Fairweather

I doubt j_b's compassion extends to hard working people forced from their homes by outrageous property taxes.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. Open the gates and let them flood in! "Free" college education and health care for everyone! Abolish personal responsibility! While Prole is just a little H.D.T. wannabe, I believe j_b is the real (I'll say it...a commie) deal.

Update: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/19/senate-votes-allow-loaded-gun-national-parks/ "To the surprise of many, the amendment easily passed, winning support from 67 senators -- including 27 Democrats. Among those who voted "yes" was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada" WTF? Looks like congressional Democrats are willing to put this one past Obama's executive decision? Am I missing something here? Ghosts of 1994? I remain hopefully suspicious. More to follow...

Great father/son report! This is what life is all about. That sixth picture of your son on the ridge belongs framed on your living room wall. My kid is twenty now and we're heading up Rainier next month.

Thanks for the civil discourse. What you state is also the reason that glacial recession does not necessarily equal ambient warming. There have been a few smaller studies re Greenland that reveal an albedo/soot darkening problem, and until these are reconciled with--and included in--the broader picture, I will remain a skeptic of the CO2 model. Even then, of course, there is the whole Martian icecap thing...

Correlation does not necessarily equal causation. Spoken like a true believer.

I was curious about the albedo argument too. The albedo of Earth is something like .338 and I haven't read that it has changed at all. The CO2 argument is pretty simple: UV light in, IR out. IR is "trapped" (actually, scattered) by CO2, methane, water vapor, etc, on its way back into space, and the planet warms. But it's almost as if this primary argument isn't strong enough to stand alone so these hyper-complex models are heaped upon the premise in the hope that more will be better. Some of these models climatologists have hung their hats on are now collapsing (West Antarctic Ice Sheet just yesterday), and instead of reflection you have this mad rush to do nothing more than patch them up--even to the degree that irreconcilable outcomes are said to be evidence of the models veracity! Again; I would just be happy if people like Josh were at least willing to consider the possibility the science is incomplete--if not seriously flawed. Anything less reeks of an almost-religious zeal.

No. The prescription for CO2 induced warming is radically different from that which calls for reducing atmospheric particulates. What you're describing above is called "do something" disease. Josheph provides four links that read as "yea, buts...". I'm not sure how many flaws in an argument it takes before one is at least willing to question the premise. Apparently, more than four.

Again, Josh, I don't think anyone disagrees that glaciers are shrinking. The why is still up for debate in the opinions of significantly more than a handful. I recently had an astrophysics prof who remains very skeptical re CO2 and he is, by no means, a "right winger". http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html I'm not necessarily saying you're wrong, but it's a shame you remain completely unwilling to even consider other causes such as solar output or soot. Despite the ongoing virtual-hysteria, the science remains uncertain, ITOOM.

Good point. I guess I was thinking only of higher-order mammals.

It seems that if anyone can appreciate the beauty of the wolf, it's gotta be a soldier. Beside Orcas, there aren't too many creatures that demonstrate a coordinated and flexible pattern of attack.

I've been up and down Cooper Spur too many times to count, but I'm not sure descending Sunshine is any safer. Sliding 400 feet off Cathedral Ridge into The Coe would probably produce the same result as bouncing 1800 feet off the top of Cooper Spur to the Eliot Glacier. Heading down the south side and hitchhiking back to Tilly Jane is probably the smartest option--which is probably why I 've never done it. Good call re Sherpa. I've never been in there, but I've always wanted to combine a climb of Sherpa Glacier with the West Ridge of Sherpa Peak.

Mount Hood - Sunshine Route

I would guess that absent wolves, the deer population exploded and began eating most of the Aspen saplings--the famous Trophic Cascade that Aldo Leopold describes in A Sand County Almanac's "Thinking Like a Mountain".

All the work and money put into restoring some balance for naught? I can't believe Obama is going forward with the delisting of Wolves as an endangered species. Idaho has already announced a hunt. I was once against these reintroduction efforts--and I was wrong. Wolves bring life to mountains and their presence has been missing for far too long. Pay the fucking cattlemen for any losses on their private property--then hand them a bill for the destruction of public lands caused by overgrazing. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-wolves7-2009mar07,0,3909363.story "After reversing President Bush on a pack of environmental rules in its first month, the Obama administration let one of Bush's last-minute changes stand Friday: removal of the gray wolf from the endangered species list in the Upper Midwest, Idaho and Montana. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, announcing the decision at a news conference, said the finding by the Fish and Wildlife Service under Bush was "a supportable one. . . . Scientists have concluded that recovery has occurred. He also agreed with the Bush administration's decision to keep the wolf on the endangered species list in Wyoming, calling that state's wolf recovery plan insufficient. Salazar praised efforts by Idaho and Montana to restore and manage wolf populations and said, "I do not believe we should hold those states hostage to the inadequacy we've seen in Wyoming." The delisting of the gray wolf was the latest chapter in an ongoing battle between the federal government and environmental groups, which successfully sued to keep the animal on the endangered list. Bush's Interior Department announced the delisting in the final days of his term, and it wasn't finalized by the time President Obama took office and froze all pending rule changes. Salazar's announcement Friday almost assuredly means environmentalists will sue again to keep the wolf under federal protection, continuing the saga of an animal that rouses fierce debate among ranchers and conservationists in the West. "This delisting rule is bad for wolves," said Jenny Harbine, an attorney with the environmental group Earthjustice in Bozeman, Mont. "Wolves aren't recovered biologically, and they still need the protection of the Endangered Species Act." Harbine said Earthjustice will formally ask the Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider the decision. "If they don't," she said, "we'll take this unlawful and unsound rule to court." Wolves once roamed most of the nation, but dwindled to near-extinction before the Clinton administration reintroduced them in Yellowstone National Park in the 1990s. Populations grew quickly enough that a decade after reintroduction, Bush officials tried to remove the wolf from the endangered list, only to be blocked by courts. Salazar, who grew up on a ranch in rural Colorado, made the announcement on Friday, traditionally the day for an administration to dump news it knows could stir controversy. The news also came after a string of Obama administration moves to freeze or roll back Bush-era environmental decisions, including Salazar's moves to slow efforts to increase oil and gas development offshore and in Rocky Mountain shale. "

Good Job. Wish I could have joined you!

Perception is reality--for some.

If they do, I'll crank my mountain bike all the way to Dutch Miller Gap, take pictures, and post them here.

It's gonna be a mountain bike access summer.

Somewhere between 20 and fifty million died in the global pandemic that started near the end of world war I, and lasted until about 1920. The next pandemic (much smaller scale) wasn't until 1957. What is scary about this Mexico outbreak is that it has killed 20-40 year olds with healthy immune systems almost exclusively--just like the Spanish Flu outbreak--indicating that a cytokine storm may be killing its victims. Scary shit. I'm curious, though, why you would refer to the possibility of a pandemic as a "cleansing"?

Let's see if your recipe applies to Osama Bin Laden... 1.) Nope. Wealthy Family. 2.) Nope. Just Islam. Again. 3.) Nope. A family of despot ass-kissers. 4.) No shaking required. Just an ass-backward religion and a few American apologists. 5.) Even the 110th floor wasn't high enough.

Is it possible they were taken by Aliens®?

Secret access code to that account...