JayB

E: Just the look, not the attitude. I suspect there's a difference between people who ride the bikes for a living and those who ride them for fashion, too.

Nalgene Bladders suck in a massive way. Had two leak on a single trip. Switched to MSR dromedary bags and have been very impressed. Even dropped an 8-L bag that we brought along on a desert trip 5-6 feet onto a flat stone surface and it held up just fine.

Quoting... "That's for the special PDX Fixster (fixie-hipster) edition. Add Krypto mini-lock in the back pocket of the brown polyester shants, Chrome messenger bag, and not-wearing-a-helmet-even-though-you-are-completely-oblivious-to-traffic-and-are-basically-asking-to-get-hit-so-your-other-1,000-hipster-clone-friends-can-have-a-nude-candlelight-critical-mass-vigil-ride-to-protest-the-tyranny-of-the-automobile-and-lament-your-tragic-but-ultimately-utterly-predictable-death. Oh, and non-functioning brake lever so the cops don't stop you for brakeless fixie-pedaling."

Paging DFA....

Thinking that "Emo or Fixie?" could make for a good game-show or carnival attraction. Might prove more challenging for the crowd that frequents the ride/game area at state fairs than knocking over lead-impregnated milk-bottles with foam-core softballs. I have to think that winning the 4"x4" Van-Halen/Pot-Leaf/Confederate-Flag/etc mirror with the plastic frame for your girlfriend by making the right choice in the "Emo or Fixie" stand will highlight the sensitive elements of one's character and lead to way more post-gravitron/octopus/roller-coaster/teacup-ride action than a display of raw physical prowress at the milk-bottle/squirtgun+clownmouth-ballon-inflation/weight-on-pole-elevation with-sledgehammer/etc would in this more refined and delicate era.

Once today's emo's discover The Smiths/Morissey it's all over....

The only logical conclusion here is that restrictions that Canada places on unskilled immigrants have had no impact on the skillset distribution amongst those that it chooses to admit. This is like a hospital that only admits healthy people for elective cosmetic surgery comparing its morbidity and mortality stats with a city hospital that has to treat whoever walks in the door. Gag.

May have some additional utility.... "1: Curr Opin Infect Dis. 2007 Feb;20(1):33-8.Click here to read Links Circumcision and HIV transmission. * Quinn TC. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland, USA. tquinn@jhmi.edu PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To review the recent literature on male circumcision and its effect on HIV acquisition. RECENT FINDINGS: The report from the randomized clinical trial of male circumcision in South Africa demonstrating a 60% protective effect in preventing HIV acquisition provided the first clinical trial evidence of efficacy of male circumcision in protecting men against HIV infection. This protective effect was consistent with both ecological and epidemiologic studies which also show a protective effect of 50-70% in men at high risk for HIV infection. Biological studies also demonstrate an increased number of HIV receptor cells in the mucosa of foreskin providing additional evidence of HIV susceptibility in the uncircumcised male. Male circumcision may also have a beneficial effect in preventing HIV acquisition in women and lowering selected sexually transmitted infections in both sexes. SUMMARY: The results of two ongoing randomized clinical trials of male circumcision in Kenya and Uganda are awaited with interest, however male circumcision should be carefully considered as a potential public health tool in preventing HIV acquisition. If other trials confirm the results of the South African trial, implementation of this surgical procedure will need to be carefully scaled up and integrated into other prevention programs with emphasis on surgical training, aseptic techniques, acceptability, availability and cultural considerations."

I seem to remember reading about something like this with Enbrel. From what I can recall they found, after FDA approval, that the drug increased the risk for certain types of cancer after some period of time - but I haven't heard of any mega-lawsuits, implications of corruption, etc arising from this revelation. Maybe the data was too incomplete, but from what I can recall, they basically just added this information to the prescription guidelines and left it up to the doctors and patients to make the choice. Seems like it was a no brainer for old-folks with rheumatoid arthritis figured they'd rather accept the risks than live out the rest of their lives half-crippled with debilitating pain. For the few young folks with the disease, I can see this being more of an issue. Anyway, seems like theres a precedent here even with drugs that are used by younger populations, such as birth control pills. Increases the risks of some cancers, decreases others, and the choice is left up to the patient. Of course, this all presupposes that the risks, when identified, are disclosed promptly.

Seems to me that there were some patient groups lobbying for faster approval as well, but this was restricted - as far as I can remember - to drugs that might be useful against cancer, aids, and other life-threatening diseases. What I've read in the Wall Street Journal, and some of the medical journals that my wife gets is that there's been a fundamental change in the way that drug trials are funded. From what I can remember, it sounded as though drug companies were complaining that the approval process was too slow, and the FDA indicated that funding constraints were making it impossible to move any more quickly, so a compromise emerged in which companies would foot the bill for the costs of the approval process in exchange for faster turn around times. The potential conflict of interest seems fairly obvious here, so one would hope that they implemented some countermeasures to keep the drug company/FDA relationship from devolving into a customer/vendor dynamic, but maybe not... IMO there should be a multiple scales of risk that apply to different classes of drugs and different patient pools. If the drug is for arthritis, for example, and the side effect is an increased risk of cancer after 10-15 years, then it would make sense to allow the drug to enter the market so long as it was restricted to patients over a certain age who understood and accepted the risks associated with taking the drug. Maybe something like this is already in effect...

We don't hang ropes were are not actively using. I'm sorry if you have encountered people who do that. If you see a route with a rope hanging and no climbers, you have a right to ask that that rope be pulled so you can climb the route. I happened to climb at the Columns on a day when Brian was out there with one of his groups and they were, if anything, more considerate and conscientious with regards to route-hogging than most of the other random groups that I've encountered while cragging. Also, with groups like that, the odds are good that most of the folks participating will be relatively new to climbing, and you shouldn't have too much trouble getting on the 9's and 10's if that's the grade that's most interesting for you.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05182007/watch3.html Watch the vid past ~ 2 minutes to see the racist-neocon-hatemonger that is Bill Moyers.... Or read the transcript.

If I'm not mistaken, you took the same swipes at me when, three years ago, I said that Bush had lied about the reasons for invading Iraq. Then, as now, you all too often prefer to take stabs at some cartoon character of "the left" or some ridiculous distortion of someone's argument than to simply discuss the issue. Have a nice day, fighting the X-men. There are no accidents, mistakes, bad-judgments, or any other mechanisms operative in your world other than cabals, conspiracies, etc. Consequently your arguments provide their own parody. Yes. The US military knowingly and intentionally let Bin Laden escape because we really just needed a pretext to seize control over the vast oil supplies that the Taliban was sitting on top of. It honestly wouldn't surprise me to learn that you also believe that the attacks on the WTC were orchestrated by the Bush Administration and unfairly pinned on Bin Laden as part of the larger conspiracies that you are constantly alluding to whenever you put forth one of your "arguments."

You've neglected to include the manner in which the Zionist Cabal secretly secured the release of Bin Laden, cloned him, and are propogating copies of him in a subterranian embryo-farm as part of their plan to manipulate the US into unwittingly furthering their master-plan to seize control of the world, Matt. Tisk, tisk.

Nope. Our role in Iraq, and the Middle East in general - for 75 years or more - has been to play one state against another, or one faction against another, in the interest of maintaining access to oil. American oil got involved in Saudi Arabia in the 1930's and the President formally announced that defense of Saudi oil was important to U.S. interests in World War II. Our desire for access to the oil was a larger part of the reason for our support of the Shah, in 1941 and again ten years later. It was also behind our support of Saddam Hussein in the 1980's. And on and on. Some say our invasion of Afghanistan had more to do with oil than with Bin Laden, and it sure looks as if we weren’t really trying to capture the bad guy so much as to replace an unfriendly government with one more pliable. Go back to history class. The collapse of the Muslim empire happened in several stages starting nearly a thousand years ago and sure there are many Islamists who would like to see a return to the glory days. It is true that we helped set up Israel as a Jewish state. But the major drivers behind our foreign policy in the region have been related to the oil found there. George Bush and buddies did not decide to invade Iraq because they wear turbans - they played up the significance of their attire in order to derive the support of a racist and nationalistic American public. When 22 hijackers from Saudia Arabia killed 3,000 of "our own," they responded by attacking Afghanistan and Iraq, where governments were not so willing to go along with American oil money interest. They did not attack or even really sanction Saudi Arabia. The fundamental thesis behind your "broader view of history" is that all of history that predates direct American involvement in the Middle East actually had no effect on the Islamic world, and that all developments that have transpired since that time owe their genesis to American foreign policy initiatives. They have no sense of history that eclipses America's rise as a world power, and have no active agenda of their own that they would pursue in the absence of American intervention in their affairs. Broader view of history indeed. Can you discuss the significance of the Sykes-Picot agreement, Sayyid Qutb, or Muhammad Ali (hint, not the boxer) without recourse to Google?

