Jim

No duh. Has nothing to do with any policy shift, simply we're finally pulling out of a prolonged economic slump. Oh I know, the trickle down theory. There's really no refuting the facts. Total federal personal taxes paid on wages and other earnings, including income, SS, and Medicare averages 23.4%. In contrast tax on personal investment income averages 9.6%. Who do you think benefits from this? I know. When you start dividing up the population into those quintiles the upper incomes pay more of the total tax collected. Shit, they should, since they make even higer proportions from thier investment income. 1% of the US populations holds 40% of the wealth in the country, and the trend is upward. Isn't there a time when policies tilted towards the ultra rich are excessive? 1% owning 75% of the wealth - is that bad? Most economists would say yes, that advancing a plurocracy is not in the national interest. 88% of collected taxes come from federal personal taxes. The contribution of investment and corporate taxes has been shrinking for decades. Funny how the economy seemed to work just fine without the huge tax breaks for the ultra rich. It also cracks me up that most of the right wing is behind this. The Bushie tax cuts, as noted above, only benefited a very small (upper 3%) of the population. What the heck are the masses getting out of it? So someone earning just over $200k a year pays the same tax as someone earning several million a year? I'm sure the National Review has some other talking points you can harvest regarding this.

NY Times April 5 The analysis found the following: ¶Among taxpayers with incomes greater than $10 million, the amount by which their investment tax bill was reduced averaged about $500,000 in 2003, and total tax savings, which included the two Bush tax cuts on compensation, nearly doubled, to slightly more than $1 million. ¶These taxpayers, whose average income was $26 million, paid about the same share of their income in income taxes as those making $200,000 to $500,000 because of the lowered rates on investment income. ¶Americans with annual incomes of $1 million or more, about one-tenth of 1 percent all taxpayers, reaped 43 percent of all the savings on investment taxes in 2003. The savings for these taxpayers averaged about $41,400 each. By comparison, these same Americans received less than 10 percent of the savings from the other Bush tax cuts, which applied primarily to wages, though that share is expected to grow in coming years. ¶The savings from the investment tax cuts are expected to be larger in subsequent years because of gains in the stock market. Those making less than $50,000 saved an average of $10 more because of the investment tax cuts.

Ditto here on my 7 yr old 20 deg. Got a deal on an ugly green color, but it has held up great. I like the folks at FF, they've proved knowlegable and friendly, they're small and local.

...America in Iraq, by George Packer. I just finished this book and it should somehow be required reading for all. It's a sober review of how we got there - starting with the rumblings in think tanks - and what we did once we invaded. Anyone reading this has to wonder what Rummy and friends were thinking. Their willful ignorance of tribal and religious conflicts brewing in the country are astounding. As are the repeated lost opportunities. While I always thought the idea of a democratic Iraq was pure fantasy, after reading this I realize there was a chance, somewhat slim, that it could have worked. We ground that into the dust in short order. The lies, money and lives wasted, and our status in the world world in tatteers. Plus we created a terrorist magnet. Excellent work guys.

Got to combine work and play with two days of skiing at the Tahoe area. It dumped two feet the day before getting up to the basin. Lots of folks digging out. Luckily for us this was followed by two days of sun and spring conditions. Just rode the lifts at Sugar Bowl one day and Alpine Meadows the second. I thought Alpine was great, and during the was hardly anyone there. Ski down, get on lift, repeat. My first time in the area during winter - fun!

Wow! As if you didn't know, you are amazingly lucky. Sounds like you have the spirit so you should do well. Just plug along nice and steady. And one word of advice - blue line crusiers from now on!! Best wishes.

Nice! Haven't been up there in the winter or early spring and I'm thinking that will have to change; an involve skis.

