excuse Hitler's invasion of Poland

Didn't you see Star Trek? The good of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or something to that effect. I think if one were absolutely certain that torturing some person could get information that would prevent, say, a nuclear bomb from destroying Los Angeles, then it would be quite the moral dilemma, to say the least, as to what to do. I don't think I'd be following any absolute rules of no torture. Obviously, this extreme case will probably never happen, but I think this may be the jist of Archenemy's argument. I'm not saying that it should be legal to torture, that guy who knows the bomb secret, or anyone. But I think if it were clear cut enough, that you'd be saving enough lives, then one would be willing to break the law, and suffer the consequences. Analogous to diving on the grenade to save the team.

I'm not sure if I'm following your logic either, but you appear to be excusing torture if it will lead to saving someone else's life. I would guess there would also be a caveat that the victim should be a bad guy? Does that bad guy also have to be directly involved in the situation that is threatening someone else's (assumed good guy) life? Rarely are you going to find a cut and dried situation where it is completely clear that a prisoner has info that could save a life. If our government waited until this was the case, I am sure that the instances would be rare enough, and the personnel involved would be well-trained enough that all of our resources could completely keep this practice from the light of day. EVEN with the horrible pinko press wanting to know about stuff. There would be no problem. In fact there's probably plenty of interrogations that have happened that we don't know about. The problem we have now is that torture and very harsh interrogation practice is being signed off on regularly by this administration. This has invariably led to sloppy practices by under-trained troops, myriad exposure to the press and world eye, and probably hundreds or thousands of cases of innocent people being tortured for no reason. Having torture being publicly unapologetically excused at the highest level of our government (the president) also removes our credibility as a humane leader in the world. It also makes any information we report to have gleaned from detainees suspect. There may be very rare occasions that torture can be excused. But we definitely should not be torturing so systematically that it requires a declaration from our president that we won't rule it out.

Even if it did work, there'd be a problem with it being used without discretion as in Abu Grhaib. For example, there is a solution that would work to stop the ethnic strife in Iraq, the FINAL solution. But we're not about to do that for obvious reasons. Unless you believe the Bush admin is TOTALLY evil, then you have to concede that at least somebody must think torture works. Evidence that it doesn't work is a good reason to not torture people (especially those not even given a right to trial), but it's not the only one.

New York Times article last week The only catch is, they're illegal.

I like those odds.

A randomized trial is the only way to tell for sure. Get an Everest expedition or two to randomly assign oxygen cannisters, half of them fortified with cigarette smoke. See who summits, see who dies.

Has anybody ever climbed ____________?

So is whiskey the only liquor that goes really well with water? This a valuable characteristic for a pack-it-into-the-wilderness booze.

What's up with that putty in the crack? Reverse chipping?

How about $1/gallon tax on gas and use the tax revenue to give people rebates on their purchase of high-MPG cars? Or even better, to get the protectionist vote, rebates on high-MPG American made vehicles. OTOH, the way it works now (CAFE) probably subsidizes the high_MPG vehicles because the car manufacturer is probably forced to lower the price of the high-MPG's to make more sales and thus probably raises the prices of the low-MPG's to compensate. So that model doesn't seem as terrible as Jay suggests (might work in his grocery store example even!). The kicker though is that the SUV's are exempt from the CAFE standards (or in another class or something) because they are consider "light trucks" (I think, correct me if I'm wrong).

tell me about the rabbits George

Yes everybody seems to be so annoyed at other people talking on cellphones. I wonder how long it'll be until people start feeling justified enough in their anger at this unpoliteness to start up with CELLPHONE RAGE. People getting their cellphones punched, or bluetooths batted Just a matter of time I tell ya. I've used Archenemy's strategy before, but not leaning in, but nodding and interacting like I'm in the conversation too. That's a good nonviolent way to get the message across that you're in this conversation too. One great thing to do with a cellphone is to call someone behind a desk right in front of you. You know, those places where you are waiting in a line trying to get service, but the clerk also has to man the phone, and they always give preference to the phone calls instead of the people waiting right in front of them. To get around this, you can call the number and get them on the phone. I did this at a car-rental place recently. It was fun.

Try clicking on "Search" (upper right area of screen), or perhaps "Forum List" (upper left center part of screen) Sometimes Google works a lot better than the cc.com search function. Use "Advanced search" in Google then limit the search to the domain cascadeclimbers.com

Somewhat tangential, but did anyone hear the NPR piece on Sharma last week. listen to it here

So I guess you were agreeing with my sentiment that a SeaTac railline is not the best use of resources? Since your figures show a capacity of 15,600 passengers per hour, while the Sound Transit estimates 3000 riders per day.