JayB

You forgot to ask what color her mittens were and the phase of the moon on the night prior to summitting. Sheesh.

Looks pretty sweet. I'm at the Mile-O Thursday Night through Saturday night. Will probably be driving my beat-up white Tacoma with a Black Canopy. Word.

The beta for Lizard Head from one of the climbing guide's for CO is as follows: "Drive to the trailhead. Take a picture of the formation. Turn Around." Or something like that. I was just searching for some trivia that would be obscure enough to be difficult but not impossible. Anyone else got any?

Can anyone on the West Coast beat this man when it comes to mastery of climbing Trivia? First Question: Name at least one of the three first ascenscionists of Lizard Head (CO) and the number of pieces of pro they used on the way up. Answer faster than Dru without using Google and you win a stuffed plush doll, hand sewn by Sexual Chocolate.

Cool. I'll have to check it out. I am going to start a "Stump Dru" thread in honor of your encyclopedic knowledge of all things climbing.

If it has bolt guns and nitro packs then I'm there. I thought I heard something about Joe Simpson getting lowered by another partner after another major injury a while after that book was written - but this time prior to the actual lowering the uninjured partner apparently looked Simpson in the eye and handed him his knife...

I'll bet that in practice you'll be able to park at the lower lot by the defunct bridge in the wee hours and have no problems. The only time I can see this being a problem is if it's snowing heavily and they need to plow, but if it's snowing that heavily I'll be riding the lifts rather than attempting to climb anything.

Extreme has Cordura fibers in the weave and a fuzzy liner on the interior. Warmer and more abrasion resistant than the Dynamic.

Word. I am just want Honeyman to be in once so that I can snag the cushiest day of ice climbing this side of Ouray.... Will probably be up there Thursday through Sunday if anyone wants to meet up for some brews in the evenings.

That orange thingy looks bomber....

Nice Work. Any of you Canadian folks know the temperature forecast for this week? We're getting the first frost in about a month in a half down here so I'm hoping LittleWet is getting hit by the same cold front....

Jay - people aren't routinely eating cattle feed from what I understand. If you think BSE can't survive digestion how is it that the consumption of diseased beef (deer or elk) and CJD are linked? I was just saying that if it was necessary to ingest diseased tissue to contract transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, then it's hard to see how herbivores such as deer would contract the disease unless they became cannibalistic omnivores and started eating each other's nervous tissue, or hopped a fence and ate some infected cattle feed on a nearby ranch. So far as I know, the use of rendered remains in livestock feed was outlawed in 1997, so the continued transmission of the disease in the wild - in the absence of tainted feed - presents a problem unless protein from the dead deer carcases alone serves as a viable means of transmitting the disease, as Murray suggested. When cattle were no longer exposed to feed with rendered remains in it, the incidence of the disease in England declined dramatically, and if transmission is relatively rare between animals that live in constant proximity to one another in a closed space, it stands to reason that transmission between animals in the wild would be at least an order of magnitude or two lower. The disease may be orally transmissible, but if the disease is transmitted by a bare protein via ingestion then that protein would have to overcome all of the hurdles that I outlined above on its journey from the mouth to the brain. There's some evidence to support that conclusion out there, but based on the papers I've seen it's far from conclusive at this point.

