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#1
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Kelowna fires
Many people in this group will know of Scott Elliot, a frequent
contributor to this forum. Scott's hometown, Kelowna, has been ravaged by wildfires the past few weeks. I tried sending Scott a message to see if he was ok but it bounced back. Fortunately I found a picture that Scott took and posted on the Okanagan Mountain Fire Watch website: http://www.castanet.net/ Here's a link to Scott's picture (unfortunately it wraps so you may have to copy and paste it into your browser). http://www.castanet.net/firepics/200...cott%20Elliot% 202003-08-31%2010.10pm.jpg |
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#2
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Kelowna fires
As far as I know I'm still here. I live on the west side of Okanagan Lake
and the fire is on the east side so I haven't even had an evacuation alert notice. We have a good view of the lake and much of the fire from our back yard and sun deck. We have had a lot of smoke hanging in the valley so breathing has been a little painful at times. The ski trails at Telemark XC Ski Club are also on this side of the lake so they are not threatened at all. Nordic XC Ski Club has trail on the same side of the lake, but should be far enough to the east that they should be safe. The area where the Nordic trails are located was included in the evacuation alert status for a few days but is now back to normal status, although there is a bit of a flare up with winds tonight and that could change. We have a complete travel and access ban to forest lands in southern BC at the present time. That means we cannot even walk on our ski trails, let alone do any maintenance work until at least September 14. We are hosting a NorAm race at Telemark in December and the coach from the national team was supposed to come out and approve the courses we are going to use. That is on hold for now too. Scott Elliot http://www3.telus.net/selliot/ "Michael Motek" wrote in message news:MPG.19bf9f9d62fd4bc1989684@shawnews... Many people in this group will know of Scott Elliot, a frequent contributor to this forum. Scott's hometown, Kelowna, has been ravaged by wildfires the past few weeks. I tried sending Scott a message to see if he was ok but it bounced back. Fortunately I found a picture that Scott took and posted on the Okanagan Mountain Fire Watch website: http://www.castanet.net/ Here's a link to Scott's picture (unfortunately it wraps so you may have to copy and paste it into your browser). http://www.castanet.net/firepics/200...cott%20Elliot% 202003-08-31%2010.10pm.jpg |
#3
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Kelowna fires
Jay Tegeder wrote:
Agreed Agreed Disagree I guess I'm batting 666, my lucky number, with you. But sorry if I went quite a bit off topic. As always, Jay, if you ever wish to reconsider, we could carry on this or any other discussion off the newsgroup. But I will not appear, with my silence, to add credence to pure falsehood or legitimate misunderstanding on this newsgroup or anywhere. Not something as deadly serious as the destruction of our ecosystem (and our country by the republican agenda). Our energy future is in new things like hydrogen powered vehicles, ethanol based oil, gravity and the Holy Grail, cold fusion... Suffice to say that hydrogen vehicles have a similar problem as electric battery cars: think about it: the power used to separate hydrogen from water is greater than the energy derived from burning the H2. Unless we radically change our power generation scheme (and that will never occur magically by cutting taxes and NOT investing in research) we'll still be polluting with Hydrogen cars. We gotta tax something, or is our vaunted military suddenly going to be made better by cutting its funding (as is the scheme with education in this republican agenda)? In case one's chemistry knowledge is a few decades stale, ethanol is not a clean fuel --- a hydrocarbon, like petroleum, which still produces its share of CO2, CO, NO, NO2 when burned. And please, cold fusion? Isn't that dead yet? (I know, they're spending millions in Utah beating the dead horse.) Sorry if I get my dander up a little when the old BS detector goes off! But cold fusion was one of the ugliest stories in modern charlatanism. Nothing but a media event. Worked for them: attention, money; but no innovation, no science, no reproducable results, no saving the planet . . . Jim Farrell I know a few things, but ignorant all the same. What I don't know fills libraries (and hasn't even been discovered yet!) |
#4
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Kelowna fires
Against all rational thinking ... I guess I'll jump into this fray too :-)
In article , Jay Tegeder wrote: They don't work! All luxury taxes do is ruin the industry they tax. Tax SUV's - ruin the SUV industry ... wouldn't that be fantastic :-)! 99% of SUV drivers could do just as well by driving a Matrix or Focus wagon. Get the job done with half the gas-guzzling expense to the pocket-book and environment. Economics 101 should point that out... Once we start with luxury taxes, where do we stop? Think about it... Do you really need those Taxes on gasoline are not luxury taxes. It's a penalty for the real damage being done to the environment, to people's health, etc., etc. Making people pay for non-renewable resources only makes sense (and not just the extraction costs). I certainly don't claim to be perfect in this regard. I drive a lot, own a AWD Subaru that gets 33% worse fuel economy than comparable 2WD's. But, I'd be plenty happy if gas prices suddenly doubled to reflect the true cost (extraction + damage to environment) of burning gasoline. Brian |
#5
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Kelowna fires
Jim Farrell wrote in message ...
