JayB

Funny thing about the jibbers is that I bet that the folks who rip on them don't have the balls to pull a straight-up 360 off of a decent sized jump, let alone the massive twisting flips with switch landings and whatnot that the skiers in these movies pull-off routinely these days. The notion that someone with the combination of the heuvos and the altheticism necessary to throw down like that in the park couldn't learn to handle making turns back and forth down lines that the likes of the average recreational skier can handle in 1/2 of a run, if they didn't know how to do so already, is one of the more laughable conceits I've ever come across. It's like some dude that tours on a Gold-Wing watching freestyle motorcross riders do backflips with no-hands landings shrugging his shoulders and saying "Yeah- but let's see them handle passing a semi on I-90 with a cross-wind... that's real ridin' for ya - not this candy-ass business with the backflips and whatnot"

Pretty interesting read - I'm impressed. Check it out: Iraq Now Sample#1 [There’s a very useful site on coalition forces casualty figures here Unfortunately, I don't see very many journalists using it very well. The media focuses overwhelmingly on the number of lives lost. It’s easy to see why—it tugs more heartstrings in Peoria. But if you’re going to accept coalition casualties as a metric for measuring the progress of the struggle for Iraq, then I believe it’s much more instructive to focus on the numbers of wounded. Why? Because the sheer numbers of wounded dwarf the number of dead, any statistical analysis of wounded is going to provide a much smoother graph with a smaller margin for error. Further, when you focus exclusively on the number of soldiers killed, then your analysis excludes the vast majority of attacks on coalition forces. Let’s look at the numbers. The United States took 270 wounded in September, 433 wounded in October, 344 in November, and 119 through 11 days of December. I’ll count three more wounded I have personal knowledge of from the 12th of December (plus one KIA, and another dead in a separate possible suicide, from the site’s press releases), for a total of 122 wounded through 13 days of December. You can see the table on the Website. I would adjust the December daily average figures to 8.7, based on the information available to me here. To reduce increase the number of data points and reduce the standard deviation of daily figures, I would add the number of those killed and wounded from enemy action together, while excluding non-battle casualties, which don’t tell me much about the enemy. That yields: September Total casualties: 277 9.23/day October: 466 15.03/day November: 441 14.70/day December: 128* 9.8/ day So what can we learn from the numbers? The first thing you see is that from the point of view of total U.S. casualties, November was not the worst month since the President declared an end to major combat operations; that honor actually belongs to October. Moreover, the November figures for those killed in action were skewed upwards by two statistical outliers: two downed helicopters—one in Fallujah killed 17, I believe, and another near Mosul killed, for a total of 23. Eliminate the outliers, and the average number of wounded/day drops below 14. The difference between 15.03 and 13.93 is not particularly significant, except that the trend continues into December, which thus far has only produced 9.8 casualties per day—the best day since September. Again, though, December’s figures are skewed by two significant outlying data points: last week’s car bombing in Mosul (wounding 26), and Friday’s car bombing at the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters in Ar Ramadi, which wounded 14 and killed one. Subtract those two events, and the remaining guerrilla activity throughout the country caused 6.69 U.S. casualties per day so far in December—well under the September’s pace. This is not to suggest that the casualties in these events ought to be dismissed as insignificant. They themselves reflect disturbing trends about the enemy’s ability to 1.) obtain and use surface-to-air missiles against U.S. aircraft, and 2.) Recruit people actually willing to blow themselves up. Equally significantly, though, the figures suggest that a smaller and smaller number of insurgent cells may become responsible for a greater number of casualty-producing operations. I’m also struck by the casualty figures’ seeming lack of correlation with Ramadan. If Ramadan were going to bring a grass-roots rash of religiously motivated attacks, then you would expect that November’s total casualties would be significantly greater than October’s. I’m not entirely surprised by it, though. Littlegreenfootballs.com links to a good statistical analysis of intifada casualties, and I could find no evidence of a Ramadan boost in terrorist activity there, either. Ramadan isn’t about killing, anyway. Lastly, the overall drop off in casualties may well be weather-related. Night time temperatures are dropping into the 30s, which probably makes it tough for Joe Sheik’s-pack to motivate himself to get off the couch at night and pick up his remote control and go out and kill some infidels. Why not wait until spring, when it’s warmer? Someone with more time than I have might be willing to go back through casualty figures and weather data and do a regression analysis of temperatures vs. guerrilla activity in Afghanistan and other areas. Anyone with an econometrics background ought to be able to do this. I’m surprised I haven’t seen any respectable statistical analysis of casualty figures yet from the NY Times. Maybe they should get someone on their financial desk on the story. I have no solid answers for why total U.S. casualties seem to have markedly increased in October. My own unstudied sense is that the number of total incidents seems to have remained constant, or even declined since July. One possibility: somewhere along the line, the insurgent changed his tactics. Direct fire engagements on U.S. troops are less common now. His emphasis has shifted to improvised explosive devices, and more recently, to more spectacular car bombings. I haven’t seen anything like this 10th grade level of statistical analysis from the New York Times or other major media outlets yet, though. Maybe they should get their political and financial desks in on the story. Time, Inc., on the other hand, should probably contract it out to Morningstar.com. *Note: The KIA count is updated through the 13th, so I’m assuming the Ar Ramadi fatality is included in this figure. Monthly wounded figures prior to September are apparently not available, and any aggregate would be highly skewed from the March and April casualty figures. I’m therefore excluding them for the purposes of this post. Splash, out Jason" /i] Sample#2 The Baghdad press corps seems to have missed a larger story. This article, from United Press International describes an antiterrorism demonstration in Baghdad attended by an estimated 4,000 people. An Iraqi blogger-on-the-scene has this report: The rallies today proved to be a major success. I didn't expect anything even close to this. It was probably the largest demonstration in Baghdad for months. It wasn't just against terrorism. It was against Arab media, against the interference of neighbouring countries, against dictatorships, against Wahhabism, against oppression, and of course against the Ba'ath and Saddam. What you don’t see in the UPI story is that the demonstrations were not limited to Baghdad: there was actually a series of coordinated rallies across in cities across the country, including one scheduled from 0930 to 1200 hours at the government center here in Ar Ramadi. Here’s what things looked like from my little corner of the Army: I have recently been temporarily assigned to the post of battalion “battle captain.” For nonmilitary readers, that means from 0100 to 1300 hours every day I am the battalion commander’s representative in the TOC, and