Jim

They must lay awake at night trying to think of how to out-moron one another.------- Educators across America found themselves at the center of a political storm this week as conservatives exploded in anger over President Obama's plans to give a speech to the country's schoolchildren. A stunned White House insisted the address, planned for Tuesday, and accompanying suggested lesson plans are meant simply to encourage students to study hard and stay in school. But some parents said they aren't buying it. They said they're convinced the president is going to use the opportunity to press a partisan political agenda on impressionable young minds. "Thinking about my kids in school having to listen to that just really upsets me," a suburban Colorado mother, Shanneen Barron, told CNN affiliate KMGH-TV in Denver. "I'm an American. They are Americans, and I don't feel that's OK. I feel very scared to be in this country with our leadership right now." GOP leaders have not shied away from the debate. Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer released a statement Monday accusing Obama of using taxpayer money to "indoctrinate" children. Watch the debate over the president's speech » "As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology," Greer said.

But he didn't complain about his government-funded socialist program when.....

I think maybe that little corner to the left in the last picture? Ended up that I woulda had enough rope for that last lead - shouldn't have swapted! Next time.

Shoot, a friend who is a teacher in Wenatchee is constantly getting crap from her bible thumper pricipal about teaching evolution. Morons are everywhere, but certainly there seems to be a higher density in the south.

Anything will be better than the Mariners for crying out loud.

I managed to get two weeks off for a road trip with my wife and Laura planned to fly out and meet us for an attempt on the Grand Teton and Symmetry Spire. We got our permit for the Grand, planning to get up to the lower saddle and head up the upper Exum the next day - but a cold front came in and plastered the higher peaks with six inches of snow and ice. I've seen the Eiger Sanction and didn't want an epic so we hiked around some of the canyons and then went for Symmetry Spire SW ridge (5.7, seven pitches), which was just below the snow line. Snow on Teewinot, Grand, Owen. There were a few low elevation objective hazards to deal with: Saw one of these guys in the Jenny Lake campground!! We hopped on the 7 am shuttle across Jenny Lake and headed up the big gully, past two cliff bands where we followed the climbing ranger's advice: "The approach is easy but if you fall you'll die". So we didn't. It's a seven pitch route but we stitched together the 4th and 5th, and probably could have done the same for the last two but it wasn't so clear from below. Laura coming up pitch 3 - I was there - that's my toe! Laura on the funky 4th pitch. Laura on the nose pitch. Laura checking out the last 100 ft or so. We were watching the storm clouds rake the higher peaks all day and it was chilly. So we got on the summit block, said ok, and hustled down to the rappel station and started the long downhill tromp. Of course we missed the 6 pm boat and they had just discontinued the 7 pm boat a few days ago, so it was another 30 min to get back to camp. I was a bit beat and my tweaky back was, well tweaky. So with only two days left and me needing a rest day Laura hooked up with some other friends to get up at 3 am for a one day attempt on the Grand - friggin' beast she is! They got turned back by icy conditions but got to just below Wall Street. I hiked around and took some Vitamin I with my G&T! This was my first time here and I'd like to get back for the Grand and Owen. My wife and I took a northern route back through Yellowstone, which was very cool.

Ha!! Thanks for that one!

---very good!

...to buy expensive beer and watch mediocrity.

Heard good things about these - but cost $$$$! Plus, can't fiddle with it or try it on before buying.

Why? I reviewed the first line model on another thread. It just seemed to lack some needed components and was too complicated to adjust things, especially with gloves on and at night. Apparantly they have made improvements but in speaking to some other folks at ProMountain and Swallows Nest, they ain't there yet. While I appreciate the Cold Water pack reference, I'm not buying another pack without trying it on first.

Sold my cilogear pack and I'm looking for a decent pack for trips of 3-7 days, often a mix of alpine rock, mountaineering, a ski trip, or just backpacking. So far either the Black Diamond Quantum (55 or 65L) or the 60L Montbell Alpine are at the top of the list. Didn't like the Golight ones, they don't seem up to longer technical trips (from what I've seen friends struggle with). Suggestions? What do you like and what capacity do you use? Always appreciate advice from those getting out.

check out Promountain Sports for the Six Moons 2-3 person tent, 39 oz!

