Crux

pffft!

Personally, I can't recall having a direct problem with cyclists when I drive. Just lucky, I guess. But I have observed some dangerous riding, and what takes my vote for the prize is the bike rider who insists on riding on the wrong side of the road. Plain and simple. Here's the case: Two weeks ago, I'm at a crosswalk on Aurora, wating for the light to change, when a guy approaches me, tells me he always rides facing the traffic, and suggests I'd do well to follow his common-sense advice. I wonder. Should I explain to this guy that he's an idiot? Or should I just nominate him for a Darwin Award? Just then, he volunteers the details of not one but two head-on collisions that he's suffered over the past year -- as a result of his brilliant safety practices. He says the second accident wasn't so bad, except he had to flee the scene to evade the police and avoid being cited. (Apparently, he's learned that riding the wrong way is illegal, whether it be on the shoulder or in the lane, and that he's liable for damages to the cars he runs into!) Anyway, he says the worst part of the accidents was all the bits of glass that stuck to his bleeding head right after he planted his face into an oncoming windshield in front of Dick's on Holman road... Anwyay, yeah, the new lights are awesome... started using a 2AA 10-LED tailight (Cateye), and one driver actually pulled up and commended me on using such a blindingly bright light. The guy was laughing and saying over and over, "I can't believe how easy it was to see you, like wow!" I think he'd been drinking. Which may be good testimony for the light. I think.

And to the Judge the defendant explained she floored the gas pedal, as a matter of common sense, to speed past the idiot bicyclist who was weaving all over the road.

...flamin' horsecock

The mentally ill person who wanders the hot summer streets fits the profile of a suicide bomber: They both wear heavy clothing, appear markedly distressed, and are especially paranoid about strange pursuants who wield handguns with silencers... Accidents happen.

Mount Constance

And take a number?

...Would take some courage to jump on a human bomb and douse it with lead... I note the officer aimed not for the belt but for the head...

Cool pics. Classy family camping trip.

Reports state that London police have deployed a shoot to kill policy against suspected suicide bombers, as described by witnesses a couple hours ago: "As he run onto the Tube train he sort of half-tripped. He was hotly pursued by what I just knew to be three plain-clothes police officers. He half-tripped and was half pushed to the floor. "One of the police officers was holding a black automatic pistol in his left hand. They held it down to him and unloaded five shots into him. I saw it. He's dead. Five shots, seriously he's dead." ...Seriously?

Can't help but think there's a lot more to this than spin: We know that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative at the head of certain overseas operations that provided the United States with intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. We know those operations were compromised when Valerie Plame was outed by a leak of information said to come from the White House. Of great concern to millions of Americans is that this alleged leak, and the subsequent damage to the intelligence network, occurred after that covert operation successfully provided the United States with accurate information about weapons of mass destruction at a time when that accurate information is believed to have been contrary to the political aims of the Bush administration. Never mind the spin, it isn't over until it's over.

deleted

This is the end. Gotterdamerung.

We must never forget 9-11 when we consider the impact of liberal activist judges on our great country. We cannot let a big government judiciary let the Teri Shiavos be forgotten and we must be vigilant in remembering the importance of our freedom so that we can stand united against those who hate our freedom. My nominee will interpret the Constitution as our forefathers meant it to be interpretered and I trust Congress will respect the nation with a speedy appointment of Mr. Ashcroft to the bench. We cannot sit idle while the terrorists will do anything to harm our culture of life.

Umm...years ago I was told by an agent that stealing from a federally insured institution is a federal offense. I know this is a naive question, but is your case worth a call to the feds? You know, if within federal jurisdiction, it might be a case of interest for providing new agents with experience... Don't laugh! I recall a mere case of unpaid parking tickets that was actually handed over to the FBI on the grounds that the suspect may have crossed state lines to avoid prosecution! (This occured back when the municipal court of Seattle would issue an arrest warrant for unpaid parking tickets.) As it turned out, two rookie FBI agents investigated the situation and made the arrest of my roomate about five minutes after she arrived home from SeaTac after returning from a three-month out-of-state sabbatical. Is there a federally insured bank getting ripped off here? If so, you might have nothing to lose by calling local agency office and explaining you want to report "a theft from a federally insured institution."

To the point: "This shortfall results from either deliberate misdirection or gross incompetence by this administration and the Department of Veteran Affairs" (Sen. Patty Murray, D- Wash). "Earlier this year, Murray proposed emergency funding for the VA, but that bill was voted down in the Senate after VA officials said the money was not needed...Late last week, after the VA disclosed the $1 billion shortfall, Murray reintroduced the emergency-spending bill" (Seattle Times, June 28, 2005).

FW, one might appreciate that you hold your conservative values with integrity in regard to the above-mentioned constitutional issue, but your desperate exploitation of homeless hookers is disgusting.

And why isn't this being covered 24/7 by Fox News?

