Jim

I'll take a crack at it - ignoring your usual sophmoric remarks. And this is my opinion - can't speak for others. Keep the embargo, Iraq was contained and no threat to others. Keep the inspections going to keep his feet to the fire. Hell, we've been in there several months and no WMDs. Sure he was trying to play games but he was squeezed and under control. Keep our allies with us with strong UN behind the scenes negoiations so that if we caught him with something then the US could go in with allies, not alone. Our current stradegy is a failure. We went in alone, despite warnings from our own state department. Now we're eating crow and begging the UN to help us. Iraq is destabalized, terrorists are now there when they weren't before, the common folks are losing faith that we can do it. Shit, Bagdad still doesn't have steady electricty. We're stringing our overcommited forces to pot shots every day - with extensions of tour for 50 year old reservists (I know 2). There was no immediate need to rush in and destabalize the place, by ourselves, half cocked.

From my experience with this I would have to disagree. Even the most careful cavers can disturb bat breeding or hibernating colonies. They have a very narrow range of tolerance of temperature and humidity, and an extremely high metabolic rate. Disturbing them out of a rest state, even if they don't fly, causes them to lose use precious energy. There's some good papers out there on the energy dynamics regarding recreation disturbance to bats and the consequences, to bats not people. So while the USFS should be ripped for many of their environmental policies they did the right thing here. Goes with climbing too, not every place has to be open as an outdoor gym.

I would agree. Unfortunately this is what happens when you have an dipshit administration that wants to apply simplistic soultions to sophisticated world problems. The guys in the trenches are stuck and we back home have a huge bill.

Conducting rare plant surveys along the Oak Grove Fork of the Clackamas. Didn't find out until I started driving back to the airport at the end of the day. Very sad.

Man, I feel so pedestrian with some of these great trips posted but here goes: 1) Led Pope's Crack and Heart & Soul at Joshua Tree 2) 210 bird species logged and one Fer-de-lance captured in 10 days in Belize 3) Led MF and Bonnie's Roof at the Gunks in 85 deg/85% humidity - standard summer day.

*****In testimony to Congress in 1999, General Anthony C.Zinni, commander in chief of the US Central Command, testified that the Gulf Region, with its huge oil reserves, is a “vital interest” of “long standing” for the United States and that the US “must have free access to the region’s resources (Testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, April 13, 1999) ****Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas – reserves I’d love Chevron to have access to,” enthused Chevron CEO Kenneth T. Derr in a 1998 speech at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, in which he pronounced his strong support for sanctions From: Text as posted at www.chevrontexaco.com/news/archive/chevron_speech/1998/98-11-05.asp At the time, Condoleeza Rice, currently US National Security Advisor, was a board member of Chevron and one of the company’s supertankers was named after her. Though it is tempting to insist on the many oil and energy industry connections of the Bush administration, including the President and Vice President Cheney, oil issues have consistently had a heavy influence on US foreign policy, regardless of party or personalities But I guess all this is has no bearing on our policy implementation eh?

Ok - then from your view - why are we pumping so much money into this trough then? Lemme guess one or all of the following: WMDs cause Iraq was an imminent threat cause Saddam was bad, we are good 911 and terrorism Seems to me that it's a strategic US interest, and that interest is oil. You've provided no other believable reason. We've mucked around there a lot - if their main export were broccoli do you think we would care about the region?

Yaking on the phone trying to line up some land purchases of in-holdings on Mt. Hood NF, ordered some maps of the Seward Peninsula for field work in a couple weeks, took my usual long bike route home, 20 mi to burn off some tension. Played with cat at home. Not so bad.

I think this is one of the points - duh! Oh I know, where in there because of WMD, oh nevermind that one, no - where there to break up Al Queda and the 911 ploters - oh they were never there and were from Saudia Arabia nevermind, I know - it's to liberate the Iraqis and have democracy blossom overnight - oh nationbuilding is not so easy nevermind. Oh- Iraq is now a hot bed for terrorists - that's it.

Now don't be confusing things here, Pinochet was one of our guys.

I have some mixed emotions about the demo fee. I have friends that work in the Mt. Baker - Snoqualmie office and it has made a difference in the funds available for trail work. On the other hand there's the logging and grazing programs that bleed money and cause more trouble than what they're worth. WTF - why not make those items profitable before hitting up the recreation folks that are causing little problem. The Sierra Nevada NF Plan is a good example of not listening to folks. After about ten years of public input and lots of work between the environmental camp and the forestry camp a plan was carved out. When the Bushies came in they nixed it! Same goes for the national Roadless Area Plan - nationwide public input, overwhelming input to set aside more roadless areas. The Bushies came in and said it was not valid - luckily on that one they got dragged into court and lost.

What one leads on-sight, in good, strong style, safely, is what one's ability is." — Pat Ament

Would have to agree with you on this one. It's not like they weren't going to get any money. The Federal compensation fund is pretty generous, they just want more money that what the fund would offer. Not sure how the WTC is to blame, seems that there aren't too many structures that could withstand that, other than the casing on a nuclear power plant core.

