JayB

Good example of a fairly dangerous drop that looks like nothing starts 23 seconds in... [video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE5N52V3IRk

Can't even imagine what those drops feel like to paddle since there's an awful lot of challenging drops out there that look like nothing on video. Anyone who enjoyed the vid should read this Essay by Walt Blackadder (kind of the literary equivalent of that video): http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1086409/index.htm "The Alsek River flows in a torrent into the Gulf of Alaska. So fierce are its white-water rapids and so menacing the huge icebergs that break away from glaciers along its banks that no man had ever run the river in a boat. There were reports of an especially treacherous gorge named Turn Back Canyon with 500- to 1,000-foot vertical granite walls, numerous waterfalls and dizzying whirlpools. The water was flowing at 50,000 cubic feet per second. In comparison, the Colorado, the ultimate in U.S. white-water rivers, moves through the Grand Canyon at 10,000 to 20,000 cubic feet per second. The author, a physician in Salmon, Idaho, decided to challenge the Alsek alone..." One of my favorite vids - even more impressive IMO since it's from a remote unsupported first-descent in super-old school fiberglass boats... [video:youtube]

"Never attempt to reason a man out of something that he wasn't reasoned into." ~Swift

I see your chemtrail, and raise you a timecube: [video:youtube] www.timecube.com

Figures - I saw the video while reading a Duke University PolySci prof's blog. Evidently it's not just a goofy KPOP phenomenon, it's a withering satire of Korea's "satus obsessed and hypermateralist culture..." http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/08/28/gangnam-style-viral-popularity-in-u-s-has-koreans-puzzled-gratified/

[video:youtube] Take that, Kim Jong Un!

Uno Mas... http://www.west-fly-fishing.com/cgi-bin/home

That is bullshit statement. there is a uber narrow group of high rollers from banking industry and financial sector, but a vast majority of people in NYC just scrape by. In general Canada is way more in line with fundamentals then the US. Nope. Etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.... Canada's fiscal position is vastly superior to America's - but their consumers are at least as overleveraged, if not more, and their home values are dramatically more out of line with their incomes and other determinants of values like mortgage-to-rent. If you have data that you think establishes the contrary case, I hope you'll post it.

Think it was ~90% HAM in the west side at the peak, ~1% in the rest of the GVA. The real story is locals buying participating in a speculative mania catalyzed by cheap credit and loose lending - same as everywhere else. Not sure how HK's metrics compare to Vancouver's other than they're also massively out of line with fundamentals.

Glad that all blew over.

If you compare the mortgage-to-income and rent-to-mortgage ratios in Manahattan and Vancouver situation will only look worse. Manhattan level prices - yes. Manhattan level incomes - no. Look out below.

http://www.theeconomicanalyst.com/content/vancouver-housing-full-correction-mode-implications-canadian-banks "Before diving into the data, consider this fun anecdote: There are currently over 5,000 homes in Vancouver metro area for sale for over $1 million according to MLS.ca. In comparison, the NAR reports that in April, just over 7,000 homes sold in the entire US were sold for over $1 million. And this despite the fact that the US population is 135X greater than the metro Vancouver market, the average personal disposable income in the US is 20% higher than the Vancouver average ($37,100 vs. $30,800) while US per capita GDP is higher than the average for all of BC." Yipes.

You're not thinking it through GGK. Many people get their training on the government payroll, then move on to work for companies like whatever Blackwater changed their name to, and do the same work but make a lot more money. We spend much more hiring the private sector to provide military security than it costs to do it in house. Maybe. I think a careful analysis of the total cost would look at the total lifetime cost (recruitment through retirement) of expanding the force structure enough to maintain a given number of soldiers with the training and the background to carry out a particular mission. Just comparing hourly pay rates isn't going to be sufficient to make that kind of determination. I'm also curious - how do you feel about pilots trained in the Airforce getting out and selling their services to commercial airlines for quite a bit more money than they were being paid by the Airforce? How about the Army contracting with private airliners to fly troops to overseas deployments instead of flying them over in planes owned and operated by the US military? I don't see any logical/ethical difference between that and someone in a specialized infantry unit getting out, signing up with a private security contractor, and getting paid quite a bit more to do so. The only major difference I can see is that it probably costs significantly more to train a pilot than it does to train most infantry troops.

Colorado Springs chose to cut staff and reform public sector service delivery instead of raising taxes. There are hundreds of other local governments that have cut police and fire staffing for the same reason. The only consequential difference that I can see is that the residents of Colorado Springs had the opportunity to vote on the matter directly - whereas the residents of places like Stockton, San Bernardino, Detroit, etc, etc, etc, etc, may not have - presumably because the political leaders there didn't think that such a vote would pass. Or they voted for tax increases and the cost of maintaining existing employees plus retirees *still* exceeded tax revenues and they had to make cuts anyway. Seems like the end result is the same - the only difference is how they got there. I'm not sure the path matters to the people who have to deal with a diminished police presence, longer response times, closed parks, closed libraries, etc, etc...unless there's a kind of existential satisfaction that comes from knowing that unlike the suckers in Colorado Springs, you get reduced services *and* higher taxes. In an ideal world it would be possible for public administrators to modify pay, benefits, and staffing in order to minimize or prevent service cuts in response to budget shortfalls - but collective bargaining with public sector unions make that nearly impossible. Given that reality - it looks like all roads lead to Colorado Springs one way or another - either by vote or by default. http://www.governing.com/blogs/view/gov-pew-report-pension-and-benefits-gap-continues-to-widen.html

"Never sell your rack." Sage words I remember reading in a magazine quite a while ago. After I removed the cover from the basement floor drain, I sized up the diameter of the pipe, grabbed a plug that looked to be the right size, and set about putting it in place - only to be stymied by the posts that accept the screws which hold the drain-cover in place. They were set right alongside the opening, and since the plug-top was designed to extend a bit beyond the edge of the pipe, the position of the posts made it impossible to insert the plug. Thankfully the drain was made of PVC - so all it would take was a bit of work with a chisel to trim away enough of the screw-posts to allow the plug to fit. Only problem - no chisel. I flailed away with a box cutter for a bit, with no success. Baby Ellie was crying upstairs, and I could see the menacing glint from an unspeakably foul, fulminating infinity of sewage lurking just below the top of the drain. Biding its time, waiting for an opportune moment to pour forth and befoul every inch of the basement. The two gallons that had gurgled up and seeped across the floor, inching their way across the floor towards the tubs holding the down sleeping bags had been more than enough to cement a vision of what a basement full of locally sourced, 100% organic caca flowing into the basement would mean. The plug had to go in. Now. But - crying baby, no chisel, no dice. After a bit of desperate scanning of the basement's contents I glanced from one wall to the next until my eye roamed across the pegboard laden with a few thousand dollars worth of gear that had been laying fallow since last July. Cams, nuts, slings, screws, tools. None of it seemed to be of any use whatsoever until I saw the hook in the far-right corner bearing the rack of pitons. They'd been my own equivalent of Seal Team Six. Seldom deployed, but always there in a pinch. Satan's Sidewalk on the North Face of Shuksan with Eric in 2004. Damnation Gully with Al in 2008 as the light was fading, the snow was moving in, and the wind was bearing down. Humble attainments at best - but memorable enough to make their mark in my own mind. Their tour of duty wasn't over just yet. The No.1 knifeblade. The file from the ski-tuning tub. Bingo. One minute of tuning with the file and the leading edge was Ginsu sharp. Two blows with the hammer and the path was clear, the plug was in and ready to vanquish the fathomless hydraulic menace looming just below. Never sell your rack.

