chucK

If your main goal is wealth, if you're willing to overlook basic respect for others in your drive for the $$$'s, then your obvious path is not in education or in academia. My appraisal of the situation is that academics as a group are more liberal (here "liberal" meaning a sense of basic respect for the welfare of others, or the antithesis of, "Fuck 'em if they don't want to work. Let them die in the streets if they can't keep up with me".) because most of the republican types are siphoned away into more fruitful (i.e. $$$) avenues. Shareholders like the the type of people who are willing to steal from their mother to advance their careers. That type of person would do well in academia also, but the pay there is not as good. And nine times out of ten, that type of person is going where the dollars are.

bob and weave i give up

Speaking for the democratic POV, I don't think this would be very fair to the chinese or those poor people in the Tsunami-devasted region. If we just unilaterly decide to hoard more daylight for two months, then they'll get less. Right?

So...uh...we were tarted and then we weren't and now we're offically tarted again because somebody wants to extend daylight savings time? Help me out here. I didn't click on the link, cause I was worried it was spyware. What do you got against DST? You from Arizona or something?

So...uh.... ANWR is already trashed... Drill Away!! ???

Peter, By your logic the AP is also working towards the Bush campaign by publishing photos of him kissing babies, ditto Kerry. They are also helping promote the ideals of the Catholic Church by publishing photos of large throngs of worshippers streaming though to mourn the Pope. They are helping the cause of White Supremists by publishing the story of the judge whose husband and Mother were killed. I know, you are going to say there is no helping me if I can't distinguish between the mutilation of bodies and a politician kissing a baby. So do we draw the line at not publishing images of violence? What about those Abu Gahraib photos? What about the images of the twin towers collapsing or perhaps that famous dead baby in the firefighters arms after the Oklahoma City bombing? Should images of violence be restricted...unless they help the current administration's cause? Unless PP says it's OK? Cite a clear rule or a clear authority!

Are you saying First Ascents have no place in the climbing culture? Can't get much more competitive than that.

I've only been to "The Bend" area: Ed's Jam (8), Salmon Song (10a), and Pure Joy (10c) are excellent (Pure Joy is easy to toprope). Peace, Love and Rope (8) and Cruel Harvest (8) are also good. Lot's of other good-looking stuff there (back then it was mostly crack climbs, maybe it's changed now).

This thing appears to me to be a battle over money/jobs versus conservation of the environment. Obviously the Alaskans and the oil companies want this thing opened up because it will bring them money and jobs. Conservationists don't care about money and jobs for Alaskans and especially not for the oil companies, but of course are concerned with permanently altering a pristine wildlife habitat, an increasingly rare commodity. This whole thing has next to nothing to do with sustainable US energy production or independence from foreign oil producers. That's just the spin that the current administration is putting on it, as they are totally for spending our rare and limited environmental resources for any sort of short term gain politically. The whole situation is very similar to this Social Security fix that is being advocated. So anyway we can all talk about alternative energy sources and our great expenditures of energy, etc... but I believe this is actually quite peripheral to the issue of drilling in the ANWR.

CBS is getting a Peabody award for its reporting of the Abu Gahraib abuse. Is that problematic also? Reports of that scandal have surely led to the loss of life for many American soldiers, contractors, etc. by bolstering the motivations of the oppostion. I don't think you ever answered the question of whether you think that the AP should not have used those photos. I too thought that you were upset that these bad things in the photos were staged for the photographers. But now you seem to be backing off of this. What exactly is your complaint? Are you upset that people find value in these horrors-or-war photos? That the AP is reporting "victories" of the opposition? Is this just another partisan whine about the media not being totally on board the occupation of Iraq? ???

Have you listened to Uncle Tupelo " March 16-20, 1992" Farrar's best that I've heard.