If anyone is interested in the numbers: The deficit must be evaluated relative to the size of the economy, and deficits have been bigger in terms of percentage of GDP. This is accurate, to a certain extent. In the early 1980s, Reagan ran deficits that constituted 6 percent of GDP, the highest percentage ever. By contrast, the current deficit is 4.2 percent of GDP, which is obviously better. But today's $455 billion deficit includes the Social Security surplus -- which Bush, in the 2000 campaign, promised not to touch if elected. If we looked at the deficit without counting the Social Security surplus, the deficit would be 5.7 percent of the economy, the second-highest percentage since WWII. It's also interesting to note that Regan instituted tax raises six times under advice from his economists as his defecit started peaking. The next few years will be interesting as our commitment in Iraq and Afganistan will likely be no less than 5 years and as the spending goes on while the tax breaks continue.

I took a short leader fall - 15 ft - on a # 2 camalot while on a crack in Red Rocks this weekend. I think it's the second fall on this piece. The thing looks a little mangled and bent, but no frayed wires. So it may just need some straightenig out. So what's a rule of thumb on cams? For wired nuts I just go by the shape of the cable.

While a one time $87 billion is a chunk of change, PP is correct that it is a relatively small amount compared to GNP. But the money has to come from somewhere, the government doesn't just print more, it borrows. It borrows from private banks, which has an effect on money supply and interest rates. And the $87 billion should be looked at in the larger context, on top of the $60 billion request in April, and the looming $500 billon deficit. That we are spending like crazy at the same time we've cut taxes is not fiscially responsible. Foreign investors are casting a skeptical eye on the US debt levels and lagging economy. To say that the extrodinary and unprecidented spending and debt have no effect on the economy is uninformed.

Here we go again, another tangential issue. WTF are you talking about? At least from Greg I can count on some logical thought process. I don't agree with him but he makes his point clear. We're talking cows man! Those big hooved things. Slow elk. Hooved locust. Cud-chewing, pie spewing, grass eating scurges of the west. Now it you got somin' to say on that, speak up boy.

I don't think anyone is blaming the ranchers, they're just trying to make a living, and an increasingly hard one. And if someone is offering free money, what the heck. It's the public agencies and politicians who extend these free lunches that piss me off. While complaining about the waste in school systems they provide livestock grazing at about 10% of the market cost, and taxpayers pick up the tab for administering the program, building fences, livestock watering tanks, weed control (caused by grazing), and paying for "range conservationists" (read: cow managers) on BLM and USFS staff. And they're trashing the public land at the same time. So where's the free market pundits and the "pay as you go" folks on this issue? They seem to melt away for some reason.

Heeeello: New flash. There is no clearcutting in the National Park System. You must mean USFS. There's no news flash. But the NPS is not exactly MR Rogers now are they http://www.forewordreviews.com/View-Review.asp?ReviewID=16 True the Parks system is fighting the usual battles, but there is no cattle grazing or timber harvest in National Parks.

Way wrong on that one dude. ah sorry, I guess I should have qualified that more. I was thinking solely of national forest land, and I have never seen grazing anywhere in WA state in national forests that I've visited. You may have not seen it but it is active on all National Forests in WA including Mt. Baker- Snoqualmie, Wenatchee, and Colville. It's not as widespread on the west side as the east, but is present. And the moo cows don't get into the highcountry in the cascades but check out on Table Mt. outside Ellensburg. Lots of cow action up there and damaged habitat.

Sorry, but wrong again. Hell's canyon is still grazed by livestock, mostly cattle. Even though there is a threat from the virus transfer from sheep to bighorns, sheep are still grazed in Hell's Canyon National Recreation Area. The agencies are working hard to get one particular sheep allotment changed to cattle because it is close to a bighorn population. But BLM/USFW rules about changing allotments are Byzantine. And there is political pressure not to do so from inside and outside these agencies. I worked on a work group of federal and state agencies, NGOs, and landowners dealing with these and other issues in Hell's Canyon for 5 years. Lots of trips to Boise and the hinterlands. The land is in bad shape because of grazing, not because grazing has been removed in some areas.

Way wrong on that one dude. While it's not prevelant on the west side, mostly because there isn't a large grazing industry on the west side, land values, and different forage availability; it is very prevelant on the east side of the Cascades in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. I've worked on a number of projects dealing with the management of allotments on Forest Circus and Bureau of Land Mis-Management property. Bureau of Reclamation is better as they have a wider discretion about land management and no grazing history like the other agecies. Christ, there's even grazing on US Fish and Wildlife Service Refuge. While grazing can be done on public lands with minimal damage with intensive management - that's not how it's done on public land. And there is no scientific evidence to show grazing has any beneficial contribution, and there are piles of scientific papers to show that it is detrimental. If you hear the argument that grazing is good for the land, for weed control for instance, they're blowing smoke. There is no data for such claims. Under very controlled conditions some livestock, particularly goats, have proven useful to reduce weeds. But open range grazing, which is what happens on public land, is nothing good for the habitat. I've seen lots of grazing on the Wenatchee, Deschutes, Mt. Hood National Forests, in Hell's Canyon, and BLM land in OR, WA, and Idaho.

The Bushies are not a very forward-looking group. Yes it would likely cost some money to set things up and have the industry under compliance, but it could cost hundreds times more to fix the problems one a particular exotic pest is introduced.

I haven't done anything up in this area but the pictures make me motivated to do so. Great photos and bravo for getting out to a rarely visited area. Gives us weekend hackers some inspiration during work week and reminds us to keep making plans for some far-flung climbing vacations.

Recently finished this too. Pretty good story - gotta give a hand to the author for dealing with her chronic illness and researching and writing. Still plowing through "Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature" by Harry Green - almost my Phd prof at UC Berkley.