Exactly. I can think of several studies i've read looking at elderly care and medicares costs per person that have all shown that it's much less expensive to pay up front with prevention, monitoring, and support than to pay on the back end for acute cases. Even going locally I had a chance to talk to some folks who worked at Harborview and were well versed in the topic and some local work had shown the cost in ER visits for local homeless folks per year was more than 2x what the cost would be to house them. Right now these same folks are all getting healthcare, it's just a shell game of when, where and who picks up the tab. I'm not trying to pick on you in particular - but I'll respond to your post since you seem like a smart, reasonable guy and you seem to be sympathetic to the arguments put forward by everyone else who supports the mandate. Which studies are you referring to? Systematic reviews of the costs and benefits of "prevention" do not support any such generalization. "Our findings suggest that the broad generalizations made by many presidential candidates can be misleading. These statements convey the message that substantial resources can be saved through prevention. Although some preventive measures do save money, the vast majority reviewed in the health economics literature do not." http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0708558 The notion that the uninsured are the primary driver of cost shifting that other payers have to bear is also false. That distinction belongs to medicare and medicaid, both of which systematically pay less than it costs to provide care for those covered by the programs, and the costs of the shortfall are passed onto private payers. Cost shifting from Medicare and Medicaid adds roughly 15% to private payer premiums(1). The uninsured add less than two percent(2). (1)http://publications.milliman.com/research/health-rr/pdfs/hospital-physician-cost-shift-RR12-01-08.pdf (2)http://www.kff.org/uninsured/upload/7809.pdf Finally - if you support mandating the purchase of health insurance on the grounds that those who do not do so are imposing costs on everyone else, how would you feel about the government mandating that everyone in the country maintain a healthy body weight and fining those who refuse to comply with the mandate on the basis that they are imposing costs on everyone else? It's not clear to me how a logically consistent person could support the former and not the latter. 'Couple of points: The NEJM article you linked to discusses the topic of whether or not preventative care, increased screenings, etc. reduces overall costs. Not the effect of cost shifting for unreimbursed (uninsured and unable to self pay) care, which is more what I was referring to. This does contribute significantly to facility "overhead" which is eventually paid for somehow, by somebody. I just finished a good quick read on the subject; The House Of Hope And Fear by Audrey Young, MD who is an ER doc at Harborview. Their policy of not turning any patient away means that they are the local medical safety net, and end up seeing many indigents who would have better outcomes at vastly lower costs if they had access to (and chose to use) basic medical care before they end up face down in some alley. A big part of the problem is that many of these people consistently make bad choices in their lives, and to some degree, we either all are going to end up paying for those choices, or as said above, let 'em die lake rats in the street. I choose the former. YMMV. The basic premise of a universal insurance pool is that the costs are spread across the whole of society, and that to some degree, yes, healthy folks, people who make better lifestyle choices, do share some of that burden. We do live in a society where too many people make too many bad choices, but that is a vast, stubborn problem which is likely beyond the means of the CC.com brain trust to solve. As to charging a "fat tax" for our BMI challenged brethren, sure go for it. But then, we'd have to start putting premiums on everything under the sun. Smoker? Going to cost you. Enjoy more than 1 drink per day? Pay up. Climber? Mmmmmm, no free ride for you bucko. Terminally stupid? Pay up front, please. See where that leads? 1. Yes - the NEJM link only deals with the costs and benefits of preventive care. The links below deal with cost-shifting estimates. The estimates are all imperfect - but there's not many people that have looked at the data that conclude that the cost shifting from the uninsured onto private payers is anywhere near the magnitude of the shift from Medicare/Medicaid onto private payers. Even if this reform incentivizes people to purchase insurance, rather than simply paying the much lower penalty and purchasing insurance once they are sick - the net outcome will be to significantly increase the magnitude of the major source of cost shifting by expanding the number of the publicly insured. If you think this doesn't matter, ask anyone who deals with finances at, say, Swedish what happens when the payer balance shifts towards more publicly insured patients. What will most likely *actually* happen is that the cost-shift from public to private payers, coupled with the community rating and the ban on pre-existing conditions means that the shift of costs onto people in the private sector who pay premiums continuously will drive rates higher than they would have been in the absence of the ACA. People will have even more of an incentive to stay out of the insured pool until they are sick, and the magnitude of the cost shift from people who do not continuously pay premiums for private health insurance from those who don't will increase significantly. Medical loss rules regarding higher deductible plans will also work wonders on the cost of premiums, which will only exacerbate the problems outlined above. 2. Evidence for your "dying like rats on the street argument." I hear that one all of the time, but have yet to see any evidence that people were devoid of the moral sensibilities necessary to assist the less fortunate until they were compelled to do so via a government program. Start from the pilgrims and work your way to the present. Hell - start with the Clovis people and work your way forward if that will help. 2. Yes - I see where "that" leads, which is why I opposed the mandate. That's now the direction we're heading, at least for the time being. Should be interesting.