basically run all routine operations in the absence of the battalion commander or executive officer. If this were Star Trek, I’d “have the conn.” At about 1100 hours on the 10th of December, we received word from a civil affairs detachment at the government center that the demonstrations had wound down, which allowed us to stand down a mounted quick reaction force we had standing by “just in case.” After terrorists had murdered 15 people in the bombing of a police academy graduation ceremony just 20 yards away last July, we were very concerned that the rally would become a target for terrorist attack. We were also concerned that the march itself could turn ugly, and had decided to hedge our bets by maintaining a reserve to react to anything that could happen. But hearing that the rally was winding down without serious incident was certainly good news. A few minutes later, though, my RTO took a call from the civil affairs team stating that a counterdemonstration had formed, and a slogan-chanting mob of about 200 people had come from the east, and was throwing rocks at Americans and Iraqi police inside the compound. “By our lives, by our souls, we will preserve Islam!” The team was not part of our unit. I actually didn’t even know they were there until they called in. They were in our area of operations, though, and the RTO told me they wanted permission to fire a warning shot. I hate to be the guy sitting in a safe place on a radio and a room full of maps denying a request to someone in a tight spot in the field. But on the other hand, I had to weigh the immediate needs of the guy on the ground against the broader mission: the stability of Ar Ramadi in the long term. The problem with using warning shots in this kind of situation -- when you’re not confronted with an immediately lethal threat -- is that once you fire, you’ve played out your hand. If the rock throwing continues, you either have to kill people or appear impotent. It’s a lose-lose proposition. Furthermore, put yourself in the position of some average Joe Iraqi in the crowd. You can hear the shots ring out, and you can hear the difference between an M16 and an AK-47. So you know it was the Americans who fired first, but you have no idea that the first shots didn’t hit anybody. If there’s a gun available, and you’re a male, and there are women around, you’re going to grab one. (Arab machismo makes people do nutty things.) Now, we know that there’s an AK-47 inside almost every shop, and almost every apartment immediately above and behind the shops. Iraqi families keep them around for home protection. There are more AK’s in Ar Ramadi than there are Elvis plates in Vegas. There is also a known extralegal weapons market just a couple of hundred meters away. If a warning shot is misinterpreted, the crowd could quickly arm itself with implements far deadlier than swords, and it could do it in minutes. I didn’t consciously thought about it at the time, but one of my NCOs on duty reminded me that we’d seen this happen before, in July, at the very same location. We had most of a company stationed at the government center at that time. A bunch of kids started throwing rocks at the compound. A crowd gathered. The compound started taking small arms and RPG fire from across the street. To the west, a man was skipping around behind a bunch of kids handing hand grenades to children and encouraging them to throw them at our troops behind the compound. Our soldiers couldn’t get a shot at him without endangering the children. So they returned aimed fire at the RPG shooters and small-arms fire to the north, but they held their fire to the west, and just took the grenades. When it was over, at least three Iraqis were dead. If we fired warning shots, and they were misinterpreted or ignored, then chances were good that things could escalate to a pitched battle within minutes. “Have them hold their fire and hunker down,” I ordered the RTO. “Meanwhile, let’s stand that QRF (quick reaction force) back up before they break down completely.” But the guys had anticipated that order and were already transmitting it before I even thought of it. Sharp team. I explained my reasoning to the RTOs real quick, though, so they’d have some guidance from me. “I’m not going to meet non-deadly force with deadly force,” I said. “We can always go deadly later.” At that time, though, I still had no idea how many U.S. soldiers were at the government center. The civil affairs unit had not coordinated with us that morning to tell us they were showing up. So I decided to tell the QRF to roll towards the government center and deploy in a show of force. Once the order to hold fire and the order to roll the QRF was clear, I picked up the radio myself and called the CA team. Generally, I don’t pick up the radio, personally. We’ve got tremendous, sharp RTOs, with tons of common sense, who’ve been directing battalion operations for months. My role is to track happenings on a map, monitor the overall situation, and make sound and timely decisions. Which means my job isn’t to yap on the radio. (That’s a common mistake young lieutenants make).My job is to think! But this time I picked up the radio, because a guy on the ground in a tight spot is going to want to talk to the decision maker, and I wanted to hear the voice of the guy on the ground and get a couple of points of information in person. “Hey, how many soldiers do you have?” He told me…which I won’t be specific about, but it was enough to defend themselves for the time being, if need be. “Ok. Do you have enough transportation assets to mount everyone up and leave if you have to?” “Oh, roger, that’s not an issue!” “Ok. Are you getting any assistance from the Iraqi Police?” “Roger. They’re doing a good job. They’ve showed up in enough force to move the crowd away. Things are going ok for now. “Ok, roger. Now, I don’t know what your mission is. But will it fuck your mission up to withdraw and come back tomorrow? Are you done for the day?” “Roger, that’s not a problem. We’re done for the day!” “Roger, wait one. Out.” So my NCOIC I went over to the map and worked out a plan—talking it over out loud, because I’ve been on the job long enough to know two RTOs have good, sound tactical ideas of their own, and they’re not afraid to voice them. (if anything, they voice them TOO much, but I can always tone that down or cut through that if I really need to. I’d rather have to reign someone in than drag them along, any day). We agreed to roll the QRF and have them set up a blocking position between the government center and the mob, and cover the withdrawal of the civil affairs team. If air was available, we’d ask it to monitor the crowd, but we wanted to get our people out of there, for the same reason that you want to remove the oxygen supply from a fire. If it were a pro-Islam demonstration, the hope was that it would fizzle out in the absence of Americans. Once everyone knew what the plan was, all we had to do was set the RTOs loose to communicate the plan, and monitor events. Because I don’t normally pick up the radio, but work through my TOC NCO and let the RTOs do their job, when the battalion commander walked in, I was able to take a minute to brief him up on the situation without the flow of information skipping a beat. The QRF arrived within minutes. The civil affairs team trucked up and left, with the infantry withdrawing immediately after. Everyone called in with updates. The civil affairs team was also had enough on the ball to take some digital photographs of the rock throwers and leaders of the violent counterdemonstration, and emailed them to us within a day. A couple of Iraqi policemen received minor injuries from the rocks, but no one was killed, no shots were fired, no property was destroyed, as far as I know, and everyone on both sides made it home alive. It wasn’t a difficult day, nor a particularly difficult decision. It’s just one of a very few points during this deployment where I managed to earn my meager officer's pay.

