JayB

All BD water-ice crampons seem to have the secondary points set way too far back for my liking. YMMV.

Gottman is really good...took a prep for new baby class based on his material....and he's local to boot I've kind of dismissed this literature after reading about 4 pages of a book full of John Gray's inano-pablum, but this stuff looked like a substantial improvement. As soon as I saw some validation for my passionate hatred of emotional microanalysis (once had a former girlfriend what I "really meant" when I asked her if she'd pass the salt) I figured it'd be worth shelling out $10 for an ounce of prevention.

The real math wiz would come up with a theorem that describes the maximum number of possible results...

Some dude on professorpaddle.com is selling a couple of whitewhater PFD's for $15 each. Rest of the gear he has is WW.

Just a friendly poke in the ribs…….trying to bring some humor to this heated debate. Even if I am the only one who thinks it to be funny……ha ha. To answer your question above…..I honestly don’t know. I cant hang with all you college types……brainy folk…… I do know how to belay and lead climb. I guess I play guitar a lot too…… It's all good, no offense taken. I was hoping you knew something about FISA constitutionality, that's all. First hit on Google... Link

Judiciary oversight. Previously, if the government had probable cause, it would take it to the FISA court and attempt to obtain a warrant. The court would rule on its merits. In "emergencies", the government could execute a search, but would need to report to the court within 72 hours with case specifics. The current protocol does away with this mechanism entirely, replacing it with a quarterly judiciary review that does not even go into case specifics. No evidence is brought before a court, no probable cause in any case by case sense. This should trouble anyone with constitutional and legal precedent knowledge. ? I'm a little confused here; I thought it was self-evident that the "powers" we speak of are surveillance powers, unmitigated by constitutional safeguards? In this context, "intent" and the "means" are somewhat insignificant and misleading, since the legislation itself is a product of the "intent", and the "means" are given by said legislation (both of which have no bearing on the constitutionality of the legislation). It is said that the "abuses" have already occurred, if we mean by "abuses" non-constitutional activity. And yes the "abuse" would occur into the next administration, as long as non-constitutional legislation existed. And since we all know what YOU meant by the above, I'd have to answer by saying that it could be difficult to know, due to the seemingly limited amount of judiciary oversight (back to this one again). Remind me of this language, for seemingly I have, how does one put it....Spaced. Are you talking about domestic surveillance, overseas surveillance, or the grey-zone where overseas targets originate communications from outside the US to persons located inside the US who may or may not be citizens? If this summary is accurate: " 1. The Act Permits Our Intelligence Professionals To More Effectively Collect Foreign Intelligence Information On Targets In Foreign Lands Without First Receiving Court Approval. The Act clarifies that the definition of electronic surveillance in FISA shall not be construed to encompass surveillance directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside the U.S. This clarification restores FISA to its original intent and means intelligence professionals will not have to go to court in order to collect foreign intelligence on an overseas target who may be planning to attack the U.S. 2. The Act Provides A Role For The FISA Court In Reviewing The Procedures The Intelligence Community Uses To Ensure That Surveillance Efforts Target Persons Located Overseas. The Attorney General is required to submit to the FISA court the procedures by which intelligence professionals will determine that the authorized acquisitions of foreign intelligence do not constitute electronic surveillance that is, the procedures by which the government determines that the acquisitions are directed at persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States. " The addition that I'd personally like to see would be quarterly audits of all activities authorized above to insure that the law is being obeyed, and granting the FISA court the authority to stop or modify any programs that have been found in violation, and discipline and/or remove any persons found to be responsible for doing so. Perhaps there's a mechanism of some sort in the text, perhaps not, perhaps there'll be one in the final version that passes the Senate. Anyone with the time to read through the three versions should feel free to chime in with their findings. Having a Supreme Court doesn't prevent violations of the Constitution, only seeks to remedy them after the fact - so I can personally live with this kind of a safeguard.

thats the price on the flyer out in front of the house. i see online it is already down to $784,950! Buyers market! What a steal! http://www.windermere.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Listing.ListingDetail&ListingID=18678123 i watched the construction, this builder is a total cheapskate...it was really thrown together. he paid 250,000 for the lot (more than i paid for my larger lot with a house on it!), and i bet he didn't spend more than 200,000 on the house. we talked to the contractors working for him, the guy has a terrible reputation where ever he goes with pissing off all the neighbors and treating the people working for him like crap. but his money is green. it will be interesting to see how much the house will go for...with the market as it is, you'd be a fool to pay a penny over 600,000 IMO for what you're getting. Even that is way overpriced. Love how they provide the interest rate for conforming vs. jumbo loans on their calculator there. Last 20-down, 30 year fixed jumbo rates I saw started at 7.125%, so unless the DP is enough to bring the balance down to $417K, the real montly nut will be around $4200, not including taxes or insurance, even if the buyer has the $160K for the 20% down. I think that comes to roughly $81K/year of after-tax income just to cover the monthly mortgage nut, before you even start pay for utilities, insurance, food, groceries, transportation, etc, etc, etc, etc, If you go by the long-since-forgotten and abandoned rules that total housing costs shouldn't exceed 28% of your gross and/or three times your income, anyone who has the $160K on hand for the 20% downpayment should also have a gross somewhere in the $260-300K range. Median household income in Seattle is roughly $48K, and I'd be astonished to learn that there are as many $250-300K/year households in Seattle as there are $750K and up homes. Good thing real-estate only goes up.

Here are some stats for those of you who think that living together before marriage is good and like a test-run of marriage... Those who live together before marriage have higher separation and divorce rates. Psychology Today reported the findings of Yale University sociologist Neil Bennett that cohabiting women were 80% more likely to separate or divorce than were women who had not lived with their spouses before marriage. The National Survey of Families and Households indicates that "unions begun by cohabitation are almost twice as likely to dissolve within 10 years compared to all first marriages: 57% to 30%." Another five-year study by William Axinn of the University of Chicago of 800 couples reported in the Journal of Demography that those who cohabit are the most accepting of divorce. In a Canadian study at the University of Western Ontario, sociologists found a direct relationship between cohabitation and divorce when investigating over 8,000 ever-married men and women (Hall and Zhoa 1995:421-427). It was determined that living in a non-marital union "has a direct negative impact on subsequent marital stability," perhaps because living in such a union "undermines the legitimacy of formal marriage" and so "reduces commitment of marriage." Those who live together before marriage have unhappier marriages. A study by the National Council on Family Relations of 309 newlyweds found that those who cohabited first were less happy in marriage. Women complained about the quality of communication after the wedding. Seems like it could be a causal-vs-correlational thing at work here. It could be that the kind of chick that's more likely to shack up with a dude before marrying him is also more likely to be the kind of chick that's more likely to get divorced under any circumstances.

Let's have a link to the listing. I need a good laugh. Might be even funnier to look at the terms of the financing after it sells. Will probably have to be a cash purchase, go through with a $413K downpayment, or a jumbo sporting a rate way over the tab for conforming fixed 20-down, 30-year financing.

Which safeguards are you referring to? In the context of what I've read thus far - my answer is no, the modifications to FISA do not concern me, and I don't see a significant threat to our civil liberties or freedoms encompassed within them. If someone can find the specific passages that demonstrate why I should conclude otherwise, I hope someone will point them out. If the administration does not outline the powers that you are concerned that they are intent on abusing explicitly, then even if one assumes that they have both the intent and the means to do so, are you convinced that the said abuses, were they to occur would persist beyond the present administration? On what basis would the next Clinton administration carry forward the abuses that you are concerned will originate in this administration if they aren't supported by the actual text of the legislation? Finally, your claims here seem rather more constrained than the proclamations heralding the arrival of an oversight free surveilo-state. Do you really think that the language that you used to characterize this legislation in your original post is valid here, in light of the actual proposals that are on the table?

I thought is was sex.....or lack of. Thats why people have affairs. Or at least why men have affairs. Dude, women have just as many affairs as men. True, but for different reasons. I love it when suddenly a man pretends to understand women's motives. It makes for a good laugh. A riddle wrapped in a haze of emotional impulses inside a compulsion to chat endlessly about everyday inanities...

