Ranch Liability

I went on vacation (with my wife and daughters) to a ranch (Rankin Ranch) last week.  The main activity is riding horses.  All guests have to sign a liability waiver which says something to the effect that we indemnify, hold harmless, and promise not to sue regardless of what happens during any and all activities (including horseback riding) while on the ranch.  Even though I'm well aware of the substantial danger of riding a horse, I was perfectly happy to sign that form and accept the risk.

I was talking with the ranchers, and they still have a large and very expensive liability insurance policy which imposes a number of restrictions on the types of horseback riding that's acceptable (for example, it's okay to gallop, but the guests have to be in a straight line while doing so) and the ranchers are still extremely worried about losing the ranch to lawyers because some guest gets hurt.

I don't know that much about liability law.  Why does the ranch need to be concerned with liability if everyone has signed a liability waiver?

Sailing, Sailing

I'm leaving this weekend for a family sailing vacation in the British Virgin Islands.  We're renting a 37 foot sailboat and will sail hither and thither around the islands for a week.  Hopefully, we won't run into any pirates!

Happy Holidays!

I See London, I See France...

Off to London, Paris, and Southern France for three weeks to give the kids a chance to see a bit of the world.

No blogging for me during that period, but maybe my coblogger will step up to the plate.

I'm Back!

Okay, not quite completely, absolutely caught up, but getting there, with enough time for an occasional comment on my favorite blogs to read (known as the post-Judd Alliance over at The Daily Duck).

Not only did I not post or comment anywhere for the last five months, but I didn't read any news at all either. Now that I've started looking at the news again, I'm amazed at how little I missed. We're still in Iraq, we haven't invaded North Korea or Iran yet, Peter Burnet hasn't posted in months, the economy is still pretty decent, global warming is still a hot topic - life goes on.

Even the news that happened elicited such utterly predictable responses. For example, the Virginia Tech shooting resulted in gun control proponents claiming that if only more strict gun control had been implemented, it would have never happened, and pro-gun folk claiming if that only concealed weapon permits were easier to obtain, the carnage would have been greatly limited. The instant I heard about the shooting I knew such bloviations would result. What I would've like to have heard was something like the following: yeah, the shooting is a shame, but the odds of dying in a shooting spree by a madman with a gun is several orders of magnitude less likely than dying in an automobile accident, so perhaps this sort of thing should not instigate any further policy actions since such actions are about as likely to cause harm as good.

I don't get a daily newspaper and I haven't had one for at least ten years. In fact, other than Technology Review, which seems to arrive complimentary because of a small annual donation I give to MIT, I haven't gotten any dead tree media for quite some time. You'd almost think I was an environmentalist or something.

Given that nothing seems to happen when I miss months of news, I feel pretty confident in the decision not to worry about news on a daily basis.