willstrickland

RobBob makes a good point and the healthcare burden of the aging boomers is, IMO, going to be THE biggest issue in this country in the next 30 years. The problem is by no means limited to social medical programs. And it's an unfortunate circumstance of the "sound byte" campaign style of the current day that no candidate can address the health care issue comprehensively. Everyone tries to spin it so that it's one issue their voters can get behind...expensive medication, HMO inadequacy, universal care, universal insurance. We don't even attempt to look at the big picture. A couple of the problems: 1. Lifestyle - Our supersize-it, high stress, couch-potato, no time to exercise society. Diet changes alone would significantly impact the % GDP spent on healthcare. How do you begin to change this? No politician is going to stand up and say "hey you fat fucks, put down the Big Mac, put down that 48oz coke, and go eat something sensible". They would lose those precious $$ from the fast food lobby. I mean, c'mon a govt that labels ketchup as a vegetable? 2. Drug costs - Look, everyone wants to make this out as the evil pharma companies robbing us blind, after all "in Canada you can get the same drugs for cheap...we should be allowed to buy them in Canada" Let me tell ya something sparky, the US consumer is footing the R&D costs on those drugs because the Canadian and other govts with socialistic healthcare policies negotiate the price and won't accept paying more than a certain % over the production cost. Well guess what? It costs hundreds of millions to bring a new drug to market before it ever goes into production. You, the US consumer, are paying for that. What would happen if we all bought drugs from Canada? Big pharma would say "OK Canada, you have xx million citizens, prevalence of yy medical condition is 10% of the population, so we are only going to sell you enough to treat your population." You would very quickly see Canada put the kibosh on allowing us to go buy "their" medicine. All these retarded politicians supporting legalizing re-importation don't have a clue about the issue. You want cheaper drugs, put the pressure on Canada, France, Italy to pay their fair share of the R&D. You think they are robbing you blind...profit margin for big pharma averages in the high teens. Pfizer is only running around 3%, Wyeth around 9%; Merck, Sanofi, Glaxo upwards of 20%. Lilly, Bristol Myers Squibb, in the teens. Is this unreasonable? As an investor in a few of these companies, I say hell no that's not unreasonable.

"I think you need a Nissan X-terra to make this rap anchor work Bob"

Booty? or Karma? or roundabout chestbeating

265 grams. Selle Italia Flite Gel Flow Ti rail

Dunno, but I'm sitting here looking at a yellow/red hybrid and it doesn't look like you would really need another size in there. I REALLY hope that doesn't mean they are going to make the hybrids go to a yellow/grey and grey/red...the difference in cam sizes on the hybrids are pretty much perfect right now, for the granite pin scars anyway.

And therein lies the problem with your argument. The big distraction was the "resulting furor". And that was purely a product of the GOP playing partisan politics over something that had little if anything to do with the performance of the job. I would imagine that impeachment and an unrelenting GOP attack machine would certainly distract him. So who created the distraction...Clinton because he shagged some fat chick, or Newt and Co. because they seized it as a way to attack him? Would he have really been distracted without all the right-wing propaganda and witch hunt? I seriously doubt it. I hear the argument that "the President is a role model" and that is certainly true, but if you are seriously holding up any politcian in this day and age as a role model for your children (with the possible exception of McCain) you are a poor parent indeed.

