No, My Ski Trip Was Not This Exciting

We haven't seen the end of this.

Comments

[clarice]

Some people have all the fun.

[peter]

The poor bastard.

[Jane]

Oh that is just so so so wrong.

[Ann]

Well, ain't that a kick in the pants!

[Ann]

So that is what it means to say "Caught with your pants down!" :)

[peter]

five posts and no shrinkage jokes! It must have been very cold!

[MayBee]

It is my worst nightmare that I get caught hurt and naked. One or the other would be punishment enough.

[Danube of Thought]

You'd think they could have got the poor guy covered up a bit right away. And his kid was with him. At least he's likely to get quite rich.

[MayBee]

So now I have in my head the campfire song that goes:
"I've got spurs
that jingle jangle jingle"

[matt]

they told me skiing was an inherently dangerous sport.....

[hrtshpdbox]

And his kid was with him.

And he said "Dad, I used to wonder if you were a little crazy, but now I can see your nuts".

[peter]

If you have ever read the language of the releases and the disclaimers they make you sign before they let you take a chair lift, you would know the lawsuits are very tough to prosecute.

[peter]

Just saw this story on that sleaze site, Huppfo. The commenters waited until the fourth post to blame it on Bush.

[Ralph L]

What kind of idiot skis commando?

[Buford Gooch]

"(T)he chairlift's fold-down seat was somehow not in the lowered position". Duh, that seat doesn't look quite right, but I'll sit on it anyway.

[Danube of Thought]

My nephew went through a ski-related lawsuit as a plaintiff, and I read a bunch of the cases that govern ski-resort lawsuits. The plaintiff has virtually zero chance of success, for very sound policy reasons. (Kind of like suing a casino in Vegas if the security guys rough you up a little.)

But if this guy can get to a jury, I kind of like his chances.

[glenda]

heart-shaped....very funny!!!

[rs]

He is an amateur and had the bindings too tight. That's how they get hurt. The seat is lowered by the person riding the lift, if he doesn't, too bad.

[Jane]

DOT,

I actually prosecuted a ski resort case, which I had forgotten about until you raised it. We settled - and you are right, there is some funky law there as I recall. Mine involved a kid and a ski lift, so it was easier.

[Sue]

Pssst...don't anyone tell tesaro but Obama has broken his silence on Gaza, even after Axelrod repeatedly told her there is only one president at a time.

[MayBee]

Sue- I haven't read what Obama said yet. But Antonio Villarigosa (Mayor of LA) was really supportive of Israel yesterday, so I'm guessing that's the Dem stance.

[Jane]

Yeah and it sounded like he was siding with Hamas. Granted I missed everything but where he was unhappy about the victims.

[matt]

will never forget being on a lift at Heavenly years ago and a woman who had no clue and had never dealt with a chair lift grabbed my arm as she was falling and dragged me down. The edge of the chair clipped the back of my head, but I was okay....bad things can happen even under controlled circumstances.

[Rick Ballard]

Jane,

What he is reported to have said is: "The loss of civilian life in Gaza and in Israel is a source of deep concern to me," he said. "And after January 20th, I'm going to have plenty to say about the issue."

One might suppose from this that the loss of life among the IDF troops rooting out Hamas terrorists is of lesser concern to Hussein but I'm sure that the real level of his support for Hamas will be more apparent from his actions rather than his words.

Israel better stick to its guns and see this through to the end. I applaud their return of fire on the UN indoctrination center which Hamas was using as an artillery base. They need to keep up the good work.

[caro]

In the '70s nudity on the ski slopes was on purpose.

[Jane]

Rick,

I don't think it bodes well.

[Rick Ballard]

"I don't think it bodes well."

Dunno about that. Having a spineless incompetent in the WH allows countries such as India, Israel and Colombia to address problems with noisy neighbors in a more direct manner than they would if someone exhibiting signs of competence were involved. Zero's FP team is the most laughable ever fielded and just evaluating his choice of 'Barack Hussein' rather than Barry provides an unmissable sign post as to his preferences.

Those three countries can do a lot on their own wrt terrorist and thug eradication. Why shouldn't they?

