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trollling, but no one wants to play

Modest Mouse and Cyndi Lauper Depeche Mode and G.W.A.R. Southern Culture on the Skids and Coldplay

Would a modest increase in the temperature of the planet necessarily be bad? Are there any potential benefits? According to the World Bank, one-third of the world's population already suffers from chronic water shortages. The Worldwatch Institute predicts that this situation will be exacerbated further by the addition of an estimated 2.6 billion people to the world's population over the next 30 years. By 2025, the group claims, some three billion people -- or 40% of the world's population -- could be living in countries without sufficient water supplies, leading to crop failures, diminished economic development and even to regional conflicts as nations find it necessary to fight for control over scarce water resources. While the scientific community is divided over many aspects of the global warming theory, the effect of global warming on precipitation levels is not one of them: Global warming would mean more condensation and more evaporation, producing more and/or heavier rains. Global warming, therefore, could offer the answer to the water scarcity problem that the Worldwatch Institute has been seeking. If history is any indication, greater precipitation may be only one of many benefits of global warming. For example, between the 10th and 12th Centuries, when the temperature of the planet was roughly 0.5 degrees Celsius warmer than it is today, agriculture in North America and Europe flourished and the southern regions of Greenland were free of ice, allowing cultivation by Norse settlers. Evidence of this was found in 1993 when scientists from the National Science Foundation-sponsored Greenland Ice Sheet Project II extracted an ice core from Greenland's ice sheet that spanned more than 100,000 years of climate history. Samplings from the core suggest that a Little Ice Age began between 1400 and 1420, blanketing the Vikings' farms in ice and forcing them to abandon their farms in search of more hospitable climates. Prior to the onset of this Little Ice Age, temperatures were comparable to the temperatures general circulation models used by the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have projected for 2030-2050. Yet, the world's leaders stand poised to take dramatic steps to curb the risks of this kind of climate change. The National Center for Public Policy Research

Regulations: The Untold Story by Dana Joel Gattuso According to former presidential candidate Howard Dean: "In order to make capitalism work for ordinary human beings, you have to have regulation."1 That's the best oxymoron since George Carlin's "jumbo shrimp." Dean's plan to institute a new federal regulatory regime to snuff out the "greedy" pharmaceutical companies, "powerful" utilities, and media "monopolies"2 would not make capitalism work; it would wipe out private investment and innovation and send the economy into a nose dive. In the process, regular - and, in many cases, low-income - human beings would be harmed the most. Costs of regulations reduce per capita income which lowers the quality of life for all of us. Economists Mark Crain and Thomas Hopkins put regulations' annual cost to the U.S. economy at $843 billion, or eight percent of the Gross Domestic Product.3 That's $7,700 per household for us ordinary folks.4 But it's the disproportionate effect regulations have on disadvantaged families that is most alarming. Regulatory costs, like consumption taxes, consume a larger portion of the poor's income, leaving fewer resources for adequate housing, medical care, proper diet and other crucial needs. Environmental regulations are particularly regressive. Howard Dean's interest in further regulating the utility industry and, specifically, requiring 20 percent of power production to come from renewable sources by 2020 would grossly penalize low-income Americans who already pay a disproportional share of energy costs. During the 2000-2001 energy crunch, for example, home energy costs for the typical consumer equaled 4.6 percent of their income while for low-income Americans, energy costs amounted to as much as 19.5 percent.5 Even more disturbing is the link between some regulations and mortality. Regulations, we assume, reduce risk, injury and death. Sadly this is not always the case: some regulations result in loss of life. Harvard economist W. Kip Viscusi, for example, found a number of years ago that safety caps on aspirin bottles has resulted in more fatal accidents than lives saved. As parents place full faith in the safety measure, they drop their guard, leaving bottles in harm's way or failing to fasten the top tight enough.6 Federal standards for vehicle fuel economy - known as "CAFE," for Corporate Average Fuel Economy - is another example of regulations that result in more lives lost than saved. Enacted in 1975 during the energy crisis, CAFE requires automobile manufacturers to make cars that achieve 27.5 miles per gallon to reduce energy consumption. Manufacturers meet these standards by building lighter vehicles. But lighter automobiles do worse in collisions and place occupants at a much higher risk than occupants of heavier vehicles. The National Academy of Sciences reported last year that "the downweighting and downsizing that occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s... probably resulted in an additional 1,300 to 2,600 traffic fatalities" and advised elected officials to consider the tradeoffs of CAFE regulations.7 Two months ago, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released its own report on the impact of vehicle weight on safety and found that collision fatalities resulting from weight reductions are even higher than previously believed. Accidents with small cars are twice as likely to result in fatalities as small and midsize SUVs and four times as likely as minivans.8 Despite these recent findings, leaders on the left propose raising the standard for all automobiles to 40 miles per gallon.9 Regulations will continue to cost human lives as long as regulators fail to consider the risks created by regulations along with the risks avoided. The Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute recently took a look at regulations specifically intended to save lives and weighed their prevented risks against the unintended risks - called "risk-risk analysis." In "Do Federal Regulations Reduce Mortality," the authors found that of the 24 regulations reviewed, 13 resulted in a net loss of life by diverting funds away from life-saving investments. The worst of the reviewed regulations in terms of lives lost were issued by the EPA - which netted a loss of 98 lives. Of these EPA regulations, most pertained to reducing exposure to carcinogens.10 Howard Dean and his allies on the left need to reconsider their commitment to a new regulatory state. Lives are at stake - both in terms of the economic impact and the unintended risks such policies would have on all of us ordinary human beings. # # # Dana Joel Gattuso is a senior fellow of The National Center for Public Policy Research. Comments may be sent to dgattuso@nationalcenter.org. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Footnotes: 1 Jim VandeHei, "Dean Calls for New Controls on Business; Democrat Seeks 'Re-Regulation,'" Washington Post, November 18, 2003, p. A09. 2 "Clark Criticizes Front-Runner Dean's Business Proposal," USA Today, November 19, 2003. 3 W. Mark Crain and Thomas D. Hopkins, "The Impact of Regulatory Costs on Small Firms," Report for the Office of Advocacy, U.S. Small Business Administration, Washington, D.C., RFP No. SBAHQ-00-R-0027, October 2001, p. 1. 4 "USA Statistics in Brief - Population and Vital Statistics," U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, D.C., available at www.census.gov/statab/www/part1.html as of March 23, 2004; and W. Mark Crain and Thomas D. Hopkins, "The Impact of Regulatory Costs on Small Firms," Report for the Office of Advocacy, U.S. Small Business Administration, Washington, D.C., RFP No. SBAHQ-00-R-0027, October 2001, p. 1. 5 The Cold Facts: The First Annual Report on the Effect of Home Energy Costs on Low-income Americans, The National Fuel Funds Network, The National Low-Income Energy Consortium, The National Energy Assistance Directors' Association, Washington, D.C., 2001-2002, p. 2. 6 W. Kip Viscusi, "The Lulling Effect: The Impact of Child-Resistant Packaging on Aspirin and Analgesic Ingestions," American Economic Review, May, 1984, pp. 324-327; Robert W. Hahn, Randall W. Lutter and W. Kip Viscusi, Do Federal Regulations Reduce Mortality?, AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, Washington, D.C., 2000, p. vi. 7 Effectiveness and Impact of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards, National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 2002, pp. 3 & 5. 8 Vehicle Weight, Fatality Risk and Crash Compatibility of Model Year 1991-99 Passenger Cars and Light Trucks, U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C., DOT HS 809 662, October 2003; David Kiley, "Study: Lighter Cars Mean More Deaths," USA Today, October 15, 2003. 9 Howard Dean, speech, "The Next Hundred Years: Forging a Strong Environmental Policy to Take Our Natural Resources Back," San Francisco, California, July 31, 2003, available at http://www3.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pagename=policy_speech_environment_thenexthundredyears as of March 23, 2004. 10 Hahn, Lutter, and Viscusi. link