Sailboi, you started out ok with the access issue on Dosewallips, but you are quickly revealing yourself as a simpleton and right-wing shill. I am somewhat conservative. A libertarian really. But your hero worship and Clinton bashing is ridiculous in light of the man behind the witch-hunt. I speak of none other than the former Speaker of the House, from my own home state of Georgia...Newt, the slimy fucking amphibian, Gingrich. If you want to talk about someone treating a woman poorly, try this on for size: The Honorable Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the House, and 3rd in the power lineage of the country at the time, served his wife with divorce papers while she lay on her deathbed suffering from terminal cancer so he could keep shagging his mistress, marry her, and then file for divorce from her too. This was the same Newt who used "family values" as a centerpoint for his "republican revolution". One day you partisans will learn that these scumbags are all power-hungry assholes who will do anything and say anything to acquire that power. The list of honorable politicians in this country is short enough to count on your fingers, and they fall about equally on both sides of the politcal aisle as well as in the middle. McCain, Feingold. Consider the ideological differences between those two, and then consider the legislation they brought in the best interest of this country. We need more like them. We need more like Ventura. We need less people like you who will buy into the party propaganda on either side and fail to use their brains to consider the issues beyond the sound-bytes fed to you by the media. I guess what I'm saying is: Fuck off shill-boi BTW, I signed the petition and sent a letter in support of repairing Dosewallips Rd.

I aced the warm up round with 14/14, but in the difficult round I only went 11/14. Maybe that's why I'm not married They still say you may trust me with your dog.

Is that Green Giant pic orineted sideways? Looks like it needs a 90 degree clockwise rotation maybe? cool pics.

Hundreds Flee

Those things are dangerous. Watch out George 'ol boy!!!

The definition is centered around the soil going anaerobic for long enough during the growning season to predominantly support hydrophytic vegetation. Swamps, marshes, and bogs are the public perception of "wetland" however, the biological/ecological function is similar in the areas that don't "seem like wetlands". The definition is actually "For regulatory purposes, the Corps of Engineers defines wetlands as those areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or groundwater at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and under normal circumstances do support, a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions." When we make a wetland determination it requires meeting 3 parameters: soils, vegetation, and hydrology. An area has to meet ALL THREE of these parameters. The soils must be hydric and show evidence of anaerobic conditions. 50% or more of the dominant vegetation species must be facultative or wetter, and there must be sufficient hydrology to make a case for saturation/inundation for more than 5% of the growing season. Furthermore we do not take jurisdiction over any wetlands that cannot be hydrologically connected to a navigable water of the US. Isolated wetlands with no surface water connection to a naviagable water or one of it's tributaries are non-jurisdictional. I don't think there is intellectual dishonesty taking place, I think there is a public perception of wetlands based on appearance rather than science. We do public outreach/education at the local home shows/building fairs etc. I do think there is some form of intellectual dishonesty in the way we take jurisdiction in some cases that is due to the legal precendent issues. Technicalities in some precedents, unrelated to the core issue have required some "creative" legal manuevering. I make the point to our upper mgmt all the time that the regs need to be re-written in light of these issue because our authority is derived in a convoluted and somewhat dishonest manner. Here in Alaska, literally 50-60% of the land is technically wetlands. I am typically dealing with fill permits and my aim is to avoid wetland impacts first and minimize them second. Strategic planning during the design phase of big projects can often cut impacts in half without any impact on the permittee by simply choosing where to place structures or how to arrange a project layout. I agree with you that alot of the enviro action groups are dishonest in their portrayal of the issues in these cases. They will often challenge any agency decision simply to delay the process whether the science is valid or not. They know that their extreme stance is not supported by the law, so they use any available method to legally monkeywrench the system. Last minute appeals after previously agreeing that their concerns were met, appealing everything on principle, etc. They are, in a manner, defeating their own cause because they: 1. Lose credibility with the public 2. Tie up agency money in legal wrangling that could be used to do more compliance and enforcement work 3. Lose the goodwill of regulators like me who are very much for protection, but a realist. You are spot-on, there are two very extreme groups on both sides. Unfortunately for me, I'm in the middle and have only so much latitude within the law. Dealing with shady fuckers from both sides of the fence tries my patience sometimes. It also amuses me, because they usually think they are pulling one over on you.

