They didn't. New Hampshire changed the rules from "recklessness" to "negligence" as a standard before the kid got lost, and they have charged for unnecessary rescue costs for decades.

Well ain't that nice. And who pray tell, except for this one kid, was charged thousands of dollars? It was an all time record.

What next, will we post the laws on top of a very tall post so that they can not be read and then charge people saying you should have read them?

25 Large, ambulance driver --- to a kid. Humanitarian my ass.

The price tag is high and that is really what people are reacting to. But he really didn't exercise good judgment, over and over again. The law is there to discourage bad judgment and reckless behavior. Several people die up there every year, most of the deaths are due to negligence or recklessness. The state wants that to stop, hence the harsh measures.

-- ondelette

The price tag may be too high or may not be too high. The issue, thick one, is that the state went from a few hundred dollars to 25,000 dollars in one jump. That is changing the whole deal on one kid. We sometimes call that "making an example" of someone.

Why him?

You act like you think lost people on a mountain think just like people sitting at their computer.

I climbed a mountain in or near Gatlinburg one time by going up the horse trail for a church group. It was far harder and longer than the group had expected. On the way down, the wife and I took a straight line shortcut when I could hear the sounds of the city and their was no way of getting lost.

It was a good thing I took a shortcut. I ran into a group of our teenagers who had gotten off the trail and were disoriented. They were hysterical, afraid, and thinking crazy. Hell, this was mid summer and the weather was perfect. You could hear the city sounds coming from Gatlinburg. They were headed away from the city into open wilderness when they ran into me and the wife.

I see no reason, other than blind stupidity, to argue that this one kid should be the first in history to pay 25,000 dollars when everyone else pays a few hundred.

One last one on some news reporting that only bloggers can deliver.

Over at Washington's blog, I read:

A top investment advisor, Harry Schultz - who was MarketWatch's Peter Brimelow pick for financial newsletter of the Year in 2008 - is now claiming:

Some U.S. embassies worldwide are being advised to purchase massive amounts of local currencies; enough to last them a year. Some embassies are being sent enormous amounts of U.S. cash to purchase currencies from those governments, quietly. But not pound sterling. Inside the State Dept., there is a sense of sadness and foreboding that 'something' is about to happen ... within 180 days, but could be 120-150 days.

Investment advisor and former Army Counterintelligence officer Bob Chapman is saying the same thing, reporting on the possibility of a so-called “bank holiday” planned for late August or early September. According to Chapman’s sources, U.S. embassies around the world are selling dollars and stockpiling money from respective countries where they operate.

Leading trend forecaster Gerald Calente has also repeatedly predicted a "bank holiday".

But the rumors of embassies being advised to stockpile local currency is stunning and - if true - point to a possible huge devaluation in the dollar.

Well, at least the boy will be able to pay his "charge" to the "humanitarians" in New Hampshire!

If we followed the constitution, as Glenn Greenwald as indicated for a long, long time that we should, then we would not be wasting all our resources in countries around the world. We are in debt to a degree that boggles the mind --- and it is getting more and more absurd.

Time to repudiate the debt by a massive devaluation in the currency?

Have fun folks, I hope you don't have any bad habits --- like eating and so forth.

- if you REALLY want to celebrate Cronkite without ignoring what he did - the first thing you have gotto do is to RELAX! (Heru!) - and then if you don't like words like 'objective' or 'bipartisan' you just use exactly the words that Walter used - like: 'nondoctrinaire, nondogmatic, noncommitted to a cause—but examining each case on its merits'.

And you listen to Walter when he tells you: "Being left of center is another thing; it's a POLITICAL POSITION!! -

And do WE like or take 'political positions'?

Naaah! -

Because we all want to be "LIBERAL" - but only by Walters definition:"being a liberal, in the true sense, is being NONDOCTRINAIRE, NONDOGMATIC, NONCOMMITED to a cause—but examining each case on its merits. Being left of center is another thing; it's a political position". - Uuuh I already quoted that - well - it only can help to repeat it -

Und die Moral von der Geschichte:

"If (journalists) are not liberal, by my definition of it, then they can hardly be good newspapermen. If they're preordained dogmatists for a cause, then they can't be very good journalists; that is, if they carry it into their journalism.

Don't forget that!

Terrific article, Mr. Greenwald. For the past eight years of working on Afghanistan, what you say about the mainstream media is fully supported. Some of the very worst sycohphants of State and Pentagon power are the crew at the "liberal" PBS's McNeill Lehrer evening news....and a goodly number of headwaitresses are present there.

...but I still cannot work out how this blog became somehting about a kid hurting his leg on a mountain. I probably missed something.

Anyway poor old Walt, he is dead, never to smell the flowers, the touch of the sun, the excitement of a beautiful woman (or man depending on his proclivities) the excitement of speeding on the freeway. All of people's vanities are just dust in the wind. Which makes war even that much more obscene and thsoe who send the young to die so much more contemptible. And those who lie about it all beyond the description of being human beings.

These thoughts give the job a person like Mr Greenwald does even more value and importance. As Jesus said "Know the truth and the truth shall set you free."

Pushing back against the darkness will eventually overwhelm it and spread the light so that all people can see the beaming beauty of the truth.