I agree. I presume that you are not exempting yourself from these charges. On my self-indulgent tourist escapades, nothing was more nauseating than the "I'm not a tourist, I'm a righteous and benevolent emissary of global understanding who's selflessly undertaken the task of righting the world's wrongs with my cultural astute and wholly altruistic choices in lodging, transport, and dining...etc" routine. I'm not sure that one can make a factual case that rich people who fly to isolated resorts and drink cocktails from coconuts on private beaches, or the hordes disgorged from cruise-ships are less beneficial for the countries they visit than the backpacker set. Speaking from someone else's experience living in Africa for a couple of years, the ideal visitor would: 1)Spend large amounts of money impulsively. 2)Shut-up immediately. 3)Go-home quickly.

"Juan's got an AM radio!"

Fair enough - and the fact that I choose to not be preoccupied/obsessed with this particular issue isn't because I'm a conservative yuppie - but feel free to continue with your stereotypes if it makes life more entertaining for you. From my personal standpoint I have a limited amount of emotional/intellectual bandwidth that I can spend as I like. If I wanted to get really wound up about big-brother, that would certainly consume a good bit of it. I personally don't believe that the potential civil rights abuses enabled by the program being discussed collectively rank that high in the grand scale of international human suffering. For example, my wife recently spent 2-weeks in Zambia working with AIDS orphans, and we are trying to figure out how we can do more to help from both a financial and advocacy standpoint now that a baby will keep us stateside for the immediate future. It doesn't take much bandwidth to stop rooting for the wrong side. Since Congress, with the full participation of the Democratic majority, is responsible for this legislation - which side is it that you are referring to here?

No, it's actually a major modification. Prior to the current legislated changes, there was judiciary oversight, complete with probable cause requirements etc.; now, citing executive privelege, the current administration claims the right to surveil those it deems as risks (tell me how they might establish this?), without the need to report ANY case specifics to any oversight entity, EVER. Only a quarterly report outlining "procedures" is required. (And to compare the un-monitered illegal unconstitutional collection of information on americans to the monitered collection of medical information within a format yet to be decided on seems, on the surface, to be nothing but a play on a rather naive and blithely dismissive reading of "left" and "right" political stereotyping). I was able to locate what appears to be the administration's case here: http://intelligence.house.gov/Media/PDFS/Wainstein092007.pdf A more concise summary of this case here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/08/20070806-5.html which I'll post below. And the full text of the various versions of the legislation here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.1927: I won't have time to read through the documents for a while, so perhaps you can assist me by identifying the specific passages that grant the administration the right to surveil everyone at all times with no oversight? Or are those powers outlined somewhere else? "For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary August 6, 2007 Fact Sheet: The Protect America Act of 2007 President Bush Signs Legislation Modernizing Foreign Intelligence Law To Better Protect America RSS Feed White House News Fact sheet In Focus: National Security "We know that information we have been able to acquire about foreign threats will help us detect and prevent attacks on our homeland. Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, has assured me that this bill gives him the most immediate tools he needs to defeat the intentions of our enemies. And so in signing this legislation today I am heartened to know that his critical work will be strengthened and we will be better armed to prevent attacks in the future." President George W. Bush, 8/5/07 The Protect America Act Modernizes The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) To Give Intelligence Professionals The Tools They Urgently Need To Gather Information About Our Enemies, While Protecting The Civil Liberties Of Americans. The Act, passed with bipartisan support in the House and the Senate, restores FISA to its original focus on protecting the rights of Americans, while not acting as an obstacle to conducting foreign intelligence surveillance on foreign targets located overseas. * Changes In Technology Since 1978 Had The Effect Of Expanding The Scope Of FISA's Coverage To Include Intelligence Collection Efforts That Congress Excluded From The Law's Requirements. This unintended expansion of FISA's scope meant the government, in a significant number of cases, needed to obtain a court order to collect foreign intelligence information against a target located overseas. This created an unnecessary obstacle to our Intelligence Community's ability to gain real-time information about the intent of our enemies overseas and diverted scarce resources that would be better spent safeguarding the civil liberties of people in the United States, not foreign terrorists who wish to do us harm. * The Government Should Not Have To Obtain A Court Order To Conduct Surveillance On Foreign Intelligence Targets Located In Foreign Countries. This was not Congress' intent when it enacted FISA. As the Director of National Intelligence stated, continuing to operate under this outdated law meant our intelligence professionals were "missing a significant amount of foreign intelligence that we should be collecting to protect our country." The Protect America Act Modernizes FISA In Four Important Ways 1. The Act Permits Our Intelligence Professionals To More Effectively Collect Foreign Intelligence Information On Targets In Foreign Lands Without First Receiving Court Approval. The Act clarifies that the definition of electronic surveillance in FISA shall not be construed to encompass surveillance directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside the U.S. This clarification restores FISA to its original intent and means intelligence professionals will not have to go to court in order to collect foreign intelligence on an overseas target who may be planning to attack the U.S. 2. The Act Provides A Role For The FISA Court In Reviewing The Procedures The Intelligence Community Uses To Ensure That Surveillance Efforts Target Persons Located Overseas. The Attorney General is required to submit to the FISA court the procedures by which intelligence professionals will determine that the authorized acquisitions of foreign intelligence do not constitute electronic surveillance that is, the procedures by which the government determines that the acquisitions are directed at persons reasonably believed to be outside the United States. 3. The Act Provides For The FISA Court To Direct Third Parties To Assist The Intelligence Community In Its Collection Efforts. The Act permits the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General to direct third parties to provide the information, facilities, and assistance necessary to conduct surveillance of foreign intelligence targets located overseas. 4. The Act Protects Third Parties From Private Lawsuits Arising From Assistance They Provide The Government. No cause of action may be brought in any court against any person for complying with a directive to provide the Government with all information, facilities, or assistance necessary to accomplish the acquisition of foreign intelligence information. Our Work Is Not Done — This Act Is A Temporary, Narrowly Focused Statute To Deal With The Most Immediate Needs Of The Intelligence Community To Protect The Country. When Congress returns in September, the Intelligence Committees and leaders in both parties will need to complete work on the comprehensive reforms requested by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, including the important issues of providing meaningful liability protection to those who are alleged to have assisted our Nation following the attacks of September 11, 2001." As for the left/right "play," that's not my intention at all, but it does seem odd that one can simultaneously argue for granting the government much broader powers in one arena with no consideration of the potential implications while constantly issuing forth jeremiads about the malign intent of the same government in another arena. Odder still that it can be undertaken with no explanation, no logical asterisk, and no awareness of the manifold logical contradictions inherent in such a position.

