Jim

And the big winter event, the Iditarod, is over!!

I'm President Bush, and I approve of this scare tactic.

And neither of them were elected!!

Oh that picture is funny. Can you imagine Bush in front of a hostile parliment trying to answer questions. He could even string together coherent sentences on Meet the Press when they were tossing softballs over the plate.

Gimme a break! We're talking about the reason Bushy and Rummy gave for going to WAR. It's not just some mild rider put on an appropriations bill in the middle of the night or something. This is for spending tens of Billions of our money, spitting in the face of our allies, and putting our soldiers at rist. And for what? They lied and are now in a stew. Their feet should be held to the fire dammit. It's just that it's not done often enough.

Actually it's the liberal media - just can't count on them to follow a story.

Later in the year Silver Peak is a good trail run or quick hike. Great BC ski in early spring.

It wasn't about sex so I guess we can ignore it.

I agree with your main point- that terrorism is a crude stick often used by folks with no clear agenda and often out of sync with the general public. But to ignore the roots of terrorism is done at our peril. Yes many of the terrorists are from middle class families so what does this say about their motivations? Likely it has to do with power and wealth in their countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and others, where there is no hint of democracy and a growing friction beween the Muslim fundamental movement and the western oriented rulers. They see no room for their voice in their society and the western countries assisting proping up these regimes. And you can't ignore our continued funding or Israel's opressive tactics. This is not to excuse terrorism of any sort - it's a destructive force of no good. And why is Muslim fundamentalism growing? I don't know. Seems like the only thing they seem to be able to grab on to with any vigor is hate.

While sitting extend you leg out, foot off the ground about a foot. The by moving your ankle, not your leg, trace A, B, C with your big toe repeatedly. Helps strengthen and with mobilty.

Very good dective work - yes the pictures were attached but they're giant jpegs and I'm at work with little options. If that bear was ranked 150 I'd hate to see the others - it looks huge.

Got this from a fellow biologist in AK: A guy who works for the US Forest Service in Alaska and his trophy bear. He was out deer huntinglast week when a large grizzly bear charged him from about 50 yards away. The guy unloaded his 7mm Mag Semi-automatic rifle into the bearand it dropped a few feet from him. The big bear was still alive sohe reloaded and shot it several times in the head. The bear was just over one thousand six hundred pounds. It stood 12' 6" high at theshoulder, 14' to the top of his head. It's the largest grizzly bear ever recorded in the world. Of course, the Alaska Fish and Wildlife Commission did not let him keep it as a trophy, but the bear will be stuffed and mounted, and placed on display at the Anchorage airport to remind tourist's of the risks involved when in the wild). Based on the contents of the bears stomach, the Fish and Wildlife Commission established the bear had killed at least two humans in thepast 72 hours. The US Forest Service, backtracking from where the bear had originated, found the hiker's 38-caliber pistol emptied. Not far from the pistol was the remains of the hiker . The other body has not been found. Although the hiker fired sixshots and managed to hit the grizzly with four shots (they ultimately found four 38 caliber slugs along with twelve 7mm slugs inside the bear's dead body) it only wounded the bear - and probably angered it. The bear killed the hiker an estimated two days prior to the bear's own death by the gun of theForest Service worker. Think about this - If you are an average size man; You would be level with the bear's belly button when he stood upright, the bear would look you in the eye when it walked on all fours! To give additional perspective, consider that this particular bear, standing on its hind legs, could walk up to an average single story house and look overthe roof, or walk up to a two story house and look in the bedroom windows.

I disagree that options have not been put forward. To begin with Iraq was just a distraction we should be putting our resources into intel and picking apart these groups. I'd even be for more resources to Afganistan to weed out Osama and friends, and live up to our promise of making that country a better place. My 2 cents.

