Slashdot Mirror
Nevada Governor to Bill Fossett Widow For Search
sonchat writes with news that Nevada's "Gov. Jim Gibbons intends to bill the widow of missing multimillionaire adventurer Steve Fossett for $687,000 the state spent in searching for the famed aviator last fall, a spokesman said." Though in some places charging for the cost of a search effort is routine, apparently in Nevada it is not.
It is? Really?
Seriously, though, this is exceptionally lame. "We tried to find your husband.... and, uh, we didn't. All those helicopters, you know those aren't free..."
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
in some places, not is some places
I mean, how often does anybody actually survive a plane crash?
This is the equivalent of spending $600,000 on searching for someone who fell off the edge of the Grand Canyon!
That I feel I'm confident enough in my ability to survive most situations. Enough so that I would rather they not send a search party out for me, cause if I don't show up in a day or two, then I'm dead, and they are wasting money.
Don't Blame me if I seem bitter, I'm at work, and the TV only plays soap operas.
Anyone else read the title as "Nevada governor to Bill Fossett widow for search" tried to figure out what the hell that meant?
This is just plain awful. I'm sure she's going through enough without this added on top of everything. Shouldn't be charging anybody, especially the widow.
...if this was some wild goosechase. I mean that if you fraudulently sent the Police, etc. looking for someone, then you should be billed for it. But if it was a legitimate missing persons/accident, etc. as it appears to be in Fossett's case, then the next of kin should not be billed for the expense.
There needs to be paperwork available for this; along the same lines of the "do not resuscitate" and "do not keep me on life support."
It just seems ridiculous to be billed for a matter you had no control over. Who makes the judgement call on how big of a search party and how long to look for? I have a hard time believing this is going to actually end up happening. Unless someone makes a habit of getting lost and repeatedly needing to be rescued, it should remain a taxpayer funded service.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
I don't know anyone named Charge, but I know more than a few Bills. Unfortunately I don't have enough bills in my wallet. Never did care for the Buffalo Bills.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
There's already a good discussion about this going on over at fark.
It sounds like the issue may be related to him not being a taxpayer in Nevada and the governor not wanting to force the taxpayers to foot the bill.
Ever get picked up by EMS from your local fire department and transported to the hospital? Well, when it happens, expect a bill, and it is a bit more than a normal taxi. And so it should - these services cost money and to expect tax dollars to cover them 100% is not reasonable. That being said, if you don't have the dollars, I have never heard of EMS or another governmental agency not writing it off. The challenge is one of what is reasonable - assume that you think 3 days is reasonable search and rescue - but the state continues for 10 days - what part do you pay for? And if you wan tto call it off early - what does that say? Big can of worms this simple thing can become. But bottom line - you use services, you should pay within reason. That way we can afford to have them when we need them. Hint - check your insurance policy, mine covers this.
Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torment of man. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Widow of missing multimillionaire adventurer Steve Fosset IS NOW MISSING TOO
State agencies are mounting a search party, in part because she's lost, but more importantly because she's lost and still owes them money.
There are reports coming in that their children, legal heirs to property and debts, are also believed missing.
Why stop here? Heart attack on a public street requiring EMTs? That's a billin'. Cops respond to a home invasion? Hey, them SWAT teams ain't free.
While I'm sure this woman has the money to cover this just from control of assets, I don't like the precedent it sets; what if this happens to someone that CAN'T foot the bill?
Losing someone is strike one. Having to pay for the search is strike two. All of that happening AND being in debt for the rest of your life? That's not tolerable, in my opinion... and I have no faith in any government - national or local - to see through the red tape for people that can't necessarily handle the cost.
Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
People enjoy thier fringe and extreme sports. Thats is fine. But when they are out of bounds of standard community services while playing, it seems ridiculous that the taxpayers foot the bill.
Playing in the outdoors is not without risks. Perhaps those who play should have insurance to cover such rescue operations or a waiver so that it's acceptable for the local support services to stand down.
Living in the Pacific Northwest, theres regularly stories of outdoor sports enthusiasts who excercise poor judgment which requires mobilization of resources to quench the fire lit by local TV stations parading the people's loved ones for hype. In the not too distant past a helicopter was downed on Mt. Hood during a rescue of 911 firefighters who were on a risky elective trek. This was completely avoidable by assessing the risk to themselves and then TAKING into account the risk to OTHERS if there was an emergency... then maybe weighing it out that they might be willing to put thier own lives on the line, but shouldnt expect that others should come and save them from thier own foolish bravado choices.
In this case, he didnt need to be flying solo, he just liked it. The family cheered him on thoughtout his career and shouldnt expect a free rescue from cthulhu knows where bfe...
Don't have to be powerful.
All planes and boats should have one.
And every outdoor adventurer should use one too.
Due to the large amount of wealth that this family has access to, I don't see a problem here. If it was someone else without access to such large resources, I could understand this being a problem. They can definitely afford it. After all, what was the guy doing? Recreational flying.
Well, she can obviously afford it now, can't she?
Seriously though, what kind of brain dead cop would do something like this? You can't ask for worse press than billing a widow for the loss of her husband!
