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I seriously doubt it would be the highest total tax burden. For example, CA has a high income tax and a high sales tax, as does NY. I'm not familiar with other states. And I think it was more Locke (and to use a frequent Greg W dodge) the state legislature that foisted the Mariner's stadium on us, and didn't "we" vote overwhelmingly in favor of that stupid Seahawk's stadium. I think you're using deceptive marketing practices there FF. Was Sims responsible for the design of the EMP too? As for Greg's Sims objections: Fuck "homeless people are scary" Bothell. Though I don't know much about it, I share your distaste for the lightrail thing. Sims' disregard for a sizeable minority of the populace reeks of GWB in that case. Don't know anything about King County parks. I thought it was Seattle City Parks that got shut down, but like I said, I don't know about it.

Stop drifing my thread! You already have a current thread for federal taxation stuff! By the way, primary is today, where if you choose to vote on democrats you can choose between Sims and that dumbass AG who lost the state (Us!) millions of dollars because she was late filing an appeal.

Agreeing with Greg's desire that we leave the fed's hands off our money, and attempting to heed Peter's plea to stop drifting his thread, I thought I'd post a new one here about Ron Sims' campaign platform centerpiece; New tax system for WA state: 1. Remove sales tax 2. Remove B & O tax 3. Institute State income tax I'm thinking this idea has something for everyone: shifting tax from sales to income taxes the poor proportionally less (makes us lefties happy). Removing business and occupation tax makes the righties happy. And finallly, here's the kicker, by shifting tax to income tax, we get to write off our state tax on our federal returns (can't do that with sales tax, or at least not easily) and GIVE LESS MONEY TO THE GODDAMNED FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!!! Pretty cool huh? Discuss.

You wanna talk about government handouts and overbearing government regulation, let's discuss what the federal government is doing for the drug industry by actively prohibiting US consumers' access to the prescription drug market.

Agreed. I came to that same conclusion while walking up to the Tooth one day last Spring. Once you decide that it's not reasonable to prohibit these people's choice of recreation (hard mixed climbing), then you have to concede that they should be allowed somewhere to apply their craft. The Alpental valley seems like as good a place as any, and a way more fitting place than many. The National Forest is a "Land of Many Uses". Mixed climbers oughta get their chunk.

stupid Bush, stupid Kerry. I am so depressed. What do you think of Ron Sims's tax proposal Peter?

Joseph, I agree with you that you should know what each other are doing. That is the best and most safe, especially when pushing your limits. What I don't agree with is that any specific method of racking and turning over the gear is going to make the difference between life and death. Too often, newbie climbers get concerned that they are so damn slow. They are hoping for some grand shortcut like "special gear turnover method" that is going to shave down their climbing times by 50%. I think this thread is based on this premise. My point was that if you concentrate on what you are doing, and like AlpineK said, always make sure you are doing something to move the team along, then no matter what the specific racking method is, you are going to save maybe 2 minutes max per pitch. Gear racking <=> life or death? No, I don't think you believe that either, we probably just put words in your mouth. Not being in synch with partner <=> life or death. That's probably what you meant. But usually the lack of synch won't be fatal because most people will not be pushing the life and death envelope when climbing with someone they don't work well with (if they know what's good for them). Sure you could die in some freak happenstance, but you could also die from objective hazard with your best in-synch partner.

Excellent TR Fast and light! Car to car! Dirty hippy, nice dog.

Life or death!? You climb pitch. Partner follows and cleans pitch. When your partner is anchored at the belay you give him/her the sling/racking device thingy with all your leftover gear on it. Your partner, arranges it the way he/she likes it and combines with gear he/she cleaned. On a free-climb, this can really only take so long, 2 minutes, 3 tops. Sure it's nice to have some shortcuts, but it's not that big of an issue. What slows a team down much more than having to rearrange the rack is failing to focus on getting the changeover task done, wasting time doing nothing cause your scared or thinking about something else. And of course, leading and climbing slowly.

I suggest using a bandanna over your face to inhibit the inhalation of lichen particles

I think the problem is that in the large states, if there is a close vote (FLA anyone?), that a huge number of people (the losing half) are effectively disenfranchised.

Allright! A post not dogpiling on Merv! Will Strickland for President 2004! Noone has come out of the woodwork saying it is acceptable to leave your draws up there. I am certainly not going to either. I will add some facts(?) specific to this discussion though. First, from viewing the routes from below, they don't appear to be so continuously overhanging as to make cleaning the draws on rappel very difficult. At the worst I think it may be inconvenient to get to the top anchors (climb another line? downclimb and/or rap through some icky trees?) Alex could probably fill us in on this. Second, I don't believe this alleged eyesore has been there since last winter as I walked/skied by there a couple times this spring and didn't see any fixed draws or ropes (though I was able to find the bolts and chains). Exit 38 is an ugly place indeed. I would hate to have this relatively beautiful placed soiled by a mess like they have there. I doubt it is currently in danger of such trashing since most of the use of these Source Lake crags occurs during the winter when the base area is protected by the snowpack. It could get pretty bad though if the crag gets more developed and an ethic of leaving lots of gear takes hold. I really hope this doesn't happen. ETA: It appears that I was not even looking at the route under discussion, thus at least one, maybe both, of my "facts" added here were incorrect . Apparently the route is quite overhanging, so getting draws on it and off it (on rap) would be a bitch. And since I wasn't looking at the correct route, I may have missed the offending items. If the draws have been there since last winter, it can't be too terribly obtrusive, since I missed seeing it on all 4 Tooth jaunts this year. Still would hate to see this "leaving the draws hanging thing" become the prevailing ethic up there. I hope it was just a mistake.

