JayB

More... http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=1&Number=635595&Searchpage=2&Main=47959&Words=Life+Insurance&topic=0&Search=true#Post635595 http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/387608/fpart/1 http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/311073/site_id/1#import http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/164558/site_id/1#import http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/23880/site_id/1#import

I like Joseph's notion of thinking about these things in terms of a dynamic personal "risk quotient," in addition to objective risks. One of the things that I've noticed amongst most of the folks that are still getting after it in some fashion or another after being in whatever game their involved in for quite some time is that they bring a certain amount of self-knowledge and humility to the decision making process, and are often brutally honest with themselves when it comes to evaluating which objectives are suitable and present acceptable levels of risk in terms of their *present* levels of skill, fitness, training. I also think that if you are evaluating new partners, getting a handle on where they are in terms of their "risk quotient" is worthwhile.

I'd be willing to bet that not being obese has some correlation with intelligence, social status, etc. At the extreme end of the IQ scale, I think that the hip:chest ratio in males converges to about 1, or at least that's the impression that my time in various math/chemistry/physics departments would suggest. Rail-thin with a beard and glasses seems to be the ultra-high IQ phenotype.

I think there's been a few discussions pertaining to this topic over the years, so plugging in "Life Insurance" into the search bar will probably dredge up some useful information. I suspect that it's probably also been discussed in some depth over at rockclimbing.com, so it might be worth searching over there as well. If you find anything useful in your dredging of the archives, please post it.

"As Democrats See Security Gains in Iraq, Tone Shifts" "This is a delicate matter. By saying the effects of the troop escalation have not led to a healthier political environment, the candidates are tacitly acknowledging that the additional troops have, in fact, made a difference on the ground — a viewpoint many Democratic voters might not embrace." http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/us/politics/25dems.html?em&ex=1196053200&en=7a51d9bcd58b99dc&ei=5087%0A It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the primaries.

"They found that women with a greater difference between the waist and hips scored significantly higher on the tests, as did their children, according to a report in The Sunday Times Online." Unstated here is that the correlations only hold if the delta is a result of the hips being larger than the waist. It'd be interesting to see what correlations you'd find for men with chests larger than their waists.

There are quite a number of policies and practices that the government either endorses or engages in that I'd like to see changed. One example is drugs, all of which I'd like to see legalized for use by mentally competent adults, even though I limit my own use to alcohol and caffeine. However, I wouldn't support groups of citizens encircling coast-guard ships in their Bayliners, rowboats, and dingies in order to physically prevent the DEA from intercepting speedboats full of blow off of the coast of Florida, much less would I praise them in any fashion for doing so. There are many other such examples that I could muster but I think the point is clear. What you've done in this and other posts is simply concede that you're cool with groups of private citizens gathering and interpreting and enforcing their personal notions of right on the rest of society - so long as they are doing so in service of a cause that you support.

Take a pill, Jay. It wasn't exactly the Watts riots. Where in my post did you see me justifying mob action or taking the law into one's own hands? Yes, Matt. I'm sure that if a group of neo-Nazi's had used the same methods to to prevent relief shipments from departing to Africa, I'm sure you'd be impartially applauding their zesty civic action. Spare me. Another bizarroid flutters to earth from the mythical planet Hypothetica. What if only neo-nazi CHILDREN were preventing relief shipments to Africa? EVEN STICKIER SITUATION, huh? Feel free to address the example of the abortion protesters, anti-integrationists, etc - at your leisure.

