willstrickland

Malt liquor...'cause it makes you climb sicker. And it's ghetto fabulous.

That's OK! Because someone can buy the XL Modular mitts, gtex, taped seams, with double thickness liners I have in the yard sale by making me a reasonable offer.

Just to clear up the "Fat Teddy" namesake dealio, I'm pretty certain that he's referring to Sen Ted Kennedy, affectionately referred to as "fat teddy" by those on the right. And cracked, Josh, and Scott...nobody cares about your test scores...how good was your football team? That's the true measure

TR: Sat: Rode bike in the rain. Drank beer on the balcony watching a hail storm reek havoc on my neighborhood. Sun: Pulled plastic inside while a hail storm wrought havoc on my neighborhood. Mon: Drank beer on the balcony while a hail storm....

Jens tell Nakagami I said hello if you see him again soon.

They had a "negotiated rule making" process which essentially is a bunch of comment periods, meetings, etc to suss out the various positions on the issue prior to an agency making rules to implement policy. The process is ongoing, and the rules have not yet been formalized. This process can take years after all the "negotiations" of the rule making process take place. Director's Order 41 was the directive that set this whole shitstorm into effect. The last info I had was from the end of last year when nothing new had happened. Check with the AF, or the director's office of the NPS or the Sec's office at Dept of Interior.

Hey Luke, you want some cheese with dat or what?

Judging from your "question for the ladies" thread, I wouldn't be so sure about that.

Ummm...nah, somebody else will chime in soon enough.

SIZE XL. Mildly used OR modular mitts. These are the goretex shells with taped seams and synthetic rubber palms. The liners are the double thickness pile liners. The mitts are in great shape. Very very warm. Other than a little dirt, they look almost new. I've cut the tags off (they use embroidered logo now instead of tags...as you can see in the pic) because they snagged things. Gauntlet length, idiot cords, two cinch straps-one at wrist and one at end of gauntlet. You can check 'em out here http://www.orgear.com/cgi-bin/hazel.cgi?action=serve&item=products/handwear/waterproof/taped_mod_mitts.html These are blue, not red. Make me an offer..

This is an interesting take on the situation. I say this because of all the people screaming about the Abu Ghraeb incident, most of them seem to focus their ire not on the soliders, but on the administration...at least that's my perception. I've written here before that when the arab street is "outraged" over Abu Ghraeb but show no outrage over Berg, Pearl, Quattrocchi, mutilated bodies, etc they have NO moral standing and their "outrage" is an absurdity. Be that as it may, I didn't get this out of the article at all. In fact, I thought is was a very poorly constructed argument attempting to compare conflics that essentially have no basis of comparison. An elective war, in direct opposition to policies of containment advocated by Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Gen. Anthony Zinni, etc is quite different from a war on our own soil or something on the scale of the WWs. I don't find a valid basis of comparison. Zinni's take is worth reading: http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=50925 I've been in uniform. I have friends in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I opposed this war from the beginning, and I pitched in among friends to foot the bill for kevlar for J who would otherwise have shipped without it. I don't direct any of my contempt for this war at the military, but squarely at this inept administration. I have stated before that I believe Iran, Pakistan, and N. Korea are more of a threat to us than Iraq ever was. All it will take in Pakistan is one coup...a coup that has already been attempted on Musharaf twice. One coup, one jihad jerky ascends to power, and they have the nuke. As far as harboring terrorists I believe Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, and Pakistan are far worse than Iraq ever was. I think this administration was more focused on trying a strategic way to democratize the region than on any clear/imminent/gathering threat. They had ready-made excuses to invade Iraq...and to be honest, Saddam deserved to be swept from power for failing to adhere to the UN resolutions, firing at our planes patrolling the No Fly Zones, etc. The rush, and the criminally poor planning are my beef. When you are the best fighting force in the world, how can you not provide your troops with the equipment, planning, training, and numbers to do the job properly? The administration is the one who have failed our troops, not those who opposed sending them into a rushed, poorly planned war without a broad level of international support and assistance both militarily and financially.