Hmmmm. Also seems that may folks were predicting the current state of affairs pending Bushie's foray into the midle east. And as far as appeasment. Seems that the former Spanish government was doing exactly that - licking the shoes of the US for a few crumbs - despite an overwhelming majority of Spainards against the Iraq intervention. You use the 911 ploy almost as skillfully as the Bushies. Iraq had nothing to do with 911 or terrorists. We're pouring money down a rathole and have taken our eye off the ball, the real terrorist hunt, where we should be putting out resources.

Before Thursday, the Popular Party had been favored to win by a comfortable margin. PP Opps - you are correct. I misread. The article says that 90% of Spainards disagreed with the decision to back the war - it didn't translate that into predicted voting.

WTF are you talking about? The incumbent government was on its way out. Their decision to go to bed with the US was extremely unpopular and they got tossed because of it. It didn't help that the current government tried to point the finger towards the Basque sepratists to try and simmer tempers. It's always a good ploy to bring up the terroist connection between Iraq and our invasion - about as much truth to that as the WMD card.

Never heard of mylotherapy. Basically for prolo they inject inert substances (dextrose or sailine solutions) into the ligament to iniate an immune response, which causes more collagen to be laid down. Ligaments are poorly supplied by blood vessels which is why they take so dang long to heal, or don't.

The defense department has been moving in this direction for some time, hiring civilian contractors to supply items that the armed forces used to do themselves - a lot of logistical items - moving things around, setting up camps and related facilites. The idea was to get the free market competition going and get contractors to do the job more efficiently and cheaper. Well anyone who has worked on a contractor basis knows what a no-bid contract, especially one for this type of money, leads to. Certainly it is a tough job and we should be paying a fair price, but it's the usual pigs at the tough here.

Bush Continues To Mislead on Job Creation Last month, President Bush released a personally signed report promising that his economic plan would create 2.6 million new jobs by 2004. 1 When data suggested that this would not be possible, he "distanced himself" from the report and "declined to endorse the jobs estimate" publicly during an Oval Office appearance.2 Now, with a new jobs report showing that his economic program continues to fall short, the president has resorted to outright dishonesty.3 Specifically, the president deployed Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to Capitol Hill last week to claim that he never actually signed the report. She told lawmakers the president "doesn't sign this report."4 Sources: "2.6 million jobs on way, Bush says", Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 02/11/04 "The Challenger Gets Mentioned Early", Washington Post, 03/09/04. "Bush declines to endorse prediction of 2.6 million jobs", Baltimore Sun, 02/19/04. "Americans Drop Out of Labor Force, Posing Risks for Bush, Fed", Bloomberg, 03/08/04.

I have that nice blue covered guide book that came out, what, 10 years ago? Can't remember the author - maybe it's out of print now.

I've researched this a bit in relation to a chronic ligament issue. There's only two guys you want to even consider going to in WA - Dorman - a kind odd guy in Federal Way, and another guy in Bellevue (sundquist - something like this - pm me & I could look it up). There are quite a few folks out there willing to inject you with anything but only a couple with a track record in WA. Prolo has been around since the 50's but got a bad rap in the medical journals when someone died because of it - long story, bad treatment. Most often it involves a series of shots over a month to 6 weeks. C. Everrett Koop (ex-surgeon general) is a proponent of prolo - lots of info on his website. Data that has been published shows stimulated production and lay down of collegen on injured ligaments - and clinic trials that show 80% improvement in patients. Which translates to some improvement in 80% of those tested. So no guarantees. And in WA it is not covered by insurance and expect to pay between $300 - $3000 depending on how many sessions, location of injury, etc. Physical therapy should also always go with prolo treatment. Check out the book "Prolo your pain away" by the Dr. Hauser. Interesting reading but he is also selling.

I think Josh has the word. Go as light as possible - you can still get up quite a few peaks w/o gear, just need some glacier travel equipment. I'd linger as much as you can along the way - camp at a couple of the cols if the weather allows. Fun place.

One of my favorites is Van Trump Park to Camp Hazard. Just as high as Muir w/o the crowd.