JayB

If this arithmatic were the result of Hezbollah's moral restraint, then the respective casualties would mean something. Given that the only reason that Israeli casualties are that low because Israel is prepared for such attacks, and Hezbollah's weaponry is less effective at killing civilians than they'd like, we are once again confusing things which are physically equivalent with those that are morally equivalent. By that logic if the Germans had succeeded in killing only a fraction of the number of German civilians that England had succeded in killing , despite the Germans's best efforts to kill many more, the German's would have been the morally superior actor in that conflict. I don't know about that... the 18->600 strikes me as a disproportionate retaliation, which really has no parallel to WWII. A more apt parallel would be WWI where the assassination of one man escalated into the deaths of millions. I still don't think that you can use the number of civilian deaths as the sole standard by which to determine who has the higher ground. The ratio in this case is solely the result of Hizbollah's inability to kill more civilians, rather than any moral restraint on their part. There's a massive difference between a force which uses all means at its disposal to kill as many civilians as possible, and a force which uses a fraction of it's destructive power and takes measures to limit civilian casualties. I think it's also important to consider the ends for which the two sides are fighting when assesing who's got the higher ground. Even when both actors have taken the gloves off completely, and the civilian casualties are equal on both sides, it's still possible to distinguish between the two sides by their motivations for participating in the conflict and by considering what they'd do if they won.

All indications are that Hezbollah was expecting a rather different response than it got, so I wouldn't give them too much credit for foresight here. However, once things got started, I think you are correct that they realized that they had Israel in a catch-22, and have seized the opportunity that Isreal's actions have provided them. I'd agree that Israel might have been much better off by letting the original offense go unpunished and turning their restraint to their advantage.

Tale of the tape: Lebanon civilian casualties : over 600 Israeli civilian casualties from the "massive" rocket attacks: 18 I'd say the response is over the top. If this arithmatic were the result of Hezbollah's moral restraint, then the respective casualties would mean something. Given that the only reason that Israeli casualties are that low because Israel is prepared for such attacks, and Hezbollah's weaponry is less effective at killing civilians than they'd like, we are once again confusing things which are physically equivalent with those that are morally equivalent. By that logic if the Germans had succeeded in killing only a fraction of the number of German civilians that England had succeded in killing , despite the Germans's best efforts to kill many more, the German's would have been the morally superior actor in that conflict.

And if that was their goal, who limit themselves to an artillery shell or two? It'd be interesting to see the analysis in which Israel concludes that it can advance it's interests by deliberately invoking condemnation and outrage through intentionally killing civilians. I feel like I must be missing something here. Israel has the capacity to kill every last civilian in Lebanon in short order if it chooses to, but only uses a fraction of it's millitary power, and takes as many precautions as is reasonably possible to avoid killing civilians, while Hezbollah holds nothing back and unleashes every bit of its arsenal while trying to kill as many civilians as possible, and use the civilian population as shields - but Israel is the actor singled out for condemnation? Having said all of that, even if they were equally bad, I'd take Israel's side for strategic reasons alone, so I'm hardly an impartial observer on this one.

I think a significant ground offensive immediately after the air campaign would probably have been more effective in actually achieving Israel's stated objective, but I'm not sure that intense ground fighting would result in fewer civilian casualties, given the fact that Hizbullah hasn't evinced much in the way of an effort to separate themselves from civilians and get the civilians out of harm's way. I'm not sure that Israel's tactics have been the wisest here, but it seems to me that they've done everything that they could to minimize civilian casualties - as if they elected to pay no heed to civilian lives they could have easily flattened any or all of Lebanon and been done with it. So by taking measures to limit civilian casualties as much as possible in the face of a massive rocket bombardment undertaken to inflict as many civilian casualties as possible, I'd say that Israel has lived up to it's moral responsibilities as a more powerful democratic state that's aspiring to live by a higher set of ideals than their enemies. I am not sure if there's any way that they could respond to these missile attacks that would eliminate civilian casualties alogether, other than battening down the hatches and waiting until Hezbollah exhausts its arsenal, but I don't think it's reasonable for the rest of the world to expect them to do that when no other nation on Earth would accept that kind of limitation on their ability to respond while being attacked.

I personally think that holding Potlucks for Peace is the way out of this one.

If you've got some time to spare, maybe you could parse out the percentage of deaths at the hands of US forces, versus sectarian violence, versus random murder and crime. To get back to one of your consistent themes - it seems to me that you are arguing that there is no distinction between physical and moral equivalence, and that all civilian deaths resulting from combat are morally equivalent to one another. By that reasoning soldiers who inadvertently kill civilians in a crossfire while trying to rescue them from certain execution at the hands of their captors are morally equivalent to soldiers that deliberately seeking out civilians and kill them? Or am I misunderstanding something about your position? The stance that physical equivalence = moral equivalence seems to be the only framework in which one could argue that the actions of the Israeli military and those of Hezbollah are morally equivalent.

I don't think that Israel's tactics have been especially wise, and if their objective was to deny Hezbollah's ability to use Southern Lebanon as a staging area, I think they would have been better served by undertaking a massive ground invasion by now. Whether or not that'll succeed is an open question, and there's clearly the potential to make things worse.

Now that I've had a chance to look at the photos in a sequence, I think that you can use the rocky protrusion that I've circled in this photo as a common point of reference in all of these photos.

Nisqually Glacier Photo Assault. The photo series spans the time period from 1904-1969. All photos from: "American Geographical Society/World Data Center-A for Glaciology Photograph held by the National Snow and Ice Data Center/World Data Center for Glaciology, Boulder." 1904 1912 1929 1931 1942 1955 1964 1969 From the last photo it looks as though the maximum advance was somewhere in the vicinity of the modern roadway. Anyone care to speculate where the 1904 terminus lies in the last photo?

