JayB

None taken. I never even wanted to learn to ride, but after an ACL tear that I sustained on skis I figured riding-for-rehab would beat sitting out a season so I bought the gear and rode for a couple of years, and now it's 80/20 in favor of skis again. Definitely fun, but yea - the truth is I'm not really a snowboarder. Another factor that will forever keep me out of the real snowboarder camp is that my limited time on the board I was able link turns in steep moguls, and never shaved a foot of fresh off of a line while side-sliding down a run that I had no business being on.....

I ski and ride a board and think that most of the problem is due to skiers and boarders just being "out of phase" with each other. Seems like when I'm on a board I have way more close calls with skiers and vice versa. With respect to the youth thing, I think that snowboarding was the cool new edgy thing in the late 80's, but that's been nearly 20 years ago. My hunch is that young folks who want to something different than their friends ski instead of boarding, but who knows. I have to say that fat skis in powder seem to deliver the best of both worlds. High speeds, long swoopy turns - and the ability to keep moving when things flatten out and gravity is no longer there to help you.

Seattle to Kirkland for about a month. Phinney ridge to Capitol Hill by bike and bike via Dexter kind of sucked because any savings on fuel costs were more than negated by the additional money that I spent on food to fuel the trips back and forth.

Pricing unskilled labor out of the market definitely helps the poor and the young.

I'm flattered by the response but there'se no way that I'll have the time to respond to every question for a while. Maybe PP can chime in with the charts and stats that you've requested. Seems to come down to a question of whether one places a greater premium a tax-structure that optimizes revenue, growth, and employment, and shifts the burden of actual taxes paid onto the wealthiest, or a tax structure which does none of the above but validates one's preconceptions about what constitutes fairness. Speaking of which - I hope all of you Progressive folks what are currently taking advantage of the mortgage tax deduction are writing your Congressmen and demanding that they rescind it - that'd be $60 billion more for the government to invest elsewhere, would eliminate a tax-subsidy that actually hurts the poor by inflating the price of housing, encourages a misallocation of capital into a manifestly non-productive asset-class, etc, etc, etc. Or just refuse the deduction and send the extra money to the government in advance of any change to the tax code. It's really the least that you could do.

Despite this the're paying the vast majority of income taxes. A simpler tax-structure with fewer deductions, and lower marginal rates would likely increase government revenues and eliminate these loopholes - so there'd be more money for the government to spend.

The short answer is no. If people today lived in the conditions that my grandparents grew up in, they'd be considered desperately poor - although both of them were in the middle class of their day. The poor seeing their real incomes and material prosperity grow more slowly than the wealthy, and the "poor getting poorer" are two different things. IMO the best way to reduce poverty and increase real wages is to increase demand for their skills and labor by increasing labor productivity and profitability, which translates into more jobs. The people who are least likely to see their real standard of living increase in any economy are those who have no job. My sense is that if you are a poor person you are better of having an increasing real income and lower marginal rates, than a declining real income - or no income - and increasing marginal rates for those in the tax brackets above you.

The figures show that as the top marginal rate has been progressively lowered, the both the real income and the material-wealth of the poorest 20% of Americans has increased, and their percentage of total federal taxes paid has decreased. I'd elaborate more but I'm too busy at the moment. The poor haven't been getting poorer under this system, they just haven't seen their income and standard of living increase as rapidly as everyone else.

Avoidance is definitely the key, unless you like to hit the lines by loveland pass, in which case just wait for the dudes you carried up in the back of your truck to finish off the bongload and they will gladly test-out even the sketchiest wind-loaded-slab-over-depth hoar line out for you - no questions asked. Buy the burliest stuff that you'll actually be willing to carry, learn how to use it, and ski in a way that insures that you'll never have to. My default pattern has been to ski steep stuff in-bounds in the winter most of the time, stick to mild stuff otherwise, and wait for spring conditions to ski steeper stuff. Just the way it's worked out, which also keeps the avy risk pretty low. YMMV.

http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1545&from=4&sequence=0 Percentage of Households with: Poor Households, 1994 All Households, 1971 Washing Machine 71.7 71.3 Clothes Dryer 50.2 44.5 Refrigerator 97.9 83.3 Stove 97.7 87.0 Color Television 92.5 43.3 Telephone 76.7 93.0 Air-conditioner 49.6 31.8 One or more cars 71.8 79.5 Income Status mean real* income, 1966 mean real income, 1999 Top 20 percent $123.7 $254.8 Second 20 percent 80.5 147.8 Middle 20 percent 47.2 72.2 Next 20 percent 35.3 48.9 Bottom 20 percent 24.7 31.0 Help: *Adjusted for inflation. http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/f03.html

BLING BLING MUDDAFUGS!!!! "....MAGNUM!!!"

www.neice.com www.neclimbs.com

If I had to choose a single photo that summarizes continental socialism's worldview in one photo, that'd definitely be it. Yes - burn down all of the McDonalds franchises, and dwindling competitiveness, calcified labor markets that effectively render those on the low end of the skill-spectrum enemployable, plunging birthrates, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc will all dissappear.