Not sure what you mean by the pass between Overcoat and Chimney, but we climbed Chimney many years back from the North side, and approached via the valley below the N faces of the Summit Chief group. Very nice approach (one sorta sketchy part), and a beautiful bivy just East of the overcoat glacier.

harpell, You asked where the platforms were. Ralph showed you were both parties have posted them on the internet (a great tool for disseminating information!). You got snitty because you thought that the candidates themselves should be voicing their platforms. Ralph showed you that Kerry stated many positions of his platform right in his speech, that you implied that you watched! It makes me wonder why you are posting this question? I am curious if Bush will actually outline something in his speech tonight about any part of his party's platform besides, "September 11, 2001!!" Do you think he will mention the constitutional ammendment banning same-sex marriage? I have heard nothing of that in any speeches so far.

Park at first pullout after the first big wash after the Taylor River bridge. Hike down the road about 50 feet then cut up through the forest and find the well trodden trail just across a small creek at the base of a small waterfall. On the route follow the bolts. Don't get overly fixated on pitch numbers because everybody who does it seems to get different pitch counts for different places (you will understand why once you climb it). When you're at the base of the big chossy slab (you will know this because you are 1. at a two-bolt belay station 2. you've just climbed a pitch that's starting to look a bit dirtier than the rest of the climb and there were only two bolts or so on the pitch. 3. the "pitch" above looks flatter and chossier than the rest of the climb so far. 4. you don't see any bolts above you 5. there is a "hummock" with bushes and grass just above you and to your right.) When you get to this spot, look up and right past the hummock and locate the relatively large (3 foot high) bush about 120 feet away. Straight above that bush about 100 feet is a two-bolt belay anchor. Note that 100' + 120' is probably longer than the lengths of your ropes. Plan accordingly. My apologies for the SYO (Spoiled Your Onsight).

What does it have to do with being gay though? Was Lincoln gay? Are people who live in log cabins gay?

I doubt it's rift inducing. I think it's publicized in an obvious attempt to make the GOP ticket at least palatable to those log-cabin repubs. Why the hell do they use the "log-cabin" moniker anyway?

Saturday - my first visit to Safeco Field Sunday - North Ridge Columbia Peak. Excellent weather both days! Can't understand how all you guys got so wet?!

Climb: Columbia Peak-North Ridge Date of Climb: 8/29/2004 Trip Report: Jeff Hansel and I climbed Columbia Peak via the North Ridge yesterday. We biked then hiked up to Glacier Basin. Very nice up there. We came across a camp of bitter-looking people in the bog. They looked really wet. We scrambled up rocky buttresses then cramponed up for a bit of glacier right before Wilman's Gap. The snow/ice is quite hard. Actually had to cross a snow bridge at the bergshrund. At the top there were two choices of notch to ascend to. We took the left (poor choice?) since the right (lower) notch had about 20 feet of steep choss to get to it. The left was easier to get to, but it was very ugly getting back down the other side, 300 feet of so of slippery, wet, sandy, crumbly, steep gully . Not fun. Anyway, we finally made it down to the '76 Glacier by about 1pm, and were climbing the ridge by 1:30. We climbed a couple of short pitches up a face to gain the ridge. North Ridge route. Summit is upper left in clouds. The ridge was mostly pretty easy, sometime precipitious. The highlights were the constant views and a slab and crumbly towers about halfway through. slab and crumbly towers views We summited at 4:20 pm summit celebration We pored through the summit register and found this interesting note. history of spray We descended the standard (West Ridge) route, and took the Twin Lakes trail back. Back to the bikes a bit before 8pm. No headlamps required (barely). Pretty fun and adventurous day. Not a lot of technical climbing, more of a Klenke-type climb. Gear Notes: Single 50m 8.5 rope. Doubled for 2.5 short pitches to gain ridge. Small rack. Crampons, ice axes. Approach Notes: Don't do Wilman's Gap this time of year (probably much nicer when filled with snow).

Off, If he/she is planning on approaching from Teanaway, then there usually is a snowfield on the North side of Goat Pass. I think that's what Woland is asking about, "Is there still any snow there; and if so, do I need dee-vices?" As for the snow in the Cascadian: if there is any, it can be avoided. One can hike down the buttress that comes off the false summit and separates the Cascadian from Ulrich's. Then, once below the snowfield, one can downclimb or rap into the Cascadian.

We did it in July last year. As that picture shows, it's fairly steep snow up high, then there's a huge flat runout at the bottom. We didn't have crampons, but did have axes. In hindsight we didn't need the axes (the snow was very soft), but they were nice to have (useful on CC descent too), and I wouldn't count on the snow being that soft again. Looks like you can probably downclimb some ugly rock to avoid the steepest part? Why are you doing the East variation? Is it your goal to bypass the only interesting pitches? I'll bet you change your mind when you see it.

Yeah shit! This is almost as bad as not allowing people to smoke in office buildings!!!

link doesn't work :sad: