willstrickland

1. "Dear John" letter from ex-girlfriend. 2. White Widow x Blueberry 3. i-pod fulla tunes

Here ya go sailboi, one good turn deserves another: Republican NATIONAL COMMITTEE CONVENTION SCHEDULE, New York 2004 6:00 PM Opening Prayer led by the Reverend Jerry Falwell 6:30 PM Pledge of Allegiance 6:35 PM Burning of Bill of Rights (excluding 2nd amendment) 6:45 PM Salute to the Coalition of the Willing 6:46 PM Seminar #1: Getting your kid a military deferment 7:30 PM First Presidential Beer Bong 7:35 PM Serve Freedom Fries 7:40 PM EPA Address #1: Mercury, it's what's for dinner. 8:00 PM Vote on which country to invade next 8:10 PM Call EMTs to revive Rush Limbaugh 8:15 PM John Ashcroft Lecture: The Homos are after your children 8:30 PM Round table discussion on reproductive rights (MEN only) 8:50 PM Seminar #2 Corporations: The government of the future 9:00 PM Condi Rice sings "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" 9:05 PM Second Presidential Beer Bong 9:10 PM EPA Address #2 Trees: The real cause of forest fires 9:30 PM Break for secret meetings 10:00 PM Second prayer led by Cal Thomas 10:15 PM Lecture by Karl Rove: Doublespeak made easy 10:30 PM Rumsfeld demonstration of how to squint and talk macho 10:35 PM Bush demonstration of trademark deer-in-headlights stare 10:40 PM John Ashcroft demonstrates new mandatory Kevlar chastity belt 10:45 PM Clarence Thomas reads list of black Republicans 10:46 PM Third Presidential Beer Bong 10:50 PM Seminar #3 Education: A drain on our nation's economy. 11:10 PM Hillary Clinton piZata 11:20 PM Second Lecture by John Ashcroft: Evolutionists: The dangerous new cult 11:30 PM Call EMTs to revive Rush Limbaugh again. 11:35 PM Blame Clinton 11:40 PM Laura serves milk and cookies 11:50 PM Closing Prayer led by Jesus Himself 12:00 AM Nomination of George W. Bush as Holy Supreme Planetary Overlord

There is bouldering at Moonstone Beach, a smattering of roped climbing and bouldering at Patrick's Point (both about 15 min north of town). No gym that I know about. Castle Crags isn't too far away, and there is bound to be some stuff in the Trinity Alps. As for sport climbing and gym climbing, I think you are pretty much SOL. When my friend was in school at Humboldt St. I made some trips down from PDX and from memory is was about a 6hr drive. Smith might still be your best option for sport routes. Lambone is in Ashland, you might PM him for the outdoor scoop. Arcata is cool if you don't mind the dreadie hippie/ tour-rat element, and the town is rampant with the KGB. The redwoods are

Oh yeah, those non-innovative nobel laureates. Complete herd mentality, never had an original though in their lives. Let's get something out there: Any one of those 48 Nobel laureates have a depth of knowledge in their subject matter and probably many others well beyond what you or I could even comprehend. You complain about the source, ignore that 48 extremely intelligent scientists have signed the statement, and then cite Michael Crichton...a FICTION WRITER who studied anthropology in college as someone qualified to comment on the professional scientific community? When BushCo is sent packing and you wonder what went wrong, just remember that there are plenty of conservatives like me who don't buy this kind of bullshit spin job from either side. When the GOP decides to embrace it's roots again and cuts spending, balances the budget, and quits meddling in states rights issues, and respects personal freedoms, you'll get my votes again. In the meantime, I'm voting libertarian. You can call it a wasted vote, but it's one less vote for the two fucking retards running the show now. And yeah, I think I respect the opinions of 48 nobel laureates over the opinion of a couple of partisan shills.

sailBoi, with yet more partisan bullshit. The only thing you are doing is assuring more turnout from the left. The only voters changing sides in what will obviously be a very very close race are going away from Bush. This thing will hinge on turnout. Yeah, they should resign right now...for what reason? So the GOP can ramrod some legislation through the Senate while their seats are vacant? Should we overlook the fact that Bush didn't resign the governorship of Texas until a month AFTER the 2000 election? And exactly what does the shortly before in "In 1996, Republican Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas resigned his Senate seat - and his powerful post as Senate GOP leader - shortly before he formally accepted the Republican nomination for president." mean? When exactly was Bob Dole's last day in the Senate you ask? June 11th 1996. You think the people reading this will somehow overlook that Bush has been on vacation close to half the time and that he too is campaigning on the public dime? And your little article there is riddled with factual inaccuracies as well. There are no "checks" to cash, all federal employees have a direct deposit requirement. As a conservative, I ask you to please: Take your divisive partisan bullshit and stick it up your ass. Boy, you're another uniter, not a divider.

