JayB

Brand new, as in never used,still in the orginal packing. Got a great deal on these boots but after wearing them around inside a bit concluded that they'd be just a tad too small. My feet are somewhere between 10.5 to 11, so if you are in the size 10 to 10.5 range these should be a pretty good fit for you. These are the boots that Davo Karnicar skied down Everest in, so if you buy them you too will become capable of descending Everest on skis and/or Slovenian. I think that you can choose whichever option you want by pushing a small lever on the side of the boot. Here's a review from Couloir Magazine... "STRUKTURA "We've never given out a boot of the year award in any category - we're still not ready to award one in telemark - but for the second year in a row, the LOWA Struktura was the best randonnee boot in the test, hands down. The Struktura signifies the perfect marriage between alpine and AT, with super comfy features hidden in an alpine-style design. It literally tours like a slipper, with a foot-cradling feel and easy forward flex that felt like it was hinging. This was without a doubt the best boot to walk in, with tester Jeff Claussen remarking that it felt like someone had actually made a sport shoe for skiing. The Struktura certainly features all-sport handling in the turn, with two set forward adjustments features for dialing in your stance and a locking ski mode that noticeably changes the flex of the ankle. This boot is versatile enough to take on your tour or to ride the lifts in-bounds." And Another from the Same Mag: "Lowa Struktura Hands down the most comfortable boot of the review. The Gore-Tex liner and well fitting shell provide an exceptional low volume, snug feel. The lateral stiffness and ski performance were also one of the three best of the tested boots along with the Lasers and GSMs. With a good cuff height, solid power-strap and two-piece articulating tongue, the flex is a little soft but amazingly smooth. The upper buckle gives a great tight fit around the ankle, complimenting an overall well-made system. Comfort during hiking is like a Club Med cocktail hour with a hammock ready for snoozing. Walking in this boot has a great range of motion and sport shoe feel. A locking ski mode fixes the ankle in position with two forward lean adjustments for good alpine support. This boot may be hard to find in your local ski shop. So ask around or call the company about available outlets to set up a test drive or showroom visit. Weight: 8 lbs., 9.6 oz., Price: $450" And a picture: I paid $250 for them plus shipping, but am offering them at $200 so that I can move them quickly and put the money towards another pair of boots. This will surely come as dissapointing news to the folks like myself that make a past-time of searching the net for lower prices than the poster is offering here in the yard-sale, but there is nobody else out there selling these boots for less - period. Prefer Cash/in person transaction, and can meet you anywhere within a 40 mile radius of Seattle. May also be willing to ship and take a check depending on who you are. Respond by posting or PM.

Nothing superficial about my commentary, seeing as it addresses the central basis of all organized religion, i.e. the existence of an aphysical supreme being, and the inherent impossibility of ever proving (or disproving) the existence of such a creature. Belief in the absence of factual evidence seems to be one of your strong points, a belief in the importance of factual evidence is one of mine. To each his own.