I don't think so. Proteins don't cross intact skin at all. If meat handlers did not use gloves and did not wash their hands, they could possibly ingest some by putting hands in their mouths, but this route would be less likely to cause infection than actually consuming the meat. In answer to JayB's question this experiment has been done: "Using in vitro conversion of radiolabeled PrPC to protease-resistant PrP by incubation with PrPSc preparations of either strain, Bessen et al. (1995) could confer the respective properties to the newly converted protease-resistant PrP." Biology and Pathology of Prion Diseases: Hypothesis on the Nature of the Infectious Agent From the Same Site... "A disease-specific protein can be identified in the infected brain and other organs. This protein, the "scrapie prion protein", PrPSc in short (also called "BSE prion protein" PrPBSE in the case of BSE), is derived from the normal form of the prion protein, PrPC, occurring in the normal body. The two proteins, the disease-specific PrPSc and the normal PrPC, differ in their spatial structures and the fact that PrPSc is resistant to destruction by digestive enzymes (proteins which digest food in the human stomach), whereas PrPC is completely destroyed when treated with digestive enzymes. As a result of many studies it has been possible for scientists to come to the conclusion that PrPSc is a component of the pathogen of the prion diseases. It is even speculated that PrPSc represents the complete pathogen. According to this theory, an infection brought about by the penetrating PrPSc causes PrPC to be converted into PrPSc. The newly formed PrPSc can now, for its part, bring about the conversion of more PrPC into PrPSc. This leads to the disastrous chain reaction where the PrPSc production increases exponentially and the brain is damaged irrevocably. Notably, the increase in PrPSc during the course of the disease correlates with the increase in infectivity. " This hardly constitutes an exhaustive search of the literature, but in the reading that I have done I have yet to see a study in which someone isolates ultrapure prion protein that's in the conformation associated with the disease, administers it orally, and witnesses the disease in the animal and radioloabelled protein in the appropriate cells in the brain. What I have seen are studies in which researchers generate infections by administering cell lysates from infected tissue, but this sort of experiment does not constitute credible proof that the protein alone is sufficient to transmit the disease. It could be that the protein surrounds and protects fragment of DNA or RNA that actually serves as the infectious agent, or works with the protein in the manner of an extremely primitive virus, etc, etc, etc The studies like the one posted above where prion proteins turn their normal counterparts to the conformation associated with the disease in vitro are certainly interesting, but are not sufficient grounds to claim that the naked proteins are capable of inducing the disease in-vivo IMO.

Maybe. Watching the temps before I book a room....

It wouldn't bother me if they were gone, and I think that the presence of Coke machines is more symptomatic of a need to reform public school's fiscal policies and funding mechanisms than anything else. And I think that making participation in at least one after-school sport compulsory would probably be a whole lot more effective in combating obesity than banning the coke machines. The only other observation I'd add is that there seems to be no better way to insure that teenagers will engage in something than to forbid them to do it deny them access to it and leave it at that. If the day ever comes when eating junk food and drinking Coke aquires the same risky cache as drinking, smoking, speeding, etc, etc, etc - then I think we will be in even bigger trouble.... I'm out. Have a Merry Christmas.

"Swedish Meatballs Daily Policy Digest Health Issues Wednesday, December 03, 2003 Despite programs combining a healthy diet and physical exercise to fight obesity in children, the number of overweight children in Sweden has tripled in the past 15 years. Currently 19 percent of boys and 15 percent of girls are overweight. Yet it isn't supposed to be like this in Sweden. For years this nation of nine million has had the sorts of programs, combining healthy diet and physical exercise, that antiobesity advocates everywhere dream about: -Unlike the United States, vending machines are unheard of in Swedish schools. -Sports programs are heavily subsidized to get youngsters up and moving. -TV commercials aimed at kids under 12 are banned. Schoolchildren as young as eight learn to cook healthy meals. But, Sweden's public health programs, comprehensive as they are, are still losing ground to the combined temptations of fast food, heavy TV watching and Web-surfing that have taken hold in the past decade: -McDonald's Corp.'s sales in Sweden have tripled since 1992; last year, the company spent the equivalent of $34.5 million on marketing in the country, compared with less than $12 million in 1994. -Coca-Cola Co.'s ad spending has risen 15-fold since 1994, to almost $20 million; cola sales have risen 17 percent since 1998. -Meanwhile, Swedish children are being lured by myriad new programs on international satellite TV; these shows and their ads aren't bound by Swedish restrictions. According to Sweden's National Institute of Public Health, 40 percent of teenage boys participate in organized physical activity at least four times a week, up from 28 percent in 1985; however, they spend as much as 5.3 hours per day watching TV, surfing the Web, talking on the phone or doing other sedentary activities. Source: Deborah Ball, "Swedish Kids Show Difficulty Of Fighting Fat," Wall Street Journal, December 2, 2003. " As far as the vending machine vendetta is concerned - it wouldn't bother me if they were no longer present schools - but blaming the problem on the coke machines is missing the mark IMO - although I would be happy to live in a world in which coke machines presented a greater threat to children than the molester down the street. Even if you eliminate the vending machines from schools - it's not like kids can't run to the 7-11 - or home and slug down as much as they want. IMO successful parenting comes down to teaching kids how to handle all of the tempting and potentially harmfull things lurking out there in society - drugs, sex, prostitution, gambling, speeding, etc, etc, etc -that they can choose to engage in or not rather than attempting to erradicate the sources of the said temptations. In that sense, banning coke machines seems to be similar to banning sex-ed, eliminating the availability of contraception, and insisting on abstinence-only education in order to protect kids from diseases and pregnancy. Much better to educate them about the risks and rewards and instill within them with the knowlege and the good-sense necessary to take care of themselves and make good decisions when the time comes IMO.