There is a funny story about the late Walt Shipley and Russ "Fish" Walling trying for the 2nd ascent of Born Under a Bad Sign on El Cap. This route was stupid hard, and had sent a few big wall studs away with their tails between their legs. Walt had been up on it once with Paul Gagner in '84 and they bailed. He and Russ tried it once in '85 and bailed. The third time in '86 was the charm, but when they got ready to blast off after fixing to Cats and Frogs ledge, Russ noticed something wasn't quite right. I'll let them tell the story (reproduced from the TR on Fish's site): WALT: "As before, we fixed the four pitches up to "Cats and Frogs Ledge". Ready to "Blast", we got a ride down to El Cap with intentions of hauling the bags and bivying atop the "Devil's Tower" once again. Russ was to go first while I organized the loads for the mondo haul. The 3 ropes we had tied together hung away from the wall at the base. Russ sorted out his tangle of daisies and began taking the stretch out of the fixed lines. He was only a few feet off the ground when I realized the futility of the situation......I had eaten L.S.D. earlier in the day and the prospect of organizing the haul was overwhelming me. I had to confess my altered state. "Why didn't you just say so, Bip" he quipped It was becoming obvious that we had failed to allocate enough time for our mission. It was back to the bar at Yosemite Lodge to party some more! Down the Zodiac talus we went and out onto the road, hoping to hitch a ride back home. Russ said, "Ah, we'll get picked up by some bleeding heart liberal in a V.W.!" He was right. I asked the driver of the V.W. bus that gave us a ride what his politic was...a damned liberal!" RUSS: "Now this was funny! I could tell something was up when Walt was packing the bags in a slow and strange way. He had packed bags dozens of times before, but never like this. I just thought he was nervous. I was hanging there about 5 feet off the ground when he told me..... I confess that I was relieved to get off those lines and have one more day of life. Within minutes we were outta there" Performance enhancer? You tell me. I have found that a dugout can come in might handy on the rack in the middle of a sketchy aid pitch. But I dunno know about that one.

Since I typically work 50 and get paid for 40, and am probably the 2nd or 3rd most productive person I know in my agency...no I feel pretty good about it. I hardly consider myself a "leech". I work in environmental protection (wetlands specifically) and regulation is inherently a govt activity. I am working to protect the integrity of OUR waters by administering Section 404 of the Clean Water Act. I could certainly work in the private sector and make probably 10-20% more in salary, but those private sector jobs in this field are aimed at avoiding, bypassing, and skirting regulation, or figuring out a way to do the absolute minimum to keep the regulators at bay. They are not tasked with environmental protection, but with saving money for their clients. Personally, as an environmental engineer I would be ashamed to work for most of the consulting firms that work in water or air regulatory compliance. Success is not only measured in money. I do suffer from some libertarian angst over the implementation of the regs and the structure of the agency. We could be more effective with less staff and by spending much less taxpayer money if the regs were re-written via congressional legislation. We end up using some very convoluted means to take jurisidiction that are based on strings of district court precedents that are often challenged in court or appealed via the permit appeals process. Staff time sorting through the muck, legal costs, guidance documents and reg implementation memos, MOAs/MOUs with other agencies all eat up resources. Add to that the stereotypical government lazy/incompetent/confused/unempowered employee and the bureacratic clusterfuck (simple things like buying DEET for the field season are a major hassle with multiple approvals required, we have one vehicle for 6 people trying to do field work because last year when the office was down to 2 people they didn't put enough miles on the vehicle to justify another...well no shit eh, they were so swamped/understaffed they couldn't even get into the field) Alot of things about govt work are anathema to a libertarian type, but I believe in the purpose of my work and I'd rather have someone competent (i.e. ME) doing it than some lazy joker who's just there to collect a check.