Actually, they're not mutually exclusive. Albert Einstein, no slouch when it came to matters of logic, was also deeply religious, and saw no conflict between the two. When asked about it, he replied that God was a supremely rational being, and created the physical universe on purely logical grounds, governed by perfectly logical laws. As a physicist, Einstein was merely trying to discern the rules by which God had constructed the Universe. He saw this as a supremely spiritual pursuit, in that he was trying to discern, ultimately, the inner workings of God's mind. And throughout his life, he retained his faith. Funny how the most brilliant scientific mind in human history could be so stupid. The beliefs you outlined bear a much closer resemblance to Newton's theology than Einsteins. Newton conceived of God, in part, as an active intelligence who both consciously designed and continuously ordered the universe. As far as Einstein is concerned, he said "My God is the God of Spinoza" meaning a being that played no active role in either the design or the ordering of the universe. If you read his "Ideas and Opinions," and other works, it is clear that he derived a profound sense of spiritual satisfaction from pondering the order of the universe, but found formal religion and anthropomorphic conceptions of a supreme being both primitive and absurd. His Words: "Everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned with the satisfaction of deeply felt needs and the assuagement of pain. One has to keep this constantly in mind if one wishes to understand spiritual movements and their development. Feeling and longing are the motive force behind all human endeavor and human creation, in however exalted a guise the latter may present themselves to us. Now what are the feelings and needs that have led men to religious thought and belief in the widest sense of the words? A little consideration will suffice to show us that the most varying emotions preside over the birth of religious thought and experience. With primitive man it is above all fear that evokes religious notions - fear of hunger, wild beasts, sickness, death. Since at this stage of existence understanding of causal connections is usually poorly developed, the human mind creates illusory beings more or less analogous to itself on whose wills and actions these fearful happenings depend. Thus one tries to secure the favor of these beings by carrying out actions and offering sacrifices which, according to the tradition handed down from generation to generation, propitiate them or make them well disposed toward a mortal. In this sense I am speaking of a religion of fear. This, though not created, is in an important degree stabilized by the formation of a special priestly caste which sets itself up as a mediator between the people and the beings they fear, and erects a hegemony on this basis. In many cases a leader or ruler or a privileged class whose position rests on other factors combines priestly functions with its secular authority in order to make the latter more secure; or the political rulers and the priestly caste make common cause in their own interests. The social impulses are another source of the crystallization of religion. Fathers and mothers and the leaders of larger human communities are mortal and fallible. The desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the social or moral conception of God. This is the God of Providence, who protects, disposes, rewards, and punishes; the God who, according to the limits of the believer's outlook, loves and cherishes the life of the tribe or of the human race, or even or life itself; the comforter in sorrow and unsatisfied longing; he who preserves the souls of the dead. This is the social or moral conception of God. The Jewish scriptures admirably illustrate the development from the religion of fear to moral religion, a development continued in the New Testament. The religions of all civilized peoples, especially the peoples of the Orient, are primarily moral religions. The development from a religion of fear to moral religion is a great step in peoples' lives. And yet, that primitive religions are based entirely on fear and the religions of civilized peoples purely on morality is a prejudice against which we must be on our guard. The truth is that all religions are a varying blend of both types, with this differentiation: that on the higher levels of social life the religion of morality predominates. Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it. The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this. The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another. How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it. We thus arrive at a conception of the relation of science to religion very different from the usual one. When one views the matter historically, one is inclined to look upon science and religion as irreconcilable antagonists, and for a very obvious reason. The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events - provided, of course, that he takes the hypothesis of causality really seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man's actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God's eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is responsible for the motions it undergoes. Science has therefore been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hopes of reward after death. It is therefore easy to see why the churches have always fought science and persecuted its devotees.On the other hand, I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research. Only those who realize the immense efforts and, above all, the devotion without which pioneer work in theoretical science cannot be achieved are able to grasp the strength of the emotion out of which alone such work, remote as it is from the immediate realities of life, can issue. What a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe and what a yearning to understand, were it but a feeble reflection of the mind revealed in this world, Kepler and Newton must have had to enable them to spend years of solitary labor in disentangling the principles of celestial mechanics! Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide through the world and through the centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them the strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength. A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people. "

Drop out of school, cash in, and pursue this project/topic in your leisure if you are truly passionate about it. Anyone talented enough get accepted into UW's PhD program in the CS department should be able to name their terms in the private sector and get away with it....

so just out of curiosity, and since this seems to be a broken record with dwayner, when can i consider myself knowledgable enough to comment on religeon, theology, baby jesus etc? how about a dwayner certification test? the test would have to be a.) standardized and b.) topical and representative of the knowledge base of individuals who are "ok" to discuss "god" on the internet. presumbably some portion of the cc.com community (besides dwayner) would have to be able to pass it (although i will leave it to dwayner decide what percentage of the cc.com population we are talking about). so how about it dwayner? come up with a test and those people here who pass get to say what they think and the rest can stfu. let's have it! When the fundamental claims being made within a text, or on the basis of the material within the text cannot be proven, are utterly inconsistent with the laws which govern the operation of the physical world, or both – it is not necessary to thoroughly acquaint oneself with the book to refute the arguments or claims made within it. There may be a dense tract several thousand pages long in which the author attempts to substantiate his claim that he has built an engine that generates more energy than it consumes, but since this is physically impossible one doesn’t need to read even a single page to dismiss it out of hand. Ditto for the billions of pages of religious arcana out there, all of which is based upon the claim that supernatural deities exist and have specific attributes. This is a unprovable claim, and any argument which presupposes or is based upon the existence of such beings can be dismissed without aquainting oneself with any of the specific sub-claims made within them.

Hey -Thanks for the suggestion Jim. I was going to head down there but just came across a great deal online. The set-up is complete, and I will commence running some serious class I-II sheeite shortly....

Still looking for PFD to complete the set-up. If it's designed for whitewater use and fits (5'10", 170+) someone in my size range, I'm interested. Sell....sell....sell.....

I have a Vireo and it's definitely warm enough to use on a stand-alone basis in the summer if you bring a hat and your light insulating stuff, ditto for early-fall late spring with a parka. It's so light that I bring it along in the pack for unplanned epics while volcano slogging and don't even sweat it.

Word. Marriages like this are the only one's that I'd be willing to emulate. The fact of the matter is that you'll be around attractive members of the opposite sex without your spouse at some point, be it on work-related travel and any number of other situations, and whoever you marry is going to have to come to grips with that at some point.

Primal Scream and The Engineers Route and....others?