I realize that may have been joking, but Bush did not 'have Muslims attacking.' Some creeps flew planes into our buildings. So what if they happened to be Muslims. If Bush 'has Muslims attacking' now, it's because he declared a war on Muslims, which for lack of a better explanation (like propagandizing us into bewildered fear and support) sounds like the very dumbest response to 9/11. Yes, and the guys who were stuffing the Jews into gas chambers just "happened" to be Nazis....

Blind supporter of the Democrats? Probably not. I am arguing that your hatred for the current administration has blinded you in certain fundamental respects, and left you unable to contemplate serious strategic or political issues in any fashion that is not congruent with your hostility to the Bush administration. I don't think it's moral to ignore who's actually doing the killing in Iraq in order to advance my domestic political agenda, much less grant those doing the killing the title, much less the high moral stature that comes with the term "freedom fighters," much less ignore the fact that objective of both our policies and sacrifices in Iraq has been to limit the civilian death toll, rather than to increase it, etc, etc, etc - all for the same reason.

I'm saying that your stance is nakedly partisan, and that this - rather than any serious moral considerations - has determined your position from the get go, and your attempts to argue to that moral considerations, rather than political ones, are so transparently shallow and insincere that they establish this fact at least as clearly as stark admission of the same. It's hardly worth the effort to point out the fact that per your argument, the "millitary coercion" used to bring the killing in Bosnia/Kosovo to a close would also qualify as terrorism, as would the threat to use millitary force to halt the slaughter in Darfur, etc.

I don't actually find the prospect of Hillary in the Oval Office horrifying. She may advocate and try to implement policies that I oppose, but the prospect of someone sitting in the Oval Office who doesn't always support legislation that I am in favor of would hardly be sufficient cause for me to lose the capacity to differentiate between my personal political interests, the interests of her administration, and the national interest - much less lose the perspective necessary to assign the proper weighting to these three considerations - which seems to have happened to a large sector of the Democratic base over the course of the past few years. If having a Democrat in the White House would reverse this trend, that would be a welcome development indeed. As things stand, you seem to have lost the capacity to make elementary moral judgments that are untainted by your passionate loathing for this administration. Let's suppose, for the sake of this argument - that one were to accept your characterizations of the President. You seem to be arguing that the existence of "the world's number one terrorist" negates the possibility of the definition having any objective meaning. "I believe that the president of the United States is a terrorist," ergo there are no terrorists, only "those who we call terrorists." If "those who we call terrorists are not, in fact, terrorists, they must be something else. What are they, exactly? I'd love to see you develop this argument further if this is what you actually believe.* Even if we grant that all killing of human beings is ultimately physically equivalent, you seem to be arguing that all killing is morally equivalent as well. There are various degrees of responsibility for civilian deaths in warfare - ranging from direct responsibility in those cases where a nation uses its military to intentionally target and kill civilians as a matter of policy, and extremely indirect responsibility in the case where the disruption to the normal conduct of life and/or commerce that results from the decision goes to war leads to more civilian deaths that would have resulted from taking no action whatsoever. It's one thing to accept that the US is responsible in the latter of the two senses, quite anther to argue for the former and completely ignore who is actually doing the killing in Iraq, the fact that they are doing so intentionally, and to completely ignore the fact that this country has made staggering sacrifices in an effort to prevent Iraqi civilian deaths resulting from the actions of "those who we call terrorists." I'm quite confident you would not be making these arguments if there was a Democrat in the White house that had decided to invade Iraq or anywhere else - and that's both sad and profoundly disturbing because I think that this is broadly characteristic of the political Left these days. This does not bode well for the West. *Further, if you are sincere in your conviction that the President, the elected leader of your country, is *actually* a terrorist - not in the adjectival sense, but in the literal sense - let alone the "world's number one terrorist," then your current repose is quite puzzling. If I felt the same way that you claim to feel, with the passion and sincerity that you claim to feel - I would have left the country and renounced my citizenship, at a minimum.

I completely agree. But that goes equally for GWB and company as it does for those we call the terrorists. Our man George described our campaign as a Crusade, and has used the "clash of civilizations" metaphor repeatedly. He's amped up the religious zealots on both sides (to the extent there are really just two sides). I think our pal Selkirk might argue that a good old fashioned fascist could have / would have done the same thing. And he is right. But the religious component is certainly dangerous. Some of these guys at the very top are looking for Armageddon, for gawd's sake! Is there such a thing as a terrorist, or do they all fall into the category of "those we call terrorists."? If Hillary Clinton were to occupy the Oval Office, and were to articulate a set of arguments against the same set of behaviors that GWB, Tony Blair, and others have classified as terrorism - and her secular bona fides were sufficiently well established in your eyes, would Osama et al magically transmute from "those we call terrorists" into plain old terrorists despite the absence of any change in their tactics or motivations?