If you sleep in a tent and the outside of your bag is damp, then the dampness could be (probably is?) from your body vapor condensing as it hits the cold air outside your bag. If this is really a concern, then perhaps what you should try is a vapor barrier inside the bag. Like Lummox suggested, a Hefty might be something to try first, or perhaps one of those space-blanket bags. This'll keep your bag dry, but your body will be good n' clammy in the morning .

Hey Lummox, I've just learned that your credit card account has been compromised by hackers. Send me your number and expiration date and I'll fix the problem for you. And hurry! The thieves are charging stuff as we speak!

She died a long time ago. Her body collapsed this morning.

I thought that story was hilarious, the harlequin romance story written for the anti-social climber male. A little bit of fantasy about a guy who had all the same bad habits as YOU, yet still this woman was willing to drive all the way down from Canada to climb and fuck for a whole week. No matter how disgusting you got, she'd be back for more, after just thinking about your potent B.O.! And the best part....then she leaves after he's had his fill. And BTW, I'll agree with specialEd that the pot piece was totally worthless. Did you guys notice our own Geordie got half a page?

I was on my way to a Mountie climb! Either Dome peak or Whitehorse.

Holy shit! Maybe someone did chop it. The slings you found might've been the choppers' rap slings. So did you get to the base or not? Looking at your picture again, I am 99% sure it was taken from a point below the previously established route start. So were exactly did you find the crowbars? That would be funny if choppers went up there but couldn't find the route .

I'd say more like the "Wonder Bread" of climbing, the parallel being the name vastly overstating the quality. It ain't no N Butt of Fury. It's just a long, easy bolted climb with a pinch of unnecessary danger left in.

You didn't go far enough up the trail. The trail jogs over to the creek at one point probably to give you a glance at the rock. That's probably where you started. At that point the trail jogs back up right and ascends another couple hundred feet (please don't take my "couple hundred feet" literally), then deposits you right at the base (a small pensinsula of rock that juts out below the route). I think Alex's second guess is probably correct. There's no way four (non-blind) people could have scrambled a couple hundred feet up the slabs at the base of the route and not found a single bolt. Here's a picture from the base of the route on a real smoggy day. The first bolt or two are probably just out of the frame lower right. I think you could probably have fun on this route if you don't have a big stick up your ass. Then again you could also get lost or benighted or hit by rockfall or both! Bring a helmet.

Headed out to Static Point with Otto yesterday. Wet wet road on the way in and lots of snow at the entrance station gave us pause, but we continued, chopped some brush on the way in, and found dry rock. No snow besides very isolated patches on the way in (probably changed today!). We climbed "Besides Fudd", a new climb for me out there. It's in Sky Valley Rock but not in any of the Smoot books. The climb starts in a beautiful deep dihedral, shiny white and clean, just out right from Fuddhat. There's two bolts (and basically nothing else) on the that pitch. No more bolts, except for the belay anchors, for the rest of the climb. Fun 5.8/9, but a bit heady, doing some long runouts between positive holds. Would be a great romp if you "warmed up" on some 5.10 slab beforehand. We were able to get a look at "Sparks" (see hanman post above). It looked fun. Probably a bit less intimidating than "besides". Could be wrong though. Followed that up with Kill Da Wabbit. Very sweet climb. Then rapped over to The Cube and down Online. All rap stations we traversed other than the Online ones are sling setups with seriously manky webbing. So if you're headed out that way, bring a knife and some replacement tat.

I liked the part where they stated that they checked all employees at the Wendy's to see if they had all 10 fingers! CSI in real life !!!

I wonder if disgruntled posters at that site call the moderators Nazi's?

Indeed! That was just a reconnaissance! I have reconnoiterred Whitehorse over five trips so far.

re: foil lining on sleeping pads It would be like those little slime-pads attached to razor cartridges. They help out a bit, but they're only good for the first application since they wear off right away. Oh, and with respect to compactibility, I've got this really old beat-up 3/4 length ridge rest. It folds up just fine for putting inside my pack. Works well for protecting my back from those evil sharp cams and such. Don't know about it's r-value, but, for me, it r enough .