Jay Tegeder wrote: Easy boy... I agreed with most of the stuff you said. I just think it's totally riduculous to throw in luxury taxes on certain items. They don't work! All luxury taxes do is ruin the industry they tax. Economics 101 should point that out... Once we start with luxury taxes, where do we stop? Think about it... Do you really need those cross country skis? No one uses them for transportation. They are for pure fun. How do you think Ahvo would like it if his $300 skis suddenly became $330? Then, the boots, poles, bindings and wax would be taxed the luxury tax too. Instead of a $495 ski package, the price jumps to $600. The buyer might decide to go with the less expensive (lower quality) package for $350. Bye Bye profit margin... Bye Bye Tom, Greg or Armen... Besides, who determines what items get taxed? Will it be some grand liberal council appointed by Howard Dean? Jim, there are no easy answers. Luxury taxes are an easy way to go in the short run but they have devastating long run effects. Think about it... OK, I'll go easy. I wasn't really in a lather, just returned from a party in a good mood when the alarm went off . . . But the world you describe sounds a lot like our more civilised neighbors across the Atlantic. Fuel taxes push the price of gas to over $4.50 USD in CH the last time I was there. And that, to me, is a good thing --- the taxes provide heath care, education, wonderful public transit, a strong sense of community and the belief that government is for the betterment of everybody not just those targeted by each round of tax cuts. Anywonder that in this country, when the city had to raise taxes because the funding from the state was cut to pay for the cuts from the fed that pay for VP Cheney's personal $450,000 tax relief that the lowest valued homes will have their property taxes go up 18% while those homes valued at over a half million will only have their taxes go up 12% --- no one peeps. Why do the poorest have to reap the least rewards in flush times and take up most of the slack in the worst times? Why weren't those who benefitted most from the great Ventura give-away asked to pay their share now? Jim, If you're so excited about the extremely high gas prices and fabulous social programs in Switzerland, you must realize the extreme stress it is putting on their population. Switzerland is made up of cantons. The cantons are responsible for who gets citizenship in their individual areas. Well, the utopian cantons of Switzerland are not offering citizenship to those immigrants who have lived there for decades including those children of immigrants who were born in Switzerland. Now, let's talk about the tax cuts by the Feds which so concern you. They are not tax cuts. Repeat, they are not tax cuts. They, like here in Minnesota, are just reductions in the spending increases. Repeat, the spending is still increasing. It's just at a slower rate. It's called living within your means. Families are faced with budget decisions everyday. I think the Federal, State and Municipal systems need to live within their means and start cutting the waste. As for Vice President Cheney, he pays more than his share of taxes. Why should someone who earns more have to pay a higher percentage of his income in taxes than someone who makes less. That doesn't sound very American to me. Should someone who makes 21,000 per year be taxed at a higher rate than someone who makes 20,000? Where do you draw the line Jim? Who decides in your Howard Dean Socailist Utopia? The people who make the most money create a lot more jobs than those who don't. Is that good or bad in your world? I guess I'd rather live in Finland, or Canada. Someplace that takes care of its less fortunate . . . Jim, move to those countries and let us know in a few years how things are going... Canada aside, you might find Euros are a little less tolerent of those with different ethnic or cultural backgrounds. Just ask the Turks in Germany or the Africans in Sweden. We take in more immigrants than any country in the world. They wouldn't be coming here if they didn't want the opportunity to better themselves (like your ancestors). I think our system works pretty good. I've got an Iranian neighbor who owns apartment buildings and an auto repair shop. He started with nothing and is living the American Dream. Jim, you're living in today's world. If you lived at the turn of the 20th Century, you would have thought airplanes, computers, internet, atomic energy, radio and televison were impossible. There is no way you would have believed the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System would criss-cross the country. You wouldn't have believed people would be skiing on boards made of fiberglass, kevlar, petex, carbon fiber etc. Cold fusion is a dead horse to those who don't believe in the future. It is indeed weird to be characterised as some kind