Thinker

Twisted Sister

My place can be quite entertaining, Minx. If you get tired of the snow and need a cozy fireplace to warm up by, feel free to dig me up in Salt Lake.

This is from an email list I'm on. I don't really know it's date or true origin, but here it is: The following message came from the US Forest Service National Avalanche Center via the Mountain Washington Avalanche Center (NH) regarding battery-size issues for the Ortovox M2 avalanche rescue transceiver. The M2 may shut off after incurring a moderate blow. The problem has to do with battery dimensions and not the transceiver. The gist of the following message is that AA batteries vary in size depending upon brand, and smaller-sized AA batteries can shift about causing the transceiver to shut off. To prevent a potentially serious consequence M2 users should use "the most robust AA you can find that is wide, long, and has large terminal ends." For more details, please see the message below. Dale Atkins Colorado Avalanche Information Center Subject: AA batteries and Ortovox M2 shutdown. You guys might find this interesting and alarming. Excuse this memo if this is already common knowledge, but I have not heard anything about this Ortovox M2 problem. Please pass this along through your networks so we can get the word about this concern. I caught wind that a couple of our local guides were having problems with their M2 shutting off when the unit took anything more than a moderate knock, such as striking it in your palm. Initially we thought it was the same problem the M1's had with too much slop in the battery compartment, which Ortovox fixed with the M2. They dealt with his issue by increasing the size of the battery pressure tabs on the inside of the compartment door. 3 of us use M2's so we tried to duplicate the problem. We could get the batteries to shift, but no where near enough to shut off the unit. I was able to get hold of one of the guide's M2 and sure enough we got the unit to shut off. After some trouble shooting it came down to the specific size of the batteries. After getting 6 or 7 different manufactured AA batteries side by side they were all a bit different in size. The largest and the smallest were actually quite substantial. The other issue was the height of the + (positive) nub on the top of the battery as well as the - (negative) contact on the bottom. The best battery for the M2, of the ones we looked at, was the Duracell Coppertop due to it's large diameter and longer length. The negative terminal also protrudes from the bottom while many are either flush or indented. The M2 compartment tolerances are so tight that batteries 1mm shorter or thinner at times was enough to make a difference to shut off the unit. I was able to shut the M2 down with no trouble with more than one manufactured battery. The original problem battery was an Energizer alkaline and one of the smallest batteries was the GSA contracted Kodak alkaline AA that many government employees might be using. I never gave much thought to the size changing from battery to battery, but in this application the consequence could be substantial. I have some additional thoughts about exactly why and how the small batteries fail. Folks can call me if they want the long-winded version. The short of it is use the most robust AA you can find that is wide, long, and has large terminal ends. Chris Christopher P. Joosen Lead Snow Ranger/Dispersed Recreation Supervisor Director Mount Washington Avalanche Center White Mountain National Forest

So WHY is it exactly that antenna turns you on? I can think of more than one possibility, though I'm loath to turn this thread into spray. edit: Damn! It's already IN spray.

They have a shot of Mt Hood there, but it's difficult for me to make a conclusion based on these 2 data points. What do those of you who know the mountain a little more intimately think? web page "This image shows Mount Hood in Oregon at the same time in late summer in 1985 and 2002."

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http://www.estrellawar.org/ The Estrella War XXI at Estrella Mountain Park shall be fought by the Principal Armies of the Kingdom of Atenveldt, the Kingdom of Caid, the Kingdom of the Outlands, and the Kingdom of Artemisia. It is designed to allow the Kingdoms of the Knowne World to gather together, that they might form closer relations with one another under the scenario of a medieval war. Estrella War XXI at Estrella Mountain Park shall be held on February 16th through 21st 2005, as a twosided war fought between the following two Allied Realms: A. Allied Realm I shall be composed of the Kingdom of Atenveldt and the Kingdom of Caid and their allies. B. Allied Realm II shall be composed of the Kingdom of Artemisia and the Kingdom of the Outlands and their allies.

Spec....tacular!

LONDON (Reuters) - A British woman was sentenced to two and a half years in jail Thursday for ripping off her ex-lover's testicle with her bare hands during a drunken brawl after he refused her sex. Amanda Monti, 24, flew into a rage in May last year after Geoffrey Jones, 37, who had ended their long-term relationship, rejected her advances. She grabbed him by the genitals, tearing off his left testicle, then hid it in her mouth before a friend of Jones handed it back to him saying "that's yours." Monti, of Birkenhead, near Liverpool, pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding at an earlier hearing.

fwiw, I found the company I'm working for now through Monster. This company continues to post openings there and gets loads of responses. I had 3 other interviews from Monster.com leads. My system was to even send resumes to companies that were hiring above and below the level I was looking for, figuring they were in hiring mode and may jump if the skills fit was good. It paid off.

how about Yooh-tahans?

speaking of Peta..... http://www.comicbookhotties.com/models/peta-wilson.asp

This kid has a great future ahead of him if his similarities to a PacNW legend continue for the next decade or two. link Four-year-old's late-night drive A boy of four drove his mother's car on a late-night trip to a video shop in the US state of Michigan, police say. Although too small to reach the accelerator, he put the car in gear and the idling engine took him to the shut shop, 400m (437yds) away in Sand Lake. On its return journey the car's weaving attracted a policeman - who followed the apparently driverless vehicle. The youngster hit two parked cars and reversed into the police car before he was stopped. He will not face charges. The policeman who discovered exactly who was behind the wheel, Sgt Jay Osga, said: "He knew how to go from forward to reverse," Sgt Osga said. The mother said she taught him how to drive while he was sitting on her lap. No charges will be brought against the boy or his mother for Friday's incident. "He's four-years-old. His mom didn't even know he was up," Sand Lake police chief Doug Heugel told The Grand Rapids Press newspaper. "I don't think he even realises what he did."