Apocalypse Now

Food stamps, public housing, medicare, social security, welfare. Add private non-profit charities like Salvation Army, community food banks and the like. I'd say everyone has access to the minimum required for survival and then some. This is the land of opportunity. If you want more than the basics, get off your lazy ass and WORK FOR IT. Whether it's hard labor, or ingenuity, cunning, or entreprenurial spirit...make your own way. The only thing I tangentially agree with in your post (and you really didn't even say this) is that CEO salaries at public companies need to be controlled. I don't say this because of a wealth discrepancy issue, I say this because as a shareholder in those companies I think it's complete bullshit to both pay them that much without regard for their performance, and to put that kind of financial burden on smaller companies such as up and coming biotech firms. Somehow the libs have come to the conclusion that because the winners are living very well, the lazy and incompetent should somehow be entitled to live at some formulaic fraction as well as the top. That is absurdity. Everyone should have the bare necessities and the opportunities to work their way into a better situation. I believe they have that now. I think all the public insitutions that provide those bare minimums such as food stamps/welfare could use serious reform to both meet the needs better AND to reduce the cost to the taxpayers. Show me an American dying of starvation or going naked because they can't get clothes. I am the first from either side of my family to go to college. My 18 year old single mother worked two jobs 60 hours a week until she was 30 something and I was in high school to eek out a lower middle class life for us. I personally worked two jobs during college to feed myself and put a roof over my head. I still had to put myself over 30k in debt to get through undergrad and grad school. I have a feeling that all these bleeding heart socialists would have been up the creek in a bad way 100 years ago when you had to work and grow your own food or produce something to trade in order to live. Reminds me of a CLASSIC liberal/conservative parable: The Ant and the Grasshopper [Classic Version] The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold. MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself! The Ant and the Grasshopper [Modern Version] The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC, ABC, and CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing "It's Not Easy Being Green." Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing "We shall overcome." Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake. Tom Daschle & Walter Mondale exclaim in an interview with Peter Jennings that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share." Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act," retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bill appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients. The ant loses the case. The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow. The grasshopper is found dead in a drug-related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood. MORAL OF THE STORY: Vote Republican

Getting closer. Chatanika was evacuated last night and Chena Hot Springs, Haystack and Bear's Den got the call to get outta dodge this afternoon. The fires to our northeast have advanced 10-15 miles in one day and are within 40 miles. Wind was gusting to 30mph over the ridges at mid-day, winds will stay 10-20 at least through tomorrow. It's looking grim for alot of people. Winds are blowing it right at us. If it advances another 15 miles in the next 24hrs, I'm going to start packing in anticipation of hauling ass outta here.

There are 60 active wildfires burning up here now. 13 have crews working them. The smoke plume is larger than the state of Texas. Visibility from my office window is about 1/4mi. At least I'm finished with my field work for the week. Normal particulate levels are around 5-15 ug/m3. Yesterday at noon (when it was not nearly as smoky in F'banks) the particulates were over 1000 ug/m3. Carbon monoxide levels were well above the EPA safety standards. It is MUCH worse today. Around 600,000 acres are active and we've had over 900,000 burn this season (including the current 600k). You literally can't even see the sun today, and there is no cloud-cover only smoke. Yesterday you could barely make out the crimson red ball of the sun. Everything smells like a campfire. Asthmatics are showing up in the hospitals left and right, and we've had 20-30mph wind gusts pushing the 75,000 acre Boundary fire..and the smoke southwest toward F-banks. There are also the Taylor fire at 250,000 acres and the Camp Creek fire 25,000 acres sending smoke our way. The leading edge of the closest fire (Boundary fire) is about 50 miles out right now. It went from 20,000 acres to 75,000 acres yesterday in strong winds. The Steese Hwy has been closed, residents of Chatanika have been evacuating over the last day. This shit is nuts. There is no relief in sight. We've had no rain for over two weeks and none expected anytime soon. My car has a nice coating of ash, eyes are burning , sore throat, coughing. All the youth sports are cancelled, they had to fly the fire tanker planes to places outside Fairbanks so they wouldn't get grounded due to visibility. I would post a pic but all you would see is white-out conditions. Some people are loosing their homes right now so pray, cross your fingers, channel good vibes...whatever your method might be .The consolation is that it's sparsely populated up here, unless it reaches the city. I have never seen anything like this in my life.

Hey, maybe he really meant "amount" of patients, we do have an obesity problem in this country.

