willstrickland

You ever read the fine print on the bottom of a grocery coupon? They usually say something like "Cash redemption value = 1/20 cents" You might want to add a similar disclaimer.

This applies at least equally, and probably even more so, to the right, particularly since they cozied up to the evangelicals. For the most part Greg, I agree...cloggin' a route and politicizing it is fuckin lame. The one somewhat positive aspect is that at least they chose the NA Wall, and not a popular and/or good route. Not many people make big time plans to make a special trip just to do the NA, and if they end up changing their plans because of these political jokers, they will probably end up on a better route anyway. If they tried that shit on Mescalito, PO, or the Shield, they'd get lynched. Either way, all their posturing and bullshit is going to do is piss off some climbers and make the C4K people feel like they are doing something useful to promote their candidate...which is laughable. As if anyone gives a shit who some group of dirtbag hippie liberal climbers want in the White House.

I think this is a great idea. Definitely AUGUST 31! Icegirl is a genius Plane lands at about 12:30 that day. I will definitely attend this star-studded extravaganza whether it's at Index or somewhere else. Wherever ya'll decide is with me.

They don't use full length zips on the pants to eliminate having a zipper under your pack's hipbelt. Personally, I think it's a really good feature.

In a Size Small, tall is 31.87" (81cm), in a Size Med, tall is 32 1/2" (82cm), Size Lg, tall is 33 1/8" (84cm) and Size XL, tall is 33 3/4" (86cm) More of these exciting stats, in fact the entire Arcturd sizing chart at: http://www.arcteryx.com/sizing_wear.aspx

If you don't know who PP is, you haven't been paying attention.

"Small" is waist and hip size. Waist=approx 30", and hip=approx 37" "Tall" is the inseam=approx 31.75".

I can't even think of any "big time sprayer" who's identity is not already known. I know it's not me, because really, how would you ever figure out who I am

Lame.

Deadlifts, you girlie man

Edit to say: Double-posting sucks.

Why are we so digusted with politics and politicians? This commentary from the LA Times points to one reason: Truth Is, We Need More Goldwaters Weasel words and stale ideas have replaced his brand of straight talk. By Pete Hamill Once upon a time in America, there were public figures like Barry Goldwater. He was a rock-ribbed conservative Republican. I disagreed with almost all of his political positions and could never have voted for him. He was against the trade unions that gave my father a life with dignity. He was a rigid Cold Warrior. He once suggested that my home city of New York be cut off from the United States and floated out to sea. But oh, how I miss him now. Above all his other qualities, I miss Goldwater's extraordinary penchant for straight talk. He was one of those old-fashioned Americans who absolutely believed that our freedom of speech was there to be used. He understood that clear, declarative sentences, unencumbered by evasive qualifiers and legalese, were the sinewy muscles of our democracy, and like muscles, they grew flabby and weak if they were not used. In his long career (five terms in the U.S. Senate), Goldwater always said what he believed. He didn't submit to the slippery guidance of media consultants, who have turned so many of today's politicians into ciphers. He spoke his mind, even when his blunt opposition to the prevailing New Deal orthodoxies brought forth mockery. In 1964, when accepting the Republican nomination for president, he spoke a few lines that doomed his candidacy: "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." More than a few people noted that such words could have been uttered by Malcolm X, that other plain-spoken American. Goldwater lost the election in a landslide. The result changed our politics. The motto became "safety first." Talking plainly became a kind of gaffe, and gaffes could cause defeat. Political discourse got tamer, slicker, more controlled. But Goldwater did not join in the blanding of America. When Richard Nixon, a fellow Republican, was dodging and dissembling during the Watergate scandal, Goldwater said: "Nixon should get his ass out of the White House today." When the country was addled by the debate over gays in the military, Goldwater said: "You don't need to be straight to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight." When the Republican Party was fervently embracing the Christian conservatives, Goldwater (the Episcopalian grandson of a Jewish immigrant from Poland) spoke his mind: "When you say 'radical right' today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican Party away from the Republican Party and make a religious organization out of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics good-bye." Goldwater died in 1998, full of years, respected by people in both major parties and by millions of independents. He was at once a fierce defender of conservative American traditions and a cranky champion of the very American obligation to dissent. Now we live in a country where the collective lack of courage has infected the language itself. We don't demand honesty and accountability from our leaders; not surprisingly, our leaders conclude that we can't handle the truth. Instead of Goldwater's blunt lucidity, we get weasel words, as in Bush's "weapons-of-mass-destruction-related program activities," from his 2004 State of the Union address. We get dissembling, as in Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's tortured answer to a reporter's question about Abu Ghraib: "My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe is technically different from torture." We get legalistic evasions, as when then-Vice President Al Gore replied to a 1997 question about his phone calls from the White House soliciting Democratic campaign contributions: "There is no controlling legal authority that says this was in violation of the law." And we get Bill Clinton's notorious non-answer to the grand jury: "It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' means." Throughout our society, courage is becoming all too rare — and the deficit is of our own making. Today, more than ever, we need people with the courage to tell the plain truth. We need brave men and women who refuse to trumpet platitudes or take stale ideas off the rack. We need more people who scrutinize every public utterance crafted by the rented fingers of ghostwriters and point out the evasions. We need leaders and citizens who say no to what George Orwell once called the "smelly little orthodoxies." Telling the truth, of course, can carry heavy penalties: condemnation, ostracism, slander, the end of careers. Telling the truth often requires the courage of the foot soldier, the police officer, the firefighter. The arena is different; there are no rocket-propelled grenades, no roaring fires or desperadoes with guns. But truly brave people share one big thing: In doing their duty, they can lose everything. Without such people, we can lose everything too. No democracy can survive if it is wormy with lies and evasions. That is why we must cherish those people who have the guts to speak the truth: mavericks, whistle-blowers, disturbers of the public peace. And it's why, in spite of my own continuing (though chastened) liberal faith, I miss Barry Goldwater. More than ever.

Here's something to consider: Slide film generally rules in saturation and resolution, BUT if you don't have manual exposure overide (and most P/S cameras don't) shoot print film. Here's why: Print film has a much greater exposure latitude than slide film (meaning when the camera underexposes the film by trying to interpret snow as 18% gray, you are more likely to get a salvagable exposure with print film). You can over/under expose print film by 2-3 stops and still get virtually the same results in the printing process. Most corner drugstore printers are set on an auto balance that will correct it. Grain/resolution/sharpness is basically an inverse function of film speed....faster film is less sharp. My rule of thumb for choosing one roll for a wide variety of conditions is to take the widest aperature of your lens (the range will be say f2.8-f22 with the small number being the widest), divide by 2, multiply by 100...(in this case=140) and shoot that speed. Now there is actually 140 speed film, but it's portrait film, so you are typically choosing between 50, 100, 200, 400, 800 in print film. I'd probably shoot 400 if you are climbing a northfacing route in winter and 100 on a spring/summer glacier slog. Slower film will have less grain and better resolution. You can make a respectable 8x10 from 100speed, 400 starts getting pretty grainy at that size. That said, I shoot Fuji Velvia, a 50speed silde film, about 90% of the time.

http://www.city-data.com Has all sorts of stats...weather, crime, demographics, aerial photos, etc for a long long list of cities. No rankings though.

