tvashtarkatena

And windmills. Don't forget the windmills.

Sadly, torture doesn't work. THe victim talks, alright. They tell you exactly what you want to hear, but seldom anything useful. Decades of espionage and law enforcement has proven that the use of informants is far, far more effective at gathering high quality information.

Temporary problem. Buh bye, Florida....

'Planning'? What is this word, 'planning'?

Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which was ratified by Congress and is therefore U.S. law per the Constitution (and upheld by the Supreme Court as recently as 6/06 in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld), clearly prohibits torture in general and waterboarding specifically. Our new shit-stain excuse for an attorney general should have had no problem in referencing the following section from Article 3: (1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including...those placed hors de combat by…detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely. To this end the following acts are…prohibited at any time and in any place: (a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; © outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;(d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples. But waterboarding is a smoke screen for the much worse things U.S. personnel have done: From a 2/04 International Committee of the Red Cross Report summary: “We have seen evidence of federal government employees engaging in acts such as soaking a prisoner’s hand in alcohol and setting it on fire, administering electric shocks, subjecting prisoners to repeated sexual abuse and assault, including sodomy with a bottle, raping a juvenile prisoner, kicking and beating prisoners in the head and groin, putting lit cigarettes inside a prisoner’s ear, force-feeding a baseball to a prisoner, chaining a prisoners hands-to-feet in a fetal position for 24 hours without food, water, or access to a toilet, and breaking a prisoner’s shoulders.”

for an old pair of Asolo plastics. The shells are fine, the inner boots suck. Any recommended sources/brands? Thanks.

I believe the policy includes Presidents are are brain dead. Does anyone know when the USS G.W.Bush is scheduled for commissioning?

This should be extended to pedestrians as well. I've seen way too many folks just step off the curb without looking both ways. Sidewalks are expensive to install. Look at all the money the city will be spending in North Seattle to retrofit the neighborhoods without. Pedestrians are getting a free ride in the tranportation game. We should tax the hell out of them or they should stay home. It's only fair. ...or you could just shut the fuck up and learn how to drive.

I prefer to pour toluene into one of my ears, let my brain marinate for a few hours, then let it sluff out through the other ear so I can clean the inside of the oven with it.

Scheduled farm subsidies have got to go. They've played a major role in the kind of large scale farming practices, which really came to the fore in the 80s, that are sending our midwestern topsoil into the Gulf of Mexico at a catastrophic rate. These same practices are also quickly depleting our fossil aquifers. What's worse, sustainable family farms almost never qualify, because they grow a variety of crops in too small a quantity to qualify, so sustainable agriculture is handicapped in the marketplace. Get rid of farm subsidies altogether, allow sustainable agriculture to compete in the fair market with factory farms, and promote local control to enable communities to reject the installation of factory farms and require healthy, sustainable farming practices (after all, they're the folks that live there). Oh, and get off the ethanol bandwagon which will destroy our topsoil just as quickly and more irreversably than our emissions are destroying the climate and focus on other solutions. Ethanol will be environmentally sound part of the solution once we develop a cellulose (trees and other crops that can be grown sustainably) based refinement. We're not there yet, and as long as we burn corn, we won't bother to go.

My friend had the same issue and type of crawl space. I agreed to look into it. When my flashlight illuminated a shimmering, writhing sea of slugs, I turned to her and said "A real man would go down there. A real smart man, however, would call a plumber."

One option is to carry a fairly light second tool with a curved shaft and reverse curved pick, rather than a full blown ice tool, which tend to be heavier and more expensive. BD and other companies make them in the 1 lb range. The curved shaft will allow more secure daggering when gripping the shaft and a straight one (more comfy for a longer period, no bashed knuckles). In steeper, neve/ice terrain, you'll be self belaying. Self arrest probably isn't possible should you get any momentum going.

Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth. Too bad we've a) all got to eat and b) Brazil, the poster child for biofuels, is losing topsoil due to sugar cane production (as is the United States, mainly due to corn production) at an unsustainable rate. And you don't get topsoil back.

"My God, it's full of stars."

Fargo.

"It's a good deal! A good deal...for me!"

Groundhog Day?

B.R.

Easy: A.N.

Look, those bumper stickers piss me off as much as they do you.

Mmmmmmm. Anytime, sailor. Hope you like 'em furry.

I was looking for the same boot and finally gave up. You're probably aware of this already, but these newer La Sportivas fit nothing like the old Makalus (which fit me perfectly). They're wider in the toe box now...makes for a looser feel. Fortunately, I found a pair of brand new Montrail ICE 9s on craigslist for cheap today, so my search for a winter boot is ended...assuming they don't thrash me. If you keep Googling and look down several search result pages the craigslist postings from around the country start showing up.

Not a little projection going on here. How about hauling out that "do gooder, anti GMO hippy cartoon", JayB, as long as we're missing the mark? And 40% isn't a big enough sector for you? Where did you go to school, exactly? This discussion was focused on transportation fuel consumption and emissions, but, as I stated previously, no one here implied or argued that other sectors should not also be regulated to reduce consumption and increase efficiency. A focused discussion is not an 'obsessive' discussion. Gay boy.

There is no one way. A carbon tax is part of a 'basket' of policies needed to address two major issues: consumption (oil dependence), and emissions (global warming). The gay thing is purely a social attitudes issue: there is no society wide, super shitty environmental cost to a couple of patent leather nazis in assless chaps having some super-fun. Whatever cost there is to such booginess exists only in the minds of those offended. The gay thing is also an equal rights issue, as defined in the Bill of Rights under the equal protection. Or so I believe. But I digress. Yes, the poor will be hit hardest by any consumption tax, but in this case, the dire consequences of continued consumption at this level warrant such a measure. No policy is perfectly consistent with any one political philosophy, or without unintended consequences. Oh well. Fuel efficient cars cluster on the cheaper end of the spectrum. Tax incentives for purchasing these cheaper, higher mpg cars could offset most of the burden on the poor. Funding more mass transit would also buffer this effect. The egalitarian in me likes the idea of rationing, but the reality of it is just fucked up. In the end, all you get is massive pent up demand and a spike in inflation, and the associated economic shocks. While it occurs you get inefficiency because consumption patterns are not allowed to balance themselves.