Go on a weekday. Last week of August or first week of Sept. Do the Direct. Skip the mank 4th class approach pitch by continuing right about 35 yards and then back left on grassy ramps. Chockstone chimney has two chockstones, go over one and behind one. Make sure you get the Black Face pitch, 5th pitch if you count the chockstone chimney as the 1st. If there are slow moving crowds in front of you, you can escape left after pitch 2? or 3? and pick up the Wall St ramp to the upper Exum. Be at the base of the route at dawn, move fast and get down before 1pm if at all possible, thunderstorms can be nasty up there. The lower exum is the best climbing on the route, I've done the direct twice and I wouldn't do the upper section by itself. There are other really good climbs up that way too. If you're going to hike all the way up there, do Irene's Arete on the way up, and the NW couloir on Middle the day after you do the exum. One of the best trips I've ever had was doing those in a 4 day, 3 night deal with a rest day where we just moved from Irene's to the saddle before doing the exum. We carried over the middle on the last day and descended the SW couloir. You can also leave your stuff at the saddle and rap/downclimb the N. Ridge then reverse your approach to the NW couloir.

Felt a pang late one afternoon I was fishin’ off muir beach With larry lalonde Grabbed a tuna salad sandwich And I started to chew Pretty soon ler’s yellin Fish on, fish on! I was just a little pup And it was derby day Was dad and me and darrell Out in san pablo bay Taco flavored doritos And my orange life vest Dad caught a hundred pound sturgeon On twenty-pound test Now he fought that fish for an hour and a half Darrell’d say jump ya sons a bitch! And he grabbed for the gaff When we got him in the boat He measured six feet long I was so danged impressed I had To write this song called Fish on T’was a bright and sunny day It was me and todd huth Fishin’ shark & stingray Out of bohuas lagoon Well hey, hey, hey I’ll be screwed, blued and tatooed Looks like I got me one of them fish on Fish on! PRIMUS

Ever consider that it just might be continued use of the prevailing theme of SATIRE? Are you really going to take any of the sentences in there at face value?

I took away a completely different meaning from the babysmasher website than the two sides in this pissing match. Did any of you investigate the rest of the Babysmasher site? Go and read the "Lies" page. The message to me was twofold: 1. Baby changing stations are unsanitary and pose a public health risk. (You might as well be smashing them because using those stations is going to expose them to disease and/or make them sick) 2. We as a society have a major problem with children out of wedlock/single parent families. Call for birth control, responsible parenting, or restoration of the sanctity and reverence of a marriage. Yes, they are using some indefensible "humor" to convey the message. But read this quote from their "lies" page and tell me if you get the same meaning that I outlined above: Corporate America is lying to you - the fact is, the use of Baby Smashers as "baby changing stations" is endangering our health. The unsanitary nature of using a publicly accessible device to change the dirty diapers of babies should be an obvious red flag to the average consumer. However, it seems as if big business has managed to pull the wool over our fine country's eyes yet again. Disease and filth are inadvertently being spread throughout the adult population via urine and fecal matter residue left on Baby Smashers by those using them as "baby changing stations". While one of the obvious advantages of the nation-wide installation of Baby Smashers is population control - this spread of disease to adults is an unwanted side effect. Furthermore, as the number of children born out of wedlock continues to remain high, and the number of children born to unfit, uncapable parents does the same -- we at BabySmasher.com feel it is time to alert more of the general public to the existence and use of Baby Smashers. Please, contribute to society's education on this matter and order now!

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/06/24/cheney.leahy/index.html "Cheney, who as president of the Senate was present for the picture day, turned to Leahy and scolded the senator over his recent criticism of the vice president for Halliburton's alleged war profiteering... In response to Cheney, Leahy reminded Cheney that the vice president had once accused him of being a bad Catholic, to which Cheney replied either "f--- off" or "go f--- yourself." Nice one DICK.

You might also remember the anthrax letters, and another sniper in Ohio. If you're going to use hyperbolic rhetorical questions to back up your point, make sure they are above question.