of luddite by you, Jay. Listen to a story, Jay, I was in grad school when the cold fusion news broke. There was a lot of excitementat the School of Physics and Astronomy, and a lot of skepticism. We were discussing it in the halls big group arguements. People all over the country, including John Broadhurst here at MN, were trying to reproduce the results. No one could. You see in science, it isn't enough to make a claim, others have to prove your experiment/theory works --- in your lab as well as theirs. It didnt, it won't. There is no plausible reason to imagine that it could. How could interstitial hydrogen ever overcome the huge chemical and then atomic barriers to fuse??? The metallic crystal cannot organise its energy thusly. Ironically those sham miesters at Brigham Young U were trying to make a safer hydrogen storage 'tank' for use in storing the fuel. A small potential would release the hydrogen held between the metallic crystal. They claimed they got more energy out than they took in. It's the old perpetual motion machine with a new twist --- they claimed to have observed slow neutrons --- a total fabrication they never backed down from. Still, they are getting rich with the lie. And you are ultimately paying for the sham with your taxes and the lack of real reseach not being funded. What makes me hopping mad is not that you brought it up, but that for some reason, your media is still talking about it as if it weren't the shameful sham it was. Whatever you are listening to, reading is at fault for not properly shielding you from the lie or possibly purposely spreading it. What a terrible waste of time and energy. We live in a technological society ruled by the scientifically illiterate, to paraphrase Sagan. Jim, you might have more in common with Ted Kaczinsky than the average American. I'm talking about the future. Not the world we live in now. As I said before and apparently you don't (more likely don't care to) understand, The stuff we have today, like computers, planes, microwaves, radio, TV and the internet, would have brought laughs from the narrow minded thinkers at the end of the 19th Century. It's not such a big, bad world out there. As I said before, cold fusion is not a reality now. But dream big Jim. Current science says it's hard to do but we keep making progress in so many areas. Let's invest in new technology that will let us get away from oil based energy. Things are on the horizon. Be patient. However, if you think the U.S. is such a bad place, maybe moving wouldn't be a bad idea for you. Your and my ancestors came here to build a better life. They wanted to be less dependent on government. They weren't thinking of a socialist utopia when they arrived. That's been tried before... I don't think it worked. Jay Tegeder "Keep training, lycra never lies!" JT |
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Kelowna fires
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#7
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Kelowna fires
"FrontRunner" wrote in message news:
From an environmental standpoint SUVs and internal combustion engines are the leading causes of our disappearing winter. They moaned about the CAFE standards, but have managed, with some accounting magic, to meet those standards. I have to disagree. What caused the disappearing winters of the 1890s and 1930s? Everything goes in cycles regarding the weather. I predict a big winter for the midwest by the way... Remember the hole in the Ozone? It closed back up. They're rethinking the Ozone hole. That could be a natural cycle too. As for the tax cuts, they have not accomplished much. They have shifted the burden to the states, where programs and funding have been reduced, or state and local taxes have increased to cover the reduced Federal monies flowing into the local coffers. First off, the tax cuts haven't accomplished much yet becuase they have barely been enacted. People fail to realize that everything is based on future projections. When this country was in it's infancy, the model was set up for the states to determine their own needs. The Federal government kept growing because of foolish policies. The states have become dependent on the Feds which is not the way things were intended. You call it a burden. I call it entitlements. Instead of meeting the problem of reduced federal aid by examing their programs and searching for waste, some states (influenced by short term thinking politicians) are crying about the problem. Once again, where do you draw the line? What programs would you want in your perfect world? Do you want to save welfare in some form? Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Take local, county, state and Federal government buildings for example. There are plenty of instances where sharing a building works. That saves money. Ending some of the ridiculous regulations on schools would save money etc. Do we really need a Director of Diversity in the school district? Jay Tegeder "Keep training, lycra never lies!" JT The FrontRunner "Jay Tegeder" wrote in message om... wrote in message ... Against all rational thinking ... I guess I'll jump into this fray too :-) You might be right about the rational thinking. Plus, you're making me fight a two front war... I hate to do that... In article , Jay Tegeder wrote: They don't work! All luxury taxes do is ruin the industry they tax. Tax SUV's - ruin the SUV industry ... wouldn't that be fantastic :-)! 99% of SUV drivers could do just as well by driving a Matrix or Focus wagon. Get the job done with half the gas-guzzling expense to the pocket-book and environment. Brian, who decides what car or vehicle is the right size? There are SUVs out there that get better mileage than Jim Farrell's Mitsubishi Diamante. I mean, do you really need a Matrix or Focus? Wouldn't a Mini Cooper suffice for your family of four? Think about what I wrote... I said the SUV industry employs a lot of people. The high price and profits of the SUVs help the auto industry pay wages and keep the price of your Focus (AWD Subaru in your case) down. Labor doesn't go into negotiations offering to give back money. They want pay raises. Soemthing has to pay for those pay raises. Economics 101 should point that out... Once we start with luxury taxes, where do we stop? Think about it... Do you really need those Taxes on gasoline are not luxury taxes. It's a penalty for the real damage being done to the environment, to people's health, etc., etc. Making people pay for non-renewable resources only makes sense (and not just the extraction costs). Here's where you might have reconsidered joining the argument... If you read what I wrote, I was talking about luxury taxes on SUVs. Not gasoline taxes. I certainly don't claim to be perfect in this regard. I drive a lot, own a AWD Subaru that gets 33% worse fuel economy than comparable 2WD's. But, I'd be plenty happy if gas prices suddenly doubled to reflect the true cost (extraction + damage to environment) of burning gasoline. Brian What is the true cost and who decides what those figures are? Do you buy products at the store like groceries, clothing, skis etc? Big, giant trucks haul that stuff all over the country. They eat a lot of fuel and smash the hell out of the highway system. Do you want to shop at a store or do you want to hunt and fish for all of your needs. I know the Nelson Brothers could but hey, they're the Nelson Brothers... As for Jim Farrell, a good guy by the way, I can't let him get away with the stuff he spews without answering. Jay Tegeder "On the podium if the right people don't show up!" JT |
#8
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Kelowna fires
It would be nice if someone was on my side once in awhile. However, I
think a lot of people who think like me are afraid to speak up because of the ridicule they might get from people who don't understand the whole picture. That being said, the Govier study you mention fits your parameters in your opinion. However, you know there is an "equal and opposite reaction" response study out there. While your Govier example might fit nicely in a subjective argument, we're talking economics here. That is something that isn't subjective. As a result, the study doesn't stand up. There are a couple of problems in this country that make our lives more difficult. One is the incessant brainwashing of our grade, secondary and collrgiate students by a liberal education system. The other is the neglect of the populace to educate themselves on politics, economics and the relationship of government to the people. Why do you think elections are so close? The majority of the population is easily led by soundbites, false political ads and short term solutions to long term problems. I admire the people on the left (even though I think they are totally wrong) and the people on the right (wrong in many instances too) for their acculation of knowledge and their desire to learn the facts. Even if they might make cafeteria decisions. An example in Minnesota would be the late Senator Paul Wellstone. I admired the guy for his dedication and desire to improve the lives of the average Minnesotan. The guy was incredibly dedicated to his beliefs and worked tirelessly. However, I think the policies he advocated were mostly wrong. Jay Tegeder "Keep training, lycra never lies!" JT "Justin F. Knotzke" wrote in message ... quote who= Jay Tegeder /: Brian, who decides what car or vehicle is the right size? There are SUVs out there that get better mileage than Jim Farrell's Mitsubishi Diamante. I mean, do you really need a Matrix or Focus? Wouldn't a Mini Cooper suffice for your family of four? Think about what I wrote... I said the SUV industry employs a lot of people. The high price and profits of the SUVs help