Exactly. I can think of several studies i've read looking at elderly care and medicares costs per person that have all shown that it's much less expensive to pay up front with prevention, monitoring, and support than to pay on the back end for acute cases. Even going locally I had a chance to talk to some folks who worked at Harborview and were well versed in the topic and some local work had shown the cost in ER visits for local homeless folks per year was more than 2x what the cost would be to house them. Right now these same folks are all getting healthcare, it's just a shell game of when, where and who picks up the tab. I'm not trying to pick on you in particular - but I'll respond to your post since you seem like a smart, reasonable guy and you seem to be sympathetic to the arguments put forward by everyone else who supports the mandate. Which studies are you referring to? Systematic reviews of the costs and benefits of "prevention" do not support any such generalization. "Our findings suggest that the broad generalizations made by many presidential candidates can be misleading. These statements convey the message that substantial resources can be saved through prevention. Although some preventive measures do save money, the vast majority reviewed in the health economics literature do not." http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0708558 The notion that the uninsured are the primary driver of cost shifting that other payers have to bear is also false. That distinction belongs to medicare and medicaid, both of which systematically pay less than it costs to provide care for those covered by the programs, and the costs of the shortfall are passed onto private payers. Cost shifting from Medicare and Medicaid adds roughly 15% to private payer premiums(1). The uninsured add less than two percent(2). (1)http://publications.milliman.com/research/health-rr/pdfs/hospital-physician-cost-shift-RR12-01-08.pdf (2)http://www.kff.org/uninsured/upload/7809.pdf Finally - if you support mandating the purchase of health insurance on the grounds that those who do not do so are imposing costs on everyone else, how would you feel about the government mandating that everyone in the country maintain a healthy body weight and fining those who refuse to comply with the mandate on the basis that they are imposing costs on everyone else? It's not clear to me how a logically consistent person could support the former and not the latter.

This Washingtonian thinks our state will survive just fine without your "tourist dollars", your "facilities inspections", and, your incessant complaining. I propose a "whiney baby" forum be added to cc.com. It would be a catch all for this type of "discussion". It shouldn't be in a climbing forum IMO... I'll nominate KirkW to be the moderator of this new forum. Mods? Please? d I don't think, in this case, that there was much,if any, whining coming from KirkW. Nor do find the TR he linked whiny at all; rather, I thought it showed with ridiculous irony how f-ed up this whole fee situation is. . ie, a new shitter, closed, w/glorious signage all over, along w/ piles of shit some dog owner didn't feel like carting back in their car. Surprised someone didn't take a shit at the foot of the closed restroom door. . And, he brought up some good points: if people stop going to such and such a trailhead(s), due to shelling out the monies, the immediate area can suffer a decrease in $$. My cousin still goes to Hamilton, and he says he's noticed a visible difference in the number of cars now parked in the lot. This may or may not make a too much of a difference on the local economy, but I can't help think that the little stores, gas stations, etc, in any given area, now would lose a few $ w/ the loss of people going to any given trailhead. . You don't think, in this case, that there was much, if any, whining coming from KrikW? Really? ... For the record, my suggestion for a new forum, and nomination for mod thereof still stands. Further, I suggest the solution to funding our beloved parks lies not user fees and parking passes, but in allowing our elected representatives make the decisions on taxing and spending based on majority rule as was done in the past and as our State Constitution mandates. Super majorities only empower a minority to block anything and everything including raising revenue for the greater good of a state, or nation. Like it or not we ARE in this together. As long as we prefer representative government, this is how it works best. Sometimes, some must give more so that everyone can benefit. Privatize the parks? Are you sure this is what you want? Trust corporate America with our beloved parks now??? Count me out. d Just out of curiosity - what substantive difference would it make to the average visitor if the persons collecting the entrance fees, writing tickets, and conducting maintenance are contractors rather than direct state employees?

Plot of State Budgets from 1999-2011 below. http://davepaisley.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834547c1469e20147e17e35fe970b-pi -I agree with your conclusions. Service cuts are *vastly* more likely than substantive reforms that address the main drivers of spending/cost growth at rates that exceed revenue growth.

I don’t hunt myself but I don’t think it’s terribly different than climbers taking summit shots, fisherman hoisting their catch, etc, etc, etc. Just seems like a tangible way to capture the particular end they’ve been seeking in a hobby that they’ve normally invested quite a bit of time, energy, and passion into – and serves as a basis for sharing the experience with fellow hunters, fishermen, family, etc.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Seattle-man-killed-in-skiing-accident-on-Mount-Baker-159351505.html Condolences to family and friends.