A self-annointed Marxist *and* an enemy of abstraction and theory. That's quite something, considering how much better any society planned along lines you'd approve of has worked out on paper than in reality. If I had been arguing that we live in a perfect society, then you'd have yourself quite a rebuttal. My only point was that whatever the imperfections associated with our present society may be, granting a central administrative body the powers that would be necessary to completely neutralize any extra-normal influence that a citizen, collection of citizens, or organization might exert on the opinions of others would create something far worse. Some people are more rational, intelligent, better informed, more industrious, more amiable, more eloquent, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc than others. Even those endowed with the least of all of these qualities have the right to vote, if they choose to exercise it. If our legislative priorities and policies deviate from an arbitrary standard of perfection as a consequence of this, I can live with that. Woah? This from an implaccable enemy of the existing order, waiting impatiently for the economic equivalent of The Rapture to hasten along the end-times so that Jesus - oops - Marx will finally be ascendant. Guess what? None of those reforms will bring about anything like a state in which all citizens will have an equal capacity to influence their fellow citizens or their elected representatives. I can see why someone who's ideas have been tossed on history's shitheap would want to equate influence with corruption, but the sad fact is that the two are not the same. You can impose measures to limit corruption - which few will object to - and still do nothing to address the fact that in real societies composed of real humans, some individuals will be more influential than others. First part - still no case for zealous minorities who have full access to the voting booth and the courts attempting to accomplish with force what they failed to do with reason. Probably be cause such a case simply can't be made. I also think that you have overestimated the efficacy of millitancy. Any movement that relies upon millitancy alone, *especially* in those cases in which the militants constitute a distinct minority of some sort, are doomed. Any lasting gains that have been achieved by millitant groups have come not from bullying or terrorizing the majority into submitting to their demands, but from persuading them to adopt their causes as their own and lending them their support. Second part. Here again we have the invocation of utopia as an indictment of reality. Unfortunately for you, whatever defects are associated with the present state of affairs are much more likely to be addressed effectively by piecemeal reforms enacted through the present system of government than they ever would through radical changes precipitated by actions outside of those defined and limited by the Constitution.

Take a pill, Jay. It wasn't exactly the Watts riots. Where in my post did you see me justifying mob action or taking the law into one's own hands? Yes, Matt. I'm sure that if a group of neo-Nazi's had used the same methods to to prevent relief shipments from departing to Africa, I'm sure you'd be impartially applauding their zesty civic action. Spare me.

Given your most recent posts, your relationship to the liberal tradition is tenuous at best. I believe he was refering to the historical definition ace. Yeah, I'm pretty familiar with the definition of liberalism and its uses and misuses in the American political scene. What I'm not familiar with, and maybe you guys can help me here, is where "extra-normal influence" over the political process based on wealth, status, and prestige fits into that picture. Arguments for a political system that rejects meaningful participation based on the fear of "mob rule", while justifying an economic and political elite represents the least democratic traditions in liberal thought. Fetishizing the rule of law in the context of gross systemic political and economic inequality, glorifying the existing order as an open forum of rational and civil debate when it is clear to all that it is anything but, and demonizing dissenters as ill-informed hooligans is clearly a step backward from the best that the "classic liberal" tradition has to offer. It deserves a better spokesperson. Where in the liberal tradition is there a justification for groups of people who have been deprived of no rights, who have full recourse to both the courts of law and public opinion, and the voting booth - taking the law into their own hands because they have failed to persuade either the public, their representatives, or the courts to support their agenda? As for supernormal influence, how would you devise a system in which this could be neutralized, and how would that be an improvement over the existing order? Unless you grant some central administrative body the power to suppress them, how are you going to limit the appeal and influence over a great thinker, writer, artist, orator, statesman, or entrepeneur - or the ideals that they represent, or the ideas that they bring forth? Whatever power any of these have, they acquire with the consent of the voting public, who is free to accept or reject them as they see fit.

Per your first reply, the dispute was never about the right to protest. No one here has argued against the right to assemble. However, once this crowd moved into a street and took it upon themselves to determine who could and could not pass, or the anti-abortion protesters physically prevented anyone from accessing the interior of the clinic, they cross the line from protester to vigilante. It's really as simple as that. The fact that you've ignored both this fact and the clear meaning of the words that I've posted, and pretended that you are arguing in defense of the right to protest is a tacit acknowledgment that you can't defend their actions without conceding that you approve of mob action so long as its furthers an agenda that you happen to support.

What change in policy did they accomplish? Do you extend similar congratulations to anti-abortion activists who take issue with laws implemented by a freely elected legislature, elevate their own conception of morality above the laws enacted by these bodies, and force clinics to implement "minor changes in policy" in response to the actions of the vigilante moralists who attempt to obstruct access to them? How about the crowds of private citizens in the South - who hadn't had their representation compromised in the least - who gathered in the streets to oppose integration? If you don't like a particular policy or law, and you want to see either of them changed, there's a process available for you to do so. This process requires generating popular support amongst your fellow citizens with the force of your arguments, which will ultimately also persuade their elected representatives to amend the policy or law, or lead to the election of representatives with convictions that mirror those of their constituents in this respect. Failing that, or if laws implemented by the freely elected legislature are at odds with the constitution, they have recourse to the courts. Given this state of affairs - who takes to the streets and tries to take the law into their own hands? Only those people who *know* that neither the people, nor their representatives in the legislature or the courts find their arguments either legally or morally compelling. Their recourse to "direct and vigorous action" is an acknowledgment of the gulf that separates their political ambitions from what they can get their fellow citizens to willingly support using only means which they are entitled to use - the logical or moral force of their arguments. As such the actions of any such group are an insult to and a violation of the democratic process, not a commendable extension of it. This is true whether you happen to support their goals or not.

Indeed, well said. Thanks for offering a grim peek into that ideological freakshow that you call a worldview. Your disconnection from the realities of American democracy in the 21st century is only outdone by your bloated justifications for the rule of the few over the many. Your argument can be reduced to: "those who own the country ought to run it, the rest are just street-drunks anyway". Be sure, those in power with such a view, for whom you are a flunky, can only expect more "mob activity" in the future. Oooh. Scary. The liberal order that crushed the Axis Powers, and the Soviet Union trembles before the collective might of the Western Parlor Marxist...

"...Ya got any uhh, promising, uh...leads, man?' Vr9OM_W9vG4

This was my favorite response to the SC's eminent domain ruling: "Eminent-domain activists aim to evict Souter from his home Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Jan 22, 2006 by Kathy McCormack Associated Press CONCORD, N.H. -- Angered by a Supreme Court ruling that gave local governments more power to seize people's homes for economic development, a group of activists is trying to get one of the court's justices evicted from his own home. The group, led by a California man, wants Justice David Souter's home seized to build an inn called the Lost Liberty Hotel. They submitted enough petition signatures -- only 25 were needed - - to bring the matter before voters in March. This weekend, they're descending on Souter's hometown, the central New Hampshire town of Weare, population 8,500, to rally for support."

I don't think anyone need look any further than the Democrats that they voted into office to explain these phenomena. I think that when a segment of the electorate feels like a chasm has opened up between the direction that society seems to be going, and the direction that they'd like to see it going, and they've been unable to persuade the people or the legislature to make the kind of changes that they want to see with reason - you inevitably see a portion of that segment overcome by cynicism, paranoia, and anger. Force then provides the only means by which to bridge their gap between what their aspirations and what the rest of society will willingly consent to. I think that a portion of the political right felt that way during the Clinton era, and the result was the "Patriot" movement , survivalist "secular-techno-world's-gonna-get-it's-comeupance" in response to the Y2K bug, etc. The Truthers and various other groups spouting "the system is irretrievably flawed and corrupt and that's why the public/legislature/etc aren't snapping to attention and obeying our orders, deferring to our superior judgment in all things, etc" lefto-litany are the flip side of the same coin. People are free believe whatever self-justifying shit they want to explain away their political disappointments, but this doesn't give them license to take the law into their own hands.

As are all the Dems he "tricked" into authorizing an invasion of Iraq apparently ericb is also a victim of bad intelligence. Your parents are victims of bad contraception.

I personally think that "legalistically" is sufficient to bar groups of citizens from taking the law into their own hands, and is the maximum achievable standard in any political order.* I am pretty sure that George Washington, after his retirement from office, had more influence than the average street-drunk with title to 50'x50' plot of land, even though they each got a vote. Ditto for any other conceivable number of comparisons between someone who has risen to any level of prominence in society. The fact that none of the people involved in illegally obstructing traffic on a public road in Olympia has attained a status that would give their opinions or their influence any extra-normal influence on the voting public or their representatives has less to do with the defects of our society, than it does on the limitations imposed by their talents, ambitions, drive, etc. You and I had every bit as much of an opportunity to accumulate as much wealth and influence as say, George Soros, but the fact that we haven't doesn't implicate the system in the least. Ditto for any thinker who commands a wide audience, etc. *That is, if you confine your analysis and ambitions to reality. If your aim is to dream up utopias predicated on any number of ludicrous assumptions "Assume that we abolish greed, envy, malice, inherent differences in intelligence, ability, ambition, abolish the need for economic calculation, etc..." then feel free to discard all such restraint, but don't pretend that whatever you conjure up has any bearing on situations that occur someplace other than a zealot's private political onano-fantasy.

Dear God - that was fast! Never had to do that before. Definitely beats typing A1 a gazillion times. Many thanks for the help.

Is there any way to use the autofill function to drag a formula from one cell to the next in a way that keeps one of the cells referenced in the formula constant? In other words, if I have a bunch of cells that I want to subtract the value of cell A1 from, is there a way to use the autofill function so that I get: B2-A1, C2-A1, D2-A1, etc. instead of B2-A1, C2-A2, D2-A3, etc when I try to drag the formula from one cell to another?

The fact that the Olympia protests were overwhelmingly peaceful (on the part of the protesters, at least) seems to be entirely lost on you. Does the time-honored American tradition of non-violent civil disobedience represent a hate-crime for you? If so, I suggest you contact your congressperson and suggest they draft up some legislation to that effect. I'm sure Bushco. would see the benefits. They can protest peacefully on the side of the road. Once they physically block a public space and take it upon themselves to determine which uses are and are not permissible, and who can and cannot pass, they have overstepped their bounds and assumed rights that only properly belong to the legislature. They've also entered into a realm where although they are not resorting to physical violence, they are using physical force in an attempt to impose their agenda, rather than the force of their arguments alone. Once you cross that bridge, you will and should be forcibly removed by the people that the freely elected legislature have authorized to do so in order to uphold these same laws. "Those members of our community who attend or are employed at Evergreen and who participate in the port protests, do so as individual citizens, exercising their conscience on their own time. That is their right. It is the right of all of us as members of a democratic society. The expression of political views through protest has a long history in our democracy and is widely understood as a fundamental civil right. However, when those engaging in protest express their views by breaking the law either through peaceful civil disobedience, or, regrettably, by destroying property in the community or on campus, they should expect to be held accountable by our legal system with the attendant due process." That these people are breaking the law and are subject to it is obvious to all, not least by those risking their liberty by engaging in civil disobedience. What is not so obvious is when and where such "extralegal" action is and has been an appropriate tactic. This cannot be determined by legalistic definition as civil disobedience is illegal according to existing laws by definition. Many famous examples in American history of such actions, while derided at the time, are now deemed to have been necessary and appropriate in the court of public opinion. Rosa Parks, lunch-counter sit-ins, Boston Tea Party, etc. Your point regarding access to representation, courts, etc. in liberal democracies is well taken, but I think that the actual substance of this access needs to be addressed in the age of "the decider" when overwhelming public opinion is dismissed as "focus-group politics". I think that each group you refer to could make a strong case that their rights had been abridged in a fashion that *actually* left them without the same representation that other citizens enjoyed, and lacked the same opportunity to influence the laws that they were subject to. Not one person in Olympia can make that case.

The fact that the Olympia protests were overwhelmingly peaceful (on the part of the protesters, at least) seems to be entirely lost on you. Does the time-honored American tradition of non-violent civil disobedience represent a hate-crime for you? If so, I suggest you contact your congressperson and suggest they draft up some legislation to that effect. I'm sure Bushco. would see the benefits. They can protest peacefully on the side of the road. Once they physically block a public space and take it upon themselves to determine which uses are and are not permissible, and who can and cannot pass, they have overstepped their bounds and assumed rights that only properly belong to the legislature. They've also entered into a realm where although they are not resorting to physical violence, they are using physical force in an attempt to impose their agenda, rather than the force of their arguments alone. Once you cross that bridge, you will and should be forcibly removed by the people that the freely elected legislature have authorized to do so in order to uphold these same laws. "Those members of our community who attend or are employed at Evergreen and who participate in the port protests, do so as individual citizens, exercising their conscience on their own time. That is their right. It is the right of all of us as members of a democratic society. The expression of political views through protest has a long history in our democracy and is widely understood as a fundamental civil right. However, when those engaging in protest express their views by breaking the law either through peaceful civil disobedience, or, regrettably, by destroying property in the community or on campus, they should expect to be held accountable by our legal system with the attendant due process."

It was more of a question, but thanks for the compliments.

Wait a second, I thought that the stability purchased at the expense of certain understandingswith less than savory regimes in the Middle East was the problem, comrade. Quite surprising to see an impassioned defense of these condorcats emerging from such quarters.