Kofi Annan's Iraq Blunder by James Phillips and Nile Gardiner, Ph.D. WebMemo #567 September 17, 2004 | printer-friendly format | United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan described the war with Iraq as an “illegal” violation of the U.N. Charter in a September 16 interview with the BBC, adding that “I hope we do not see another Iraq-type operation for a long time.” [1] Annan’s remarks were immediately condemned by U.S. allies who had supported the liberation of Iraq, including Great Britain, Australia, Poland, Bulgaria, and Japan, and are likely to also draw a strong response from the White House.[2] Kofi Annan’s ill-considered jibe undercuts efforts to stabilize postwar Iraq that have been endorsed by the U.N. Security Council. It stigmatizes the embryonic Iraqi government, while strengthening the hand of Iraqi insurgents and foreign terrorists determined to strangle democracy in Iraq and inflict a defeat on the U.S.-led, U.N.-backed security force in the country. It is difficult to understand why Annan would want to undermine the U.N.’s own efforts in Iraq at a time when the international organization faces increasing criticism for its failure to respond effectively to international crises. Annan’s statement that the war was “illegal” is both false and spurious. By Annan’s logic, the 1999 U.S./British-led intervention in Kosovo, which was conducted without benefit of a Security Council resolution, also would be “illegal” despite the fact that it was widely supported by the international community. It is true that Washington failed to convince Paris and Moscow to vote for a final Security Council resolution that explicitly endorsed the use of force if Iraq’s dictatorship continued to renege on its legal commitments to disarm. But the Security Council did unanimously pass Resolution 1441 in November 2002, which threatened “serious consequences” if Iraq failed to do so. Iraq also defied sixteen other Security Council resolutions on disarmament, human rights, and support for terrorism. Moreover, Iraq put itself in a state of war with the United States by violating the cease-fire that ended the 1991 Gulf War. Iraqi forces shot at American and British warplanes assigned to enforce the U.N.-imposed “no-fly zones” over Iraq on a daily basis long before the 2003 war. While the Clinton Administration chose to ignore these and most other cease-fire violations, the Bush Administration correctly decided to take action in view of Iraq’s manifest failure to prove that it had dismantled its prohibited weapons programs. The U.N. Charter explicitly recognizes the right of every state to act in self-defense, a fact that Annan curiously neglects. An Ill-Timed Intervention Kofi Annan’s ill-timed comments should be seen as a poorly conceived attempt to undercut the U.S. President’s impending address to the U.N. General Assembly and to indirectly influence the electoral debate in the United States. The notion of U.S. isolation, a prominent theme advanced by Senator John Kerry, is a myth that Annan is keen to promote on the world stage. He ignores the fact that the U.S. is backed by over 30 allies with troops on the ground in Iraq, including 12 of the 25 members of the European Union and 16 out of 26 NATO members states.[3] The U.N. Secretary-General’s gratuitous comments were an extraordinarily undiplomatic and inappropriate intervention from a world figure who is supposed to be a neutral servant of the international community. They raise serious questions about Annan’s judgment and his suitability to continue in his post. The United States should press Secretary-General Annan to clarify his harmful remarks and should demand an apology for the offhand, gratuitous manner in which they were offered. UN Insecurity Kofi Annan’s attack on the United States over its decision to go to war with Iraq is indicative of the insecurity running through the corridors of power (or what’s left of them) at the U.N. headquarters in New York. The prestige and reputation of the U.N. is running at an all time low. The world organization failed spectacularly to deal with the Iraqi dictatorship under Saddam Hussein, is failing to provide leadership in disarming Iran, and is weak-kneed in the face of genocide in the Sudan. At the same time, the U.N. faces serious allegations of mismanagement and corruption relating to its administration of the Iraq Oil-for-Food Program. The U.N. is a world body in steep, possibly terminal decline, struggling for relevance in the 21st Century, and Mr. Annan’s remarks only further underline his organization’s growing impotence. James A. Phillips is Research Fellow in Middle Eastern Affairs, and Nile Gardiner Ph.D. is Fellow in Anglo-American Security Policy, at the Heritage Foundation. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] BBC News, “Excerpts: Annan Interview,” September 16, 2004, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3661640.stm. [2] BBC News, ”Iraq Allies Rebuff U.N. Chief,” September 16, 2004, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3661736.stm. [3] See Nile Gardiner, “The Myth of U.S. Isolation: Why America is Not Alone in the War on Terror,” Heritage Foundation WebMemo No. 558, September 7, 2004, at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Europe/wm558.cfm. link

