chucK

Minor point maybe but with respect to what the stories are saying right now, but I'd quibble with "made it out" and instead use "survived". Also, I would heartily agree with "determined", but the jury is still out on "crafty". I am really interested in hearing more of this story. I hope it becomes available. Incredible survival story as it sounds now .

mad cow stir fry

We went to that destination resort Summit Central! After finding out that the rope-tow ticket was not going to keep anybody happy (even my daughter who had never put skis on before) we took the big cash plunge and "upgraded" to real lift tix. The end of the day my daughter was linking "pizza" turns, and my son who just started last year was cruising down that flatty blue square up there. I see good things to come!

I'm not totally familiar with the parking lot geography up there, but could this possibly be the result of the bridge being broken? With that broken bridge, is it now the case that the lower lot is the least convenient with respect to the lifts. Perhaps all this hoopla is just about the Summit reserving the best parking spots for their clientele?

Ditto. We found a very tight rap sling around a tree on "The Back Road", a climb at Index. I did have a knife and when I cut it, it exploded with a very loud pop.

I was under the impression that the story was non-fiction. I guess my suspension of disbelief was pretty well set!

His "second" wife probably poisoned him and set it up to look like a suicide, killing him and shaming her rival (for his estate) in the process. Talk about surival of the fittest!

Here's to you too. Have a good one

The Wall Street Journal excerpts (?) are interesting. One thing I guess it shows is that current nanny-state restrictions don't seem to be able stem the Coke and McDonald's sales and advertising. The problem with a coke machine in the schools is not that it provides access to something they will obviously be able to get elsewhere. The problem lies in the message it's sending to the kids. That the school, the organization that is a major symbol of authority in their lives, is promoting and profiting off of kids drinking Coke. If we have any chance of dampening overconsumption, that you point out is the root cause of the problem, then our best most realistic chance lies in educating our kids and society that a healthy diet and exercise are important. If our educators are part of the cabal pushing the liquid candy I think we are in big trouble. No. Banning coke machines from the schools is similar to prohibiting school administrators from pimping out the 8th grade girls to the 7th grade boys.

Food consumption is a voluntary act, I doubt we are going to agree on much if one of our baselines is not "survival is good". and that to a certain extent the innability to regulate food consumption will be associated with an innability to regulate other aspects of one's behavior, and that these traits will often manifest themselves in other aspects of these people's lives as well - which ultimately leads to a moderate correlation between obesity and a low SES. Don't you think a big contributor is ignorance of a healthy diet and the fact that non-nutritious foodstuffs are so much less expensive and so much more prevalent? but for a certain percentage of people who are both poor and obese I suspect the two conditions are not entirely unrelated. agreed, but as I wrote above I think that this might be partly a vicious circle. The state of being poor also contributes in itself to an unhealthy diet. As far as kids are concerned, if someone has obese children (as in a couple of standard deviations beyond the normal allowance for baby fat) the parents - and not the folks marketing food towards them - are responsible for not regulating their children's diet and exercise properly. Agreed. Parents should be looking after their kids. One of the tasks in looking after your kids is safeguarding them from predators. The people marketing coke and sugar pops to your kids are predators. We should go down to the high school and hack up the coke machines installed by the school district with the same axe used on the predatory sex offender who attempts to abduct one of our kids. I'd be interested in seeing the statistics that show no effect of "nanny state" prohibitions in Sweden. Has the study been going on long enough to possibly show any conclusions? I'm not calling for prohibitions on selling sweets and non-nutritious foods. Like cigarettes and alchohol, it's the abusers who are the main victims and buyer beware is the mantra of unhindered capitalism. But you're certainly not going to get me to say that the pushers who thrive on selling this crap are helping our society.

So I guess you don't think behavioral traits are linked to genetic makeup? For example, the "laziness" that you imply causes both the obesity and the low SES. I agree with you that one factor in the obesity epidemic is the ready access to calories (or foods with high "energy density" as in that article above). But you seem to be saying that this is not the real problem, that the main reason people are obese is because they are lazy. I think there's no getting around the fact that there just ARE lazy people. Just dismissing people as Lazy isn't going to be solving any problems, except for maybe the consciences of those people who are making money by marketing cokes and sugar pops to kids.

Yeah shit! Enough of this pertinent information from people who know what they're talking about. I'd much rather read mindless and/or misleading speculation!

Maybe you should rephrase that as "If you don't wanna read the shit I post ..." The "my shit" part is obviously disingenuous

I read the article yesterday and all it said was "this is not terrorist related " and "because the cow was injured it was not destined to be slaughtered" . This was a big point in Fast Food Nation, that rules such as not using diseased, injured, dead cattle for meat production are routinely flaunted. Check out that link today. Obviously the story has morphed. Also check out this one. The cow was slaughtered. The initial reports of "no worries just one cow" blah blah blah appear now to have been just another cover story? Or are the new worries just media hype? Appears either way it's already hurt the US beef industry. Seven countries, so far, have banned the import of US beef. Hey RobBob, is it still "not PC" to eat beef now that Fox News is doing a story on BSE in the US?

You seem to be contradicting yourself here.

attention grubbing drama queen

I like some of those videos. The part with the bobbing headlamp in space is pretty effective (Forbidden vid I think). Makes me wanna shell out some dough to get those guys to haul my ass up those things .

It's probably all Pope and Dwayner's faults for bitching about those bolts on the Rapp Wall

If you thought Trask's writing was funny check this out

Hey Trask I never took you for one of those efeminate sissies that reads Dave Barry!

beautiful post

Maybe a good idea would be to do something about the "ever-spiraling cost of health care" first before we decide to start killing people because the bills are too high.

JayB, I agree that "those were different times" and even if you don't agree with what went on then, it is not a slam-dunk to attempt to tar and feather the current administration with the misdeeds of a previous one. What stinks is that we are getting one rationalization after another for why we have invaded Iraq. The current version is that Sadam is a terrible evil guy, who does terrible stuff. Even for you this must smack as completely disingenuous when juxtaposed with the fact that the movers and shakers of the current administration were actually facilitating many Sadam's misdeeds just two decades ago.

One more event pointing to the theory that the Bush administration's purpose in this world is to line the pockets of its buddies. Excerpt: "Countries that did not back the U.S.-led coalition that toppled Saddam Hussein this year will not be eligible to compete for $18.6 billion worth of contracts, according to U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz."