Jim

1) Profit for insurance companies 2) See 1 3) See 2

Hmmmm. That also could reduce the number on the Social Security dole as well. Hmmm.

Jeesh. Why bother with actually trying to reduce the source of the effect. Why that could effect the economy of the US. (inundation is a minor problem)

I agree. But I would go a bit further to say that forcing states and local communities to do some land planning, and providing some oversight to the securities market could have avoided a lot of these issue. Bailing out homeowners in diaster prone areas, or stock holders in risky ventures equates to a government bail out, rewards bad decisions, and raises costs for more astute investors.

We seem have to reached a new low when confirming a new AG who, for some reason, can't conclude that waterboarding is torture. It's shameful that enough Reps and Democrats voted for this tap dancer. Daniel Lavine, once acting assistant AG conclusively determined that waterboarding was torture. He was asked by the administration to make a determination and went as far as to have himself subjected to the procedure. Even though he knew he was in trusted hands, he thought for sure he would drown. The act is simply torture. Because of his independent assessment he was shown the door. Quickly. A Washington Post article: Waterboarding Used to Be a Crime By Evan Wallach The Washington Post Sunday 04 November 2007 As a JAG in the Nevada National Guard, I used to lecture the soldiers of the 72nd Military Police Company every year about their legal obligations when they guarded prisoners. I'd always conclude by saying, "I know you won't remember everything I told you today, but just remember what your mom told you: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." That's a pretty good standard for life and for the law, and even though I left the unit in 1995, I like to think that some of my teaching had carried over when the 72nd refused to participate in misconduct at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. Sometimes, though, the questions we face about detainees and interrogation get more specific. One such set of questions relates to "waterboarding." That term is used to describe several interrogation techniques. The victim may be immersed in water, have water forced into the nose and mouth, or have water poured onto material placed over the face so that the liquid is inhaled or swallowed. The media usually characterize the practice as "simulated drowning." That's incorrect. To be effective, waterboarding is usually real drowning that simulates death. That is,the victim experiences the sensations of drowning: struggle, panic, breath-holding, swallowing, vomiting, taking water into the lungs and, eventually, the same feeling of not being able to breathe that one experiences after being punched in the gut. The main difference is that the drowning process is halted. According to those who have studied waterboarding's effects, it can cause severe psychological trauma, such as panic attacks, for years. The United States knows quite a bit about waterboarding. The U.S. government - whether acting alone before domestic courts, commissions and courts-martial or as part of the world community - has not only condemned the use of water torture but has severely punished those who applied it. After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war. At the trial of his captors, then-Lt. Chase J. Nielsen, one of the 1942 Army Air Forces officers who flew in the Doolittle Raid and was captured by the Japanese, testified: "I was given several types of torture.... I was given what they call the water cure." He was asked what he felt when the Japanese soldiers poured the water. "Well, I felt more or less like I was drowning," he replied, "just gasping between life and death." Nielsen's experience was not unique. Nor was the prosecution of his captors. After Japan surrendered, the United States organized and participated in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, generally called the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Leading members of Japan's military and government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we would now call waterboarding. In this case from the tribunal's records, the victim was a prisoner in the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies: A towel was fixed under the chin and down over the face. Then many buckets of water were poured into the towel so that the water gradually reached the mouth and rising further eventually also the nostrils, which resulted in his becoming unconscious and collapsing like a person drowned. This procedure was sometimes repeated 5-6 times in succession. The United States (like Britain, Australia and other Allies) pursued lower-ranking Japanese war criminals in trials before their own tribunals. As a general rule, the testimony was similar to Nielsen's. Consider this account from a Filipino waterboarding victim: Q: Was it painful? A: Not so painful, but one becomes unconscious. Like drowning in the water. Q: Like you were drowning? A: Drowning - you could hardly breathe. Here's the testimony of two Americans imprisoned by the Japanese: They would lash me to a stretcher then prop me up against a table with my head down. They would then pour about two gallons of water from a pitcher into my nose and mouth until I lost consciousness. And from the second prisoner: They laid me out on a stretcher and strapped me on. The stretcher was then stood on end with my head almost touching the floor and my feet in the air.... They then began pouring water over my face and at times it was almost impossible for me to breathe without sucking in water. As a result of such accounts, a number of Japanese prison-camp officers and guards were convicted of torture that clearly violated the laws of war. They were not the only defendants convicted in such cases. As far back as the U.S. occupation of the Philippines after the 1898 Spanish-American War, U.S. soldiers were court-martialed for using the "water cure" to question Filipino guerrillas. More recently, waterboarding cases have appeared in U.S. district courts. One was a civil action brought by several Filipinos seeking damages against the estate of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. The plaintiffs claimed they had been subjected to torture, including water torture. The court awarded $766 million in damages, noting in its findings that "the plaintiffs experienced human rights violations including, but not limited to ... the water cure, where a cloth was placed over the detainee's mouth and nose, and water producing a drowning sensation." In 1983, federal prosecutors charged a Texas sheriff and three of his deputies with violating prisoners' civil rights by forcing confessions. The complaint alleged that the officers conspired to "subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning." The four defendants were convicted, and the sheriff was sentenced to 10 years in prison. We know that U.S. military tribunals and U.S. judges have examined certain types of water-based interrogation and found that they constituted torture. That's a lesson worth learning. The study of law is, after all, largely the study of history. The law of war is no different. This history should be of value to those who seek to understand what the law is - as well as what it ought to be.

