Off_White

Well, I think mattp and Dwayner may have a point, perhaps this is the appropriate location for that discussion, and this nascent forum is still in the process of self definition. On reflection, I think my reaction was more of the "there you go again" type, having heard it before. So, Dwayner, if you really would like to discuss the bolting issue, why don't you start a dedicated thread here, or if you would like I could spin your post off into the first post of a new thread. The question of what this thread is about is still open to suggestion. I would like to see it treated more like the route reports area, like N. Cascades and such, rather than like Spray. Dru's question in an earlier thread, do WA Pass routes belong here or in N Cascades, while perhaps asked tongue in cheek, is a good one. For me, I think of this forum as being devoted to things of a cragging nature, and not geographically constrained. Hence, reports from Yosemite would find a home here. I recall Texplorer posted his tales of this summer's exploits down there in the Oregon section, for want of a better location. That sort of call is easy to make. Something like WA Pass, sort of cragging and sort of alpine, is fuzzier. I guess I'd personally still put it in N. Cascades, and would put reports from Rexford in BC, etc. But it's not a deeply held conviction on my part... Anyway, I ramble...

Closer examination reveals the real director of the program. Can no one else detect the dire spoor of a dank demon of Cthulu?

Dwayner: This forum is not another podium for the bolt debate, that still belongs in spray, as always. No one doubts the depth of your conviction, no need to carry it everywhere you go.

I gotta agree, but then again experience shows that every season has at least one day that moves me to declare, "This, THIS is my favorite season." But Dru, every word you said about fall is true, and I too am looking forward to it. The air, the light, things are already feeling different.

That reads like an onion article

Well duh, you should have posted it in the New Rock Climbing Forum

So Beck, you're saying you have no ethics beyond basic sucking up to power? Owen's an ass who'd like to throw you in jail for your marijuana use, but hey, you had a photo op so its all good? I was willing to cut you slack over the rope-up fiasco, but you're sounding like a cheap whore in this thread.

from web page BRAD Owen hates drugs so much that he will do anything, it seems, to stop them: Give speeches to critical teenagers. Create a rock band to sing anti-drug songs. Even step outside the law to push a public vote toward his anti-drug convictions. The state lieutenant governor’s $7,000 settlement with the state Executive Ethics Board for his fight against Initiative 685 shows the deliberate separation a public official must make between his personal passions and professional responsibilities. Owen ran for lieutenant governor in 1996 on an anti-drug platform and won, urging prevention, education and enforcement as the keys to safe communities. Then he turned his office into a taxpayer-financed bully pulpit. The trouble began last year with I-685, which would have legalized the medicinal use of marijuana, heroin and other drugs, and decriminalized most personal drug possession and use. Owen could have stuck to his First Amendment right of expressing his contempt for the initiative. He could have followed state law by responding to individual inquiries for information. Instead, his office became a mini-campaign headquarters of sorts. The ethics board contends he used public employees, equipment, federal grant money and his own working hours to illegally distribute countless letters, press releases and documents against the initiative. Owen’s logic is compelling: If he is passionate about his job, and if his job includes anti-drug work, isn’t it a natural extension of his work to fight a pro-drug campaign? No, for the same reason a school superintendent can’t send a thousand faxes from his office begging people to vote "yes" on a school levy. When the government gets involved, it becomes a government-financed campaign. For a state employee to use public money to kill a state initiative is even worse, undermining the intent of the initiative process. Initiative 685 failed, thankfully. Its reasonable cousin, the medicinal marijuana Initiative 692, passed this November - no thanks to Owen, who helped lead the "We Said No!" effort against it. State fines and laws can’t keep Owen from shouting hyperbole during his free time, but they can remind him not to do it at the voters’ expense.

Brad Owen is a complete shitheel who ran a sleazy convenience market in Shelton and made his name voting with the Republicans when he was a Democrat in the state house. As an employer and small business man, many felt he was an odious toad. I'm glad you enjoyed your free lunch snuggling up with him, but personally I wouldn't piss in his mouth if his throat was on fire.

Yeah, isn't that where there's a big rotten looking inverted cave up at the top of the wall?

I dunno, my topo drawing abilities suck? Just one of those days? I think once you get started at the right place the route unfolds pretty naturally, with the only tricky bits being going to the left end of the ledge to avoid the rotten bit about 2/3rds of the way up and up the chimney to the top of the pillar and move to the right on the last hard pitch. Thanks for the photo.

Sorry to be off topic now, but yes, the route is in Dru's picture. Here's the line, approximately

That would be "shameless self promotion" actually, and I suck so bad at it I haven't been able to get anyone on the route in twelve years. If anyone wants the strategy on how to be the wienie member of the team and still pull it off, pm me. I hadn't heard from BP about it, but read about his and Uncle Tricky's outing on Gato Negro, which I think is nearby.

I think you guys just need a suitable project to mellow you out.

The 5000 dollars had nothing to do with Beckfest from what I've read, rather it has something to do with another division of BeckConglomCo TM.

Ban people who don't agree and change the title under your avatar name.

Well, if Dru's against it, I'm for the NEW ROCKCLIMBING FORUM

It sounds cool, you should post some pictures from there, though its unlikely I'll be making a climbing pilgrimage to Minnesota anytime soon. My mother-in-law recently sent me an article about hiking up the highest mountain in Massachusetts recently, suggesting that it might be worth a trip out there.

I think Rob is right that there are two industries battling over this, and I'm sure some of the science on both sides is suspect, geared to prove the desired point. I also agree that a study of eleven individual fish is not conclusive. However, I think it is disingenous to imply that the farmers are a bunch of poor family fish farmers who are going hungry because they've spent their meager incomes defending their pure and innocent livelihood from rapacious big pocket environmentalists. There's plenty of dough in the multinational corporations on both sides of the issue. What really got my MountainGoat was presenting Elizabeth Whelan as the authority on the subject. Might as well quote Ken Lay on developing a responsible national energy policy. I have a friend who has made it her policy to ONLY eat farmed salmon, thinking it would be better for wild fish populations to not eat them. Personally, being a tightwad, I tend to eat what's on sale, so sometimes its farmed fish and sometimes its wild fish bought down on the dock. We do ingest toxins from all kinds of sources, you just have to pick which ones are going to be your issue. Around my house we've focused more on cottonseed oil than the source of salmon.

besides, I thought "nad chatter" was male only?

DSL is always the same speed, not dependent on how many people are on your trunk line at any given time, but I think cable may be much faster on a good day. I've got DSL (no cable to the house, wasn't an option) and it seems fine, but at 256 K it's only five times faster than my dial-up was. I think cable can be much faster, but I don't have much experience with it. As an aside, a friend just tried out a satellite system. He gets blindingly fast downloads of files from usenet, but the web browsing is slower than his dial-up was, I believe due to some packet return latency inherent in sending back through the satellite. Since he was after faster access on e-bay where he has a business buying and selling vintage guitars, rather than faster download of usenet porn binaries, he's very unsatisfied and switching to DSL.

Entertaining quote alteration RobBob, but a lame debate technique. Your point may be that PCB's are in both populations of salmon, and that may well be, but the Whelan article you posted did not discuss that issue, but rather asserted and that's a very different agenda.

And still more on Whelan and her group: American Council on Science and Health

And on Whelan: The American Council on Science and Health (2) also has big agro-chemical funding (eg Monsanto, Dow, Cyanamid) and controversy has raged throughout ACSH's over twenty-year history over the linkage between its extensive corporate backing and Whelan's (2) tireless crusading against "health scares" and the "toxic terrorists" who promote them. web page