I support the right to own firearms. In fact I just got back from a hike on state administred rec lands where I carried a borrowed Glock 23 in .40 SW. Not my preferred caliber for an anti-grizzly round, but better than lugging a 12 gauge and with the wind we had today there's no telling where pepper spray would end up. Sounds like homer is getting away with one here. I don't know what the Payson area is like, but there are big cats in parts of AZ and I'd certainly want to ability to carry a firearm if I thought it was warranted. Nevertheless, dude fired one shot into the ground in front of the dog...if the dog owner guy then is pissed and running at me for shooting at the dog or near the dog, and I tell him to stop but he keeps charging, he gets at least one ear-whistler or dancer before I put one in his leg. Three to the chest with no real warning is a little excessive to say the least, especially when the guy hasn't produced any weapon. Where I come from the saying is "shoot to kill or pay the lawyer bills" or its corollary "dead men don't talk". Sounds like a nervous geriatric got trigger happy to me.

You chuffer, "E" grades as in "E1" are subdivisions of "extremely severe" which is the adjectival grade above HVS (hard very severe) so it's either HVS or E1, but not both.

Man Commits Suicide After Sex with Hen Fri May 28, 2004 10:50 AM ET LUSAKA (Reuters) - A 50-year-old Zambian man has hanged himself after his wife found him having sex with a hen, police said Friday. The woman caught him in the act when she rushed into their house to investigate a noise. "He attempted to kill her but she managed to escape," a police spokesman said. The man from the town of Chongwe, about 50 km (30 miles) east of Lusaka, killed himself after being admonished by other villagers. The hen was slaughtered after the incident.

OMFG!!!! Tell him to "rock out with your cock out"

Here's a peeve for ya, happened today: Ex's who feel the need to write you a letter to inform you of their recent engagement. WTF? After being incommunicato for a year, you suddenly feel the need to say "hope you're doing well in Alaska"...but go ahead and throw in "BTW I recently got engaged and I hope you'll come to the wedding". Uhh, no I don't think so.

Peanuts are not tree nuts, they are ground nuts, grow on a vine type plant (I'm from f'in Georgia, remember...Jimmy Carter the poor ass peanut farmer and all that shit). Strangely enough, I have a coworker who is allergic to tree nuts, but not ground nuts...I didn't ask her if she was allergic to deez nuts. Peeve: Shitheads who think they are required to yell into their cell phones and do so in the lobby of our office, on public transportation, in the grocery, etc etc etc. Somebody's gonna end up with Nokia enema one day when I finally snap.

Matt I don't want to get into a pissing match with you over this. [insert your favortite lawyer joke here]. I have no interest in debating the route itself. My point is simply that there are people out there who could be greatly beneficial to your/our cause that may be excluded due to the information control tactics. You can make all the snide comments you want and pooh-pooh the concerns as "paranoia", but that only adds to my perception of your pompous attitude. Good day and good luck.

A recent election strategy take by James Carville and Stan Greenberg...it's in pdf, but pretty small file. Good read. http://www.ourfuture.org/docUploads/20040520_dcorps-stratmem.pdf

If you agree Matt, then who pulled crazyjz's post? He insinuated that it was you. Another point: You presume that everyone here is "uninformed" when I know for a fact that there is at lease one regular poster here who is a professional in the USFS and likley has more insight into and influence within the USFS than you, your buddies, and the Access Fund combined. Not every climber out there agrees with the AF's policy or direction. To exclude these people because the AF presumes to represent all climbers is an affront to the democratic process. And yes, I understand that a united front as climbers is the preferred tact. Your whole "you don't know what's going on behind the scenes, so ask me in private" attitude is frankly pompous. It's conveys an attempt to control the information and the debate by excluding people who disagree. The argument that there is not suffcient information doesn't hold water either because a simple statement of "this is what we know, this is what we don't know, this is what will happen next" is sufficient to inform people and quell the uninformed screaming and conclusion jumping. I wish you luck in coming to a reasonable agreement with the USFS. And I hope at some point you recognize that by attempting to limit the people involved in the discussions you may very well hurt your own cause by excluding those with influence and insight.

Firearms, donuts...Greg I think you have a promising future in Law Enforcement!

Unless you plan on doing alot of "at your limit" type routes, I'd give serious consideration to the old 5.10 Hueco's with the EVA heel pad. The closeouts are about $75, FiveTen has them on the sale section of their website up to size (mens) 6.5 which should be around a 39. So a 38 should be between a 5.5 and a 6. They have both of these sizes in stock. These things are SUPER comfortable and good all arounders. Once you climb in one of these type padded heel, somewhat relaxed fit shoes, you'll reach for them first most of the time. Other shoes in this vein are the Scarpa marathon, new fiveten climbalot, and surely sportiva has something similar. I've climbed to very close to my limit in these things, and they get the call more than my anasazis, moccasyms, vipers, Miuras, matrix, and focus combined. I prefer multi-pitch trad routes for reference.

I'll take a slightly different view JayB. The "oil war" contingent was certainly visible in the form of protests and news coverage, but I heard another reason for opposition quite often prior to commencement. I heard this reason from policy wonks and retired military officers alike. The reason was "why rush this?". The weather (impending summer in the desert) was a big reason for the rush, and valid in many respects. I personally don't think waiting 6 months would have harmed the effort. This rushed march to war precluded developing an adequate plan for post-conflict Iraq. It also precluded garnering more international support. The "coalition" is nothing more than a token pledge of allgiance to the US and Britain by a few small players. We have been reaping the seeds sown in that rush ever since Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" in his flight-suit swagger stunt. I don't know the latest numbers, but I believe more servicemen have been killed since the end of "major combat operations" than were killed during those combat operations. It all speaks to an arrogance of the administration. IMO, you can lay that blame squarely on Wolfowitz and Cheney. Wolfowitz was writing as early as 1992 arguing for a pre-emptive doctrine. In 1998 Wolfy and Rummy (along with Perle, Armitage, William Bennett, Bill Kristol, and about 10 other neocons associated with the Project for a new American Century) sent a letter to Clinton....I give you a quote: "The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy."(emphasis added). Notably, Colin Powell and Condi Rice were arguing a different tact after this letter. To wit: Powell - "Containment has been a successful policy, and I think we should make sure that we continue it until such time as Saddam Hussein comes into compliance with the agreements he made at the end of the (Gulf) war." Rice - "The first line of defense, should be a clear and classical statement of deterrence—if they do acquire WMD, their weapons will be unusable because any attempt to use them will bring national obliteration." Cheney's arrogance and sheer miscalcualtion is evident in this statement made shortly before commencement of operations: "As for the reaction of the Arab "street," the Middle East expert Professor Fouad Ajami predicts that after liberation, the streets in Basra and Baghdad are "sure to erupt in joy in the same way the throngs in Kabul greeted the Americans." Extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of Jihad. Moderates throughout the region would take heart. And our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced, just as it was following the liberation of Kuwait in 1991." There were alot of people, myself included, who thought this was a very poor idea because there was no rush. If we had all this primo intelligence that Powell produced in the Dog and Pony show at the UN, and we were going to strike, why would we not hit those specific targets from afar and continue the containment policy, focusing our resources on actual homeland security and attacking terrorist camps etc such as in the border region of Pakistan/Afgahnistan? The rabid lefties will latch onto the latest, greatest reason that best makes their ultimate case. Just because they are the most visible element of the anti-war camp doesn't mean others didn't oppose this clusterfuck on legitimate grounds from the get-go.

Who, for clarity, are under two different Departments: USFS is Dept of Agriculture, NPS is Dept of Interior.