OMFG!Check out these soundboard prank calls: Al Pacino, Jack Black, Joe Pesci, Arnie #7, Jack Nicholson, : http://www.ebaumsworld.com/morepranks.shtml

Coulter isn't even remotely attractive. Hot? A babe?

Here's a link to a routine from Metolius's site: http://www.metoliusclimbing.com/howto-advancedrr.htm Note: After reading their routine, I would not try to follow it. Adopt some of the "tasks" and tailor it to your own level. If you can do that routine as they list it, in the 10 minute time frame they allot, you probably don't need to be training. And one from wankfest central with beg/int/adv routines: http://www.8a.nu/eng/articles/hangboarding.shtml

Well durtybird, I think the deal is, most folks who use a finger board do it as a supplement to their other training (typically gym climbing). There are plenty of routines printed in magazines, books, etc. They all involve sets of timed hangs from various grips on the board. Example would be 3 x 30sec from each of the following grips: open hand grip on 1 pad flat edge, half crimp on same edge, full crimp on same edge, middle and ring finger in 2 finger pocket, middle and index in two finger pocket. If you can't last for the full set, use a bungy under your feet to take some weight off. If you can easily do the set, add some weight with a weight belt or backpack or hang something from your harness, whatever. You will have real problems trying to develop plyo type power on a single fingerboard. That type of power is usually training on a systems or campus rung set-up. Contact strength is essentially how fast your muscles fire (basically how fast do you develop your maximum grip strength once you start gripping...we're talking fractions of a second). Campusing is one way to work it. Take campusing in small doses, it's very very hard on your connective tissue and joints (and it will make you wicked strong if you don't injure yourself). You are not going to do any effective endurance training on a fingerboard. Putting in serious cardio training will do more for your endurance than anything you can do on a fingerboard. You would be better served by using one of the local climbing gyms where you can train power/strength/endurance and some forms of technique in cycles. BTW, I hear there's some sweet granite in Renton, over there behind that school..you should maybe check that out.

Gender: Male Current Systems: Nothing, moon. Previous: Through crotch zip. Why use current system: Through-crotch didn't work well in practice. To elaborate: Although through-crotch is great in theory, the stiffness of the zipper makes climbing and walking in them uncomfortable. Also, for it to work perfectly you need a base layer and insulation that also has the same zip-through. The base-layer/insulation issue also renders most of the other systems useless as well. You can drop the seat, but still have to wrestle the capilene bottoms to bare ass. Perfect world: A through crotch that used a closure system that was not stiff and underwear/insulation with the same system. Obviously zippers are out. Velcro would also be problematic because of snow clogging the velcro. I don't think there is a way to make through crotch work because of the closure. SO...perfect world: Rainbow/moon style drop with some type of mini snap or velcro or something on the top edge of the drop seat (i.e. closest to your waist in the back)that mated up with something on the front so that when the drop-seat was dropped, you could secure it open and avoid that ever so embarassing. "I just smeared shit all over my shell" scenario when the drop seat flaps in the wind right into your growing, steaming pile of intestinally processed freeze dried Chicken ala King. Also, always a fly zipper or snaps or something that allows me to rock out with my cock out , without having to drop trou. Seriously, I have some full side-zip windstopper fleece pants that are great...except to urinate I have to unzip a side seam, wrestle half the waist out of my harness, etc. How hard is it to include a fly opening eh?

N. Ridge Stuart, W. Ridge Forbidden.

Doods!! How will you ever meet single climbers? Like these folks: Gaiters? CHECK! Gorts? CHECK! No explanation for wearing gaiters on a groomed XC trail? CHECK!

Well ya know ladies, the dudes' pants are sized on some arbitrary number system in Europe. Like a 44= 30" waist x 30" inseam,46 = 32" wx 32" inseam, etc. Lowe Alpine sizes some of their pants that way...why I have no idea. If you fellas are having that much trouble with a bra...something that really only has about two different ways to close and you will know which before you start simply by whether it's in front or back, maybe the problem isn't with the design but with the operator?

And to add to cj's point, the Governor of Texas is a largely ceremonial post without the power or responsibility typical of the office of governor in other states. So the race is shaping up to be: An inept, ex-drunk, failed business man, daddy's coattail riding, simpleton, religious fanatic crusader, "elected" by a minority with no mandate; paired with a foul-mouthed, ex-corporate CEO, chickenhawk who dodged the draft, and awards lucrative contracts to his buddies with no competition. -VS- A flip flopping, no message, no realistic plans to address our problems, uber liberal, SUV driving, absurdly wealthy, long time senator with no sustantial legislation to his name; paired with a one term senator, ex-PI lawyer who got rich propagating our litgious society, driving up health care costs through increased malpractice premiums, using bunk science and exploiting his clients for 1/3 of their judgement. NIIICEEEE! They sounds like excellent examples of our current crop of politicians.