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
Next, you will want me to pay my share to provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. Oh wait every, on the books, wage earning American does through taxes. If I were her i would send the Governor a nice little letter thanking him for using my tax dollars to search for my husband. The state provided the service just like they keep my roads pave. Since when is a state a business?
insert inflammatory comment here!
Welcome to capitalism, baby.
But seriously, if she pays the bill, she should also bill them (or sue for) an amount for services rendered; as I recall, numerous other crashes and oddities were uncovered in the search, despite not finding Fossett.
I go hiking a lot in Colorado - so I purchased theColorado Outdoor Recreation Search and Rescue card.
In Colorado at least, if they have to come looking for you, you DO get billed for search costs. The card insures that search costs are paid by the fund, not you - and it costs only $12 every five years! They state on the page tself it's not insurance, but search costs can get expensive and this means a world of dfference for someone like you say who may not be well off.
You can't just have search costs be free, as that encourages reckless behavior. As long as you have some way to offset that for the needy or people that can plan ahead I don't see a problem with asking people to ay for searches.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So, you're saying the bill should be proportional to the wealth? So it's ok to give you a $1000 bill if your wife goes missing? A $10,000 bill if the husband in the big house up the hill goes missing? A $1,000,000,000 bill if Bill G goes missing?
Fuck that. The law should treat people equally, independent of their money. That's the idea we should be striving for at least. Fucking over a widow just because she has cash is really low.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
That's pretty harsh.
Which either makes her an easy mark or implies that she was willing to pay to continue the search past the point at which authorities may have wanted to stop.
At first, this sounds bad, but there may be more to the story than we know.
In any case, the standards for providing state services shouldn't ever be based on shaking down rich people or providing public servants as Pinkertons for rich people unless the taxpayers and voters want this for some reason (or possibly it helps turn a buck for otherwise unused/underutilized personel).
I know surprisingly little about John McCain. I know nothing about his background or lineage. I do not know where McCain was educated or what he has done besides create a McCain-centric society in which dangerous lounge lizards dictate the populace's values and myths, its traditions and archetypes. Nevertheless, I can tell you all that you need to know about McCain. Before I launch into my main topic, I want to make a few matters crystal-clear: (1) McCain's nostrums carry multiple connotations, ranging from the deranged (they shatter and ultimately destroy our most precious possessions) to the vainglorious (they vandalize our neighborhoods), and (2) as a result of that, McCain has no conception of our moral and ethical standards. Now that you know where I stand on those issues, I can safely say that I have a dream that my children will be able to live in a world filled with open spaces and beautiful wilderness -- not in a dark, careless world run by barbaric, stolid feral-types. I doubtlessly feel that he has insulted everyone with even the slightest moral commitment. McCain obviously has none or he wouldn't attack everyone else's beliefs.
McCain gained ascendancy through monstrous abuse of his cronies. That should serve as the final, ultimate, irrefutable proof that he insists that his debauches are the result of a high-minded urge to do sociological research. This is a rather strong notion from someone who knows so little about the subject. This moral issue will eventually be rendered academic by the fact that on a television program last night, I heard one of this country's top scientists conclude that, "The older McCain gets, the more goofy he becomes." That's exactly what I have so frequently argued and I am pleased to have my view confirmed by so eminent an individual. He has a staggering number of ostentatious lapdogs. One way to lower their numbers, if not eradicate them entirely, is simple. We just inform them that there are two related questions in this matter. The first is to what extent he has tried to threaten national security. The other is whether or not McCain is extremely chauvinistic. In fact, my handy-dandy Chauvinistic-O-Meter confirms that McCain constantly insists that the sky is falling. But he contradicts himself when he says that granting him complete control over our lives is as important as breathing air.
Here are a few points to ponder:
1. McCain's ideas are a masterpiece of dishonest frotteurism.
2. McCain's rejoinders violate the rational, enlightened claims of their own enunciatory modality.
3. McCain's "subjugate persons of culture, refinement, and learning to anal-retentive, presumptuous crackpots" mentality is so pervasive that I feel like I'm going to roll over and play dead.
Those points may at first seem unrelated but when you connect the dots it becomes clear that it is more than a purely historical question to ask, "How did McCain's reign of terror start?" or even the more urgent question, "How might it end?". No, we must ask, "Will McCain's animal cunning, arrogance, greed, and self-aggrandizement grant McCain a final victory over humanity?" We must definitely ask ourselves questions like that before it's too late, before McCain gets the opportunity to use cheap, intemperate propaganda to arouse the passions of truculent apostates. The theoretical fallacies in his maneuvers run deep. This is all well and good, but he, already oppressive with his indelicate tirades, will perhaps be the ultimate exterminator of our human species -- if separate species we be -- for his reserve of unguessed horrors could never be borne by mortal brains if loosed upon the world. If you think that that's a frightening thought then consider that McCain's indiscretions are worse than the Black Death of olden times, and everyone with half a brain understands that.
The simple, regrettable truth is that McCain keeps stating over and over again that there is something intellectually provocative in the tir
If people want to take extreme risks, they can do so at their own expense. They shouldn't expect the rest of us to foot the bill if their adventure doesn't go according to plan.
Good for them for charging the estate, exactly correct.
maybe she can get a refund?