Good information. To a casual observer like myself it appears that there are some behavioral factors at work as well that the studies don't address - e.g. that the traits that go along with achieving a high SES also play a role in regulating one's weight. In general, I'd venture that people that can't get their asses off of the couch to hit the treadmill or muster the discipline to regulate their supersized milkshake consumption probably aren't overachievers in other aspects of their life. Yes - this is a very gross oversimplification and there are tons of disciplined fat people, and lazy-ass skinny people out there, and everyone has a biological range within which their weight will fluctuate under (historically) normal circumstances - but you can't get away from the fact that: 1. The rate of obesity is changing (increasing) much more rapidly than our genetic makeup is, so genetic explanations for increasing obesity are worthless. 2. Other regions of the world with roughly similar ethnic make-ups aren't nearly as fat as we are. If it was purely a matter of genes, they'd be as obese as Americans and they aren't. 3. This is a recent phenomenon - dating back to the boom in agricultural productivity and the ensuing caloric surplus available to the average consumer after WWII. Try finding me an example of dirt-poor yet morbidly obese people in the historical record prior to this time. The bottom line is that you gain weight when you consume more calories than you burn, you lose weight when you burn more calories than you consume - and the set of behaviors that results in consumption permanently exceeding expenditures is going to be correlated with poverty in some fashion in rich countries, the only places in the world, and in history, where one can sit on one's ass, forgo working, and get fat rather than starve to death.

But in the US the poorer you are the more likely you are to be overweight and vice versa.

Looks like the Canadian Guy picked up the disease in Britain though. I have heard rumors of three guys in Wisconsin coming down with vCJD after eating meat from a deer or elk sick with Chronic Wasting Disease - the spongiform encephalopathy unique to those animals and prevalent in the central Rockies.

Very well put, SC. I think the Iraquis might be feeling a little bit more gratitude in our general direction(s) if they had in any way ASKED us to liberate them from their tyrannical leader. They didn't invite us. We INVADED their country and now we occupy it. No one should be surprised that there is insurrection against an occupying force, no matter how (allegedly) high-minded the reason for the invasion and overthrow of the government. "The big brother in a small hole Horrraaaaa It's the justice day. I'm speechless. I'm crying. The tyrants' hour has finally came. I went down to the streets to share the joy with my brothers. This is our day, the day of all the oppressed and good people on earth. Tears of joy filled the eyes of all the people. Saddam, the coward, hides in a hole, shaking in fear from being captured. Not a single bullet was fired, without any resistance, God, he was even cooperative! The mighty tyrant, who exploited all our country's fortune for his personal protection, surrenders like the cowered I expected him to be. Yes, he should be prosecuted in Iraq. We will not allow anything else. We want to see him in a cage bending more and more, humiliated more and more, just as he forced all the Iraqis to bend to him, like they were his slaves. But we will not be like him, we will give him a fair trail, and he will get just what he deserves, although I have no idea what does he really deserve. It's indeed an inauspicious day for all the tyrants. Let them know that their days are near too. This is the day of all Iraqi martyrs who were slaughtered just to please his sick lust for blood. Rest in peace my brothers. The paradise is yours and the disgrace and hell is for all the tyrants on earth. Thank you American, British, Spanish, Italian, Australian, Ukrainian, Japanese and all the coalition people and all the good people on earth. God bless the 1st brigade. God bless the 4th infantry division. God bless Iraq. God bless America. God bless the coalition people and soldiers. God bless all the freedom loving people on earth. I wish I could hug you all." Source - Iraqi Weblogs I'd say the feelings of resentment are hardly unanimous, even amongst the Sunni, who amount to roughly 1/3rd of the population. Take a moment and read through this weblog and those linked to his site when you get a chance.

