JayB

Like you said. Reading comprehension would help here. There are cases where some specific expertise is necessary to properly evaluate the evidence in a particular case - the DNA evidence in the OJ trial comes to mind here - and that juries composed of people who have the background necessary to understand and evaluate evidence will be different from those who lack these assets. I recognize that this is just a limitation of the jury system that we'll have to live with.

Where did you get the idea that I was arguing against the jury system as a whole? I'm not "falling back" on anything here, but perhaps if you didn't catch the sarcasm in the original post, you may not have caught that either. My point, per the OJ trial, is that they make mistakes, and that it's reasonable to argue that a particular jury did so in arriving at a particular judgment. In this case, I personally think that a jury composed of people who neither ski (11 of 12), nor ski park (the 12th) were not terribly well positioned to determine what constitutes the sole responsibility of the user, and what constitutes the resort's responsibility in a case like this. I think the same is true for those who never ski park. I would be interested in hearing how the notion that the resort is responsible for insuring that all jumps, at all times, under all conditions, are gaper-proof is not going to impact parks. If resorts were intentionally putting unmarked, unavoidable jumps in the middle of runs, then this case would have some merit. The fact that the decisions concerning if, when, and at what speed to hit a particular jump that can only be hit if a particular skier makes a conscious choice to do so means that this case has none. I'm not surprised that you are having a hard time comprehending this, given what I know about your preferred modes of skiing.

My argument wasn't that the jury system needs to be replaced by anything else, but that juries are fallible and sometimes make poor decisions. I think that this is one of those cases. If the system were designed on the basis of the notions that juries were infallible, there would be no provision for appeals. Will this kill off resort skiing, no? Does it have the potential to adversely affect the aspects of the sport that I care most about? I think it does. On our last trip to Whistler, I watched a novice skiier going way, way faster than his skills warranted cruise down a groomed slope and completely eat shit after colliding with a death cookie that had rolled onto the groomer from the cornice above. A groomed slope is every bit as "engineered" as a jump, so I can't see how the resort wouldn't be liable in the event of a lawsuit by the said gaper, or any of hundreds of other circumstances that would also expose ski resorts to liability under the same premise that this lawsuit is based upon.

I thought that the sarcasm the permeated that post would be obvious. Let's read this again: "A general acceptance of the merits of the jury system requires accepting that it works perfectly every time. If the OJ trial taught us anything, its that we can trust juries to reach logically sound, factually correct conclusions in all cases. Thank goodness there's no mechanism built into the judicial system that might mitigate, correct, dilute, or confound the eternal, sublime, platonic truths that emerge from their deliberations." I mean come on, folks.... I was trying to make the same point that you did in your post in response to Carl's assertion that anyone who contests the legitimacy of a single jury's decision is somehow attacking the jury system as a whole. I'm very sympathetic to this guy's plight, but I still think that the jury made the wrong decision, and that both this judgment and the precedent that it sets have the potential to be quite harmful to skiers and skiing, and that anyone who thinks that this will only affect park skiing is mistaken. I can think of a million other cases where this definition of liability would apply, and if the judgment stands, probably will.

I think democracy is valuable only to the extent that it operates within a constitutional framework that promotes the preservation of liberty, but that's a topic for a different forum. But,...Yes. A general acceptance of the merits of the jury system requires accepting that it works perfectly every time. If the OJ trial taught us anything, its that we can trust juries to reach logically sound, factually correct conclusions in all cases. Thank goodness there's no mechanism built into the judicial system that might mitigate, correct, dilute, or confound the eternal, sublime, platonic truths that emerge from their deliberations.

I think that the "accountability-for-all-actions-no-matter-what-the-condition-of-the-terrain" model being argued for here makes a lot of sense. Someone attempts to straight-line through in-bounds glades and dies, and the resort didn't have NASA engineers come out and insure that the distribution, girth, and limb-protrusion stats were optimized for a particular pitch and snow-conditions for all conceivable lines at all conceivable speeds by all conceivable skill-levels then the resort is clearly at fault and needs to be held accountable.

15 injuries in a season doesn't seem terribly out of line for me. I've seen a broken arm, a dislocated shoulder, and a concussion on the same jump within 15 minutes of each other on a mid-sized jump that probably got hit over 10 thousand times in the course of a season. Gaper, Gaper, idiot-hucker backflip attempt. Last one is lucky he didn't die. Might as well outlaw mogul runs if injuries per season is the sole determinant of negligence here.