F.B.I. Goes Knocking for Political Troublemakers By ERIC LICHTBLAU NEW YORK TIMES Published: August 16, 2004 WASHINGTON, Aug. 15 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been questioning political demonstrators across the country, and in rare cases even subpoenaing them, in an aggressive effort to forestall what officials say could be violent and disruptive protests at the Republican National Convention in New York. F.B.I. officials are urging agents to canvass their communities for information about planned disruptions aimed at the convention and other coming political events, and they say they have developed a list of people who they think may have information about possible violence. They say the inquiries, which began last month before the Democratic convention in Boston, are focused solely on possible crimes, not on dissent, at major political events. But some people contacted by the F.B.I. say they are mystified by the bureau's interest and felt harassed by questions about their political plans. "The message I took from it," said Sarah Bardwell, 21, an intern at a Denver antiwar group who was visited by six investigators a few weeks ago, "was that they were trying to intimidate us into not going to any protests and to let us know that, 'hey, we're watching you.' '' The unusual initiative comes after the Justice Department, in a previously undisclosed legal opinion, gave its blessing to controversial tactics used last year by the F.B.I in urging local police departments to report suspicious activity at political and antiwar demonstrations to counterterrorism squads. The F.B.I. bulletins that relayed the request for help detailed tactics used by demonstrators - everything from violent resistance to Internet fund-raising and recruitment. In an internal complaint, an F.B.I. employee charged that the bulletins improperly blurred the line between lawfully protected speech and illegal activity. But the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, in a five-page internal analysis obtained by The New York Times, disagreed. The office, which also made headlines in June in an opinion - since disavowed - that authorized the use of torture against terrorism suspects in some circumstances, said any First Amendment impact posed by the F.B.I.'s monitoring of the political protests was negligible and constitutional. The opinion said: "Given the limited nature of such public monitoring, any possible 'chilling' effect caused by the bulletins would be quite minimal and substantially outweighed by the public interest in maintaining safety and order during large-scale demonstrations." Those same concerns are now central to the vigorous efforts by the F.B.I. to identify possible disruptions by anarchists, violent demonstrators and others at the Republican National Convention, which begins Aug. 30 and is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of protesters. In the last few weeks, beginning before the Democratic convention, F.B.I. counterterrorism agents and other federal and local officers have sought to interview dozens of people in at least six states, including past protesters and their friends and family members, about possible violence at the two conventions. In addition, three young men in Missouri said they were trailed by federal agents for several days and subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury last month, forcing them to cancel their trip to Boston to take part in a protest there that same day. Interrogations have generally covered the same three questions, according to some of those questioned and their lawyers: were demonstrators planning violence or other disruptions, did they know anyone who was, and did they realize it was a crime to withhold such information. A handful of protesters at the Boston convention were arrested but there were no major disruptions. Concerns have risen for the Republican convention, however, because of antiwar demonstrations directed at President Bush and because of New York City's global prominence. With the F.B.I. given more authority after the Sept. 11 attacks to monitor public events, the tensions over the convention protests, coupled with the Justice Department's own legal analysis of such monitoring, reflect the fine line between protecting national security in an age of terrorism and discouraging political expression. F.B.I. officials, mindful of the bureau's abuses in the 1960's and 1970's monitoring political dissidents like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., say they are confident their agents have not crossed that line in the lead-up to the conventions. "The F.B.I. isn't in the business of chilling anyone's First Amendment rights," said Joe Parris, a bureau spokesman in Washington. "But criminal behavior isn't covered by the First Amendment. What we're concerned about are injuries to convention participants, injuries to citizens, injuries to police and first responders." F.B.I. officials would not say how many people had been interviewed in recent weeks, how they were identified or what spurred the bureau's interest. They said the initiative was part of a broader, nationwide effort to follow any leads pointing to possible violence or illegal disruptions in connection with the political conventions, presidential debates or the November election, which come at a time of heightened concern about a possible terrorist attack. F.B.I. officials in Washington have urged field offices around the country in recent weeks to redouble their efforts to interview sources and gather information that might help to detect criminal plots. The only lead to emerge publicly resulted in a warning to authorities before the Boston convention that anarchists or other domestic groups might bomb news vans there. It is not clear whether there was an actual plot. The individuals visited in recent weeks "are people that we identified that could reasonably be expected to have knowledge of such plans and plots if they existed," Mr. Parris said. "We vetted down a list and went out and knocked on doors and had a laundry list of questions to ask about possible criminal behavior," he added. "No one was dragged from their homes and put under bright lights. The interviewees were free to talk to us or close the door in our faces." But civil rights advocates argued that the visits amounted to harassment. They said they saw the interrogations as part of a pattern of increasingly aggressive tactics by federal investigators in combating domestic terrorism. In an episode in February in Iowa, federal prosecutors subpoenaed Drake University for records on the sponsor of a campus antiwar forum. The demand was dropped after a community outcry. Protest leaders and civil rights advocates who have monitored the recent interrogations said they believed at least 40 or 50 people, and perhaps many more, had been contacted by federal agents about demonstration plans and possible violence surrounding the conventions and other political events. "This kind of pressure has a real chilling effect on perfectly legitimate political activity," said Mark Silverstein, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, where two groups of political activists in Denver and a third in Fort Collins were visited by the F.B.I. "People are going to be afraid to go to a demonstration or even sign a petition if they justifiably believe that will result in your having an F.B.I. file opened on you." The issue is a particularly sensitive one in Denver, where the police agreed last year to restrictions on local intelligence-gathering operations after it was disclosed that the police had kept files on some 3,000 people and 200 groups involved in protests. But the inquiries have stirred opposition elsewhere as well. In New York, federal agents recently questioned a man whose neighbor reported he had made threatening comments against the president. He and a lawyer, Jeffrey Fogel, agreed to talk to the Secret Service, denying the accusation and blaming it on a feud with the neighbor. But when agents started to question the man about his political affiliations and whether he planned to attend convention protests, "that's when I said no, no, no, we're not going to answer those kinds of questions," said Mr. Fogel, who is legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. In the case of the three young men subpoenaed in Missouri, Denise Lieberman, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union in St. Louis, which is representing them, said they scrapped plans to attend both the Boston and the New York conventions after they were questioned about possible violence. The men are all in their early 20's, Ms. Lieberman said, but she would not identify them. All three have taken part in past protests over American foreign policy and in planning meetings for convention demonstrations. She said two of them were arrested before on misdemeanor charges for what she described as minor civil disobedience at protests. Prosecutors have now informed the men that they are targets of a domestic terrorism investigation, Ms. Lieberman said, but have not disclosed the basis for their suspicions. "They won't tell me," she said. Federal officials in St. Louis and Washington declined to comment on the case. Ms. Lieberman insisted that the men "didn't have any plans to participate in the violence, but what's so disturbing about all this is the pre-emptive nature - stopping them from participating in a protest before anything even happened." The three men "were really shaken and frightened by all this," she said, "and they got the message loud and clear that if you make plans to go to a protest, you could be subject to arrest or a visit from the F.B.I."