Hey - I thought that you might have wandered over the horizon, and gone until someone turned the story of a young man who renounced Western civilization in favor of the nomadic life on the high plains into a PBS docudrama - "Dances with Yaks." Sounds pretty sweet over there. Post some more photos if you get a chance, and be sure to master the art of the impromptu far-out-mystical-eastern-enlightenment-long-gone-traveler routine to pick up chicks with when you get back to the states and go to grad school....

They've also clearly been obscuring the truth about the direct connection between the Bush administration's policies and the ongoing riots in France. Stunning omission.

I also suspect that in most European states its easier for the governments to seize property for public works projects. Could be wrong, but in general they seem less concerned with property rights.

I agree wit ya on principle but I believe there's a significant difference. Smoking and driving have a high potential to affect others especially in areas frequented by large numbers of people. Climbing on the other hand is less likely to affect others on a similar scale, with the exception of climbing at tourist sites. I think there are already prohibitions in place to restrict climbing activities in these areas. There have been some highly publicized accounts of climbing related deaths and accidents. But I believe that climbing as a recreational activity will not register on the legislator's radar. There also are existing laws such as No Trespassing that restrict climbing in certain areas. As far as safety regulations, the manufacturers of climbing equipment already incorporate safety standards into their equipment so the long arm of additional regulatory oversight is unneeded. The climber's equivalent to safety belts and helmets are seen in ropes and harnesses which are constructed to a safety standard. I suppose there could be a 'slippery slope' concern here but I believe it's unlikely. The only exception that I can think of, off the top of my head, are those moveable mechanical climbing walls that have a rope attached to a winch or something, you know, the things that show up at the mall. The main point was simply that helmet laws are a case where the "Yea - it's your brain and your life that you are putting at risk, but were the ones who are going to have to shell out the money for decades when you become a ward of the state as a result of your injury, so we have the authority to force you to wear a helmet" principle in action. Seemed like Chuck's concern about this kind of logic being applied to a wider spectrum of individual behaviors after the advent of completely socialized medicine probably has some merit if this is indeed the logic that lead to the advent of the mandatory helmet laws for motorcyclists. Maybe I am wrong about the logic that lead to the adoption of these rules though.

I'm not opposed to helmet and seatbelt laws - just brought them up to illustrate a point. The reason I brought up motorcycles is that they generate a significant number of brain injuries in young men who become a multi-decade responsibility for the state. My understanding was that here especially the argument was - if you crash and become disabled, your care is most likely going to be on the state's dime, so the state is justified in restricting your ability to ride without a helmet. I could be totally off base here, but I got the sense that most legislatures looked at seat-belts for drivers and helmets for motorcyclists in a slightly different manner, and the link between the authority to regulate behavior and financial liability was a bit more explicit in the case of the motorcyclists. IMO there's no reason in principle why this couldn't be applied to climbers as well, the demographics are largely the same and the risk of a permanently debilitating brain injury are probably just as high - except for the fact that in the case of climbers it would be impossible to enforce. There's also the fact that climbers are a lower profile group.

"This is the only worry I would have about socialized medicine. Worry-warts might start using the perceived excess burden added to the common healthcare system as an argument to prohibit any voluntary activity that they deem unworthy. Soon any risky activity that only a minority partakes in would have a good chance of being prohibited." We're already there - mandatory helmet laws. Interesting side note - heard somewhere that groups associated with organ transfers usually oppose these measures when they come up for a vote. Strange bedfellows.

Did our man in Mongolia go native? Trade bouldering shoes for yurt, yak, and harem?

Before I started knocking off 7-11's and cooking-up batches of meth in the outhouse.... (1991 Passport photo) Damn you, dihydrotestosterone sensitive follicles, damn you....

They keep asking me to use my access to the Sigma catalog to send them the benzyl-methyl-ketone they need to get around the supply crunch that they've been dealing with now that they can no longer buy 600 boxes of Sudafed at once, but other than that I don't hear from them much...

This might also be an opportune moment to revive the "Bad Photo Contest" thread. First entry...

I knew the disguises weren't fooling anyone (except for Off_White). I think I have the guy beat in the facial hair density and male pattern baldness department, but the resemblance is definitely there. I was hoping I wouldn't have to confront my parents with those 1973 adoption papers from Georgia that I found in the attic, but...

Que?