"And what is this apologist drivel about who armed whom? France and Russia (Soviet Union) aren't playing the hypocrisy game that the US is; plus in no way am I supporting the arms trade anyway." But SC, Mon Cherie! The paper (hint - read it) demonstrates clearly that the French, the Germans, the Russians, and the Chineese had much deeper economic and millitary ties with Hussein than the US did, yet rather than addressing the consequences of their past policies and joining the effort to get rid of him - they continuously lobbied to undermine the efficacy of the sanctions intended to limit his ability to rearm, and did business with him right up to very moment of the invasion. They had no qualms about selling him arms and making contracts with him long after any strategic rationale for supporting him had vanished - but wouldn't single soldier to the effort to get rid of him, contribute a cent to rebuilding the country or provide the personel necessary to stabilize the country, perpetually frustrated and denounced the US's efforts to rid the world of the regime that they were even more complicit in nurturing and sustaining - then went onto herald Hussein's capture in the most glowing terms and issue proclamations about how wonderful this development was for both the world and the people of Iraq? How is that not hypocritical? This should be good. "state control is more important than individual rights? Of course you will...." Yeah - because that's what I've consistently supported here all along. State control trumping individual rights. Glad to see you returning to top form so quickly comrade! Cheers

Just read that last post. Awesome. Once you finish with that chart, follow up with a glib dissmissal of the mass graves in Iraq. Then rail against the illegal use of force that brought about the end of the slaughter in Kosovo (not sanctioned by the UN either, remember?). Great stuff. Keep it coming

Hey - SC is back! It's good to see you back, but I must admit that I am a bit dissapointed to see that you merely compared Bush to Hitler rather than claiming that Bush is - literally - Hitler. Not like Hitler, not bearing a resemblance to, not distressingly similar in your eyes - actually Hitler. One and the same. What gives? Being the charitable guy that I am, though, I'm willing to write this off as a momentary lapse that came about as a result of your prolonged sabbatical from this site, and I am confident that you will return to your old form in due time. In the meantime I have an exercise for you. Read through the paper I have linked to in the passage below, then claim that it was actually the US that armed Hussein. That'll help get you back in top form, comrade. "As far as Hussein is concerned, The US was hardly alone in supporting him, and I have posted a link that shows total arms sales by country that shows that France and Russia in particular were more active in arming Iraq than the US by far. Link It's all right there on the graph on page 22. To summarize - between 1973 and 1995 the US exported 5 million dollars worth of arms to Iraq. In the same period, the UK exported 330 million dollars worth, France sold them 9.2 billion dollar's worth (That's 1840 times more than the US exported), Russia exported 31.8 billion dollars worth of arms to Iraq, and China was a distant second with 5.5 billion in exports. These are facts. So please address them before you go on claiming that the US is uniquely responsible for arming Iraq."

I am guessing that there is just an off chance that full-time political strategists who make their living by uncovering and disclosing any and all pieces of information that have the potential to damage their opponents may have considered this move, and since we have heard nothing from them on this matter, they may have decided that it would not be in their interest to do so, and that there is nothing there to exploit that can't be explained by the exigencies of the day. If this is all the angry Left has got, then that should provide quite a bit of comfort to their ideological adversaries. We supported Hussein because Iran was viewed as a much graver threat by every Western Power. There's quite a number of photos showing FDR shaking Stalin's hand, but thankfully Democrats in those days displayed a degree of sense on matters of defense that hasn't been in evidence since the McGovern nomination. You make the alliances necessary to neutralize the greatest threat facing you at the time, and if you are fortunate enough to succeed, then you worry about how you are going to deal with the devil that you danced with. Stalin, like Hussein, was one such devil and the US lead the world in ridding the planet of both after the greater threat had passed. All any Republican will have to do to respond to a "gloveless" enquiry such as this is explain the geopolitical context, set forth the choices facing the administration at the time, ask the "gloveless" opponent what he would have done and why - then watch the dithering and waffling commence from accross the stage. As far as Hussein is concerned, The US was hardly alone in supporting him, and I have posted a link that shows total arms sales by country that shows that France and Russia in particular were more active in arming Iraq than the US by far. Link. It's all right there on the graph on page 22. To summarize - between 1973 and 1995 the US exported 5 million dollars worth of arms to Iraq. In the same period, the UK exported 330 million dollars worth, France sold them 9.2 billion dollar's worth (That's 1840 times more than the US exported), Russia exported 31.8 billion dollars worth of arms to Iraq, and China was a distant second with 5.5 billion in exports. These are facts. So please address them before you go on claiming that the US is uniquely responsible for arming Iraq. As far as the chemical and biological weapons go, the equipment used to manufacture the gases was sold by the Germans, the chemical precursors by an Italian company. The US permitted the sale of media and fermenters that could be used to grow bacteria that could be used for a number of purposes, but never even came close to providing either bioweapons themselves or stocks that the Iraqis could cultivate and weaponize. We've certainly made our share of mistakes as a nation, but let's at least make an effort to be get our facts straight before we enumerate them.

