willstrickland

http://www.drtopo.com/califo/black.html

Let me help you out with that one. It works like this: 1. Run focus groups in Canton, OH; Des Moines, IA; and Pittsburg,PA. Develop 3 or 4 potential "messages" or replies to criticisms from these sessions. 2. Conduct a national telephone poll with said "messages" 3. Adopt the "message" that sells best among those who fall into the "undecided, likely voter" category.

Sportiva Megas. $100 at Sierra Tradingpost Boreal Ballet Gold $54 at Barrabes

jjd: You read it correctly, and the 9/11 Report snips are interesting. Nevertheless, there was no good reason to compromise this source whether raising the threat was justified or not. If they had sufficient reason to raise it, fine do it. But you have to ask yourself "why the need to justify it?" To me all signs point to the fact that they've been playing politics with the alerts in the recent past and now that they have (or potentially have) a real reason to raise the level, they've compromised their believability such that they have to justify that decision to the public. My background readings on this case support what Murray states above.

Goddamn j_b, that would take me seven or eight days to compile all the "sources" with extreme bias that you routinely use in your arguments. You obviously buy into them, hence your credulousness, or credulity if you prefer (both are correct btw).

J-tree, in summer?

That's rich coming from you, one who dines at the trough of the left-wing propaganda machine.

Very good Mr. Fairweather, now do you have a hall pass? Am I to assume that you are also negotiating with terrorists behind the administration's back ala Ronnie Ray-gun? jjd: In spite of the long winded Ridge letter, you seem to be missing my point. Cast aside the various "convenient" terror alert timings for a minute, that is only peripheral to my point. My point is: These assholes outed this guy Khan, as a way to back-up their decision to raise the alert level, and in doing so compromised a valuable intelligence source. Now you might say "but everyone was questioning the relevance of their decision to raise the alerrt, they had to give some background". I reply to that: Bullshit. If they hadn't been playing politics with the alert for the past year, there would be no need to "back up the decision".

Patriot Act is a whole 'nother ball of wax, save it for another thread. I am pissed that these jokers compromised an intel source that was paying big dividends in tracking down al Qaeda operatives, in an attempt to justify a politcally motivated raise of the terror alert based on info that was 3 YEARS OLD! (I think I need to raise my run-on sentence alert to code red after that one)

Nice job letting politics interfere with doing your fucking jobs. Assholes. http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/08/09/terror.wrap/index.html

Q: What do you call an Alaskan lesbian? A: Klondike

Q: If a heterosexual couple needs a marriage license, what does a lesbian couple need? A: A liquor license.

Same pieces at Mtn Gear right now for less loot, first quality, with warranty. I hesitated to post this because I think it's bad form to spray someone's for sale ad, but when the no-warranty "seconds" info just happens to comes out and wasn't included in the orginal ad...kinda reeks of the same situation as the dudes who cleaned out everything they could carry at the TNF store liquidation and reverted to playing profiteer. Anti-capitalistic? Maybe. But would you charge your climbing partner five bucks for an out of date Taddy Porter in the cooler when it cost you $3?

I'm gonna go ahead and say Malcom is full of shit. On sandstone, or other soft rock, I could see the potential for brushing making a hold bigger (by sculpting the rock above/behind it). Dreamtime is on granite. If anything, I would expect brushing to make the holds worse be removing texture and abrading the tiny edges into even tinier edges. I've climbed plenty of boulder problems that required brushing to go at their given grade, but ONLY because a bunch of chalk happy beanie boys with a community chalk bucket the size of a daypack felt the need to immerse their entire hands into the chalk before every attempt and then do the eura-wanker chalk blow...never mind that is was 45 degrees out and zero chance that their hands were sweaty. Maybe I'm wrong and they were sweaty, after all they didn't have their shirts on

I could do without Al Jihada, they show too many pictures of this fugly bastard, who BTW is about to get his head ripped off and stuffed up his ass. Nice choppers Muqtada, now come here so I can stomp them out with these size 10 Redwings. This fucker shoulda been clipped 8 months ago.

If you are Alex Huber, you can get Sportiva to make you some Mythos with undyed leather and have cool tan ones. The rest of you wankers get to deal with purple toes instead The hardest slab stuff I've done has always been in old blown out slippers, but for anything more than a pitch I prefer a stiff edging shoe that is well broken in so that is has some flexibility, but still alot of edging power. Slab is all about body postion and weight transfer. Watch someone highstep sometime...most people will almost have to "bounce" onto the high foot. If you can keep the good body position (i.e. centered over your feet), make smooth weight transfers, and have alot of strength and flexibility in your lower body, the shoes are the least of your worries.

