Jim

The CIA infiltration is complete - you are way too naive!

Jesus, Mary, and Harry.

Very nice - thanks for the report. Been up there in summer for climbs but not yet in winter. Looks like a Spring trip may be in order!

Nice! Very, very lucky. As an ecologist I spend quite a bit of time out and about in the PNW on top of climbing/skiing. I've see 3 cougars in 30 yrs of work. Once was following a cat on telemetry and it still took us an hour of looking when the dang thing was up a tree 20 yds from us. Sounds like a chill-up-the-spine moment. Excellent.

Well if you are an experienced builder then you know what goes with the territory. And you know the costs of hookups, review and processing of plans and permits, etc. is a bit more involved than jsut when the inspector shows up. Could it be done more effiently? - likely. But that's life in general. Want water, sewer, electric hook up and up to safe standards - well then, user pays. End of story.

??? .....and that should be were, eh?

The "my hair is on fire" thing does get old

I'm with you on that - good link. Thanks. How this is going to churn out will be interesting - but agreed, need to work both ends of the forumula.

JayB spews outrageous horseshit about "hauser's law" and claims we only talked about raising marginal tax rates, and your response is that JayB has a point? wtf is wrong with you? Nobody claimed that simply raising taxes on the wealthy would solve the budget deficit as has already been said several times in this thread, as well as many times before. I'm more apt to resond to posts that have some reason behind them, even if I disagree with a stated opinion. If you could show some stats to back up your hysterics I might also agree with you.

If you spend some time looking at the data, JayB has a point. Raising marginal rates on the upper incomes is not going to solve the deficit problem. The upper income bracket, say above above $250k a person, have been getting off easy lately and letting the Bushie tax breaks expire would be a good thing, help revenue, and would be more fair. But - it isn't going to solve the problem. The unfunded Medicare drug program (should repeal that dog) and two wars - plus the down economy has us digging a deeper hole. Let the Bushie era tax breaks expire, remove the limit on Social Security Tax ( I think it stops at about $102k), and yes, let all Bush tax cuts - including the middle class ones, expire. Cutting the Pentagon budget by about 25% would give us a needed boost as well.

and cutting programs. both. Here's a few places to consider starting - click on the graphic. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/opinion/13arquilla.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Bingo. If Obama had been using the fireworks from the speech last night to define the Administration's narrative from the get-go, the terms of the debate would look far different than they do now. A radical Ryan-plan would never pass the trial balloon stage. This is more of the same: allow the Right to frame the debate for a couple months, meet them "half-way", give an amazing speech, and then negotiate everything away. We should, as Greenwald does, be asking if this is by design. If it is, the liberal punditry that's eating out of Obama's hand today are getting played. Have to agree with that. While the Repubs always fail at governing they are crafty at politics. Something the Dems appear to be cluess about.

Humor is perhaps a sense of intellectual perspective: an awareness that some things are really important, others not; and that the two kinds are most oddly jumbled in everyday affairs. ~Christopher Morley

found while doing field work this week: 4 long-toed salamanders 1 Pacific giant salamander 2 Cope's salamanders 6 Ensatinas 8 tailed frogs 6 Cascade frogs 1 wet bear

I got the Nomads Rx here: http://www.opticus.com/ Used climbing in Bolivia 2 months, various PNW climbs, also use for biking. I like 'em.

Quite impressive. Congrats and thanks for sharing the photos.

I'll bow out of this circular discussion. Here's the facts: We have a $5M+ budget deficit in WA over the next two years. The WA voters have turned down even a modest tax increase on candy and such - so any increase in revenue isn't in the picture. WA must have a balanced budget. Thus, more cuts are coming. My opinion: I'd rather see some trims to unsustainable benefit packages then reduced services to the poor or other vulneralble programs. If you have a solution, let's hear it.

Scalia is sharp as a tack - but evil. Thomas? Dumb as a stump. How the heck did that guy ever get considered? Oh, yea.

We're not politicians, we're citizens. We're not constrained by focus-grouped-out-the-ass politics and the fear of "political suicide" when we talk about potential solutions. Politicians don't talk about raising taxes or the impact of giving away tax cuts instead of funding its obligations because it's not part of the story or because it wouldn't go a long way toward solving the mess, they don't talk about it because they think it would be "political suicide". I expect politicians (silly me) to exercise leadership, to get the story right, and frame issues. Instead, American politics has drifted into a model of governance where our political leaders have become Burger King employees "giving us what we want" based on constant polling and focus grouping. The problem with that, of course, is that we don't always know what we want or what's needed for the long term health of the community. California is a perfect example: people don't want taxes but they want and need services. They have an initiative process and legislative constraints that compound the schizophenia and build the kind of straightjacket that Washingtonians are finding themselves in. Ignoring the facts and ignoring fiscal reality is exactly what pols are doing when they don't address how we got here (worse when they find scapegoats who've nothing to do with it), and leave one half of the revenue story completely off the table. Claiming that raising taxes is "impossible" and leaving it at that means they're putting their own skin ahead of what's best for the communities they're supposed to serve. A one-term wonder making noise, raising hell, putting forward good ideas and changing the parameters of the debate are worth twenty legislators willing to play in the neoliberal cat box these douchebags have created for us. You make good points about the reality of the leadership vacuum. There is that messy thing about democracy though. Who would reasonably think a tax increase package is going to pass today in WA. I'm all for the long haul and working towards that goal - but - with an over $5M shortfall in the coming two year budget, I'm also a realist. Can't stick you head in the sand and make beleive it will go away if only....

Maybe you could hook up with Pat and your jurisprudence expertise could run it through the courts in time for the budget talks. In the meantime it's the law. Was I just bestowed an honorary law degree? Kewwwwwllllll. I didn't know anyone else with the correct connections.

Yea.

Hey - I vote for who I think can do the best job. I visit my state and federal representatives' offices twice a year. I give to progressive causes. But it doesn't give me the privilege of ignoring reality and what the voters have put on the table. You can continue making all the noise you want - but fiscal reality is staring the policy makers in the face. They don't have your luxury of ignoring the facts. And - I do believe that some minor tweaks need to be made to unsustainable benefit packages in government.

Maybe you could hook up with Pat and your jurisprudence expertise could run it through the courts in time for the budget talks. In the meantime it's the law.

And yet, Eymanoid ditto-heads aren't obstacles to solving the crisis, progressives are. Thanks for "keeping it real". While I agree that it's a stupid law, there was, well a vast majority of voters who went for it - so it wasn't just crackpots and lost souls. Maybe people are just stupid and vote against their best interest - I dunno. But a majority went for it and here we are.

The state legislators are considering "closing tax loopholes", but it appears that this will require a 2/3rd majority as it would raise taxes according to that wonkly I-960. So I guess this, and last year's election, already show where the voters are on taxes. So we're back to: 1) make structural changes including benefits/pensions 2) service cuts. My guess is that we'll see more of #2... least for a while.