I agree with that, Jay, but over and over again you have refused to discuss specific shortcomings of a particular policy or proposed piece of litigation without resort to broad brushed attacks against naive liberals who wear birkenstocks. As I said: specific information would be useful here, but do you really think we should assume or even that we really have reason to hope that this Administration is acting in our national interest in how they conduct this "war on terror?" And Congress, too. The fact that something may have bipartisan support does not at all suggest that - in the case of overseeing intelligence gathering for example - a proposal is in anybody's interest except a bunch of Senators who want to tell the electorate that they are tough on terrorism. Airport security ring a bell? That's a strange charge to make, considering that the last time this came up I was one of the few participants to actually cite specific aspects of the legislation under consideration, who was sponsoring it, and what their implications would be. As for the trust question - I answered it above, but will repeat it here. Whether you think that Bush is the Devil incarnate or the political equivalent of the messiah is irrelevant here. Ditto for Congress. Hell, the framers of the constitution were operating under the explicit assumption that people are imperfect and corrupt and that those who have power will seek to abuse it and designed the entire structure of government on that basis - but in the end it was the content of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, rather than their personal trustworthiness or the personal feelings of the long-dead citizens of that era towards them that persisted and defined the nature of the government from the point of ratification onwards. To probe this question further, though, are you implying that if we feel as though the president, Congress, etc *do* have our best interests at heart that we could assume that the legislation that they pass will by definition be acting in our interest, or the national interest, and that no evaluation of the legislation on the basis of its actual content or merits is necessary? This all seems like a rather silly diversion.

You seem to be assuming that the bureaucrats will be operating under a different set of imperatives. The motive may be different, but what makes you think that the constraints imposed by the realities of the budget would liberate the bureaucrats from the necessity of rationing care?

In the case of nationalized health care, aren't the political bureaucrats in charge of the health care professionals?

If I'm not mistaken, most if not all of the new FISA legislation has been constructed in consultation with, or co-sponsored by Democrats, so the matter of whether or not one thinks highly of or trusts the Bush administration seems less relevant than the actual content of the legislation and its legal/institutional ramifications. These, rather than a ghoualsh of partisan emoto-subjectivities, should constitute the substance of the discussion. One can judge whether or not Congress, in this particular case, is doing its job by evaluating the content of the legislation they pass. Again this, rather than whether on trusts Congress - whether that means the institution in general or the particular batch of legislators that inhabit the capitol at this point in time - should be the basis of the discussion. Ditto for the "general distrust" and whether or not "the theory that this benevolent administration has our best interest at heart and is fully loyal." Focus on the specific shortcomings of the particular piece of legislation and you have the basis of a rational discussion. Focus on emotional, highly-partisan nebulosities and you have the basis for an infinity of unconstructive paranoia.

Agreed. It's nice that you have that understanding, but just imagine if your wife insisted that you accompany her on trips to the mall, sat home and festered while you were out climbing instead of pursuing her own interests, etc? Scary-stuff. I've seen it. Look before you leap.

How about some specifics: -What mechanisms for review and oversight, and what checks and balances were in place in the FISA regulations that pertained to monitoring communications that either took place exclusively, or originated, overseas? -What specific provisions of the new legislation undermine or negate them, and in what fashion? -What specific consequences does this have for any law enforcement or surveillance activity the falls outside the purview of FISA?

Ditto for hypocrites... Never cracked open a guidebook or a perused a website/forum for information before setting out?

I'm always humored by these "by the numbers" people who don't have any flexibility in their thinking. We are under threat, and they seem intent on making this a discussion about our "civil liberties". I can't think of a single freedom of mine that has been taken away. Last time I checked, I could still do everything I was able to do before. It's not like they are putting a video camera in my home; it's just a microphone really, when you think about it. Plus, think about all the other criminal activity that they'll be able to put an end to. And we certainly don't need a judge to see the "evidence", before allowing the eaves-dropping. How can a judge possibly check the evidence on millions of phone calls? He can't! Plus, what if he is one of these "civil liberties" types that wants a lot of evidence? You know you have a good lead, a feeling, you know? He's not going to listen to your feelings. He's going to want facts, and we don't have time for that. FISA put way too many burdens on intelligence collection, binding it to constitutional priciples and protections (as if we could have both; another example of the lefty idealism). Isn't the actual legislation here a rather minor modification of FISA rules that pertain to the monitoring of either overseas communications and/or communications which originate with terror suspects overseas and terminate with US citizens? Add me to the list of people who find it odd that the same folks who deign themselves latter-day Paul Reveres ("The Neocons are Coming! The Neocons are coming!") with respect to civil liberties and overarching government power, seem blithely indifferent to the potential implications of transferring control over much more sensitive, personal, and vital information about themselves - and the power to determine what actions to take in response to this information - to the same government that they have been sounding the metaphorical alarm bells about for the past eight years. "I can't bear the thought of the government listening in on phone calls from terrorists that they place to associates in the US under modified FISA provisions, but I'm more than happy to hand the government all of my health care data, and put them in charge of approving or rejecting any treatment that I might need, and when and where I get it."

Heard a story on NPR a while back that delved into the divorce-rate stats a bit. Sounds like the divorce rate for better-off folks who went to college has actually been trending down since the early '90's, and the divorce rate for poor folks without degrees has been holding steady and/or increasing. Always thought that it was interesting that atheists/agnostics had the lowest divorce rate of any "faith" group. People that fall into this category may well marry at lower rates overall, and marry later in life, and the stats may not take these factors into accounts, but I still thought it was interesting, especially when held up alongside the stats for Baptist/Fundamentalist folks. Religion % have been divorced Jews 30% Born-again Christians 27% Other Christians 24% Atheists, Agnostics 21% http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm

You mean, when an individual suspected of engaging in or plotting terrorist actions makes a call, or sends an e-mail to Eric from overseas - would he object to the NSA using the authority granted by FISA and/or whatever statute the Democrats pass to intercept that communication? I assume that this is the "what" that you are referring to.