CBS- There is nothing much to say other than offer our condolences. I hope you have close family and friends to spend some time with to grieve and celebrate her life. Best wishes.

This is a good option for you, your and your partner are professionals and relatively young. But it will serve only a certain minority of the population. If you had a child for instance, I doubt this option would have the same appeal. Also, for the average middle class family, and certainly those of the working poor, paying $200 a month for minimal coverage and no coverage for more pedestrian concerns, kids well-child visits, ear infections, stitches from the playground, OBGYN, and whatever, these plans do not offer much.

Katuz is in good shape still. Folks went up the Finger on Saturday but I wouldn't try that route now. Dirty and looked like good amounts of rockfall.

This time of year the Frying Pan glacier on the Sunrise side of Rainer is a beautiful ski with moderate slopes.

Excellent! Kudos that she even was game engouh to do it!

Mike's Rainer blogspot has a recent route report - said 2nd technical pitch mostly ice. I'll be up on the route this coming weekend and if the weather cooperates I'll write up a TR. The finger had recent ski tracks - I was skiing Muir on past Thursday.

Exactly. And you don't seem the least bit concerned. Certainly a lot less than the current condition where we are raked over the coals by the for-mega-profit insurance companies. And clout to reduce the cost of drugs for instance (like the VA)? Damm straight that would be a vast improvement.

.....and good thing your little guy didn't decide to try and put it out and he's good. You probably already had the discussion. In 12 years you'll get a Father's Day card with "Remember the time I almost burnt down the house a couple days before Father's day". He can then buy you the several beers he owes for adding to the cumulative accounting of gray hair.

I recently picked some up that I can use for snow travel, biking, whatever, at this place. Helpful knowledgable folks. Went with transition lens that seems to work well. http://opticus.com/

