JayB

Best graffitti-insult I ever read, penned over a urinal. "Why are you reading the wall? The joke is in your hand."

I'd be surprised if the dimensional lumber wasn't cut to the same size for both markets, but given that we are the destination for the overwhelming majority of their output, I doubt they'd ever get worked-up enough to stop selling us their wood in whatever dimensions we want. I'm sure that GM, Ford, et al don't mind equipping all of the vehicles that they sell in Canada with spedometers that display speeds in km/H either....

I think that this has been a matter of debate on and off since the mid 1790's or thereabouts. It seems like the last time there was any serious debate on this topic seemed to be in the mid-70's or thereabouts, and I seem to remember people who were old enough to be involved in that debate saying something about the cost of replacing all of the tooling, etc with their metric equivalents outweighing the benefits for most businesses, and very few people in the wider world clamoring for a change in the units that they used for their day-to-day affairs. It seems like all of the business that that need to use SI have been doing so for quite a while, and the only place where the Imperial system really persists in this country is in a limited number of everyday applications like volumes, distances, elevations, heights, weights, etc.... I suppose that there's still a fair number of technical professions that might have to work in imperial units these days, though. Maybe civil engineers, surveyors, automotive engineers, etc.

"A vast majority of folks of 'climbers' today are wholly bolt-enabled and risk-averse and almost none of them would have been climbers back in the day." This notion that the days of your youth represented some kind of stylistic apogee, much less that everyone who tied-in was some kind of uber-hard, steely-eyed, nail-eating motherfucker is unparalelled in the realms of onanistic auto-mythologizing. It was the people who came of age in the 70's who *created* sport climbing, so please spare us this last-samurai business. If any generation had a right to claim that mantle, it would have been Weissner, Ellingwood, etc.

True enough, but it was amusing to envision the moral and intellectual game of twister that the choosing sides in this rhetorical contest must have forced the average denizen of Berkeley into playing. If you read the summary from "Alternet," it seems to capture this tension quite well. For me the spectacle of Hitchens deftly eviscerating a limpdick "progressive" who excoriates the likes of Jerry Falwell yet gets misty eyed while composing compound apologetics for both the ruthless barbarism of the suicide bomber and the dank, sub-medieval religious fanaticism that both inspires and sanctifies it was quite a treat. The clip below captures Hitchens at his most devastating. The moral and intellectual ass-whupping on display here makes the average UFC highlight-reel look like pairs figure skating. "I ask you: You pick that kind of relativism, you'll also find you're dealing with a very surreptitious form of absolutism, which is only capable of describing as fascistic relatively comical forces (who I've denounced up- and downhill all my life in the United States), but cannot use the word totalitarianism about the religion that actually conducts jihad, actually organizes totalitarianism, actually inflicts misery, pain, unemployment, and despair upon millions of people, and then claims what it has done as the license for suicide and murder. A perfect picture [gesturing towards Chris Hedges] has been given to you of the cretinous relationship between sloppy moral relativism, half-baked religious absolutism, and the journalism that lies in between." Swap "Hedges" for "American 'Progressives'" and you have a concise summary of what's become of the political block that Hithchens once considered himself a part of. O-YvJahRTrU

"Visualize this spectacle: a debate between a neocon and a progressive. The subject is religion. One of them is there to defend religion, to praise God, to cheerlead for even the most devout. The other -- his opponent -- is an atheist. He skewers deities and those who follow deities. He calls them evil. Toxic. Childish. He mocks doctrine. Railing that the devout want to kill us and control the world, he is on a mission, as it were, to vanquish missions. You'd expect the liberal to be the atheist and the neocon to vouch for the devout. No-brainer, right? Well, no." http://www.alternet.org/story/52449/ zQe0NuvhoR4 TMAgpr2I9pQ bPDBfXflP70 D5Dg_ys9ri0 J5U3sRJqtyE GeF4KPL_al4 dU0k5K9QqFc

"Human Retro Elements Retro Elements are a diverse assemblage of related molecular entities. Originally, they were described as genetic parasites that inhabit the genomes of all eukaryotes and many prokaryotes. The molecular thread interweaving this complex phylogenetic tapestry is the copying of RNA into DNA during a step in the life cycle of each of these organisms. This process is carried out by reverse transcriptase (RT), in most cases encoded by the retro element but, in a few cases, such as the retrotranscripts, borrowed from another retr oelement. Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) and non-LTR retrotransposons are two groups of retro elements covering about 42 % of the human genome. They were shown to affect their host quite dramatically. Of the two groups only the non-LTR retrotransposons were clearly demonstrated to actively sprawl throughout the human genome at present, leading to generation of ~34% of the chromosomal DNA. Retro Elements can cause genetic disorders and are associated with tumour development by a number of mechanisms. Additionally, their gene products are suggested to directly influence the developmental status of specific cell types. In general, retro elements are strictly repressed, especially in adult tissues. They can, however, be activated under conditions inflicting stress to cells, in particular to DNA. Activation of replication competent or pathogenic retro elements would pose a substantial risk to innovative applications such as gene therapy, stem cell therapy or tissue transplantation. Research aimed at understanding the regulation and the pathogenic potential of retro elements in physiological and tumourigenic processes may provide a profound basis for the risk assessment of retro elements in ex vivo manipulated biomedicinal therapeutics."

" Int J Cancer. 2007 Apr 15;120(8):1769-75. Links Mobile phone use and risk of glioma in 5 North European countries.Lahkola A, Auvinen A, Raitanen J, Schoemaker MJ, Christensen HC, Feychting M, Johansen C, Klaeboe L, Lönn S, Swerdlow AJ, Tynes T, Salminen T. STUK, Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, Helsinki, Finland. anna.lahkola@stuk.fi Public concern has been expressed about the possible adverse health effects of mobile telephones, mainly related to intracranial tumors. We conducted a population-based case-control study to investigate the relationship between mobile phone use and risk of glioma among 1,522 glioma patients and 3,301 controls. We found no evidence of increased risk of glioma related to regular mobile phone use (odds ratio, OR = 0.78, 95% confidence interval, CI: 0.68, 0.91). No significant association was found across categories with duration of use, years since first use, cumulative number of calls or cumulative hours of use. When the linear trend was examined, the OR for cumulative hours of mobile phone use was 1.006 (1.002, 1.010) per 100 hr, but no such relationship was found for the years of use or the number of calls. We found no increased risks when analogue and digital phones were analyzed separately. For more than 10 years of mobile phone use reported on the side of the head where the tumor was located, an increased OR of borderline statistical significance (OR = 1.39, 95% CI 1.01, 1.92, p trend 0.04) was found, whereas similar use on the opposite side of the head resulted in an OR of 0.98 (95% CI 0.71, 1.37). Although our results overall do not indicate an increased risk of glioma in relation to mobile phone use, the possible risk in the most heavily exposed part of the brain with long-term use needs to be explored further before firm conclusions can be drawn. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc." "1: Environ Health Perspect. 2001 Dec;109 Suppl 6:911-33. Links Review of the epidemiologic literature on EMF and Health.Ahlbom IC, Cardis E, Green A, Linet M, Savitz D, Swerdlow A; ICNIRP (International Commission for Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection) Standing Committee on Epidemiology. Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. anders.ahlblom@imm.ki.se Exposures to extremely low-frequency electric and magnetic fields (EMF) emanating from the generation, transmission, and use of electricity are a ubiquitous part of modern life. Concern about potential adverse health effects was initially brought to prominence by an epidemiologic report two decades ago from Denver on childhood cancer. We reviewed the now voluminous epidemiologic literature on EMF and risks of chronic disease and conclude the following: a) The quality of epidemiologic studies on this topic has improved over time and several of the recent studies on childhood leukemia and on cancer associated with occupational exposure are close to the limit of what can realistically be achieved in terms of size of study and methodological rigor. b) Exposure assessment is a particular difficulty of EMF epidemiology, in several respects: i) The exposure is imperceptible, ubiquitous, has multiple sources, and can vary greatly over time and short distances. ii) The exposure period of relevance is before the date at which measurements can realistically be obtained and of unknown duration and induction period. iii) The appropriate exposure metric is not known and there are no biological data from which to impute it. c) In the absence of experimental evidence and given the methodological uncertainties in the epidemiologic literature, there is no chronic disease for which an etiological relation to EMF can be regarded as established. d) There has been a large body of high quality data for childhood cancer, and also for adult leukemia and brain tumor in relation to occupational exposure. Among all the outcomes evaluated in epidemiologic studies of EMF, childhood leukemia in relation to postnatal exposures above 0.4 microT is the one for which there is most evidence of an association. The relative risk has been estimated at 2.0 (95% confidence limit: 1.27-3.13) in a large pooled analysis. This is unlikely to be due to chance but, may be, in part, due to bias. This is difficult to interpret in the absence of a known mechanism or reproducible experimental support. In the large pooled analysis only 0.8% of all children were exposed above 0.4 microT. Further studies need to be designed to test specific hypotheses such as aspects of selection bias or exposure. On the basis of epidemiologic findings, evidence shows an association of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis with occupational EMF exposure although confounding is a potential explanation. Breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, and suicide and depression remain unresolved. PMID: 11744509 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE" I got the sense that there was no conclusive data linking either. There certainly doesn't seem to be a general consensus on these points amongst those who are qualified to evaluate the evidence.

