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I hate those damn tailgating Christians

Voters so disconnected with reality that even though they hate littering will vote for Bush. "Mercury! It's what's for dinner!"

I can understand people being protective of their children with respect to other adults disciplining them, but sometimes they gotta try to accurately assess the situation. One time I was at McDonald's in the playland screaming hellbox and I looked up from whatever I was trying to read and saw some bigger kid sitting on my son's chest and taunting him while my son was losing it (scared). So I run over there and lift the kid off of mine and we go back to our table and get calmed down. A while later some irate grandma is bitchin' at me for scaring her kid! For lifting him I guess . Tough luck lady. I am such a bully. Corollary on those who don't park between the white lines. What about those stupid parking lots that assume everyone has an '86 Civic or something? REI to name one place, the pool over by my house for another. We do not have a giant car (it is a Buick, but it's not THAT big), and it barely fits in those spots. If someone tries to park an SUV anywhere around, fuggedaboutit, you're climbing out the sunroof.

I think it's pretty funny that for a long time now people bitch about out-of-control dogs and threaten to kill dogs and some tough guy or sensitive dog lover responds with, "you should shoot the owner, not the dogs, it wasn't their fault, blah blah blah". So now someone has! And so now, you tough sensitive dog-lover types can respond with, "you should shoot the owner, like that nut in Arizona, blah blah blah"

pakistan

Qooh yeah. We've really got things under control in Pakistan. Do you even read the real news?

Thank you for supporting our troops.

It diverted us from taking them out in Afghanistan, and ties up our military from reacting to them anywhere other than Iraq. It has lowered our standing in the world to such a low that we have less political power to find Al Qaeda in other countries. All the wonderful PR has bred Al Qaeda recruits and sympathizers.

If the guy was threatened by the dogs, he should have shot the dogs. Course, then he probably would've got in much more trouble.

"It's a take on the idiots who trump up minor flaws and use them to overshadow the greater good." Minor flaws = couple thousand dead or injured americans. Greater good = avenging Bush father, dropping the ball on Al Qaeda and making us all more vulnerable to terrorists "It's a stab at morons who cry about the injustices of Abu Grhaib, and use them as examples of the failures, rather than talk of the good." I have not characterized Abu Grhaib as a failure; rather, as an inevitable consquence of this war. That this war was ever prosecuted is the failure. "It's a call for the naysayers to shut the hell up and do some good, rather than sit within the safety the troops provide and criticize them." We can all do some good if we get us out of there, or at the very least get our incompetent commander in chief out of there. "It's a call for people like you to don a uniform and serve your country," Unless you're over there right now, this sounds pretty damn hollow.

I stand by my comments. Apparently you think there was something more there than an attempt to support the war in Iraq by criticizing those who would decry the problems with it, and by minimizing the damages by comparing it to a much bloodier spectacle. I'm curious, as to what your take on that piece, if you really think that my interpretation is flawed. Please, see if you can conjure up a cliff-note version for me as you seemed to have offered in your condescending way.

More Cinder Cone testimonials

ditto on #2. It would make life so more simple and easy to follow the rules if everyone just waited to merge 'til it was time. Otherwise you have to wonder about all those boners who wait in the long line, if they're gonna get bent out of shape. As for #3, sounds like a sorta annoying thing, but would you rather the problem just go away, as it sounds like it did, or would you rather view some guy losing it with his kid? I'm curious, cause I'll be getting all bent out of shape with my kids in a public place, and then I'll start worrying if people are getting more imposed upon by having to witness family squabblin' and the one-step away from child abuse deal. And as far as the dumbass NW traffic people go, I think people driving like clueless wanderers is only really terrible if you're in a major hurry. I mean, if you didn't get stuck behind that guy going 55 in the 60 lane, it probably is going to cost you 5 minutes MAX. Probably more like 20 seconds. What bugs me is people who get aggro imposing their rules of the road on people who are in essence not inconveniencing them either at all or very minorly. Here's a grocery store pet peeve: the blatantly confusing value/volume labeling under the prices, where they have like the cheerios listing is $/ounce, the sfway rolled oats is listed as $/pound, and then the next smaller box is listed in $/pint or number of o's or something ridiculous like that.

Yeah shit! We're nowhere NEAR 600K dead yet! Bring it on... and onner and onner. Why be deterred?!! Were the Soviets deterred in Afghanistan? NO! Were we deterred in Viet Nam? NO! Well, not for like 10 years and many many deaths and we/they were totally losing anyway. Let's return to the simple times of the civil war. Why wallow in recent, more relevant, history when we can think back a century ago of an uplifting example of how we perservered through a half-million dead. woo hoo

I think Icegril's post could be poorly interpreted as to make it sound like the site is a bit money hungry. It's not like cc.com is trying to get money by taking away the titles of those who haven't donated. This just came up in conversation among the moderators, and we reminded ourselves that getting a custom title was supposed to be one of the perks for donating to the site. It seemed a little unfair to those who actually did donate that so many titles were just being given out gratis to people who caught the glint of a moderator's eye. So anyway, we're trying to stick to "the rules" a bit more now.

Perhaps "suspects" is the key word there cheif?

Y'know, I was just at the grocery store, and I was trying to think of some grocery store peeve, cause, y'know, I got a million of 'em, but anyway I was trying to think of what peeved me today and I realized that me and my bonkers kids weren't peeved at anyone cause we were the ones probably peevin' people out. Kids whinging shopping carts through the produce section, tearing around corners, yelling, walking abreast in the aisles, I was always screamin' at 'em. We were really peevin' it up! Oh well,you know what they say!

Yeah. F'n cellphones on the bus. What you do, is, since you have to live inside their airy head anyway the whole damn busride, you just turn around and stare at them. React to their conversation. Y'know, be polite. In fact, you can do this to two people talking on the bus. That can be annoying. There are these two old ladies that ride on the bus I am on sometime in the morning. They just gab it up, nonstop the whole time. Talk frenzy. I guess if you turned around and stared at those two, you'd just become part of the koffee klatsch. Kool.

Yeah, I think that's a pretty high number, especially considering the particularly deadly consequences. Has anybody noticed that the food labels now state whether a product was made with the same machinery as other foods that contain peanuts? I think this would maybe be a stupid rule if we were talking about high school, or all of Canada or something like that. But for elementary schools, I think it makes sense. Kids that age, kindergartners especially, aren't always totally aware of dangers out there, especially those secreted in candy. By the way, this prevalence of peanut allergies is supposedly has been increasing quite rapidly, like prevalence of other allergies and asthma, so saying, "we never worried about that when I was a kid and we all survived" is not exactly relevant in this discussion.

Well sorta. But there's a non-trivial percentage of kids with peanut allergies, many of whom are at risk for fatal reactions (anaphlactic shock). Just checked the web and the estimates of how many kids are susceptible and it looks like they range from 1 to 3%. My kids have consistently had kids in their classes with peanut allergies and it's a real PITA to try to find something else that our kids will eat besides peanut butter to pack in their lunches every day. But just the same, I'd sure appreciate the effort if my kid were at risk for a fatal reaction just because some kid gave him some food accidentally spiked with peanut butter.

Wow Allison, that is quite interesting. I had the idea that ALPS was some sort of yahoo fringe group. Your description makes much more sense with the current reports of the FS bringing the hammer down. Given this history I guess I can understand their slippery slope fears about the IB route and trail. But it is definitely ONLY that. I really don't think IB is going to amount to much impact. The climb just doesn't have that much carrying capacity, the approach is stiff, it's a bit of a daunting effort for a novice/low intermediate climber, and soon the road to the start of the approach is going to be closed at least half the year. If left there, IB is not going to get 1/10 the climbers the Tooth will in the next 10 years. Add this to the fact that as a group, climbers are relatively low impact. Climbers of this route are not even going to have a chance to trash the area like has been done at, say, Smith Rock. The area where IB sits will not allow a proliferation of climbs spread out. The route starts in a small funnel and basically won't allow any variations of interest. I don't think IB is an egregious offense to the Wilderness. It is a route that climbers will value, but should not lead to widespread degradation of the area. It is not in the heart of the wilderness rather, so near the boundary that apparently it might not have even been known to be in Wilderness when the routesetters began work. I must concede that it sounds like it is officially in a the wilderness area. Perhaps its existence does break specific rules. However, I think that if ALPS were to relent on this particular route, because it is NOT an extremely damaging route, because it will be a valued route, that this action could result in goodwill among ALPS and climbers. This would make it much easier for ALPS to work with this WCC that Matt and others have been working to form to prevent climber degradation that may be much more damaging than IB will ever be. Hopefully ALPS will not continue to take the hard line. I think they'll see from this thread that many climbers are supportive of their conservation goals. But I think that by being unnecessarily combative like apparently wanting to extend their jihad against climbers outside the Alpine Lakes to places like Darrington, they will make enemies of potential allies. Maybe they enjoy being hated, but I doubt it. I seems much more constructive to work with groups, be inclusive, perhaps make compromises, but work toward a common goal.

Lava Dome, Cinder Cone interesting.... Yeah, I'm pretty sure they'd do fine. I've done ten mile hikes in 'em. Just bugged my feet sometimes. Course, I don't have a history of broken feet. They seem like they'd be really comfy if they were big enough. They seem to be showing no sign of wear, and I used 'em pretty hard last season.

Yeah! I got some and they rock, for rock climbing. I have slogged through snow in them too. They're OK, but get soaky pretty damn quick. My experience is a bit complicated. I ended up getting them a bit small and it turns out this makes them really great for rock climbing. In fact I don't really notice much of a difference from my rock shoes, but I haven't really tried them on harder (> 5.8) stuff. This does make them a bit uncomfortable on long hikes though; i.e., probably giving myself irrecoverable foot damage doing stuff like N Ridge of Stuart in them. But anyway, I like 'em. Heard they're expensive though. I got 'em on sale at the employee store, so I wouldn't know. edit: oh yeah, and every old skool guy I ever head out into the mountains with comments that they look just like some mythical Nike approach shoe from back in the day that were so indestructible that Nike stopped makin' 'em cause the market was too small for a shoe that people only needed one pair ever of.

What for? Seems like this thread is pretty topical with respect to access issues to me.

Chicks really dig clever guys who know just when to bust out that oh so perfect Monty Python Holy Grail line. Then follow it up with a few more. They really like that. Trust me.