Did she ask the state to search for her husband? If so, then a bill may be appropriate, otherwise "Thank you for the gift, Mr. Governor".
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
The US government has decided to send the $3Trillion bill to Iraq for the search and rescue of the weapons of mass destructions (WMDs) even though the lost WMDs were never located.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
They should apply that principle to DB Cooper. If I found a finger bone, I could turn it in for $100!
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
The party bills you!
this makes no sense to me...normally you bill for search and rescue in situations where the person *deliberately* put themselves in harms way, disregarding advice or warnings to the contrary. for example, billing a skier who goes out of bounds on a ski resort mtn...if you have to send in a heli to go get them, or a patrol team - bill for the manpower and resources. fair enough. are we going to start billing all the relatives of people lost at sea? is it their fault they got in a boat?
How much will it cost me for my mother-in-law to go missing? I'm willing to take out a loan.
This was also a high profile media fiasco.. the average joe, would not have had such an extensive search done.. and if she is charged, it should be based upon the costs of previous efforts.. that they spent extra time "doing the job" is on them.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
According to this article, the payment is voluntary:
http://www.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080501/NEWS18/80501037
"Though is some places, charging for the cost of a search effort is routine"
ENGLISH, Motherfucker! DO YOU SPEAK IT?
Just wow. I guess Nevada's governor has read one too many RIAA business howtos...
If 10000 people send a check to the governor for $6.87, the bill could be paid in a hurry. In fact, I'll send in $68.70 just to get it off to a good start.
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_9105166
Firefighters are just glad your're OK, even if you are a gorked out dumbass.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
It should have been 100,000 people.
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
see if they can get me my 40 cents from MTurk.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/01/bush.poll/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
This guy's looking forward to re-election in 2010. By saying he's holding firm on tax increases and billing "THE MAN'S" widow for the search, he's showing the hard working folks of Nevada that he's watching out for them.
I live in Nevada. Our governor is a complete moron. He went through several scandals to get elected, including three which should have landed him in serious legal trouble (illegal classified defense contracts and gifts in return, knowingly hired an admitted illegal immigrant, and encouraging a drunk woman to drive home). He has caused no end of problems at the state level, from cutting budgets left and right (which were all in massive surplus before he took office) to breaking state law (the governor is required to live in Carson City, he's living in Reno while we're still paying for his wife to live in the governor's mansion while they work out their marital issues). He has been labeled by several national groups as the nation's most corrupt governor.
And yet he is supported. Why? Because he promised to not raise taxes. We're still paying more. We pay more at the DMV because he raised fees and altered the depreciation schedules so that the tax rate is the same, but our cars are suddenly worth more (one of our cars is worth about $2,000 according to KBB, the state says it's worth over $10,000). State level fees are increasing, but the taxes aren't. So since taxes aren't going up, the morons out here love him.
Isn't that called taxes?
So if they are going to charge me directly for the use of state services, why am i still paying taxes?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
for the publicity that the state benefited from fossett's adventures around the world. ingrateful suckers.
Read radical news here
In Arizona we have the "Stupid Motorist Law." So if you decide that those signs that say "Do NOT cross while flooded" are only a suggestion you better be able to afford the helicopter ride because it is not free.
..is for tax payers to pay a bill which they otherwise had nothing to do with (he landed in their state, but was he even a citizen?), was totally unnecessary (he should have travelled by jet), extremely risky (as in triple Xtreeme) and well funded (with his own money, of which he has oodles).
Sure, that is easy to explain. If I lived in Nevada, I would not want to be billed for it either.
You don't provide emergency services to illegal immigrants necessarily because you think they deserve them. You provide them because a medical emergency is no situation in which you want to be trying to figure out if someone is or is not an illegal immigrant.
If there were a way to quickly and accurately determine whether someone was an illegal immigrant or not, there would not be any shortage of people who would advocate not rendering treatment.
paintball
What a lowlife.
When the state is hurting for money, doesn't collect taxes from residents, you don't actually live there, and you're rich enough to afford it, then the state becomes a business.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
...That's about how much it'll cost to cover their attorney fees after the media finds out that they, in fact, found the guy...and then lost him again! Hahaha!
...the same people show up that think that with universal health care, people would break bones and catch diseases just so they can get free care. Being lost is in general a bloody poor idea, you're likely to be cold and hungry when or if the rescue workers ever find you and you're possibly handicapped for life when they do. Here in Norway we do charge for prank calls and rescue operations caused by illegal acts like no base jumping zones, but not rescues in general. And no, the services aren't being overwhelmed.
Yes, people do tend to abuse free services but not the ones where you have to put yourself in a worse situation than the benefit. Would you cut yourself if I'd give you a free bandaid? You start out uninjured and end with a bandaid on a cut, it wouldn't make sense. What if I told you I'd give you a lifetime supply of bandaids, but you'd have to come with a bleeding wound and I'd apply them so you can't resell? Would you really run around cutting yourself just to spite me? Would you like to wait around two hours with a broken leg so you can have a free x-ray and cast, whicb will be a PITA for the next weeks that we won't cover?