the auto industry pay wages and keep the price of your Focus (AWD Subaru in your case) down. Labor doesn't go into negotiations offering to give back money. They want pay raises. Soemthing has to pay for those pay raises. I'm not Brian but allow me to answer this if I may. Mr Tegeder you have used the slippery assimulation fallacy a few times in this thread. It is a commonly used fallacy. According to Trudy Govier[1] "The fallacy of slippery assimulation occurs when someone reasons that because there is a series of cases differing only slightly from each other; all cases in the series are the same. Your argument is that there is such a small difference between the Mitsubishi Diamente and a SUV falls into this fallacy. Govier uses the example, "Because there is a gradual progression, ounce by ounce, from weighing 100lbs to weighing 300lbs, thre is no one spot where you can draw the line between thing and being fat therefore everyone is really fat." Your argument needs to attack the premises directly not some false assimulation that somehow negats the argument. J [1] Trudy Govier, A Practical Study of Argument, 1988, Wadsworth Publishing. |
#9
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Kelowna fires
Jay Tegeder wrote:
Now, let's talk about the tax cuts by the Feds which so concern you. They are not tax cuts. Repeat, they are not tax cuts. They, like here in Minnesota, are just reductions in the spending increases. Repeat, Actually, no, seen over a few years the recent reductions in federal taxes are shifts in taxation from the federal government to the states and localities. I mean, someone has to pay for education, roads, parks, public health, welfare, etc. The question is how much will actually get shifted. Bush and his conservative advisors/supporters hope that the end result of federal tax cuts will not only be political benefit for themselves, but an overall effect of cutting social and societal (education, roads, etc.) expenditurs and programs. This is both ideological and economic (where ideology comes from) - in a capitalist system all government expenditures come out of business profits, however they derive to the gov't. Bush & Co. represent corporate America with a vengeance, with a view akin to that which dominated American political life in the late 19th/early 20th century. They also know that it's much harder to raise taxes at a local level, and such a battle will have to be fought over and over at each of the 50 states and numerous localities, where big business money has historically had much more influence. should someone who earns more have to pay a higher percentage of his income in taxes than someone who makes less. That doesn't sound very American to me. Should someone who makes 21,000 per year be taxed at a higher rate than someone who makes 20,000? Where do you draw the line Jim? Who decides in your Howard Dean Socailist Utopia? The people who make the most money create a lot more jobs than those who don't. Is that good or bad in your world? Excuse me, Jay, but the America you reside in has had a *progressive* income tax system for quite a long time, first during and after the Civil War, and then continuously from around 1913, when the 16th Amendment to the Constitution allowing income taxes was ratified. In the last decade or two, with the dominance of conservative economic and social policies, the degree of prgrogressiveness has been considerably chipped away at, but even now some pay 15% and some pay 28 or 35% or whatever it is. Now, here's the kicker. If, as you say, government expenditures have been going up relative to inflation, and the absolute and deduction-based tax rates for the wealthier sections of the population have gone down, then it would follow that the relative tax burden has shifted even more downward into the middle and lower classes (that's definitely the case for user taxes). If that's true, then your argument about what's "American" and not is particularly self-defeating, since you are just one more of us on the short end of the equation. To highlight this even more, if you check income stats for the US, you'll find that except for a little blip at the end of the 90s, average individual income has been falling steadily on an inflation-adjusted basis since the early 1970s. Depending on family configurations, that has meant relatively less and less money to pay more taxes - for you, me, the others here, and most of the rest of the population. Bringing it back to this newsgroup, less money left to buy cross country skis and support ski resorts (something to consider in terms of industry trends). Note: This has been one of the most puzzling subject diversions I've ever seen on rsn. We're a long way from Kelowna and the plight of Scott and his neigbors. I mean, forest fires predate claims about global warming. Gene |
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