The best example of why not to trust everything to the marketplace is the current expensive and wasteful program we have now. The private insurance industry spends about 20 percent of its revenue on administration, marketing, and profits. Further, this industry imposes on physicians and hospitals an administrative burden in billing and insurance-related functions that consumes another 12 percent of insurance premiums. Thus, about one-third of private insurance premiums are absorbed in administrative services that could be drastically reduced if we were to finance health care through a single non-profit or public fund. The United States has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. Over 31% of every health care dollar goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc. Because the U.S. does not have a unified system that serves everyone, and instead has thousands of different insurance plans, each with its own marketing, paperwork, enrollment, premiums, and rules and regulations, our insurance system is both extremely complex and fragmented. The Medicare program operates with just 3% overhead, compared to 15% to 25% overhead at a typical HMO. Provincial single-payer plans in Canada have an overhead of about 1%. When all patients are under one system, the payer wields a lot of clout. The VA gets a 40% discount on drugs because of its buying power. This “monopsony” buying power is the main reason why other countries’ drug prices are lower than ours. This also explains the drug industry’s staunch opposition to single-payer national health insurance. There is a myth that with national health insurance the government will make the medical decisions. But in a publicly financed, universal health care system, medical decisions are left to the patient and doctor, as they should be. This is true even in the countries like the U.K. and Spain (or in U.S. systems like the VA) that have socialized medicine. In a public system, the public has a say in how it’s run. Cost containment measures are publicly managed at the state level by elected and appointed agencies that represent the public. This agency decides on the benefit package and negotiates doctor fees and hospital budgets. It also is responsible for health planning and the distribution of expensive technology. Thus, the total budget for health care is set through a public, democratic process. But clinical decisions remain a private matter between doctor and patient. Much current medical research is publicly financed through the National Institutes of Health. Under a universal health care system this would continue. For example, a great deal of basic drug research, for example, is funded by the government. Drug companies are invited in for the later stages of “product development,” the formulation and marketing of new drugs. AZT for HIV patients is one example. The early, expensive research was conducted with government money. After the drug was found to be effective, marketing rights went to the drug company. Over sixty percent (60.5 percent) of health spending in the U.S. is funded by government. Official figures for 2005 peg government’s share of total health expenditure at 45.4 percent, but this excludes two items: 1. Tax subsidies for private insurance, which cost the federal treasury $188.6 billion in 2004. These predominantly benefit wealthy taxpayers. 2. Government purchases of private health insurance for public employees such as police officers and teachers. Government paid private insurers $120.2 billion for such coverage in 2005: 24.7 percent of the total spending by U.S. employers for private insurance. So, government’s true share amounted to 9.7 percent of gross domestic product in 2005, 60.5 percent of total health spending, or $4,048 per capita (out of total expenditure of $6,697). By contrast, government health spending in Canada and the U.K. was 6.9 percent and 7.2 percent of gross domestic product respectively (or $2,337 and $2,371 per capita). Government health spending per capita in the U.S. exceeds total (public plus private) per capita health spending in every country except Norway, Switzerland and Luxembourg. And about 18% of our population has no access to health care. (Source: Himmelstein and Woolhandler, “Competition in a publicly funded healthcare system” BMJ 2007; 335:1126-1129 [1 December] and Woolhandler and Himmelstein, Health Affairs, 2002, 21(4), 88, “Paying for National Health Insurance - And Not Getting It.”) Competititio Advocates of the “free market” approach to health care claim that competition will streamline the costs of health care and make it more efficient. What is overlooked is that past competitive activities in health care under a free market system have been wasteful and expensive, and are the major cause of rising costs. There are two main areas where competition exists in health care: among the providers and among the payers. When, for example, hospitals compete they often duplicate expensive equipment in order to corner more of the market for lucrative procedure-oriented care. This drives up overall medical costs to pay for the equipment and encourages overtreatment. They also waste money on advertising and marketing. The preferred scenario has hospitals coordinating services and cooperating to meet the needs of their communities. Competition among insurers (the payers) is not effective in containing costs either. Rather, it results in competitive practices such as avoiding the sick, cherry-picking, denial of payment for expensive procedures, etc. An insurance firm that engages in these practices may reduce its own outlays, but at the expense of other payers and patients Illness and medical bills caused half of the 1,458,000 personal bankruptcies in 2001, according to a study published by the journal Health Affairs. The study estimates that medical bankruptcies affect about 2 million Americans annually -- counting debtors and their dependents, including about 700,000 children. Surprisingly, most of those bankrupted by illness had health insurance. More than three-quarters were insured at the start of the bankrupting illness. However, 38 percent had lost coverage at least temporarily by the time they filed for bankruptcy. So folks who get a major illness are screwed. You may be eligible for disability but how are you going to pay medical expenses that are piling up? Sure - the top income earners can afford disability insurance, but if you can't afford insurance you can't afford disability insurance as well. And if you lose your job you lose your insurance - that's just stupid.

Trip: Vesper Peak - Normal route Date: 5/23/2009 Trip Report: Late report - not been around much. Me, Laura, Linda, and Phil wanted a ski so off we went. A mile or so walk in, regular stream crossing was not possible, go upstream to find lower gradient willow/log walks. As usual I was sucking wind trying to keep the pace with Laura and Linda. whew! Linda log walking Lots of snow on way to pass Another 1,800 ft to go. Linda and Laura, Phil in back Continual soft sloughs all the way down, probably better corn now. Back to the pass. Probably can drive to the trailhead now and likely use the lower stream crossing. Approach Notes: Late snow made for some walking

Carrying the competitive model to its extreme, which is the current condition, indicates that that model is a train wreck of both efficiency and cost. AND it does not provide care for 25 million people. The idea that somehow the mystical market will provide for the most efficient and cost effective deliverer of health care is a proven fallicy. Yes, there needs to be government oversight - otherwise it will remain the same race for the extreme profits. When insurance CEOs are getting an average of $14 million, doctors and nurses have to battle with the uncoordinated insurance forms, formulas, and restrictions; and when we have bloated admistrative costs the answer is obvious. Collect taxes so all can have health care. If you want more than the 3 or four designated programs provide, then you are welcome to pay for private insurance. And insurance policies with large deductibles don't help people with day-to-day medical costs of preventive care, checkups, medications, etc. that warrant a program that provides adequate health care for all citizens. We are the only country where you can go backrupt because of medical costs. \ Think you are safe because you have medical insurance - ha! One accident or health crisis will bring you up to speed.