Have you seen any papers where they administer purified radioloabelled prion proteins to test animals orally and then find both the intact protein localized in brain tissue as well as the plaques of aberrant prion protein? Or where they administered unlabelled protein and detected it in tissue sections with F.I.S.H. or some other means? I haven't come across any papers like that that have would support the claim that prions can move from hamburger to brain - but I would think that there must be such papers out there if this transmission model has been universally accepted. I'm also curious about the incidence of CWD in wild deer and sheep, as they surely are not grilling each other up in the wilderness or engaging in the ritual cannibalism that spread Kuru. The only model of transmission that would jive with this model is if the wild animals were getting their hands on tainted-feed destined for cattle and the species-barrier was too low to prevent transmission from cattle remains to Deer and Elk. I suppose it could pass from mother to offspring (?)but you'd think that natural selection would put a damper on this mode of transmission pretty quickly.

"J Biol Chem. 2003 Dec 10 [Epub ahead of print]. Related Articles, Links Autocatalytic conversion of recombinant prion proteins discplays a species barrier. Baskakov IV. Medical Biotechnology Center, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, Baltimore, MD 21201. The most unorthodox feature of the prion disease is the existence of an abnormal infectious isoform of the prion protein, PrP(Sc). According to the protein-only hypothesis, PrP(Sc) propagates its abnormal conformation in an autocatalytic manner using the normal isoform, Pr P©, as a substrate. Because autocatalytic conversion is considered to be a key element of prion replication, in this study we tested whether in vitro conversion of recombinant PrP into abnormal isoform displays specific features of an autocatalytic process. We found that recombinant human PrP formed two distinct beta-sheet rich isoforms, the beta-oligomer and the amyloid fibrils. The kinetics of the fibrils formation measured at different pH values were consistent with a model in which the beta-oligomer was not on the kinetic pathway to the fibrillar form. As judged by electron microscopy, an acidic pH favored to the long fibrils, whereas short fibrils morphologically similar to prion rods were formed at neutral pH. At neutral pH the conversion to the fibrils can be seeded with small aliquots of preformed fibrils. As small as 0.001% aliquot displayed seeding activity. The conversion of human PrP was seeded with high efficacy only with the preformed fibrils of human but not mouse PrP and vice versa. These studies illustrate that in vitro conversion of recombinant PrP displays specific features of an autocatalytic process and mimics the transmission barrier of prion propagation observed in vivo. We speculate that this model can be used as a rapid assay for assessing the intrinsic propensities of prion transmission between different species." I'll have to read up on this one a bit more but It'd be interesting to see if there has ever been a study in which purified prion protein delivered orally to test animals has resulted in an infection. I've seen a few papers where they injected cell-lysates directly into animals and generated the disease, but this hardly excludes other vectors. It would be amazing to me if there was a protein out there that could survive being cooked, resist degredation by pepsin and acidity in the stomach, pass through the intestine intact, pass into the bloodstream as an intact protein rather than a polypeptide, exist in the bloodstream as an intact foreign protein witout provoking antibody generation, make it through the liver unmodified, ultimately be transported from the bloodstream and across the cell membrane, and then persist in the cells without being tagged by kinases for import into lysozomes for destruction, or attack by proteases in the cytosol.