Sounds like they need Mike Layton to coordinate the suffer-fest and guide them in there. ********************************** On Sunday, NATO said its helicopters ferried Slovenian mountain rescue teams to the site, some 11,000 feet up Chaperi Mountain, but by late afternoon had failed to land. "The conditions were very, very poor," said alliance spokeswoman Maj. Karen Tissot Van Patot. Planes and ground troops would try again early Monday, she said, adding that troops consulted local Afghans "to see if we can find a back trail." An Associated Press photographer and a dozen Afghan intelligence service agents failed with that approach Sunday. Boi Khan, the bearded 50-year-old guide, said he knew the mountain well from his boyhood and hunting trips. He told the exhausted party they would die if they did not turn around after six hours of slogging on foot through the deep snow. "It was too dangerous. We had no food or heat," said Khan, emptying the snow from his rubber boots on his return. "But we were less than two hours away and I'm willing to try again."

20" of freshiez on a 137" base at my local playground.

Tyvek has a spec'd hydrostatic head (the pressure required to drive water through the fabric, in this case) of 56 to 83 inches of water, which equates to 2 to 3 psi...not very much, but certainly enough to keep out most wind driven rain. web page1 web page2 web page3 But, not enough to keep water from seeping through under body weight. I'm not about to calculate the size of your ass and divide it into your weight to see what psi it might exert, but suffice it to say you'd probably get wet sitting on most Tyvek on wet ground. I recalled from working in Tyvek suits that I'd often get a wet knee when kneeling on wet ground so just now I set a wet sponge on the floor, placed a layer of Tyvek coveralls on it, and kneeled on it for 10 seconds....voila...wet jeans. If you're set on the durability and light weight of Tyvek, I'd suggest finding some that is coated with polyethylene or saran (not to be confused with sarin). Google Saranex for some ideas. In any case, try the wet sponge-tyvek-knee routine on what you get/got and let us know. And for a little CBS-style trivia, Tyvek isn't very good at preventing drugs from passing through it... web page (yours truly in my favorite shade of Tyvek)

Funny you should mention polygamy. Could Polygamy Be Decriminalized? The Utah Supreme Court is considering decriminalizing polygamy. The state's highest court has taken up the case of a Southern Utah police officer convicted of bigamy. (Feb 3, 2005) -- But, of course, one usually has to have job to indulge in those kinds of things...right Klenke?

Did ya read about the PETA founder who tried to auction off a chunk of her skin with a tattoo on it through Ebay UK? *************** http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10009179 LONDON - A plan by an animal rights activist to sell a lizard tattoo on her right arm came unstuck when the auction website she was using said he could not sell "human remains". eBay UK removed "Lizard Skin", an auction offered by Ingrid Newkirk, the British founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) because her ad breached guidelines. Peta, the world's biggest animal rights group, said eBay regarded the tattoo as "human remains" which contravened the company's policy to not allow auctions of human body parts. Newkirk said in a statement she was unimpressed by the move: "I am just another animal, these are animal remains," she said. "You can't miss the irony when it is acceptable to steal skins from their original owners and auction them off, but forbidden to auction a person's voluntarily offered skin to be surrendered only upon her death." Billed as "waterproof and weathered" and "suitable for making into a wallet or watch strap", the tattoo was offered to draw attention to the plight suffered by skinned animals. Proceeds had been due to go to charity. ****************************** Pre-auction press release from PETA: http://www.peta.org/mc/NewsItem.asp?id=5830 London – PETA founder and author of Making Kind Choices Ingrid Newkirk hopes to continue to draw attention to the alternatives to animal abuse and exploitation even after her death-by auctioning off the lizard tattoo on the skin of her arm in a bid to save the lives of animals who would otherwise be skinned and made into purses, wallets or shoes. It’s "the only skin you can wear and use with the express permission of the original owner", says Newkirk. The auction began on eBay this morning at http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?V...ssPageName=WDVW, and the estimated delivery date of the skin is 2037 or earlier, pending owner’s expiration. The buyer nets a certificate of authenticity and ownership now and the "weathered, naturally aged" skin when Newkirk dies. "Euphemisms like ‘leather’ and ‘meat’ help mask the cruelty that goes into stealing and slaughtering for clothing, trinkets and taste", explains Newkirk. "It may be uncomfortable to contemplate, but we’re all flesh and blood, and we all share the same feelings of pain, joy and grief and the desire to live and love others. The difference is only that human beings have the luxury of being able to make kind choices and live our lives without contributing to misery and death. My hope is that, even after I’m gone, I can continue my work by making that point." By auctioning off her "lizard skin" for use as a wallet, conversation piece or display, Newkirk shows that there are many kind choices you can make in life-donating your old reading glasses to the elderly poor, your towels and newspapers to animal shelters and your books to literacy programmes and, indeed, recycling every bit of yourself, from your organs, the use of which can reduce the use of animals in experiments, down to your own hide. For people who don’t want to go that far, Newkirk’s new book, Making Kind Choices, out this month, details more than 500 easy ways that people going about their daily lives can make a difference for animals and the Earth simply by choosing kindness over cruelty. The purchase price for Newkirk’s skin will be donated to the "Shed Your Skin" Campaign, which promotes humane alternatives to leather and exotic animal skins. To learn more about the campaign, please visit ShedYourSkin.com. The starting bid is £5,000.