Killer photos/trip. Thanks for sharing.

A related question: why do people marry climbers in the first place if they have issues with the activity? It's different if someone takes up the hobby after the relationship begins, but unless the person keeps the activity a secret it seems to me that the non-climbing spouse has ample opportunity to grapple with the issue and should know if their prospective spouses activity will be a constant source of difficulty in the relationship and if so, decide if the upside of marrying that person will be greater or less than the downside. An even greater mystery is why a serious climber would marry someone that either can't deal with a passion that exists outside the boundaries of the relationship or has no equally compelling interests of their own, whatever they may be. Seems like a surefire recipe for bitterness, resentment, and conflict to me. Thankfully this is not the case with most married climbers that I know, and a little compromise and understanding on both sides seems to go a long way towards making their relationships work. Regarding the cheating issue - I'd never stick with anyone that had a serious problem with me climbing, hiking, or whatever with a woman, and I'd never sweat it if she went off with another guy. Anything less indicates an absence of trust and faith in your partner's character, or you are in a relationship with somone who does not warrant either. In either case you've got a relationship that I'd want no part of. The fact of the matter is that it's hardly necessary to go on an expedition to have an affair, and if you are the type of person that will cheat on your husband/wife/partner it'll happen sooner or later, no matter how hard you try to avoid situations where temptation might get the best of you. Besides, if you are that tempted you should probably reconsider/do some serious work on the relationship you are in IMO.

The only way Dean has a shot is to claim that he will be able to garner greater international support for stabilizing Iraq than Bush is capable of doing. There is quite a bit of international hostility towards Bush in particular and the US in general at the moment, and someone like Dean could give Europe and much of the rest of the world the "Hey-Here's-a-Guy-that-pretends to-believe-that-Collectivism-works, Dictators-really-do listen-if-you-just-ask-nicely-enough, and-other empirically-disproven-fantasies-just-like-we-do-despite-being-grown-ups" fig-leaf that they need to cooperate more fully with the US without facing the domestic backlash that would likely ensue in each of their respective nations if they were to do the same with Bush at the helm. If Europe and the UN came on board, this would in turn enable the Arab governments to recognize whatever provisional government is currently in place in Iraq without seeming to be abasing themselves before Uncle Sam. If he does this and selects serious people to the serious posts in the Department of Defense, Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and the State Department and picks the birkenstock-and-dreamcatcher crowd to oversee the DSHS and other posts in the bureaucratic equivalent of Siberia, he has a chance. If he bases his candidacy on simply pulling the troops out of Iraq, with no regard for the disastrous consequences this will absolutely have for the Iraqi people, the Middle East, and perhaps the rest of the world, he's done. He's then the McGovern for the new Millenium, and a Karl Rove wet-dream come to life. He needs to decide if he wants his primary objective to be his picture in a spot next to the laminated Che Guevara poster in the middle of a left-wing circle jerk in Berkely or actually getting elected. *In part by playing good cop on stage around the world while the bad-cop US Congress quietly but nonethless categorically rejects the treaties that he's vowing to implement.

Probably more... I have been told that the accident rate tends to go down when highways are upgraded, but that the accidents are generally more serious, you know, speed kills and all that. I hate shit like this. Sounds reasonable. It'd be interesting to see how many of the accidents on split highways with medians involve one vehicle killing the occupants of another vehicle, and how many involve a single vehicle. It's a terrible shame when anyone dies unnecessarily in an accident, even when they are at fault, but it's the collisions where one vehicle being driven poorly (recklessly, under the influence, innatentively) kills the occupants of a vehicle that's being driven well that seem especially tragic to me, though that may or may not be the case in this accident.

Interested in big cams and small tricams. Post details.

Christ. Saw tire marks and whatnot southbound from Whistler but had no idea that that accident was that bad. Hopefully there will be fewer accidents of this nature when the Sea-to-Sky is a split 4 lane highway.

I think it would be hillarious if bikers obeyed exactly the same rules that drivers do. Imagine the joy that will well up in the average driver's heart when they get stuck behind a cyclist, behaving exactly as motorized vehicle would, occupies the middle of the lane when riding uphill..... It only makes sense to behave like a car when you can move as fast as a car, which is on downhill stretches. Otherwise it's usually safer and more convenient for both bicyclists and motorists when cyclists to adapt their behavior to the conditions they encounter on the road.