1. i understand my union's needs will vie against the many other interests that make up the american state, large and small, and that, as american general political philosophy holds, the majority is not necessarily right, and, as a minority perhaps, i must continue to contend for my own. that many people who work in the private sector, particularly in its lower echelons, where it's currently being squeezed the most, should begrudge public employees is hardly a suprise. as always in a republic, my union must continue to agitate, organize, expand, educate and act in the interests of its members. it may well be that many who feel an attraction to public work are in fact more socialist in their political philosophies. ours is a mixed system, and capitalism will always be a pole striving to some extent against us evil, evil left-of-center types. whatever. in the end i'm more moderate than anything, and w/ a limited life-span, i'll suffer the slings-and-arrows of the next 50 years as best i can, hopefully keeping my pennant flying until my own ship founders and i cease giving a fuck. the death of my union is likewise not inevitable, but organized labor itself i can't ever imagine dying off until the race that created it likewise is gone... 2. no shit! therein lies the unending battle. Well - kudos to you for giving an honest answer, even if it sounds like someone tossed Albert Shanker, Ambrose Bierce, and Colonel Kurtz into a blender, distilled out the essence, and plugged it into a computer terminal... “When school children start paying union dues, that 's when I'll start representing the interests of school children.” ~Albert Shanker "Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles." -Ambrose Bierce, 'The Devil's Dictionary" http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Joseph_Conrad/Heart_of_Darkness/Chapter_II_p13.html

Yes. Because the ~93% of the private sector workforce and the ~65% of the public sector workforce that aren't represented by unions all make minimum wage, irrespective of their qualifications.

We've parsed all of these studies before, but since today is "Take everyone's arguments at face value" day. Lets take this claim at face value for the sake of argument. Let's go a step further and propose that all public sector employees are criminally underpaid and only sticking around for benevolent reasons. Lots of cities and states still can't cover the cost of employing the current number of public sector employees under their existing tax regimes, and the odds that the public will universally approve the tax increases necessary to allow them to do so is quite low. In cities and states that can't get the votes necessary to raise taxes, that leaves us with....wait for it....layoffs and service cuts or cutting compensation/benefits.

Even if one were to concede the broad claims about unions and the broad sweep of history (*solely*) for the sake of argument - it's not clear how that would translates into an argument against reforming pensions and benefits for unionized public sector workers in a manner that makes them more fiscally sustainable and preserves existing levels of service delivery. The money isn't there. Folks like Chuck Reed can only work with the amount of tax revenues that the public is willing to fork over. He - and many others - can leave pay, pensions, and benefits untouched and layoff public employees by the hundreds with all of the cuts in public services that come along with that - or reform compensation. How, exactly, is it in the public's interest to do the former rather than the latter? though a union member and active in my union, i don't pretend to think that we're always right and always entitled to expanded benefits - my union has accepted quite a # of rollbacks and cuts over the past half-decade - my main point is that unions have always been the boogie-man to conservative americans, and therefore it would be stupid to accept all their shrill shrieks and hand-waving today, given that history. rob makes a valid point - setting aside the vagaries of federalism, the bottom line is a giant chunk of american tax money is spent on weapons-grade retarded bullshit (4% of discretionary federal spending on education in 2011 vs 58% on the military in it's quixotic quest to Keep Afghanistan British! plus something like $23 billion on an equally clueless War on Drugs - i'm sure you could add a few more examples of waste?) unions, like the media, are a "4th branch" of government, and as such are as important in maintaining a balance of power in the usa as they are, like government, capable of corruption and folly 1. Since that's the name of the game today - let's take your proposition that in the past, opposition to unions has come exclusively from conservatives acting in bad faith, at face value. We'll have to ignore the public reservations/opposition that the likes of Fiorello Lagaurdia, George Meany, and FDR expressed about public employees unionizing to do so - but let's go ahead with that. If I believed that to be true - I'd be extremely alarmed by the likes of Chuck Reed, Jeff Adachi, bona fide Seattle Progressives like Jim, 70% of voters in San Jose, 40% of union households in Wisconsin, etc, etc, etc, etc suddenly finding common cause with the right wing hatemongers when it comes to reforming public sector compensation. How do you understand/explain that? 2. It's not necessarily true that if the spigot of money being funneled into the pentagon or prohibition were cut off, it would automatically flow into the pensions and benefits of state and local employees. Given the percentage of Federal spending that's financed by borrowing - it might simply never be appropriated, it might go into covering the costs of SS, Medicare, etc, etc.