Same with being lost. The only people I've heard of that get lost on a regular basis are those that aren't all there mentally, and they usually get special care anyway. It doesn't take too much to become the subject of a search and rescue, fall and break a leg in the forest or the mountains and you're a rescue case. Take out your cell phone in the fall and you're a search and rescue case. It could happen to me, it could happen to you (well, those of you that leave mom's basement at least) and I'd rather not get stuck with a huge bill if I did. If the government didn't pay, I'd probably have a travel insurance that did. And you'd probably pay for that as well, I know few who'd be willing to do entirely without travel insurance.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Consider the alternative: the taxpayers pay for it. This leads to taxpayers getting upset when expensive rescues are performed, which leads to lobbying the government for stricter controls on wilderness recreation, which ultimately leads to a shutdown of freedom.
Personally, I'd rather take the chance of being held responsible for my own rescue costs, in exchange for greater freedom to go out and do what I want to.
I belong to a mountaineering organization called The Mazamas and one of the benefits of membership is international rescue insurance, which will pay for my rescue costs if something were to happen. This insurance is paid for by membership dues, which means the taxpayer does not end up footing the bill. This model seems to work well. If you're spending a lot of time in remote, dangerous locations, get some form of rescue insurance.
I think you got it backwards. If in all three cases the cost of the search was $500,000 then yes, a poor person should only pay 1000. A wealthy man should pay 10,000, and Bill Gates should finance the whole thing. That is treating people equally, if they charged someone who made 10k a year and someone who made 100k, 10k for the search the 10k guy is geting f'ed in the A. A larger disposible income means that it will hurt them equally to charge the weathyer more. As for why charge them at all I don't think they should, but I can see the arguement "I don't wan't my taxes to help search for a missing rich person."
Can somebody explain the legal theory according to which the widow incurred an obligation to pay for the search?
She didn't force the state to conduct this search. She never entered into any contract in which she agreed to pay for the cost of the search if the state would conduct the search
The state took it upon itself to conduct the search. Just because they want somebody else to pay for that search doesn't mean she is under any legal obligation to do so.
If I go visit Nevada and explore the state in the hope of stumbling across the wreckage, can I bill the widow for the cost of my vacation? If not, what right does the state have to do the same thing?
One wonders if this bill is only being asked because they know that Bill Fossett had that kind of money. If this was anyone else, such as myself, there is no way me or anyone I know could afford that kind of bill.
The moral of the story. Get GPS locators for your family, cause if any of them get lost you do not want to get stuck with a $600,000 bill for trying to find them.
Gizmo
so many lost people, so few searchers
It may seem heartless but the estate is perfectly capable of paying the bill.
Keep in mind that he neglected to file a flight plan. That wasn't very wise given where he was flying.
Why do we allow nearly half our wealth to be confiscated by government for one thing or another in various taxes?
SO THAT THE FREAKING GOVERNMENT DOES things like have search and rescue teams!
What's next, getting a bill from the police for investigating a crime done against you?
If the government is going to charge the recepients of services for those services it needs to quit collecting taxes completely and live off the income from these services.
Corporatism != Free Market
I dunno... when the state got Helicopters with body heat cameras, satellite imagery, surveillance camera access, and highly skilled and trained people whose job is rescuing people all day long (like firefighters, etc).
100 years ago, the best the state could do is run around and shout out the person's name, so there wasn't much advantage over just having your friends do it. Today there is a HUGE advantage to having the state help. Did you seriously not think of that? Do YOUR friends have helicopters? Mine don't.
I hate it when people ask rhetorical questions in an attempt to sound like they have a really good point, when really the facts just blew past them.
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
For a moment I wondered, who is Bill Fossett? With that stuck in mind the rest of the line made no sense at all.
I'd presume that it's more of a claim on Steve Fossett's fortune rather than directly billing his widow, although I'm not a lawyer and I'm also not informed about whatever arrangements Steve Fossett had with the state of Nevada before he left.
As for taxpayer funding, I'm in mixed minds about whether people should be charged for their rescues. In New Zealand, and I'm sure many other places, we get lots of tourists who come here for the outdoor experience. Most of them are great, but there are still a lot of tourists who completely ignore all the advice about what outdoor safety gear they need and where they should and shouldn't go according to their experience, and consequently need to be rescued out of caves or off the side of mountains or from behind flooded rivers or wherever else they've gotten themselves stuck.
Rescue helicopters and their crews are expensive, and large volunteer search parties typically mean that people are giving up their daytime salaries to go and look for someone who got themselves into trouble. I can appreciate that sometimes things just go wrong, but if a person put themselves at risk through their own fault and triggered a rescue operation, I don't personally have as much of an issue in sending them the bill, or at least charging them an impressionable portion of the bill if it's unrealistic. (Sending a bill that will ruin someone for life isn't much help at all.)
Steve Fossett has a history of putting himself at obvious risk as part of his hobby. This is fine if it's what he wants to do, but when he triggers a massive rescue operation I can appreciate that some people might think he should be responsible for footing at least part of the bill, if not the whole thing. Whether that bill should be transferred to the person who's inheriting his vast fortune would, I think, depend on legal details.
I come here to see dupes of science/technology news.
from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
For that kind of cash, don't look for me. It's obscene, I never accepted the bill so keep your planes on the ground. You can't foist a bullshit invoice on me I didn't sign.
Sincerely,
Steve F.
This is the same guy who crashed his (beacon equiped) ballon near Australia and although I can't find mention of it in the WP link he also capsised his (beaconless) boat in the southern ocean before that.
I've been to the southern ocean in a 60 foot fishing trawler. Talk about a 'rough and remote area', I can't tell you how lucky this guy was to be have been found by the Navy. When he was found the divers had to coax Steve out of his air buuble in the upturned boat because he thought the divers and the noises he was hearing were an hallucination.
IIRC from the media reports over here at the time, on both occasions he was more than happy to pay the bill.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
At least did they find him?
It's already weird to bill someone for the search, but to demand payment for a job that was not done (they searched, but, IIRC, they never found him) is outrageous.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Have I accidentally stumbled into dailykos or some communist party web site? I can't believe anyone with more than 2 brain cells would be opposed to this.
Why should I (or any tax payer) have to pay for this guys search and rescue? This is actually fantastic news, and should be met with a cheer by any smart person who is sick to death of government waste and welfare. People need to learn to support themselves, and society needs to stop coddling idiots.
The next step would be for Nevada to start privatizing fire, ambulance and police services. So instead of paying 25% of your paycheck every year to pay for services you never use, you pay only when you need them. For the vast majority of us who are smart enough not to build a house that is not a fire trap or smart enough to know the law, this will save us hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years.
You would think that because they pay taxes they are entitled to some kind of emergency service. ...Just a thought...
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
Does anyone know if contract law comes into play here? I don't think there was any form of contract, even a tacit one, by which the Fossetts agreed to pay the state of Nevada for the search. If Nevada opted to perform the search without an agreement from the Fossetts to pay for the search operation and contract law applies, there's no obligation for the Fossetts to pay without a court review, in which case they'd probably win.
Let it be said that I have always shared libertarian views on life. I believe in small goverments, low taxes and personal freedoms. Yet, none of that is relevant in this context because I cannot force or voice my opinion in a country that spends trillions of dollars on a useless war in Iraq. If we are bankrolling that operation, then small rescue missions are nothing. Using an isolated case as an example to raise money does not make sense: We have to either charge everybody or nobody. Since this nation has no problems waging wars it cannot afford,I say let everybody get a free ride. Otherwise, we'll have to charge somebody for all the military conflicts we managed to create.
The explorer in question put Nevada on the map for many people around the world. I belive that he paid enough taxes over the course of his life to deserve a search and rescue mission in case of his diappearence. If we single him out, then we do we stop? How much money did it cost to put Scott Peterson behind the bars? How much does the war on drugs cost? And what about all this money spent on cops?
Have you seen motorcycle cops in CA? They enjoy nice BMW bikes with all the latest gadgets. They use these bikes to pull you over and give you a ticket. Why not charge your more since they had to buy a motorcycle to catch you on the first place? What about air patrols? You think those Cessnas cost nothing? Of course, the list can go on and on until you finally realize that this is quite silly. The money that the state has spent did not evaporate. It went to law enforcement officials and other functions. People got paid and then they spend money somewhere else! It is one thing if Nevada had to raise the money by taxing everybody extra in order to save a lost explorer. But the state did not. The money was in the budget and it was to be spent on something.
Look, I am all about the bottom line but I still believe that in case of an emergency a person should not think "can I afford this?"
Do you really want someone's wife thinking, "Well, my husband's lost, but I don't think I can afford to call yet. Let's see what happens in the next couple of days?" Either the state decides it's in the commons' interest to save lives, or it's going into a fee-for-service business. If it's fee-for-service, then just contract it out.
I thought our tax dollars payed for stuff like this? If they don't, then what the hell *are* our tax dollars paying for?
I don't think you want your neighbor to not call the Fire Department because of the cost. His burning house might start to affect you.
Quite the opposite:
Bill G. should have the search free, the wealthy should pay 1000 and the poor guy should foot the bill.
Why? Because Bill G. paid more in taxes than the other two, the wealthy paid way more than the poor guy and the poor guy barely put anything in!
On a side note, that's very close to what I was arguing about the other day with a friend, the tax system is so messed up, it's not even funny.
I paid close to $20k last year in taxes, including my home taxes, yet I have to "pay" to get my son into public pre-school. Why? Because I make too much for him to get in it free, despite the fact that *my* taxes are paying for it.
I'm paying for poor people to get a free-ride, welfare, etc. and I get shafted wherever I turn (911 calls, pre-school, etc.). Then why should I pay to begin with?
How it THIS FAIR?
People don't sympathize with wealthy/rich people because they're jealous, plain and simple. You can justify it however you want, but I'm not more for taxing Bill Gates and the likes so we can have a lazy encouraging welfare state.
P.S.: I'm not even rich (don't have a 6 figures income yet)
I feel bad for the Fossett family here but.....
Here in Michigan, the Coast Guard frequently bills ice fishermen that get trapped on the ice because they decided to go angling on a 50 degree day. the coast guard got tired of people using them as a taxi service, so as a deterrent, they've started billing people who fish when conditions have been declared unsafe.