I think that he'll be getting an effusive thank-you note and a box of chocolates in the mail from Karl Rove, along with a reminder to "Keep hammering away on that TurkeyGate thing - it's working for you - really."

Is a riduculus related in any way to a homunculus? Surely not to an incubus - that would be rediculous.

"But it was a FAKE TURKEY!!!!! Can't you see???? The TURKEY-WAS-A-FAKE!!! IT WAS A FAAAAA....." Link to the Iraqi Blog the Pic Was Linked From.... This and the other Iraqi Blogs linked to the site do make for some interesting reading. While neither they nor anyone else would claim that they speak for all Iraqis, it is nice to get ahold of some unedited commentary directly from the people of Iraq.

Saw Steve Firebaugh's name on that site - too bad we lost him to the mounties board - he had some good information to share.

I am sick of the US subsizing the rest of the world's health care too - but I would rather change that through means other than bringing the development of new drugs to a standstill - like trade negotiations. You put price caps on drugs manufactured by companies headquartered in the US, we throw punitive tarriffs on a wide range of products that your most important industries export to the US. This is not the right time to pursue this project, but at some point the rest of the world will either have to start paying up for the new drugs they enjoy or go without - either as a result of pressure from the government and big pharma or the US consumer getting fed up and refusing to subsidize their health care any longer and demanding the price controls that will ultimately bring about a drastic reduction in the number and frequency of new drugs coming to market. I'd personally much rather go through a trade war than see people with potentially treatable diseases go without new medications that might help them. As far as the new prescription drug benefit is concerned, I don't understand how adding a massive infusion of government cash to fund drug purchases for the elderly is going to make sick old people any worse off. It may not be the best plan, and there may be some sops to industry in there - but it's hard to see how more funding would make the seniors any worse off. There's also the matter of paying for the benefit - which seems to be where the restrictions come in. We can have two of the three following things in this country, but not all of them: universal coverage, unlimited care, and sustainable cost containment. Pick any two you like - but one of them has to go. That's not being cruel and conservative - that's being sober and rational. Even if you eliminated defense spending entirely there wouldn't be close to enough money to pay for the whole package. This is true now, and it will only be more so as the ratio of retirees to workers declines further in the very near future.

I think that any study comparing the performance in public versus private institutions would have to control for the quality of the student popluation to be valid. Put the public teachers in private schools with children that come from homes where the parents are willing to make great sacrifices to insure that their children are getting the best education that their children provide, with the kids that attend public schools. This will include a significant percentage of children with parents like the ones that I've just described, but will also include kids from all manner of homes who's parents are utterly indifferent to their children's educations, at best - and kids who have taken the lessons that their parents have provided to heart. My bet is that if you put public shool teachers in private schools and throw private school teachers into the average public school the desparity in their performances will dissapear. As far as the teachers unions are concerned, one would think that promoting excellence and accountability would be in their self interest - at least in terms of increasing the value and respect that the public bestows upon the profession, and that some reform in that direction is long overdue. Taking an example from my own experience, I had the privilege of studying English Lit with the best teacher I ever encountered - we are talking Dead Poet's caliber here. She left a lucrative job in the private sector, forked over $30,000 and two years of her life to get her Master's and her certificate - and did such an amazing job while student teaching that both the students and the faculty were demanding that somehow the administration find a way to keep her at our school. She blew away any college professor I ever had in terms of command of her subject, ability to transmit that to her students, and most importantly in her ability to inspire them. After staying at the school for one year the number of students dropped to the point where one English teacher had to go - and it was a choice between her and a fat, lazy, incompetent piece of shit that couldn't decide which he hated more - his job, his students, or his subject. He also happened to be the the school's union representative (there seems to be a pattern here). The other teacher was his superior by every standard imaginable except seniority - so she went. She ended up teaching 1st grade level stuff to a bunch of delinqents for a year, stayed on for another in the hopes of teaching high-school English again - then quit the profession in disgust when the spot she had been promised ultimately went to - drumroll - the union member with more seniority. This wasn't the first such travesty, and it surely won't be the last - but if I was a teacher this and other incidents of its kind are precisely the sort of thing that would inspire me to demand reform from within before the public imposes it from without.

Yeah Dru, I understood the analogy that they were trying to extend here, but I still think that their choice of topics was poor enough to have entered the realm of inadvertent self parody. I mean seriously "IT WAS FAKE TURKEY!!!! And it's not JUST the turkey that's fake...." Shrill - yes. Puzzling - yes. Effective - not in the least. The funniest part about this is that all of this hand-wringing is ostensibly being exercised on behalf of the troops. Yeah - they face death every day as part of their job but their pysches are far too fragile to deal with the psychic blow that eating turkey cooked on a steam table instead of a bird served up by the President has dealt them. I wonder who is more popular with the troops? The President who served them fake turkey, or the folks who have singled out this momentous issue for their reader's consideration?

Or is it a pun? "Maderator" = Angry Moderator????? Maybe he's just too subtle for you Kurt.....

Here's another. He liked to play the part of the poor college student/climbing bum while in Bellingham but after spotting this masterpiece on the road - in Bellingham of all places - it's fair to say his secret is out. We are all onto you now, and know that you will be heir to all of the wealth generated by the Layton MFG Co one day. The kegs at the next ropeup are on you, kemosabe.

Took a look at it while heading elsewhere. Methinks some of the snow that is coating it in abundance needs to be converted to additional ice before it would be worth making the trip - but if you are there for some other reason it might be worth doing. What ice I could see throug the snow looked thin but protectable if you have lots of stubbies.

The fact that the Angry Left has dedicated a significant amount of tortured editorial coverage to this story is the closest thing to a literal cry for help that I have seen from a political movement in my lifetime. If people were just chuckling a bit at this as a minor PR gaffe that would be one thing, but that is not the case. It is astonishing to see people who take themselves and their causes seriously who literally believe that they are somehow advancing the credibility of both when screeching "Sure he flew into hostile territory to spend Thanksgiving with the Troops, but - IT WAS A FAKE TURKEY. Can't you SEE!!!! IT............WAS........A......FAKE......TURKEY!!!!!" in a manner roughly akin to Heston denouncing Soylent Green, then attempting to transform it into some kind of a grand political metaphor. Amazing. All of you salivating over the prospect of a TurkeyGate have no doubt made Karl Rove a happy man indeed.

As far as the pharmaceutical angle is concerned, Canada and all other companies that impose price caps are effectively being subsidized by Americans, for pay full price for drugs and in so doing pay for the R&D that ultimately generates the new drugs that benefit the rest of the world. In the end, if the world wants new drugs, the world is going to have to pay for them. Paying for them, in essence, means providing rewards for investors that are sufficent to compensate them for the enormous risk that investing capital in developing new therapeutics involves. There's no other industry where the time from investment to payoff is as high, or the number of false starts is as great - so cut off the return by placing price controls on the products that they produce and you'll have cheaper existing drugs, but no new ones. This would be great for people with diseases that we already have effective treatments for, but bad for those suffering from maladies for which there is no cure yet. If you are advocating price controls, this is a guaranteed outcome that you have to take into account. The rest of the world has been able to avoid such an outcome because of our effective subsidy of drug development on their behalf, and I hope that in developed countries we either end this by way of negotiation or that drug companies force them to face the consequences of their actions by refusing to sell new products in markets where price controls are in effect. Not sure why they ever did otherwise - so in some respects they are reaping the consequences of their own poor decisions when they allowed the Candian government to dictate the prices in the first place, as any rational consumer living within driving range of the border is going to buy their drugs where they are the least expensive.

Nice work Chuck

I think in this case it comes down to a question of talent more than anything else. The ability to climb 14's is, to a large extent, something one is either born with the potential to do or not. Amongst those that have the natural talent, the good fortune to find the sport, and the drive to hone their gifts to their highest possible level - experience is probably overrated when it comes to crushing hard trad lines. For everyone else, though, it's a different story altogether.

This was a cool thread - maybe someone could cut out the good bits and return them to the N. Cascades forum....