[Danube of Thought]

Makes sense to me, RickB. I think the Europeans will find tacit encouragement from Obama to do nothing, but that merely represents the status quo. The people most affected by this plague may very well feel emboldened to act on their own behalf, despairing of getting any support from this bunch.

[Danube of Thought]

If I were the skier's lawyer, I would focus on a breach of the duty to come to the guy's aid in a prudent manner, rather than on liability for the way the chair operated. Lots of what appear to be Vail personnel are gathered around him for several minutes, and no one seems to have lifted a finger to attend to his modesty, which would have been easy enough to do. Damages? Leave it to the jury...

[clarice]

Imagine you are that guy's kid and back at school as the pics get circulated (one's on Drudge right now).I mean I used to drive my son nuts just by threatening to come to the school dances and dancing.

[peter]

If I were this guy, I would take it as a sign from God that sometimes you just have to be embarrassed. It's a part of life. I would hire a publicist, and go on Leno and Letterman and have a good laugh at myself. Who knows? Some careers have been launched in stranger ways. Starting a lawsuit, especially when he really wasn't hurt (assuming no frostbite to the nether regions) is victimology 101. so Democratic partyish.

[Jim Rhoads a/k/a vjnjagvet]

At least this guy ended up with a better result than if his skis had released shortly after he dove through the seat opening and he then landed on his head from about 10 feet up.

As for me, I would choose embarrassment over paralysis every time.

Also, Sonny Bono probably would have been happy to undergo this experience rather than the final one he encountered on the slopes.

[MayBee]

OMG. David Shuster is reporting some newspaper in Alaska got Levi Johnston fired from his job. I guess he needs to have graduated high school, but he's working on his GED while working.

What's this need to destroy lives?

[bad]

What's this need to destroy lives?

It's important that everyone understand how much better an abortion would have been for the family.

[Daddy]

Maybee,

It was an Oped in the Anchorage Daily News by a talk show host who writes a weekly column, Dan Fagan. He has a hard on against Sarah and has been that way for a very long time. He is taking a lot of heat for this. I am listening to his show this second, but a guest host is sitting in for 2 weeks while Dan is gone. The topic is Levi, and plenty of callers are very mad at Dan. His column was quite accusatory and unfair in my view, but he seems to me to have felt the heat, and when he called in it seemed like he tried to shift the heat away from himself and toward the culpability of the entity that hired Levi without proper qualifications. Calls about 50-50 anti Dan and anti-the anti's attacking Dan.

I have been gone 2 weeks so have missed what his recent shows were like, but I can well imagine. You can probably still find his Oped that caused the stink by going ADN.com. If you want to hear today's radio show you can google The Dan Fagan Radio Show at KFQD 750 Anchorage, or something close to that, and the first half hour of the podcast is where Fagan comes on to sort of justify himself. Or you can just take a sharp stick and poke yourself in the eye, about the same thing. The guest host is attempting a decent job of damage control.

[clarice]

FU Sophy

[Danube of Thought]

I was thinking the same thing about the kid, Clarice. At least we can hope that at this point the guy's name hasn't been released, but how long will it be before some scumbag puts it out on the web?

[Frau Jedöns]

The gentleman "who could not come in from the cold" looks far more dignified and comfortable in his skin than the nude,gay bicyclists photographed in San Francisco last year.

That reminds me that Sony Bono's drug test came back negative after the usual 2-week period. The multi-challenged Michael L. Kennedy kept his eye on a football but not on the trees while skiing and was declared free of drugs within 24 hours of his fatal accident.

[jimmyk]

Methinks TM doth protest too much. What proof do we have that the poor gentleman in the pictures is not, in fact, our fearless leader. That would help to account for his extended absence, no?

[narciso]

He's a fool, always been, always will be; a post on Hot Air, about some trumped up hypothetical match up between Sarah and Frank's daughter Lisa has a 26 point lead
for the former. One was reminded that the Alaska Standard underwrote the poll, and that Fagan and the AS come up for heavy
criticism in the Kaylee Johnson bio.

[BR]

Re the naked upsidedown skier, from an artistic viewpoint (in between the giggles), I'd say photo #3 is the best. Those beautiful lines of a man's upper legs, hmmm.

That Smoking Gun site has an interesting link I'll have to read later:
"Obama Hsu Bomb?
President-elect's name may emerge in fraud prosecution."

Will the other Hsu now drop?

[bgates]

The plaintiff has virtually zero chance of success, for very sound policy reasons. (Kind of like suing a casino in Vegas if the security guys rough you up a little.)
There are sound policy reasons for empowering Vegas security guys to rough people up? Sounds like a comment that would come from the "East River of Thought".

[BR]

Oh my, bloggers never sleep! Thank goodness TheSmokingGun has kept track of the Hsu matter which we were all so interested in a while ago.

Quote from http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/1231082hsu1.html, 31 Dec. 08:

"Hsu's lawyer, Martin Cohen, requested a 60-day delay in the start of Hsu's trial, scheduled to open January 12.... In his December 22 letter, ... Cohen also noted that Hsu was already 'notorious for his political activities' and that it was 'inevitable' that his client's 'connections' to Bill and Hillary Clinton 'and other democratic notables--including perhaps the president-elect--will be introduced at trial.' Before becoming a key fundraiser for Hillary Clinton's presidential bid, Hsu co-hosted a 2005 California fundraiser for Obama's political action committee and introduced the Illinois Democrat to Marc Gorenberg, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who later joined the Obama campaign's national finance committee. Prosecutors allege that Hsu directed his investors to donate money to specific candidates, and then reimbursed them in violation of federal campaign laws. Unswayed by Cohen's argument, Marrero declined to delay the trial, which will begin a week before Obama's inauguration."

[Daddy]

All I can say is this unfortunate dingleberry on the Vail Chairlift is actually fortunate it didn't happen to him on the Chairlift at Alyeska, Alaska. Current temp this last week has been about -13 F acording to the wife, so I'm thinking the local ambulance folks would have had a pretty delicate situation of frostbight on their, err... hands.

[kim]

'frostbight' reminds me of an old story about tying a string around the base of the......oh, nevermind, it's racist.
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[bad]

We haven't seen the end of this.

We would if the camera angle was a little different...

[MayBee]

Thanks for the info, Daddy.
I can't imagine how much you must hate someone to go after an 18 year old that's trying to make a living to support his baby.
He'd rather Levi go live with his drug dealing mom rather than make something of himself, for his own amusement.

[MayBee]

We would if the camera angle was a little different...

Ha! But if you go to the smoking gun pictures, you definitely see the end of it.

[bad]

you definitely see the end of it.

Are we talking a big finish?

[MayBee]

Are we talking a big finish?

Luckily for him, not so big.

[clarice]

Speaking of litigation--

The other day we were discussing suits against those madoff investors who MADE money--the WSJ has this today:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123128761903059219.html

"Under the law, you can enter a Ponzi scheme through lack of diligence, but you can't exit through proper diligence. If you leave because you smell a rat, you are complicit. Mr. Madoff may have gone on for 40 years, and one suspects a certain folk knowledge existed among many participants that something was not quite right (which is not the same as deciding not to participate).

Indeed, a continuum of complicity will likely be found, extending from the truly duped to the not-so-duped. A place to start applying the screws would be Frank Avellino and Michael Bienes, the two accountants hauled before the SEC in 1992 for illegally raising $440 million for Mr. Madoff. In the most eye-popping of its missed opportunities, the agency never ventured to look directly at Mr. Madoff's books after he somehow coughed up cash to pay back Messrs. Avellino and Bienes's clients."

Looks like Greenwich's Noel (he of 5 lavish abodes well-covered in VF) is in some trouble.

[MayBee]

Thanks, clarice. My husband and I were talking about that just this weekend. He says he can't imagine feeling good about holding on to the ill-gotten money and that people should willingly give some of it back.
I agree morally, but who knows if they still have it.

I'm happy for the update on the legal side of it.

[kim]

Publicity shots for the Alferd Packer Memorial String Band.
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[Rick Ballard]

Clarice,

Here is a great memo/brief on the road ahead re Madoff investors and the clawback provisions for recovery. The Bayou Funds case provides a pretty clear road map for the receiver.