The S.U.V. boom represents, then, a shift in how we conceive of safety—from active to passive. It's what happens when a larger number of drivers conclude, consciously or otherwise, that the extra thirty feet that the TrailBlazer takes to come to a stop don't really matter, that the tractor-trailer will hit them anyway, and that they are better off treating accidents as inevitable rather than avoidable. "The metric that people use is size," says Stephen Popiel, a vice-president of Millward Brown Goldfarb, in Toronto, one of the leading automotive market-research firms. "The bigger something is, the safer it is. In the consumer's mind, the basic equation is, If I were to take this vehicle and drive it into this brick wall, the more metal there is in front of me the better off I'll be. The trend to this learned passive behavior seems unique to the US. Rather than driving nimble cars to avoid accidents there is a sense of danger out there that cannot be avoided. Are the best performers the biggest and heaviest vehicles on the road? Not at all. Among the safest cars are the midsize imports, like the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord. Or consider the extraordinary performance of some subcompacts, like the Volkswagen Jetta. Drivers of the tiny Jetta die at a rate of just forty-seven per million, which is in the same range as drivers of the five-thousand-pound Chevrolet Suburban and almost half that of popular S.U.V. models like the Ford Explorer or the GMC Jimmy.

While not fond of the Volvo stickers; it's easier to paste that on then actually DOING anything, the assumtion that driving a small car vs an SUV amounts to negligible differences is false, and your ususal elitist derision for such efforts punctuates lack of comprehension. Maybe this is why you're driving one around Boston: Fred J. Schaafsma, a top engineer for General Motors, says, "Sport-utility owners tend to be more like 'I wonder how people view me,' and are more willing to trade off flexibility or functionality to get that. " According to Bradsher, internal industry market research concluded that S.U.V.s tend to be bought by people who are insecure, vain, self-centered, and self-absorbed, who are frequently nervous about their marriages, and who lack confidence in their driving skills. Ford's S.U.V. designers took their cues from seeing "fashionably dressed women wearing hiking boots or even work boots while walking through expensive malls. " Toyota's top marketing executive in the United States, Bradsher writes, loves to tell the story of how at a focus group in Los Angeles "an elegant woman in the group said that she needed her full-sized Lexus LX 470 to drive up over the curb and onto lawns to park at large parties in Beverly Hills. " One of Ford's senior marketing executives was even blunter: "The only time those S.U.V.s are going to be off-road is when they miss the driveway at 3 a. m. " --from High and Mighty, Kieth Bradsher

I'm scheduled to get back out there in early spring and will see if I can find time for the diversion.

Opps - falling of the flat earth again. Yep, not matter what we're doing we're headed for hell in a hand basket so best not to do anything. Shoot - compared to the Negev nomads we're consuming so much that any dent in consumption is negligible. So why bother? I'd have to go along with CBS's observation that government has a role here. Rather than favoring legislations that favors the oil companies some modest steps, such as increasing the CAFE standards (what? - it's been like 20 yrs since updating?) and similar pushes for reducing green house emmissions can make a difference. A few clicks will get you to the widely accepted data. Can we turn the monster ship in time? Maybe. But if we do nothing, as usual, the results are inevitible. We've become a fat, complacent, and unchallenged populace.

I noticed these mongo boulders last summer while conducting field work along the Columbia. They're on the east side of the river, just upstream from Chelan. If you zoom in you can see they're much bigger than the small structures around them. To reach them you would have to go up 97 to atop the Waterville Plateau. Likely on private property but they looked interesting.

The thought of riding the bus is what keeps me on the bike even in the dregs of winter. The dang thing is either a minute early or 10 minutes late, and usually the heat is on stun. Though I do get more reading done when I do mange to ride Metro. Back to the subjet at hand - the Bushies are very consistent. There's nothing to do about (insert global warming, national debt, Katrina) so that's exactly what we will do. Excellent strategy, just pass it on to the kids.