"I find it amazing that so many people say that jump was not safe for use, with some concocted notion of “proper engineering.” I hit that same jump only two days before that one guy died on it, and roughly around the same time when Kenny went ahead and got paralyzed. Despite being far less experienced than I am now, that thing was barely a blip on my radar screen; it just wasn't much of a jump." Eagerly awaiting the argument that resorts that don't encase all trees within six feet of memory-foam in the wake of the Sonny Bono incident are grossly negligent....

Now the real basis for the argument emerges. If all ski-resorts were run as non-profit collectives than the emotional perogatives that have substituted for logic and reason here would vanish. Not holding a resort liable for a case where someone made a decision to hit a jump that was clearly identified as such and partitioned from the rest of the run, and the same someone made a series of massively negligent and rash choices with respect to the manner in which he hit it, which resulted in him massively overshooting the landing and crippling himself hardly constitutes a blanket exemption from all liability. Holding resorts accountable for the gross negligence of their visitors is one thing, holding them accountable for their own negligence is quite another. You are clearly arguing for the former rather than the latter.

Yes. No one can hurt themselves on nordic jumps. I didn't watch an Olympic caliber athelete completely eat-shit on the immaculately engineered landing slope and get hauled off in an ambulance at lake placid last summer either, so the odds that anyone ever got hurt on the mythical ski-jumps of yore despite inferior training, equipment, and facilities is clearly zero. Your postulate here depends on the existence of big gaper-proof jumps and an a set of objective, ISO9001-compliant guidelines that provide a set of universally valid parameters for designing the same. No such things exist, nor could they ever. No matter how a jump is designed, built, and maintained, there's absolutely nothing that can be done to prevent people from injuring themselves on them, nor is there a statistical algorithm that could ever be used to transform injury rates into some kind of definitive "danger" classification scheme. What about rails? All rails are inherently dangerous, and when they're designed so that you have to clear a gap and pop-90 before hitting them, the danger increases. Throw in some kinks and the danger increases. How does your gaper-proof engineering argument apply here? What about cornices? Clearly dangerous. They are also there at the resorts discretion, as they could easily blow them away, design windfoils or some other such contraption to prevent them from building-up in the first place, build 50 foot chain-link fences around the lips, and hire off-duty cops to forcibly prevent anyone from hitting whatever remnant-cornices exist despite the precautions? Ditto for other cliffs. They could easily be "engineered" away with a judicious set of controlled detonations. Your commitment to this transparently absurd notion that you can eliminate all risk in terrain parks, much less anywhere else on the mountain, and that resorts are responsible for doing so seems to have more to do with ideological commitments that you've cultivated off the slope than any objective merits that this particular case actually has.

That would be the precedent set by those actions. Huh?

The nordic jumps that you are talking about are reasonably safe for highly trained athletes who have undergone a structured qualification process, and who are only allowed to use them under certain conditions, so the comparison here is completely invalid. Very few people that actually ride in the park at all would support the claim that you can construct any jump, much less a signficant kicker, that's safe for all ability levels under all conditions. A 17-year old park rat can hit a 40 foot table-top and pull a corked mute 900 one second and land perfectly, and a washed-up old gaper can kill hit the same jump two seconds later and kill or cripple himself while attempting a straight air. You clearly know this, so why you are choosing to tilt this particular windmill of an argument is beyond me.

Sounds like Rampage by KO. Maybe 1st round...

E: Just the look, not the attitude. I suspect there's a difference between people who ride the bikes for a living and those who ride them for fashion, too.

Nalgene Bladders suck in a massive way. Had two leak on a single trip. Switched to MSR dromedary bags and have been very impressed. Even dropped an 8-L bag that we brought along on a desert trip 5-6 feet onto a flat stone surface and it held up just fine.

Quoting... "That's for the special PDX Fixster (fixie-hipster) edition. Add Krypto mini-lock in the back pocket of the brown polyester shants, Chrome messenger bag, and not-wearing-a-helmet-even-though-you-are-completely-oblivious-to-traffic-and-are-basically-asking-to-get-hit-so-your-other-1,000-hipster-clone-friends-can-have-a-nude-candlelight-critical-mass-vigil-ride-to-protest-the-tyranny-of-the-automobile-and-lament-your-tragic-but-ultimately-utterly-predictable-death. Oh, and non-functioning brake lever so the cops don't stop you for brakeless fixie-pedaling."

Paging DFA....

Thinking that "Emo or Fixie?" could make for a good game-show or carnival attraction. Might prove more challenging for the crowd that frequents the ride/game area at state fairs than knocking over lead-impregnated milk-bottles with foam-core softballs. I have to think that winning the 4"x4" Van-Halen/Pot-Leaf/Confederate-Flag/etc mirror with the plastic frame for your girlfriend by making the right choice in the "Emo or Fixie" stand will highlight the sensitive elements of one's character and lead to way more post-gravitron/octopus/roller-coaster/teacup-ride action than a display of raw physical prowress at the milk-bottle/squirtgun+clownmouth-ballon-inflation/weight-on-pole-elevation with-sledgehammer/etc would in this more refined and delicate era.