From OPEC "In this context, the price band mechanism has played a very important role in preventing oil prices from rising to unbearable levels for the market, by increasing the availability of crude oil supplies according to pre-established parameters. This way, it has also made a contribution to reducing uncertainty and it is being increasingly recognized as a reasonable mechanism by consumer countries. But looking at the present oil market situation, we must inevitably conclude that currently high oil prices are not only the result of the balance between crude oil demand and supply. Several other factors are also intervening and this conference must take them into account: One such factor has been the steep fall in refining capacity facing the world's main energy market, the United States. There, between 1981 and 1999, 170 refineries closed down. Meanwhile, US refining capacity fell by 2.74m b/d of products. Additionally, at the beginning of the year, only 85 per cent of present capacity was being used. This explains the fall in inventories of products and the corresponding rise in prices. Such a picture is a consequence of increasingly stringent environmental protection measures, which lead to higher costs and reduced profit margins. They are leading to a dangerous bottleneck, which has been responsible for significant gasoline price increases and has prevented a much-needed build-up of product inventories. Furthermore, high product prices are pushing up crude oil prices. Another important factor affecting market stability is taxes on final consumer prices. As a whole, between 1980 and 1999, such taxes in OECD countries, especially in the European Union, have increased by 355 per cent (the equivalent of an amazing $40 per barrel). Meanwhile, crude oil prices have gone down by 51 per cent (the equivalent of $15/b). Some consumer countries increased taxes even as crude prices fell. The distortion that such taxes produce is so huge that they generate higher revenues for the governments of consuming countries, as compared to the full export income of oil producers. Market stability is additionally being affected by an insufficient tanker fleet to satisfy the industry's present transportation needs. Lower profitability in the transportation business over the past 20 years has led to reduced investment in the construction of new tankers. This problem has been made more acute by environmental measures mandating the use of double-hulled tankers. For instance, this led to the demolition of 116 tankers in 1999 and 83 so far this year. At a time of increased demand for transportation services, this situation has brought a three-fold rise in fees. While the effect of insufficient refining capacity is more significant in the US and high taxation is a more important issue in the European Union, there is one final factor equally affecting all markets — speculation through futures trading. Futures markets — associated with the exchanges in New York (NYMEX), London (IPE) and Singapore (SE) — make daily transactions equivalent to the value of between 90m and 150m b/d. And futures traders act according to expectations. If they think that prices will rise, they buy large amounts of papers, thus bringing the price up and transforming that expectation into a reality. This introduces significant price distortions, which at times have been measured at between four and eight dollars per barrel. After looking at all these elements, we can only conclude that OPEC has more than fulfilled its role as a reliable oil supplier and that the true reasons for currently high prices lie behind a series of other factors not directly linked to crude oil supply."

Who is manipulating supply? If one oil/gas company is withholding supply in an attempt to drive up prices, any competitor with an ounce of business sense would increase their supply to maximize the number of gallons that they can unload at a higher price. Happens all the time within OPEC, and they are supposedly obliged to cooperate with one another in these matters, rather than compete. The only place that any credible sources have identified a bottlekneck in is refining capacity, especially in those refineries which sell the stuff formulated to meet regional composition regulations. It'd be interesting to see why there aren't additional refineries coming online if that's truly the case. Supposedly the single biggest factor that caused the major price spike in gasoline was a massive refinery in Venezuela going offline because of anti-Chavez strikes or some such thing.

Duh.

Demand.

and

Supply

Unclipping from the webbing we were rapping from, weighting the rope, then feeling a slight jerk as the rope popped out of my belay device. I thought I had clipped the locker through the loops of rope that I'd fed into the ATC, but that was not the case. Still had a grip on the rope, and the back-up prusik probably would have saved me if I had started to fall - but extremely stupid nontheless as I imagine a 200 footer onto blocky talus would have hurt.

tsk tsk tsk. there was no discussion of "All social problems amongst minorities are a direct result of white racism", so stay on track. the issue is the status of a minority that has been in this country for ~200 years .... yes, 200 years. the fact that a minority on the average has such problems getting out of poverty after a 200 years time span undoubtedly questions the legacy of slavery, segregation and more recently general indifference (if not racism). Actually, the discussion was framed around color rather than mentality, but the mentality argument is also a rather weak one. For one thing, if your hypothesis were true, Blacks would remain forever impoverished by this legacy even if all white people magically dissapeared or ceased to discriminate against them. Further, if one assumes that the vast majority of Blacks have a common history vis-a-vis slavery, Jim-Crow laws, and continuing discrimination based on color then they should all be equally hobbled by the collective psychic trauma that you attribute to them. This is clearly not the case, as if it were there would not be any successful Black people, of which there are in fact many millions. The cultural legacy you speak of undoubtedly exists, but the fact of widespread, and increasing Black success suggests that it is not the universally crippling impediment to achievement that you claim it to be. And as a side note for the sake of basic historical accuracy/literacy, Blacks have been present in the US for considerably longer than 200 years. "Yes....200 years.." . Henry Louis Gates you are not. The first Blacks arrived in the US in 1619, 13 years after the first settlers arrived in Jamestown, and 184 years before the date that you cited.