http://www.professorpaddle.com/media/videoview.asp?File_Id=1545

I think what scares people the most is the stark reality that if they dropped the vain pretense concerning their own level of achievement and cultivation they'd actually be just as comfortable living a long, long way from the institutions of high culture that they are neither a part of nor frequent with any more regularity than the average cargo-short-and-waist-pouch-thingy sporting tourists that roll into town for a visit every couple of years.

Yes - railing against the hip-urban-insertadjectivehere. When I see Hilton Kramer, Roger Kimball et sporting sandwich boards and bullhorns while leading their legions of Brooks-Brothers-and-Wingtip-clad followers in protest outside the local SoyMart then I'll be perfectly happy to concede this point.

So, a failure of the marketplace? When people say "culture" they mean an Olive Garden next to a Multiplex theater. Pfft. As a denizen of this fair city I hardly need to acknowledge the commments issuing forth from a resident of...."Te-ni-no".

Is there anything at Walmart that's as generic and stale as reciting shopworn, derisory little articles of faith about Walmart or their customers in order to establish one's hip-urban-lefto-trendo-cred? Economics is another topic that I find the proximito-elite tend to excel at. Lots of gems like "I just think that, like, we're in some serious trouble unless the workers can afford to buy the product they're making." Pearls, pearls I tell you. It's almost as though the act of passing a trite fallacy back and forth without any logical analysis is roughly analagous to the actions of those rotary rock-polisher thingies, and their infinite succession of collisions with equally dull objects eventually lends them a polish and an appeal that their substance wouldn't otherwise warrant. I live less than a block from one of the leading non-profit grocery collectives to be found anywhere in the city. It said so in the local art-zine. Less than a block. In the whole city. Seriously. Right next to where I live. Not too far from the neighbor who I overheard describing one of the rolls at the local Sushi-joint as "Mesmerizing." It's amazing. Right here. I'll see if I can find one between the free-range soy and the bulk lentils, though.

You are aware of the fact that - right now - somewhere in the city, there is a vegan poetry SLAM(!) that you are missing out on. Right now. You can't put a price on that.

Whenever I hear someone talking about "culture," as it pertains to where they've chosen to live, and actually have the chance to discuss their personal habits with them, it normally turns out that they don't actually read anything terribly complex or profound on a regular basis and may have never done so, haven't developed the capacity to appreciate whatever art form it is that they purport to be a patron of, etc - and generally think that the mere presence of institutions harboring, catering to, or displaying the works of great artists or thinkers somehow grants them admission into a higher cultural echelon by means of a process of spatial osmosis. There is a kind of transparently desperate aspirational quality to this kind of pretense that is almost touching, though. Yes, the mere fact that you drive past "The Museum of X" on your way to work automatically elevates you above the guy who drives past Home Depot while doing the same. Most of them also have an astonishingly poor understanding of the physical and biological world. All pretense, no substance. Sorry, but wallowing in the latest lurid kitch-o-thon that Andrew Lloyd Weber cranks out and forking over $100 a plate for dinner afterwards doesn't confer membership in any kind of artistic, intellectual, or cultural strata above the guy who takes the family to Applebees on the way to Cineplex. Any town where the average person is unlikely to be displaying this ghoulash of multiple pretenses at every opportunity, which is typically at least as hollow and shallow as it is nauseating, is much more likely to have the kind of culture that actually matters.

Colorado is not quite as high on the list as the PNW, but it's pretty sweet. I think if I had to pick a place to live there and there were no constraints imposed by the onerous necessity of having to make a living, I'd take Salida or Buena Vista. When I was there both were relatively undiscovered and affordable, but that could have easily changed by now. I've heard even a couple of the odd little towns like Fairplay up in South park have started to change from the mix of crazy-ass survivalists, ranchers, hold-out prospectors, resort-town burn-outs, etc into satelites of greater Breckenridge. Haven't been there for a while, so its hard to say how true this is.

My three general criteria would be: 1. Not East of the Rockies. 2. Close to major mountain range. 3. Reasonable to low cost of living. Something between Ellensburg and Cle Elum would suit me just fine.

What? Never been to Vantage? I seem to recall names like Yoder, Pogue, Windham, Massey, Kerns, Collum, etc associated with the bolted lines out there. Don't think these folks fall into the category we're discussing here.

:LMAO: assworked just got worked... Why do I have to waste my time explaining posts that you didn't even read. I never said that I knew of bolted cracks in Washington. I said that if there were any, then newbs would eventually bolt the rest of them because they wouldn't know any better. How many routes is anyone aware of that have been installed by rank beginners? I'm talking sport-lines here, not even the mythical grid-bolted crack.

can you say "regional ethics" ruMR? Or are you conversing in JayB? Didn't realize that we were fretting over Eurostone here.

Every once in a great while a cruxy spot that's tough to protect with gear, or that used to be protected with an old pin gets bolted, or someone puts up a line an puts a bolt someplace that someone else is convinced protects well enough with gear. If this is the problem you are talking about, that'd be one thing. Bring the hilti-armed newbie hordes grid-bolting line after line and you've drifted into the realm of fantasy. This is not a problem. This is not even a potential problem worth worrying about.

There's quite a few intersections on the path from climbing a route with a bolted crack to rap-bolting another crack that would prevent such an income in any remotely plausible scenario. The specter of the "Bosch-Toting-Crack-Bolting-Newbie-Hordes-From-Hell" is so far-fetched it would make the average urban legend blush. Can anyone point to a single crack in Washington that's fallen prey to the dreaded bolt-happy newb?

"For example if you allow even a single protectable crack to remain bolted, climbers who don't know any better will assume that all cracks like it should be bolted.Eventually there is a bolt ladder all the way up Outer Space, or the Nose, or -insert your favorite rock climb here-." This has to be one of the sillier statements I've ever heard on this site.

Viewing the world through an everlasting fog of venal paranoia and shallow, narcissistic, pop-spiritualism and attempting to pass it off as enlightenment is clearly the ideal state in which to pass through life.