You might also add that buyers of malpractice insurance enjoyed lowered premiums during the years when the insurance companies enjoyed large revenues from the stock market. Even though these companies drifted into dependence upon stock market speculation for principle source of income, they continued to compete for insurance premium dollars and were compelled to lower prices to where insurance premiums were at levels far short of that required to cover claims and other costs of operation. In the short run, everybody was happy. The insurance companies made some easy money on the bull market and healthcare providers were sheltered from the real costs of malpractice insurance. When the market crashed, the insurance companies were caught in a bind when they at once lost money on the stock market and were still contracted to cover malpractice claims and litigation costs. Quite simply, total revenues were no longer adequate to cover expenses. In order to stay in business, the insurance companies had to raise premiums drastically. Indeed, there is nothing really dark about this, but it seems unusual for an entire segment of the insurance industry to teeter on bankruptcy because it shifted away from the primary mission of selling selling insurance and into the business stock market speculation. The problem here, from the perspective of the health care industry, is the sudden upswing in insurance expenses. Healthcare depends upon insurance companies to provide cash flow repsonsive to immediate healthcare costs, to smooth over the bumps presented by individual expenses, but in this case the insurance industry failed to deliver without inflicting the same kind of instability it was depended upon to prevent.

Please note my statements are in regard to the price of malpractice insurance, not the price of health insurance. Most of the information I learned at a seminar held during a conference of the Washington State Nurses Association (WNA) in Olympia last February. The guest speaker provided conclusive evidence, based on research of public records, to show that tort litigation -- including malpractice lawsuits -- is not the problem it is said to be by some insurance companies. The speaker was specific on several areas of contention, and provided details on how malpractice insurance companies were at once competing to provide the lowest premiums to healthcare practitioners and speculating on the recent bullish stock market with available cash. Return on investment income proved to be the principle revenue for these insurance companies, that is, until the market crashed. Although one may reasonably view the instability of the stock market as not a detrimental force but an advantage that enables better investors to profit in reward for risks taken, in this case it is argued that the negative consequences of risk were effectively transferred to the parties who pay for healthcare. In short, the medical malpractice insurance industry, in this dynamic, used the adjacent micro-economy of the healthcare system to buffer the risks taken by insurance investors and subsequently exacerbated an already unstable healthcare system. The February presentation convinced me that tort litigation does not have a volatile impact on the cost of health care because claims paid are consistent and by many measures are actually declining in quantity when adjusted for inflation. Moreover, as dysfunctional as it may be, tort litigation is the principle means available in the American political and legal system for the people to forcibly correct negligent behavior. Therefore, my position has since been that we'll do better to not scapegoat trial lawyers and so-called frivolous lawsuits for problems we suffer in how we do the business of healthcare. We need solutions, but in so far as malpractice suits and frivolous claims are not the problem we won't develop solutions by attacking these two overemphasized features of the landscape. On the web, you can find writings on this topic posted by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Also, the speaker at the presentation mentioned above authored a newly published book in which his findings are detailed; I don't have the title, but it may be one of several of related content that can be found by a search for books on medical malpractice and/or tort reform at Amazon and other bookstores.

The ancient book of obvious gullies.

Actually, that's not the issue. In the topic Greensboro story ("Judges question use of Quran in taking oath"), it's pointed out that persons who object to swearing on the Bible already have the option to simply raise their hand and give an affirmation to tell the truth. The issue is over the request that people be granted the choice to take the oath upon the Quran, while the Carolina judges proclaim that use of any book other than the Bible would be against the law.

Which is also not the problem, but the symptom. Medical costs are rising because of rising costs imposed by the government and society - malpractice insurance and frivolous lawsuits come to mind. Malpractice claims should not be blamed for problems with insurance costs; if we do this then we will necessarily be putting the wrong target in our sights, else allow ourselves to be mislead by people with the money honey. Consider these facts: Claims paid for malpractice have been on the decline for years now. Overall, malpractice claims are consistent -- they are not and have not been rising -- contrary to what insurance companies would have you believe. It's true that insurance companies have greatly increased the premiums charged for insurance, but these companies are absolutely not paying out more money for malpractice claims! At the same time, the companies are not entirely to blame, as these companies are simply doing business within an ineffective business model where there is a substantial disconnect between the paying customer and the service produced. As it continues to be, the insurance companies are pressed by market forces to speculate on a bullish stock markets, when the opportunity presents, as was the case in the 1990s. During that period, the companies lowered premiums to compete for policy-buying dollars, but were able to do so only because they depended upon shrewd stock speculation for profits. When the market crashed, then the insurance companies were back to depending upon their own less mercurial resources. Soon the low premiums fell far short of that required to cover expenses. The expenses have been fairly consistent, adjusted for inflation and all that, but after a burst in the stock market bubble, the premiums then required a meteoric escalation to make ends meet. This financial trajectory hurt and continues to hurt the medical care system; as an already expensive system is rendered unstable, it destroys or at least over-burdens a lot of participants. In this case, the particpants comprise a majority of the American public who are experiencing a decline of accessibility to health care. In short, the instability of the system is the problem, and this instability is a product of neither our government nor our society, per se. More accurately stated, it's the health care system itself that's at fault (to whatever extent that system is defined by the financial structure that supports it). IMO, as long as the healthcare system is financed through the hands of market speculators, we can count on being taken for ride.

Or this: "Is the heavy tax-cut and spend fiscal policy of the Bush administration driving America into bankruptcy?"

Your prerequisites are met. Feel free to further enlighten.