Thanks specialed. That's part of why I was asking...looking at that first pitch photo posted, and looking at the vague route description in the Select and thinking...something don't jive, pitch must have gotten strafed in the rockfall. Also the pic linked in the second post: http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/data/503/3539GirthPillar.jpeg looks like the whole section of the pillar to the left of where they are climbing is a big fresh scar...it's almost white. I don't know how it looked before, but if that was all where a section fell off, that's wild.

Once more, the questions remain: 1. Did you free it all and if so, what is the opinion on pitch ratings? 2. The section of the pillar that has fallen off...was that part of the route or just a nearby section? If part of the route, what is the new description/new pitches? The account from the two 16 year old kids who climbed it made it sound as though either the written route description is poor, or they climbed some variations to get around some section that had fallen off. What say you OBe?

So much for the "life story" bit (emphasis mine): Source: anncoulter.com In Desperate Move, Kerry Adopts Puppy July 7, 2004 I guess with John Kerry's choice of John Edwards as his running mate, he really does want to stand up for all Americans, from those worth only $60 million to those worth in excess of $800 million. In one of the many stratagems Democrats have developed to avoid telling people what they believe, all Edwards wants to talk about is his cracker-barrel humble origins story. We're supposed to swoon over his "life story," as the flacks say, which apparently consists of the amazing fact that ... his father was a millworker! That's right up there with "Clinton's stepdad was a drunk" and "Ted Kennedy's dad was a womanizing bootlegger" on my inspirational life-stories meter. In fact, I'm immediately renouncing my university degrees and going to work for the post office just to give my future children a shot at having a "life story," should they decide to run for president someday. What is so amazing about Edwards' father being a millworker? That's at least an honorable occupation -- as opposed to being a trial lawyer. True, Edwards made more money than his father did. I assume strippers make more money than their alcoholic fathers who abandoned them did, too. This isn't a story of progress; it's a story of devolution. Despite the overwrought claims of Edwards' dazzling legal skills, winning jury verdicts in personal injury cases has nothing to do with legal talent and everything to do with getting the right cases -- unless "talent" is taken to mean "having absolutely no shame." Edwards specialized in babies with cerebral palsy whom he claimed would have been spared the affliction if only the doctors had immediately performed Caesarean sections. As a result of such lawsuits, there are now more than four times as many Caesarean sections as there were in 1970. But curiously, there has been no change in the rate of babies born with cerebral palsy. As The New York Times reported: "Studies indicate that in most cases, the disorder is caused by fetal brain injury long before labor begins." All those Caesareans have, however, increased the mother's risk of death, hemorrhage, infection, pulmonary embolism and Mendelson's syndrome. In addition, the "little guys" Edwards claims to represent are having a lot more trouble finding doctors to deliver their babies these days as obstetricians leave the practice rather than pay malpractice insurance in excess of $100,000 a year. In one of Edwards' silver-tongued arguments to the jury on behalf of a girl born with cerebral palsy, he claimed he was channeling the unborn baby girl, Jennifer Campbell, who was speaking to the jurors through him: "She said at 3, 'I'm fine.' She said at 4, 'I'm having a little trouble, but I'm doing OK.' Five, she said, 'I'm having problems.' At 5:30, she said, 'I need out.'" She's saying, "My lawyer needs a new Jaguar ... " "She speaks to you through me and I have to tell you right now -- I didn't plan to talk about this -- right now I feel her. I feel her presence. She's inside me, and she's talking to you." Well, tell her to pipe down, would you? I'm trying to hear the evidence in a malpractice lawsuit. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde on the death of Little Nell, one must have a heart of stone to read this without laughing. What is this guy, a tent-show preacher? An off-the-strip Las Vegas lounge psychic couldn't get away with this routine. Is Edwards able to channel any children right before an abortionist's fork is plunged into their tiny skulls? Why can't he hear those babies saying, "Let me live! Stop spraying this saline solution all over me!" Edwards must experience interference in channeling the voices of babies about to be aborted. Their liberal mothers' hands seem to muffle those voices. And may we ask what the pre-born Jennifer Campbell thinks about war with Iraq? North Korea? Marginal tax rates? If Miss Cleo here is going to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, I think the voters are entitled to know that. While making himself fabulously rich by taking a one-third cut of his multimillion-dollar verdicts coaxed out of juries with junk science and maudlin performances, Edwards has the audacity to claim, "I was more than just their lawyer; I cared about them. Their cause was my cause." If he cared so deeply, how about keeping just 10 percent of the multimillion-dollar jury awards, rather than a third? In fact, as long as these Democrats are so eager to raise the taxes of "the rich," how about a 90 percent tax on contingency fees? For someone who didn't care about the money, it's interesting that Edwards avoided cases in which the baby died during delivery. Evidently, jury awards average only about $500,000 when the babies die, and there is no disabled child to parade before the jury. Edwards was one of the leading opponents of a bill in the North Carolina Legislature that would have established a fund for all babies born with cerebral palsy. So instead of all disabled babies in North Carolina being compensated equitably, only a few will win the jury lottery -- one-third of which will go to trial lawyers like Edwards, who insists he doesn't care about the money. Despite the now-disproved junk science theory about C-sections preventing cerebral palsy that Edwards peddled in the channeling case, the jury awarded Edwards' client a record-breaking $6.5 million. This is the essence of the modern Democratic Party, polished to perfection by Bill Clinton: They are willing to insult the intelligence of 49 percent of the people if they think they can fool 51 percent of the people. So while Michael Moore, Al Franken, George Soros, Crazy Al Gore and the rest of the characters from the climactic devil-worshipping scene in "Rosemary's Baby" provide the muscle for the Kerry campaign, Kerry picks a pretty-boy milquetoast as his running mate, narrowly edging out a puppy for the spot. Just don't ask the Democrats what they believe. Edwards' father was a millworker, and that's all you need to know.