It takes a nation of millions to go where no man has gone before...

Stuart trailhead = Ingalls Creek trailhead?

edited to remove spray. Forgot I was in Newbies My bad.

...can't....go on... . .. .index...finger...getting....tired....

Well, since we're in spray, I might as well play to my strengths. Spray sucks today. Entertain me.

Welcome to WA, SunnyRem While here, you may experience rain, spray, and attitude! Most of these people are much nicer in person than online- don't let the fuckers get you down!

Fair enough, but since this isn't spray maybe you should more it to the climbing forum. I'm not choosing sides in the discussion, but as an observer your action looked pretty heavy-handed.

Hey Alex- I didn't see any 'spray' in this thread- dead horses, yes, but no spray. What makes this discussion different than the Fee Demo thread currently going on- or the South Side of Adams Ski Lift thread? Is every discussion about bolts automatically dumped in spray?

Any time the FS sells timber to the logging companies, the FS then goes in and builds the road for the logging companies to do their bidness. F/E, here's a link to an Alaskan group who estimates the FS spent $1 billion constructing road for timber companies. AlaskaWild Yes, you should be pissed. There are folks on this site who have a better grasp of the details than me. edit: scooped by the bigger brain of cj000xyz

It's a very valid complaint based on their history. I shouldn't have gone down that road. Government should be about something more than 'getting your money's worth.' Our government is in place to protect our freedoms, and I believe that democratic (read: free) access to public lands should be a protected liberty. I believe it is fundamental to our identity as a nation. Any fee for access to wilderness areas is an affront. Here are some other opinions: Mazamas The Access Fund Sierra Club What is the WTA's position? What is the WCC's position? Is getting 'a good deal' on parking lots and Port-a-Johns worth sacrificing the ideals of democratic access to our wild places? Holy shit. Sorry for the monster post.

Yeah, I throw in my 0.02 in spray, I'll throw some coin in for this.

welcome to the dark side, Fairweather. Glad to have you aboard!

This is how the Forest Service Claims the fees are being spent: from this link. ..although, as noted above, the GOA brings those numbers into question. Even so, only 25% of my Fee Demo money goes into trail maintenance, and another 4% into resource conservation. The rest of it goes into services I DON'T WANT. I'm being selectively taxed to pay for other people's Labor Day campsites and eyesore 'Visitor Centers'. That's a good reason to dislike it, Marylou.

Great idea. I'd consider joining the Mounties just to watch those films.

All I need is this pen...and this chair.

touche

First They Came for the Jews First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me. Pastor Martin Niemöller

oh, god. and so it begins again.