Climb: Wallowas-McCully Basin - Eagle Cap Wilderness Date of Climb: 3/10/2006 Trip Report: A week in the wilderness in the Wallowa Alpine Yurts. Very fun. I got taken to serious powder school - knee to hip deep every day. Fresh turns on each run. Great food and guides. I highly recommend the place. http://www.wallowahuts.com/<img src="http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/data/515/1049DSCN0871-med.JPG"> Gear Notes: Tele or alpine touring, beacons, shovel, probes, usual backcountry skills. Approach Notes: Minor Wallowa county hayride in beater pickup to ski start. Otherwise 4 mi and 1,880 ft to base camp.

Yep, the lot is plowed. Have fun, should be nice.

Given his climbing ability without the tip of an index finger he could pobably lose one leg below the knee and would still beat me.

Chuck - thanks for posting that photo, excellent. Any others out there?

The savings rate only includes the percent of savings from disposable (after tax) income. Because 401ks are the vehicle of retirement savings these days I suspect the savings rate is a bit higher, but not much. that said, 401ks are woefully underfunded, the average balance is around $2,000 and for 50 year olds it's around a whopping $80k. Good luck with that. Many folks look to their house as their retirement savings account and mortgage up to their eyeballs. Not a good idea.

Oh this is good- "In 1970, Wedgwood Rock acquired a new reputation. Some neighbors complained to the city council about hippies who frequented the rock. Complainants reported that, "dirty, long-haired, bearded individuals" (Lake City Star) loitered around the rock, climbed it, and disturbed the neighborhood. Climbers were accused of harassing citizens, taking drugs while on the rock, and using abusive language. The petitioners expressed the belief that Big Rock was being used by hippies to identify homes to burglarize. In October 1970, the city council took the situation seriously and passed an ordinance making it a crime to climb Big Rock, punishable by a fine of $100. "

The kids in the neighborhood periodically hang a knotted rope off the tree adjacent to the south side and have at it. Given that it is on someone's property I just pat it as I go by on a run. It's pretty mossy these days. Orginally it was called Picnic Rock and was a popular outing spot on weekends from Seattle. In the 40's when the development was going it the plans were to dynamite it and cart it off. A groundswell of public support nixed that idea. The dry cleaners on 35th Ave NE, across from the Grateful Bread has a little history of newspaper clippings that is an interesting read.

Only a bit under three years to go.

Got to stand atop the Gendarme before it toppled.

Abosolutely. I'm equal opportunity when it comes to idiotic snowboarder behavior.

Can't make this stuff up. BARDONECCHIA, Italy (AP) -- Lindsey Jacobellis had the Olympic women's snowboardcross won, and then -- incredibly, inexcusably -- she made one last move on the next-to-last jump and fell. She lost. Coasting to what should have been an easy victory, the American grabbed her board on the way to the finish line. It caused her to fall and while she scrambled to her feet, Switzerland's Tanja Frieden sped past and became the first champion in the strange and wild sport of Olympic women's snowboardcross Friday. Jacobellis won silver, but should have had the gold. She was well, well ahead of Frieden, and the other two women in the four-rider final had fallen long before. Snowboarding is about style, though, so Jacobellis decided to show off for the fans in front of the grandstand near the end of her ride. But after she landed from her grab, she caught an edge, then went tumbling outside the blue line. When she recovered, she trailed Frieden over the finish line, then put her hands on her knees and held her palms up. U.S. coach Peter Foley fell onto the ground in disbelief. He said Jacobellis has always had a tendency to grab her board for stability, but after looking at a frame-by-frame breakdown of the jump shot by Associated Press photos, he conceded Jacobellis probably had gone over the top. "She definitely styled that a little too hard," he said. Foley wasn't alone. "Sometimes it's subconscious, but that was putting on a show," said American Seth Wescott, the men's champion from the day before. "It's one of those things. I did it in my early rides yesterday but you've got to choose your time and make sure you don't miss."

No one is arguing that democracy for these countries would be a bad thing. Opps, except the US, particularly when it comes to the oil producers.