It's only a matter of time... http://www.rockclimbing.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=796807#796807

Hi Holly I figured you were just busy building a new home and doing free routes on El Cap in your spare time ala Mrs. Davis-Potter. Congrats on Mescalito BTW. That's a proud one!

Lambone are you sure he didn't just accidentally drop another haulbag mid-route like that time a couple of years ago "I never tie the pig into the end of the rope. It's the better way."

The R&D and testing costs still have to be recovered. If you cut the patent length on the drug, the consumer cost in the US is going to have to go up to recover those costs before the generics hit the shelf and obliterate market share. How exactly do you see this ending the subsidy?

I don't agree Dru, because the FDA testing and approval process can often take longer than 5 years. Here's another side of it. Alot of the "new" drugs, particularly in antibiotics, have been refinements of the existing drugs. They tweak it a little, get another patent, and the docs prescribe the new-improved version. Personally, I don't feel that the innovation process is slowed or hindered by the patents. I think there are only so many resources that pharma has available and that the testing costs and time are the limiting factor. Streamlining the process there would contribute more to innovation than the pressures of losing patent protection IMO. The situation as I see it is that you CANT sit back and milk a patented drug without continued innovation because there are a dozen other pharma companies out there developing their own proprietary drugs for that same condition to try to take market share. Take Viagra for example...huge cash cow for Pfizer, how long before Cialis hit the market? Before patent expiration. I don't have a solution in mind, but I strongly feel that the US consumer is subsidizing the rest of the world. I can deal with that for certain conditions in poor countries. I can't rationalize it when we are subsidizing other first-world nations.

True cj, the FDA hurdles are market specific, but I believe Europe has similar 3 phase toxicity/efficacy testing requirements that are often waived or rubber stamped if they already have FDA approval. Point being, those drugs will not come to market anywhere without FDA approval because the US market makes up most of the demand and without that market, it wouldn't be profitable to develop and market the drug. If you're speaking strictly operating margins, look at Merck...40%. The blockbuster problem you mention is the catch. This year it may be 40%, two years from now they lose patent protection on a couple of big earners and that margin drops to a Pfizer like 6.5% Extending patent protection may be a solution, but has it's own problems. Maybe a R&D/licensing fee paid to the developer by the generics after patent protection ends? The repercussions of something like that are bound to be big, but I don't pretend to know how it would shake out. For comparison, Microsoft has an operating margin over 20%, as does 3M, Intel, Coca Cola. Hell, look at the big financials...Citibank, MBNA, etc. Citi has a profit margin over 30% and MBNA has a profit margin over 60%!! I think the advertising is an ethical quandary. Personally I think it is wrong, and contributes to our "give me a pill to make my life better, doc" attitudes. How many people are going to "ask your doctor about xxx" who don't really need it? Adult ADD....hmmm, let's create a niche diagnosis, that is likely a real condition, but easily attributed to almost anyone living in our hectic world. I just get riled up every time I hear about the re-importation issue and hear politicians sucking up to the blue-hair set by endorsing it. It's just not as simple as they want it to be.

Alright, this has nothing to do with the Gambler, but... Bro is hiking a split-board, with what looks like some single-section, non-collapsable ski poles. Looks like you were approaching a climb (rope in the pack, helmet, etc), rather than hiking for turns, but here's the question: WTF do you do with those long-ass ski poles when you're riding the board? Stash them up your arse? Do some kinda hybrid snowboarding with poles (and would that make you a "pole rider"? )