Good resource for old glacier photos... http://nsidc.org/cgi-bin/gpd_run_search.pl

There was a great thread a while back in which someone (Lowell Skoog?) posted photos of some prominent peaks in the North Cascades taken decades ago, along with recent shots taken from the same Vantage Point. I've heard quite a bit about the extent to which the glaciers have retreated over the course of the 20th century, and it would be quite interesting to see old panoramic photos from the old days in order to see just how dramatic the change has been. It'd also be cool to see climbing photos or any other photos from way back when. If I recall correctly, I remember hearing something about either Stevens or Van Trump climbing Mt. Rainier 30 years after their first ascent, and commenting that in that time the Nisqually glacier had retreated by something like a mile. That seems impossible, but the retreat must have been considerable. Anyone know more about? How far out are the ancient moraines?

Anyone know why Toyota has never sold the HiLux diesel in the US?

If your main objective is just to get to the places where other people park - ski area parking lots, Sno-Parks, pull-outs on plowed roads, etc - some kind of fuel efficient AWD is the way to go. If you want something that has a chance of getting you through some snow-patches that would stop the typical passenger car en route to a trailhead in the spring, then something with around 10" of clearance and a locking rear differential is probably the way to go. Make sure to pack a come-along or two, a shovel, and a length of static cord as well as the odds are pretty good that you'll find yourself using them if you probe enough snow-patches. Other folks may know more about this, but I've heard that grinding through deep patches of heavy snow is a pretty good way to fry a stock clutch, even if you're in 4-low, so I think that unless you're also a 4x4 hobbyist, just parking where everyone else does will probably save you lots of time and money. Having said all of that - having 4WD and some clearance has come in pretty handy for me from time to time.

Cool trip. Thanks for sharing the photos and story. I did sorta the same thing for a proposal, except I stashed the ring and a note in a fake summit register, which my wife promptly threw a coat over the nook where I stashed it and fell asleep. When it was time to go, she was ready to leave without giving the "register" a second look, so I had to pretend that I was looking for something else and then say "Hey - look what I found...."

I'm not too familiar with the racing scene, so here's a question for those that are. Is testosterone something that most riders feel would give them a competitive advantage? I'm not aware of many edurance atheletes that think that a non-specific bulking-up of major muscle groups would do anything but hinder them. Even in men's swimming, the consensus seems to be that 'roids would be detrimental, as the musculature that you develop from swimming is optimal, and any additional bulk would just slow you down.

Very nice photos. Maybe you could just write some code so that the rest of us can just hit a button and let the computer do the work for us...

Seattle really, really, really, really doesn't need to be anything like New York or Boston. Trust me. Not worth the tradeoff.

That sucks. A couple of years ago two friends of mine were flying out from Colorado to climb Rainier via the Kautz or the Finger in mid-June, with the intention of hanging out through 3-4 days of bad weather if that's what'd take to get a shot at climbing the mountain. Neither had much vacation time or money, so they were more than happy to hang-out of the mountain if that's what they'd need to do to get a crack at the mountain after investing so much time, energy and cash into the climb. I figured I'd reduce the slog factor a bit by stashing a rope, some food, and fuel up there. I buried everything about 3 feet deep in a plastic bag behind the rocks beneath the turtle snowfield, and marked the spot with a wand. Just in case anyone got curious and/or the bag melted out, I wrote a note explaining when we'd be there, and asking folks not to disturb the cache unless it was a matter of life or death for them, sealed the note in a bag, and duct-taped it to the outside of the bag. I was mighty dissapointed when we got up there and found the bag torn open and half of the fuel cannisters and some of the food gone. Thankfully for my friends, we had a great weather window, and there was no need to hunker down for any length of time - but needless to say I was mighty dissapointed and my friends were flat out disgusted. Very bad mountain karma for someone out there...

Story ONTARIO: Camper kills attacking bear with knife...

Is Prop 13 indexed to anything that's directly connected to a fundamental need for increasing outlays, like inflation or population growth - or are the increases fixed in a more arbitrary fashion? I am not terribly familiar with Prop 13, and have heard rumors of some pretty ill conceived provisions. These include descendant's inheriting Granny's Prop 13 tax basis of the property is transmitted to heirs without a sale, and a loophole that allows people to use Prop 13 limitations in conjunction with commercial property if they use the right ownership structure. Not sure if this stuff is accurate, but it'd be interesting to hear from someone who's familiar with the measure. Doesn't CA have a pretty full roster of taxes besides property taxes? Sales tax, state income tax, and property taxes? It'd be interesting to see some stats on tax receipts and spending per capita, and the percentage of tax receipts derived from housing versus other taxes for California relative to other states.

The fact that anyone in the profession is defending the Asbestos Megacluster under any pretense, for starters.

It is surprising that companies that sell booze haven't been subject to a wave of equally dubious lawsuits. One reason is because they were smart enough to realize that acknowledging that drinking can be bad for your health, and moreover that acknowlegding medical facts would have no effect whatsoever on their sales. I think another, more important factor is that drinking is both more widespread and not nearly as frowned upon as smoking in this culture, so supporting this kind of lawsuit might be a political liability, unlike the case with tobacco.

I'm not sure how to define "really hurt," in this context, but I'm sure there's a precedent or two that they could follow to make that kind of determination. I wouldn't support them making up a punishment out of the blue that's totally inconsistent with the principles used to determine the fines levied against other enterprises. If any of the folks at the tobacco company broke the law by either committing purgery or some other offense then by all means they should be punished.