Fossett decided to go out putt-puttering around and (apparently) lacked the proper equipment to safely extricate himself from the situation he got into. I hate to be crass in the face of a fatality, but Fossett more than your average Joe Sixpack flyer should have known the risks he was taking and better prepared himself.
Sending a bill to the widow, while heartless, is also a warning to others. Make damn sure you're prepared for what you're getting in to.
If you file a flightplan & then crash & die, when they come looking for you & find you (or not), they send your grieving family the bill.
On the other hand, if you file no flightplan, it doesnt cost anyone a dime with some farmer or deer hunter comes across your wreckage & discovers your corpse.
The rule -used- to be that they only charged you if you screwed up & forgot to call in & close your flightplan & they ended up looking for you despite the fact you landed safely at your destination. If you actually had a crash, hey thats what CAP is for, no charge, theyre just glad to find you.
Not anymore tho. So I, and most pilots I know, only file flight plans when its required by law. The last thing i want is to saddle my family with huge bills after my death.
I hope they got consent to perform the search first. Requiring payment for the search when they didn't explain the cost and give her the chance to opt-out beforehand would be highly unethical.
Okay, in the slashdot tradition, I didn't RTFA or even the summary.
Who is Bill Fossett? and who is his widow?
Anybody can send anybody a bill. Sending a bill does not create an obligation to pay it. In the absence of legislation creating a duty to pay for such searches, Mrs. Fossett can simply ignore the bill. In cases like the runaway bride, I believe that the basis for her paying is that her behavior constituted a crime for which the court makes her pay restitution.
I live in nevada, and he has been the shittest governer we've had in a very long time.
If you don't remember in the national news recently there was a Huge hepatitis C Scare here. Basically the governers position was that the doctors should not be at fault for this (one of his close friends resides on the medical board here) because it was their surrogates doing the testing. Now his close medical buddy on that board wants to reopen the same clinics with the same doctors and staff working there. He is a complete fucktard douche and should be shot for gross negligence of the people of Neavada.
Don't EVER suspect this man will help you in any situation, he has many scandels to credit under his belt
Fuck Jim Gibbons and those who voted for him.
Nevermind the "sqeezing the grieving widow" angle. Consider the precedent. If this is allowed to stand, rescue efforts from this time forward will be biased even moreso based on the wealth of the lost. I say "even moreso" because it seems hard to believe that the effort to find this guy wasn't a bit more than if he had been, say, some 20-something who had to spend all his spare cash just to fly on weekends.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Dude, you seriously need to fire your accountant. Nobody pays 50% income tax any more. And why on earth is your legal residence in a high-tax state if you're hardly ever there? George Bush the First has his legal residence in Texas (no state income tax at all) where he hardly ever goes any more. The cute part is that his legal residence is a hotel room where he hasn't stayed for years.
Now, to answer your question "why the fuck are you taxing me". Well, OK, maybe you deserve free search and rescue. But only a tiny part of your taxes goes to toward emergency services. A good chunk goes to things like roads (you own a car, right?) education (OK, you already got yours, but where's that fancy job of yours if there's no ongoing supply of well-educated new hires?) law enforcement (having a mugger arrested is free) food inspection (you eat, right?) and a lot of other stuff I'm sure you actually use.
Actually, the biggest single item you get from your taxes is a military establishment that costs more than the rest of the world's combined. I happen to think we could do without that, but I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority on that issue.
I wanna spend the summer backpacking in the search zone with some payotee. Is there a map of where they haven't searched yet?
Paying a fine always beats the alternative in Nevada.
You do something risky, why should the rest of us be on the hook for your rescue costs?
Search and Rescue is a government service supported by taxes, and in some cases special fees. The latter may include airport and other aviation related fees. Note that rescue includes fire and paramedics showing up at car accidents, you might want to reconsider saying people should be billed for rescue.
Unless negligence is involved, drunk driving/flying etc, rescue should not be a billable service. Consider the abuse of early fire departments (1800s?) that did bill for services.
Why should I (or any tax payer) have to pay for this guys search and rescue?
Taxes already pay for search and rescue, it is already a government service. Collective security and assistance is a long standing government function. Absent some form of negligence, drunk driving/flying for example, there should be no additional charges for a service a citizen has *already* paid for.
If you drive into a flooded wash which has been marked by cones and signs as closed to traffic you will be billed for the cost of your rescue. Always seemed pretty straightforward to me.
In Mr. Fossett's case there was no flight plan filed. To my mind it seems once he has violated that basic tenet the state should have felt no ethical obligation to search for him. If his relatives wished to call for volunteers or offer a bounty to encourage searchers, that is their decision.
...are required for flying an airplane? They're not. They're only required for flying under IFR rules.
Do you file a "driving plan" with the highway patrol each time before you get into your car to drive somewhere? That would be assinine.
We don't live in a socialist society people, the family is responsible for at least a portion of the cost. Most emergency services bill you. If this was a little girl that got lost in the woods, most likely the family wouldn't be billed, but thrill seekers intentionally take inherent risks that lost little children don't. The policy of billing for services is often practiced by the federal government when U.S. Citizens abroad are evacuated by embassies or military spec ops. Most organizations advise you that, if you have other means of leaving a country then you should use them over the government's. It is significantly cheaper to take a taxi out of a country than to take a Chinook. It's just a simple case of cost recovery, we just take for granted that it won't cost a dime when 100s of people have to come look for us when we get lost, and I mean no disrespect to Fossett or his widow.