I'm saying the main reason that people are obese is because they consume more calories than they expend over a long period of time. Food consumption is a voluntary act, and that to a certain extent the innability to regulate food consumption will be associated with an innability to regulate other aspects of one's behavior, and that these traits will often manifest themselves in other aspects of these people's lives as well - which ultimately leads to a moderate correlation between obesity and a low SES. I imagine that there is a correlation between other behaviors that indicate an innability to regulate one's behavior - excessive smoking, drinking, gambling, drug use, etc - and a low SES as well. I wouldn't call it laziness per se - but the odds are reasonably high that someone who can't restrain themselves from blowing this month's check on Colt 45 Tall Boys and lottery tickets probably doesn't do a very good job of keeping their hands off the third helping of beef stroganoff at the local all-you-can-eat buffet either. Like I said before - there are plenty of extremely hard-working fat people out there (see the nurse population at the average hospital for exhibit A) and lazy-ass skinny people (Hilton Sisters) out there - but for a certain percentage of people who are both poor and obese I suspect the two conditions are not entirely unrelated. With regards the the correlation between obesity and a low SES - I think that there are a number of factors that contribute to this correlation - none of which can be addressed in an effective way by increasing regulation and lawsuits - and certainly won't be remedied by lying to fat people and telling them their obesity has nothing to do with their dietary habits and lack of excercise. As far as kids are concerned, if someone has obese children (as in a couple of standard deviations beyond the normal allowance for baby fat) the parents - and not the folks marketing food towards them - are responsible for not regulating their children's diet and exercise properly. FWIW - I believe Sweden has instituted most, if not all of the measures that the usual cheerleaders for the nanny state have been clamoring for - banning all marketing of sweets and junk food to children, strict regulation of the foods available at schools, etc, etc, etc - and it's had a negligible impact on the prevalence of obesity over there. I believe I saw this article in the same issue of The Economist that someone else referred to earlier.

If all that comes out of this is that you have to park at the lower lot and take the trail on the opposite side if you want to access the valley when the lifts are running, then I can deal with that.

Not sure how that constitutes a contradiction. Humans have had the same genetic make-up for eons. Mass obesity has only been a problem for a generation at most. If the average person's genetic makeup was the primary factor responsible for their accumulation of massively excessive stores of body-fat, we would have seen this phenotype expressed with the same frequency throughout our history. This is clearly not the case. What has changed in recent history is the virtual elimination of physical exertion from the average person's daily routine, coupled with a food supply in which people must exert control over their caloric intake rather than having it regulated for them by scarcity and privation. No matter how predisposed one is to obesity, becoming obese requires a sustained consumption of far more calories than one expends. The fact that we as a society have attempted to divert responsibility "The Obesity Epidemic" from the individuals who choose to fail to control their consumption of food to a variety of convenient scapegoats like the fast food industry is yet another manifestation of the failure both to take responsibility for our actions and hold others accountable for theirs - also something unique to this generation.

OH MY GOD PEOPLE MIGHT DO TO US WHAT WE DID TO CANADA!!!!!! NOOOO ANYTHING BUT THAT Yeah - like Canadians and Canadian Cattlemen would accept imports of beef from countries with confirmed cases of BSE when their beef/cows had no known cases of the disease.

The Onion had a hillarious spin on the "The Media Is Responsible for My Low Self Esteem" bit in the last issue. Something along the lines of "Pet Owners Troubled by Unrealistic Images of Animal Beauty in Pet Food Adds." The process of becoming obese involves a variety of factors, and is probably unique for every person, but the bottom line is that one must consume more than one expends in order for the weight gain to occur. The most effective means of promoting weight loss in morbidly obese people is surgically reducing the volume of the stomach - which does not change their genes, their socioeconomic status, immediately reverse longstanding psychological problems, change the composition of the food available in close proximity to their homes, alter the price of the food supply available to them, or any of the other factors that may have contributed to their obesity - it simply limits their ability to absorb calories by consuming food. Cause--->effect. It's that simple.

There are way more people that would be willing to ski a 45 degree slope - I'd say about 5,000 times more - than are willing to step up and commit to the rotation on a 360 off of a decent sized jump, let alone get inverted. If you are talking about any icy-sustained 45 degree slope of the sort that Hans Saari died on, then I'd say you are correct - but how many backcountry skiers ski that kind of terrain, and how often? Not very many - but there's never any shortage of people who ski moderate BC lines willing to talk shit about the kids pulling manuevers in the parks. And if we are talking a 3,000 foot line with a brief section of 45 degree snow in carvable conditions with a self-arrest pole in your hands- something you are much more likely to find a recreational BC skier on - then the 360 is the clear winner in the "Quien Es Mas Macho" contest. Perhaps I'm biased. I inflicted enough pain on myself in the park to scare me away from doing much of anything but the occaisional straight-ahead air in the parks these days, but actually doing (emphasis here) the odd 360 on the smaller jumps and triple combos of weak old-school manuevers on the big table-tops in Blackcomb's park back in the day made me respect the risk involved in the tricks these kids are doing in a big way. Average Joe tries anything close to what these guys are doing and go anywhere as big and average Joe is airlifted to the ICU, at best. Guaranteed outcome.