I'm sure that if you were to head to their camp and set them straight vis-a-vis their misappropriation of their own faith - they'd be happy to accept your authority on the manner and accept that your interpretation of their motivations is more accurate than their own understanding of the same. It would also be useful in this context if you'd take a bit more time to define what - exactly - you mean by "freedom" here when you refer to "Freedom Fighter." Is suspect that this is an outgrowth of the nostrum that "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." One man's rapist my be another man's romantic, but the mere fact that there are people who are incapable of making moral distinctions between rape and consensual sex doesn't erase the vast objective differences between the two acts, much less establish their equivalence as an axiom that anyone who rejects this categorization is bound to grant any legitimacy to. Surely you are not talking about political freedom, nor freedom of conscience, nor freedom of the press or any other aspect of what could reasonable be included rational definition of the term "freedom," all of which are categorically outside of the set of objectives that Islamists include in their list of the policy goals they'd like to pursue should they ever secure power in any given arena that they happen to be active in at the moment.

Tarriffs and subsidies that prevent them from selling their goods in the US market is also helping them out quite a bit. To assist in liberalizing trade is a sin, and to sin would be wrong...

I think that one could throw a dart at Deuteronomy or pretty much any other section of the Bible and come up with a fairly effective argument to the contrary. Modern secular liberal (classical) values have rendered most Christians relatively peaceful and tolerant, but the credit here goes to modernity and liberalism, rather than Christianity.

"What lessons for today? IN CENTRAL ASIA, Lenin and Trotsky were attempting to win a predominantly Muslim peasant population, who were fighting for their national rights, to the banner of world revolution, against a background of the desperate struggle for survival of the first workers’ state. In Britain today, we are attempting to win an oppressed minority of the working class to the banner of socialism. In most senses, ours is a far easier task. The vast majority of Muslims in Britain are part of the working class, and many work in ethnically-mixed workplaces, especially in the public sector. The mass anti-war movement gave a glimpse of the potential for a united movement of the working class, with Muslims playing an integral role. The formation of a new mass workers’ party, campaigning in a class way on both the general issues and against racism and Islamaphobia, would act as an enormous pole of attraction to working-class Muslims at the same time as beginning to cut across racism and prejudice. However, the lack of such a party at the present time encapsulates the difficulties that we face. In the 1990s, the collapse of the regimes that existed in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union provided world capitalism with the opportunity to dismiss socialism as a failure (they falsely equated socialism with these Stalinist regimes). This allowed the ruling classes to conduct an ideological onslaught against the ideas of socialism. The rightwing of the Labour Party, and of social democracy worldwide, used this opportunity to abandon any vestiges of socialism in their programme, and to become clearly capitalist parties. Over a decade after the collapse of Stalinism, a new generation is drawing the conclusion that capitalism is incapable of meeting the needs of humanity – a minority is beginning to draw socialist conclusions. Nonetheless, consciousness still lags behind objective reality – and socialism has not yet become a mass force. Given the vacuum that therefore exists, radical young people are searching for a political alternative. A small minority of young Muslims in Britain are looking towards right-wing political Islamic organisations like Al-Muhajiroun. The lack of alternative offered by such organisations is summed up by their opposition to the anti-war movement because it involved demonstrating alongside non-Muslims. The majority of young radical Muslims were repelled by Al-Muhajiroun and company, and understood the need for a united anti-war movement. The potential to build a strong base for socialists amongst Muslims undoubtedly exists – but only if we both engage and argue the case for socialism." http://www.socialismtoday.org/87/islam.html Plenty more where these came from, kemosabe.

Here's an answer from self-described progressive Muslim. "What historically distinguishes leftwing ideas is their commitment to the poor and dispossessed, and to the fight for equality, anti-racism, anti-colonialism and national self-determination. Herein, perhaps, lies the clue to the emerging unity between sections of the left and sections of the Muslim community that are bearing the brunt of imperialism abroad in terms of brutal military intervention and at home, where justifications for such actions are sought using anti-Muslim rhetoric. In resisting imperialism, Muslims and the left are fighting a common enemy and developing their own ties of friendship forged through struggle and mutual solidarity." http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/salma_yaqoob/2006/08/not_so_bright_martin.html.printer.friendly