She's still living at the Governor's Mansion in Carson City, he only visits to conduct "official functions". Maybe he's in a funk about that, and lashing out at widows and dead people helps him to feel better. (And yes, his emotional maturity level OFTEN appears to be on par a typical two-year-old.) Cripes, the man held a permit (now surrendered, it was fraudulent) for NINE concealed handguns. One, Two, maybe Three, I can understand that. Maybe even Five. But Nine concealed weapons ??? OTOH, this "Public Servant's" private residence is far larger and more luxurious than the Governor's Mansion. I live in Nevada (Reno), and DW commutes to Carson City. So now the Gov. wants to F. with dead people, and their widows. Lots of people call Nevada the "F.U." State, this sort of thing ain't new around here.
How is that with over 370 comments posted so far, and my threshold is set at 3, I only see 6 comments? Me thinks the new slashdot code has some problems.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
In Soviet Russia, The Party always finds YOU!
In America, the party can't find you, and your family still gets billed for it.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
I don't really think this is all that bad. I mean, if I go skiing here in Switzerland, and I have an accident, I have to pay for the search and/or rescue (unless my private insurance covers it). This is really just the same kind of deal.
Admittedly, it's kind of an extra blow to the missus, but why should the taxpayers cover the cost of my/his/someone else's mistake?
It's seems completely fair that rich people support poorer people. It's called charity and if people (like you) are too selfish to do it, then the government should help you do it.
The Unicode standard is over 20 years old. Why does Slashdot not support it?
If billing the families is routine in some places and the cost of this particular search was $687,000, right? Well, obviously most people would never be able to pay that. Does that mean lower income family members who go missing have a "cap" of a few thousand?
"Sorry, we looked aaaaall afternoon but we've already spent your budget on coffee. You owe us $2,000
Figures from 2004, in USD
Health care costs per capita in the US : 6,102
Health care costs per capita in France : 3,159
Health care costs per capita in the UK : 2,508
Health care in America is more expensive because it is run on a private system, and private companies have every incentive to charge more and to investigate every possible illness. Now this means you get slightly better, or at least more extensive, treatment if you're well off or are well covered by medical insurance, but for the majority of people it means service based on your income and worrying over whether they can actually pay, and for most employers it means a heavy insurance burden. Having seen the inside of hospitals in all three countries I wouldn't say service is 3x better in the US.
Even discounting private healthcare spending, *public* health care spending in the US is actually higher than that of France or the UK, and yet visits to the doctor per capita are lower in the US than most other countries.
So I'm not convinced spending a little less on tax and a lot more on insurance is a good deal. There are areas where it is morally better, and cheaper, to help those well off than you, and one of those is healthcare.
Here in France some regions will charge for helicopter rescue, seeing as it costs them a bundle to keep the choppers maintained and flying. So, most people who go hiking, climbing or mountain biking have some kind of insurance that covers that eventuality. It's not compulsory, but I think my sports insurance - which covers just about every insane extreme sport you can imagine - costs about 25 Euro a year, so it's not exactly a huge cost, compared receiving a 20 or 30 thousand Euro bill for a chopper rescue.
No. You clearly have no idea what "equal" means, but 1000 is not equal to 10,000.
Had you said "fairly" here, you could have a point, but since fairness is subjective, that idea is only marginally less ridiculous.
No, they do not. You are wrong.
They get billed for services that are sent and rendered after 911 is called. The difference is not semantic.
Exactly, you know you're wrong and demonstrate it here.
They never found him. How can they charge for a service when they did not complete it. They could easily just be making up the number. They could be charging for use of 10 helicopters, when only used one for an hour. In the business world, this wouldn't fly. "Excuse me ma'am we only started to build your house, and we're done. Here is your bill for the full amount anyway."
People would call for help too late and get into more trouble may SAR personal contend.
In Colorado costs are generally only levied when the SAR is associated with a crime. Most often this deliberate trespassing into a narked dangerous area.
They mean exempt from labor laws, not exempt from taxes... would be nice though, lol.
Did they always charge for searches, and if so, shouldnt she get a discount for the unrelated wrecks they found as a result? Also, if they are charging, is there some quality measure, I mean if you must pay for the search, then why no discount for finding dead vs. finding alive?
They bill for search and rescue. If he was flying an experimental aircraft... bill him. You same folks crying about this scream for the gov't to soak the rich... here's your opportunity!
You want the sacred and holy writ of Jarvis Gann to forever guide this state? You want your property taxes fixed at a low level forever? You want to make it politically impossible for cities to raise these taxes? Then prepare to pay fees for services.
I remember what it was like before the voters in this state thought they could create a free lunch. You definitely would *not* have been charged for that ride pre-1978
For the sake of non-californians, your assessed value is fixed at purchase price (for long term owners a fraction of current value), can go up by no more than 2% a year, and takes a 2/3 vote to change any of this.
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
but typically only when the pockets are very deep. Let me explain...