The report release this morning showed growth to be about 14% of the predicted level, or roughly 32k, when consensus estimates were for 225k, and the lowest growth level since December. Furthermore, the last two months numbers were adjusted downward by a total of 61k (which also happened at least one other month this year as I recall). The economy is not humming along. If you believe those job numbers are good, you should look at Wall Street's last two sessions....a 300pt decline in the Dow, almost entirely driven by the jobs report. Add the oil situation (which had already beaten the market down this week) and you have some convincing signs that all is not well on the economic front. I also find it curious that last month they chose to use the business survey numbers to report unemployment, while this time they chose household survey numbers. Especially when you consider this little nugget: "July's overall gain was the smallest since December and well short of the 150,000 or so jobs economists say need to be created each month just to keep pace with an expanding labor force and ensure the unemployment rate doesn't rise." Check it out: http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/040806/economy_11.html

A fig8 version of the EDK has a greater propensity to "roll/capsize/etc" along the strands than an overhand. (not the same kind of roll as in "pass over terrain "like you are talking about). DO NOT TIE THIS KNOT. I HIGHLY SUGGEST you read this study (don't miss the chart of results at the bottom where Fig8 style EDK capsized at 300lb and less). http://www.xmission.com/~tmoyer/testing/EDK.html

If you want to focus on anniversaries today, perhaps you should consider Hiroshima. 8:15 am August 6, 1945.

Josh, what knot are you using to join the 6mm and your lead line?

Clickity click

Nice cj001f. That is a pretty cool rig-up.

The guy in the red shirt being gripped looks like he's about to heft the sack of the guy in the center.

Paul, this is the M.O. of every opinion page writer in the country...Safire, Krugman, Dowd, Thomas, Kristol, Teepen. I think you are confusing particulars with generals. I.e. the particulars are what you take issue with. I work with people who are solidly left. The reasons they list for opposing Bush tend to be the generals: 1. Systematic weaking of environmental protections. (This is what we do for a living, and I agree with them on this point. We see the policy changes etc in aggregate in a way that you won't hear about or understand the significance of, if you don't work in this field). 2. Secretive, manipulative, and obstructionist tactics. Refusing to reveal the energy meetings participants. Insisting the economy is singing along when every jobs report that comes out is weak and then revised downward the following month...this month the pre-report estimates were consensus 1/4million new jobs...report showed only 10% of that number, and they revised the previous two reports downward at the same time. Continuing to insist that Iraq was complicit in 9/11. Knowingly using false, suspect, and weak information to gain public support to engage in a war of choice that had been a strategic goal of the memebers of the administration since the early/mid 1990s. You don't buy that one, go over to talkingpointsmemo and read the Uranium intel related material. 3. Irresponsible tax cuts and spending. 4. Irresponsible over-extension of the military. Two of my lefty coworkers have husbands in the military, one of whom will most likely be "stop-lossed" when he tries to retire next year after 20 years of service. 5. The attitude and competence factor. "Bring it on", "My Pet Goat". So what is the alternative? A slimy lifetime politician who will do or say anything that will win some votes, and an ex trail lawyer who greatly contributed to our overly litigious society, frivolous lawsuits, and the skyrocketing medical malpractice premium. Young Mr. Edwards biggest campaign contributor is the Trial Lawyers. The drunken Jesus freak dunce and The big oil puppermaster VS The flip flopping policy by polling brahmin and The eye candy scumbag lawyer. We're fucked either way. At least for you Paul, the business cycle looks to be somewhat in your favor around graduation time. Those kids graduating in the last few years, I feel for them. You should know. Seriously, read both sides of each issue. There's a periodical out there called "The Week" which tends to give the stories in brief, and a couple of takes (i.e. spin) on the issue from both sides. For example, they might do a story snip and have a "what does it mean" section with two prominent columnists from the left and two from the right giving analysis. It's a decent summary piece you can get through over a cup of coffee. Other strategies to get both sides is to read the partisan and foreign press stuff. The Nation, National Review, New Repbulic, Weekly Standard, etc. Get interested in going beyond the large media outlet headlines.

Cracked, if you want a source laden, heavily researched critique on the current administration, go read through some of http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com Josh Marshall is left of center, I'd call him a centrist dem. His readership tends to be more left than he is. Guy writes for TNR, Atlantic, Washington Monthly, and other heavy periodicals. I have noticed his tone becoming more and more partisan in the last few months...regardless, his blog is one of the better informed, connected, and researched pieces of commentary on the web. He also tends to do quite a bit of media coverage analysis. Check it out, while keeping in mind that he is something of a dem.