With a little planning this should be no dent for my retirement funds. http://www.timetravelfund.com/

This stuff gives me a headache

Do both. We've had such an ignorant lack of research and development in to fuel efficiency and reasonable standards that we have a steep curve to climb. I don't think I said anything about CAFE standards regarding CO2 emissions - but it is a good way to help lower our dependency on burning dinosaurs until something reasonable comes up. The current administration has a one size fits all anwser. Drill more. That is not insightful and will not help our security, environmental stewardship, or our economy in the long run.

This gets better with every post. While you have a marketplace wet dream why not invoke the spaghetti monster iniative as well. You can always "what if" an individual case that has no application or evidence. Continue herr marketplace miester.

The people who pay the most for this will be your friends in the UAW. What? Are you kidding me? Like it could actually get worse? Have you checked the profits and percent slope of the decline of the American car makers lately? Hmmmm. Why are the foreign car companies selling so much better over the past 20 years? Quality and efficiency. The Big Three's gamble on throwing an oversized shiny body onto a pickup frame has been diasterous in the long run. I guess in the short run some of the execs made out pretty well though. I think that it could actually get worse, and that attempting to regulate CO2 emissions via CAFE standards would do this very thing, since most of the cars that they make that people actually want to buy fall into the very category that would be affected the most. Also - what makes you think that if you eliminate all but the most fuel efficient cars from the marketplace, that people won't neutralize quite a few of the gains thus realized by simply driving more, carpooling less, etc - since they'll be able to increase their driving in direct proportion to the extent to which their fuel economy increases? If your aim is to discourage fuel consumption, rather than the production of certain kinds of vehicles, then imposing the costs on fuel consumption, rather vehicle acquisition makes much more sense. Oh give me a break. You've reached the usual absurd creshendo. CAFE standards have shown clearly that they improve fuel effecienty. Look at our past records and the European standards. The obvious problem that marketplace gurus like yourself have is that choices will be limted. Too bad, so sad. There is more at stake than some SUV driver's vanity.

Good point there. Human nutrition and automotive fuel efficiency are pretty much the same thing. In fact, I drink far less gasoline today, compared to the past, and it's really improved the mileage my bicycle gets. No equivocation here at all. The point is that consumer demand determines what manufacturers produce, and what retailers sell. Holding manufacturers responsible for what people want to buy is about as rational as blaming Andean peasants for our drug problem. The crass assumption that all that is to consider is dollars and cents is what has not worked before. If your trying to solve a wide-ranging environmental problem the market place will drag and drag until the last dollar has been squeezed out of the rag, even if the short-term profit runs them into a dead end. Emission standards were going to break the automobile industry. Same with clean air and water standards, seat belts, the first round of CAFE standards, etc. The marketplace does not care about environmental effects - it cares about profit. Government must play a role in moving the markets. Let them have gas guzzlers, just put a hefty surcharge on it and demand reasonable CAFE standards, which haven't been significantly updated in 20 yrs.

The people who pay the most for this will be your friends in the UAW. What? Are you kidding me? Like it could actually get worse? Have you checked the profits and percent slope of the decline of the American car makers lately? Hmmmm. Why are the foreign car companies selling so much better over the past 20 years? Quality and efficiency. The Big Three's gamble on throwing an oversized shiny body onto a pickup frame has been diasterous in the long run. I guess in the short run some of the execs made out pretty well though.

The assumption that market forces will somehow, sooner or later, deal with improvement of gas milage is false. Look at the wonderful job the marketplace has done to date regarding any type of environmental issue where the true costs are spread over the wider social fabric. Emissions, water pollution, etc. It will take government intervention to move forward. Of course they will yelp. Gotta keep paying those bonuses to the executive level for doing nothing. Raise the CAFE standards by at least 20% over 5 yrs, surcharges for the gas guzzlers. You just have to pay the premium.

Seems like promoting democracy in the world has taken a downward dip during the Bush presidency. Despite the purple-finger-thing in Iraq, which made for great press, the county is essentially in a civil war and partitioned. Pakistan is headed just where the General wants it to go. He even adopted some of Bushies favorite catch phrases when referring to terrorist elements and the need for security. He even had to balls to refer to Lincoln's limited suspension of habeous corpus during the Civil War when justifying the need to boot out the head of the supreme court, shut down the media, and arrest protesters. I wonder if John Woo would have signed off on this.

Ha!! Same climb (Practice Climb)for me but in 1974 with a Goldline and swami belt. Later that day got up Finger Dike (5.6)got exhausted and could not finish on Triple Overhang - all of 5.7. Still have a 20 pg guide to the place.

I check all my insurance--it is my second largest expense behind mortgages. I was pissed when people who did not get earthquake insurance here in Seattle got money from the gov't when their chimneys fell off their homes during the last quake. That's fucked. You want someone else to pay to fix your house? Buy insurance. Don't charge the taxpayers--we are not responsible for your home's upkeep. Earthquake insurance is expensive and has huge deductibles. I don't think anyone got paid for chimmney damage - data? Rather than sinking money into a policy that will not pay to replance your house, and that you will likely never use - best bet is to just retro-fit your house. I consider that the best investment. Mixed emotions about the fire thing - normal homeowners insurance can cover that, for relatively low costs.

Did you happen to notice this was from 4 years ago?

Another example of lack of planning because they don't like the idea of government intrusion. Well except for when the hole they dug for themselves gets too deep. The "Develop now, as questions later" mentaility is catching up to a number of jurisdictions. Great article in the NYT magazine section on the drought in the SW. Which is really a misnomer. One hydrologist pointed out that it appears we are in a very long term cycle of arid climate, and that added to climate change - "Well it's a long term change. It's not a drought. It would be like saying the Sahara Desert is in a drought" Las Vegas is in a race with the declining level of Lake Powell. They are building a new, lower intake and hope to complete it before the receeding lake level drops below the current intakes - fast track construction estimated completion in 2009. Could be close. The reservoir has a 100 ft high bathtub ring in places. It would take 20 years of avg annual flow to fill it up - and that is an avg that was calculated on extremely wet year data. Never going to happen again - predictions are that it may just dry up. Amazing. Yet lots of green lawns in the desert still.

Planet Bike Hardcore ATD Fenders http://ecom1.planetbike.com/fenders.html Jetlight Starfire http://www.jetlites.com/ssbss.html w/ the 30W bulb it can burn retinas

You must not have ever made it past journeyman status. Otherwise you would have been given the tight routes by dispatchers. 50 miles a day seems a bit for an experienced messenger. After a few months and the dispatchers knew I could keep the routes and sequence well and put me on the A list for tight routes - more money. Where you being sent to the boonies for 2 yrs or what? KK- extra kudos to you. The bridge must have been very interesting - you must have gotten hosed. I was drenched on my relative short route.

Another brave man!!

I think I'll take the short ride home this evening. That way I will only be soaking wet for 40 minutes or so.

Bullshit! A couple dozen congressmen put this letter together. They represent the USA and federal authority. What they did is what I'd expect from Stalinist Russia or Goebbels. And YOU would AGREE if Republican congressman had done this. No - I would agree that they were getting worked up over a dust bunny just as the dems have. They have no individual authority outside their body. Clue in.

He will not answer the damn question, because the evidence is that we have done water boarding. So what is the alternate suggestion? We just ask nicely and say pretty please? When did we become such pussies? I agree that things like electrocuting someones balls or having dogs gnaw their feet off is not nice. But come on, putting a wet washcloth on someone's face can't really be the cause of all this commotion, can it? It's a little more severe than that - I hope your sarcasm is avoiding me. We've signed the treaties regarding torture and seem to be doing things with a wink and a nod. We're better than this. And - professionals know that information gained by torture is much less dependable than more tested, professional techniques.

I think it's all gotten a bit overwhelming. We can't avoid having the "big picture" in front of us all the time; and so the thought of doing little things doesn't seem to be enough. And with everyone all ready to jump your shit over any wasteful action, it gets to be pointless. Nevermind you recycle, if you don't drive a hybrid you're a hypocrite. Nevermind you donate to environmental causes, you use nice soft asswipe and you're a fake. It gets tiresome. I sympathize. My philosopy these days is "do something - anything" besides go to work, consume, play, die. People are much more seperated from community life these days. They're not invested. But if you work some volunteer time into the rythmn of you life - it works.