I am a member of the local volunteer fire department in my community. The board of directors (where I am also a member) operates on a budget of about $100,000 annually. That seems like a lot of money until you consider insurance, fuel, training, personal protective equipment... and the fact that new fire trucks are well over $250k.
On the average house fire or car wreck, we don't bill. The thought process is that county levy money and donated funds pay for us to operate on a daily basis. Out for a few hours on routine calls falls under daily operations.
However, we have had some major incidents where we were tied up for several hours or even days. There are mouths to feed, fuel for the trucks, and equipment that gets damaged or destroyed. Those incidents fall outside of the daily scope of practice, and we actually loose big money on those. When the local Dollar Store burnt down (thanks to a 18-year old female arsonist), our actual cost was about $3k to $4k. That's a huge chunk of our budget and we can't absorb that without cutting services or equipment elsewhere. So, we billed the store's insurance agency and were reimbursed rather quickly.
Now in this case, I'd think that the state would be able to absorb the cost easily. I feel that the state (or other agencies) saw Fossett's really deep pockets and felt they could be easily reimbursed. But, being reimbursed from Fossett's estate/wife may result in those same agencies being able to afford to provide that same level of service when the lost person is someone with a much lower income.
Just my two cents...
That's one of the most glaringly stupid things about how society works. It's not high up on the list, but it's the most overlooked one. I honestly don't understand how anyone can get anything done, unless they have all the places they do business with very close to their workplace so they can rush to them during lunch hour, and the the cashier/retail person/whatever works like a Formula One pit mechanic. Since I started working regular day hours last year, I've been unable to get pretty much anything in my personal life done. I can't think of a better solution right now, but there certainly much be something better than this. In a best case scenario, you'll get 6 weeks vacation per year. Is a person supposed to be able to take care of a year's worth of backed up tasks in this time? (Some vacation, eh?)
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Who is Bill Fossett?
"So basically, if a fire occurs, my best bet is to not call the fire department but try to put it out myself, which of course risks having it spread and burn down half the city."
Exactly Correct! Similarly, since we have no public healthcare plan, if you catch the plague, just treat it yourself. Be self-sufficient. Lift yourself by your own bootstraps.
A false report wastes money and risks lives. I dunno.. I probably wouldnt have a problem with the $500/per person. But it seems like they are inserting a rich person rule to try to get extra money here. I am far from rich, however it seems somewhat unfair, especially considering her husband is now dead.
I had to read the summary a couple of times before I could figure out the headline. I kept thinking "Who the hell is Bill Fossett and why are there so many prepositions and not a single verb here?"
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Sorry, your argument does not hold.
Charity is a _choice_, which by the way is something I do.
My argument was (and still is) that people shouldn't be given a free ride. There are poor-er people out there who are completely irresponsible with money, have kids just to collect bigger welfare paychecks and the such. Why? Because the system encourages it.
I work 80 hours on average in any given _week_ (3 jobs!), I barely spend time with my family, and we're doing "just ok", not great, "ok". Why? Because I get shafted in taxes, pay for everything everywhere ($300 to get a restraining order for a pedophile who broke into our backyard, didn't even get the order and paid the fee because I make "too much" to use the court system!) and what not.
It's not about selfishness, but who's to say people _must_ give? Religion? Morally? What?
When was it _my_ problem that you smoke crack all day/drink and fucked up your life so much? Why do I have to support you? I got _three_ jobs, can't you at least fucking try and get one?
What pisses me off even more is that people _live_ off welfare/unemployment and they don't even try. I'm fine with the system helping those who are having a tough go and needing a helping hand to "GET BACK ON TRACK", but not the ones who live off of it.
I have very little sympathy for those who don't try in America, I lived in other countries (some in Africa) where I saw what _real_ poverty is about. Where people wake up everyday thinking not [what] but "How am I going to eat today?" versus "I wish my welfare check would get here so I can get that new TV or some weed or whatever".
This system is bound to collapse, companies are getting fed up with being over-taxed and under-serviced and they're moving more and more jobs off-shores (some are just greedy, but still), which means (guess what!) more people on unemployment, and if they like it enough, welfare.
The wealthy don't have a problem, they pay insane amount of taxes, but if the government takes $4 million out of the $10 million you made, you are not starving.
It's people like me who are trying to make something for themselves and are stuck in the middle class who get shafted by our fucked up tax system to support the lazy and bail out the wealthy.
(same AC)
The logical consequence of this is that people will:
1. Be reluctant to report a missing person missing since it could cost them money
2. Only Anonymously report people missing to not expose themselves financially
3. Report people missing but ask or refuse to get involved with the search to not expose themselves financially
4. Fill in your favorite set of twisted choices here.
To sum up, people with medium amounts of money may be inclined to odd behavior with missing persons.
ug.
"But I'm happy as a taxpayer to cover the cost of the rich, whether they are flying to the moon, or various world excursions, they earned that, and it's our duty to pay for their mistakes, why, we bailed out the failed NY banks, so the execs could get their fat bonuses, why, what else is the american taxpayer for?".
Cat bit your tongue?
The difference is the taxes you pay don't cover the "extraordinary costs" associated with this type of service. These people aren't paid to go out searching for someone for weeks on end, they're paid to provide services to a specific area. When they get
College-Pages.com - Online Colleges, Degrees, and Programs