[clarice]

Thanks, Rick.

[clarice]

The other day I noted a law blog had referred to a 6 year reach back provision and someone (I think DoT) sasked about that claim, At your cite there's this:
"In the Bayou matter, most of the assets that were recovered were obtained through the pursuit of fraudulent transfer claims against investors that had redeemed some or all of their money prior to the commencement of the bankruptcy proceeding. Both the Bankruptcy Code and New York state law, which applied to the Bayou proceeding, provide that a transfer made with actual or constructive intent to hinder, delay or defraud creditors is a fraudulent transfer that can be rescinded.[7] A number of courts have held that each individual redemption payment is presumptively a fraudulent transfer intended to actually hinder, delay or defraud other investors and may be rescinded by creditors or a trustee.[8] Under the Bankruptcy Code, the reach-back provision is two years from the date of commencement of the liquidation proceeding. The reach-back period under New York law is six years.[9]

Moreover, fraudulent transfer claims can seek to claw back both redeemed false profit and principal. An investor may defeat a fraudulent transfer claim by affirmatively showing that it redeemed in good faith and for value.[10] "

[jimmyk]

An investor may defeat a fraudulent transfer claim by affirmatively showing that it redeemed in good faith and for value.

I wonder if the defendants (meaning those who got their money out peviously) could also argue that even had Madoff been on the up and up he probably would have lost boatloads of money in the second half of 2008. So those who left their money in have a dubious claim to anything like 100% of their principal, while those who took money out can claim (especially if they acted similarly with other investments) to be getting out because of the deterioration of the market.

In any case the magnitude of the losses from fraud to those who left their money in is exaggerated, given that so many legitimate funds lost 30-50% of their value. Of course there is still a big difference between 50% and 100%.

[peter]

What skier Marty Odom thought was the ski shot of the season in Vail, Colorado might end up costing him his job.

Odom, a Vail resident and photographer for Sharpshooters, was skiing in Vail on New Year’s Day when he witnessed a skier caught in a compromising position on the Skyline Express Lift (Chair 37). The skier was trying to upload the lift, but the seat had been left up on the chair, and the skier fell through, according to Odom.

The unfortunate skier’s pants got caught, and he was left dangling by his pants in mid-air with his backside exposed, a moment that Odom caught on camera. The photo was published the next day in the Vail Daily, and has now been posted on several major Web sites.

“I was out on my own with my own camera, so I didn’t think it was a big deal,” Odom said. “I thought it was going to be the photo of the New Year.”

However, when he arrived at work on Monday, he was told that he was suspended until further notice.

“We all know what that means,” said Odom, who has been working for Sharpshooters since the beginning of the season. “I guess it embarrassed Vail Resorts, and they called (my) shop.”

Odom said his bosses told him that even though he wasn’t working at the time and used his own camera, he had signed a no-compete clause when he was hired, and that the photograph reflected poorly on the company.

In bad taste?
Some, including Vail Resorts officials, thought the published photo was in bad taste, and disrespectful to the skier, who was in a dangerous and traumatizing situation while suspended.

Vail Mountain officials released a statement that said the hanging skier, a 48-year-old man, was suspended on the chair for about seven minutes and was rescued without injuries.

Onlookers said that before Ski Patrol arrived, others tried to throw ropes up to the skier to get him down. Finally, lift mechanics were able to reverse the lift about 10 to 12 feet to release the man.

Odom said when he saw that the man’s family was worried, he realized it was a rescue operation and put his camera away. He said the man seemed in good spirits when he got off the lift, and everyone applauded when the rescue was successful.
Officials from Sharpshooters did not return a phone call seeking comment.

[Daddy]

Peter,

"Blue Moon Odom" was the nickname of an old Oakland A's Pitcher, but the nickname seems more appropriate when applied to this photographer and his subject.

[peter]

Daddy--good catch! funny. I remember Blue Moon Odom. One of many baseball players with funny names - Vida Blue, Bo Belinsky, Oil Can Boyd,

[kim]

Vinegar Bend Mizell, Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
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[kim]

For that matter, Harry Carey got a lot of laughs.
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