Dude, is that former Sec of Education and Drug Czar Bill "The Gamblin' Man" Bennett?!

The minimal rap set-up is clearly two turntables and a microphone.

My very experienced partner, Annabelle Bond (whom I am dating) and I would like to join your Cho Ohface expedition. We are tired of PAYING TO CLIMB, and can outfit the entire team in Tibetan Yak-Fur Vests, which Annabelle says makes me look "hott".

I once saw aid climbers on El Capitan. I am sure we can hire porters at the Index store for $25 per day. I believe we can acclimatize on Mt Si, and climb the NNB in 1.5 days. To all the detractors and naysayers who believe it is not possible to climb this jewel without PAYING TO CLIMB, I only say this: ............................. ....................../´¯/) ....................,/.¯./ ..................../..../ .................../..../ ................../..../ ................./..../ ............/´¯ '...'/´¯¯`•¸ ........./'/.../..../......./¨¯\ ........('(...´...´.... ¯~/'...') .........\.................'...../ ..........''...\.......... _.•´ ............\..............( ..............\.............\... ...............\.............\...

Actually, there is nothing "new" about it. The reciprocation agreement is from 1990. We also had some of them here during the last ('02) midterm elections. My understanding is that they will have no power of any kind, but will only issue some type of report after the elections to spotlight potential problems. How is this a bad thing? We may be the beacon of democracy, but let's no kid ourselves, shady shit goes on in elections, even here. I'll skip the Florida 2000 bit because it's been hashed to death, so here's another example: Illinois 1960. Kennedy's victory was more than likely the product of Daly's manipulation of the election. We are not giving up anything, only inviting a delegation of somewhat disinterested people to observe and tell us if they see problems. Surely transparancy is a good thing in a democratic election?

And your girlfriend says you're a practioner of "single push" tactics.

Fairweather, you read the NY Post? A Rupert Murdoch paper. The same guy who owns/runs Fox News. Weak. There is plenty of intelligent commentary from the right, but please spare us the tabloid rantings of the Post. I tell you what is funny though: This writer who is bitching about feminized men and "poets" is pretenious enough to use the name Duncan Maxwell Anderson...sounds like a fuckin' nancy-boy pussy name to me.

I have not hiked any of the Cascade Jewels, but I am an amateur jewel thief. You can see I wish to Not Pay for Jewels. Can you please consider me as a climber and translator for the Cho Oye Como Va climb (I speak Spanish)?

Easy there dirt-neck. We all know you've seen the Rampage video.