Once today's emo's discover The Smiths/Morissey it's all over....

The only logical conclusion here is that restrictions that Canada places on unskilled immigrants have had no impact on the skillset distribution amongst those that it chooses to admit. This is like a hospital that only admits healthy people for elective cosmetic surgery comparing its morbidity and mortality stats with a city hospital that has to treat whoever walks in the door. Gag.

May have some additional utility.... "1: Curr Opin Infect Dis. 2007 Feb;20(1):33-8.Click here to read Links Circumcision and HIV transmission. * Quinn TC. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland, USA. tquinn@jhmi.edu PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To review the recent literature on male circumcision and its effect on HIV acquisition. RECENT FINDINGS: The report from the randomized clinical trial of male circumcision in South Africa demonstrating a 60% protective effect in preventing HIV acquisition provided the first clinical trial evidence of efficacy of male circumcision in protecting men against HIV infection. This protective effect was consistent with both ecological and epidemiologic studies which also show a protective effect of 50-70% in men at high risk for HIV infection. Biological studies also demonstrate an increased number of HIV receptor cells in the mucosa of foreskin providing additional evidence of HIV susceptibility in the uncircumcised male. Male circumcision may also have a beneficial effect in preventing HIV acquisition in women and lowering selected sexually transmitted infections in both sexes. SUMMARY: The results of two ongoing randomized clinical trials of male circumcision in Kenya and Uganda are awaited with interest, however male circumcision should be carefully considered as a potential public health tool in preventing HIV acquisition. If other trials confirm the results of the South African trial, implementation of this surgical procedure will need to be carefully scaled up and integrated into other prevention programs with emphasis on surgical training, aseptic techniques, acceptability, availability and cultural considerations."

I seem to remember reading about something like this with Enbrel. From what I can recall they found, after FDA approval, that the drug increased the risk for certain types of cancer after some period of time - but I haven't heard of any mega-lawsuits, implications of corruption, etc arising from this revelation. Maybe the data was too incomplete, but from what I can recall, they basically just added this information to the prescription guidelines and left it up to the doctors and patients to make the choice. Seems like it was a no brainer for old-folks with rheumatoid arthritis figured they'd rather accept the risks than live out the rest of their lives half-crippled with debilitating pain. For the few young folks with the disease, I can see this being more of an issue. Anyway, seems like theres a precedent here even with drugs that are used by younger populations, such as birth control pills. Increases the risks of some cancers, decreases others, and the choice is left up to the patient. Of course, this all presupposes that the risks, when identified, are disclosed promptly.

Seems to me that there were some patient groups lobbying for faster approval as well, but this was restricted - as far as I can remember - to drugs that might be useful against cancer, aids, and other life-threatening diseases. What I've read in the Wall Street Journal, and some of the medical journals that my wife gets is that there's been a fundamental change in the way that drug trials are funded. From what I can remember, it sounded as though drug companies were complaining that the approval process was too slow, and the FDA indicated that funding constraints were making it impossible to move any more quickly, so a compromise emerged in which companies would foot the bill for the costs of the approval process in exchange for faster turn around times. The potential conflict of interest seems fairly obvious here, so one would hope that they implemented some countermeasures to keep the drug company/FDA relationship from devolving into a customer/vendor dynamic, but maybe not... IMO there should be a multiple scales of risk that apply to different classes of drugs and different patient pools. If the drug is for arthritis, for example, and the side effect is an increased risk of cancer after 10-15 years, then it would make sense to allow the drug to enter the market so long as it was restricted to patients over a certain age who understood and accepted the risks associated with taking the drug. Maybe something like this is already in effect...

We don't hang ropes were are not actively using. I'm sorry if you have encountered people who do that. If you see a route with a rope hanging and no climbers, you have a right to ask that that rope be pulled so you can climb the route. I happened to climb at the Columns on a day when Brian was out there with one of his groups and they were, if anything, more considerate and conscientious with regards to route-hogging than most of the other random groups that I've encountered while cragging. Also, with groups like that, the odds are good that most of the folks participating will be relatively new to climbing, and you shouldn't have too much trouble getting on the 9's and 10's if that's the grade that's most interesting for you.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05182007/watch3.html Watch the vid past ~ 2 minutes to see the racist-neocon-hatemonger that is Bill Moyers.... Or read the transcript.