Headline: Children from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sudan are still being smuggled to the United Arab Emirates to work as camel jockeys.... Am I yanking your chain Dwayner style? or is it true? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4236123.stm

This Naysayer isn't so tight-lipped.... link Robert Fisk: No One Believes the Insurgency Will End my favorite quote from the article: "You cannot give us 'democracy' just like this," he said. "That is one of your Western, foreign dreams. Before, we had Saddam and he was a cruel man and he treated us cruelly. But what will happen after this election is that you will give us lots of little Saddams."

Vote for your favorite! http://www.peta.org/feat/sexiestvegvote/indexVOTE05.html And don't miss the free vegetarian starter kit.

bump. Riverbend has been posting again. http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

I liked the 'Sweet Renton Granite' thread. And, of course, this:

from this web page: My fellow Americans: I want us to go to war against Iraq. But I want us to have our eyes open and be completely realistic. A war against Iraq will be expensive. It will cost you, the taxpayer, about $300 billion over five years. I know Wolfowitz is telling you Iraq's oil revenues will pay for it all, but that's ridiculous. Iraq only pumps about $10 billion a year worth of oil, and it's going to need that just to run the new government we're putting in. No, we're going to have to pay for it, ourselves. I'm going to ask you for $25 billion, then $80 billion, then another $80 billion. And so on. I'm going to be back to you for money more often than that unemployed relative that you don't like. The cost of the war is going to drive up my already massive budget deficits from about $370 billion to more like $450 billion a year. Just so you understand, I'm going to cut taxes on rich people at the same time that I fight this war. Then I'm going to borrow the money to fight it, and to pay for much of what the government does. And you and your children will be paying off that debt for decades. In the meantime, your dollar isn't going to go as far when you buy something made overseas, since running those kinds of deficits will weaken our currency. (And I've set things up so that most things you buy will be made overseas.) We'll have to keep interest rates higher than they would otherwise have been and keep the economy in the doldrums, because otherwise my war deficits would cause massive inflation. So I'm going to put you, your children, and your grandchildren deeply in hock to fight this war. I'm going to make it so there won't be a lot of new jobs created, and I'm going to use the excuse of the Federal red ink to cut way back on government services that you depend on. For the super-rich, or as I call them, "my base," this Iraq war thing is truly inspired. We use it to put up the deficit to the point where the Democrats and the more bleeding heart Republicans in Congress can't dare create any new programs to help the middle classes. We all know that the super-rich--about 3 million people in our country of 295 million-- would have to pay for those programs, since they own 45 percent of the privately held wealth. I'm damn sure going to make sure they aren't inconvenienced that way for a good long time to come. Then, this Iraq War that I want you to authorize as part of the War on Terror is going to be costly in American lives. By the time of my second inaugural, over 1,300 brave women and men of the US armed forces will be dead as a result of this Iraq war, and 10,371 will have been maimed and wounded, many of them for life. America's streets and homeless shelters will likely be flooded, down the line, with some of these wounded vets. They will have problems finding work, with one or two limbs gone and often significant psychological damage. They will have even more trouble keeping any jobs they find. They will be mentally traumatized the rest of their lives by the horror they are going to see, and sometimes commit, in Iraq. But, well we've got a saying in Texas. I think you've got in over in Arkansas, too. You can't make an omelette without . . . you gotta break some eggs to wrassle up some breakfast. I know Dick Cheney and Condi Rice have gone around scaring your kids with wild talk of Iraqi nukes. I have to confess to you that my CIA director, George Tenet, tells me that the evidence for that kind of thing just doesn't exist. In fact, I have to be frank and say that the Intelligence and Research Division of the State Department doesn't think Saddam has much of anything left even from his chemical weapons program. Maybe he destroyed the stuff and doesn't want to admit it because he's afraid the Shiites and Kurds will rise up against him without it. Anyway, Iraq just doesn't pose any immediate threat to the United States and probably doesn't have anything useful left of their weapons programs of the 1980s. There also isn't any operational link between a secular Arab nationalist like Saddam and the religious loonies of al-Qaeda. They're scared of one another and hate each other more than each hates us. In fact, I have to be perfectly honest and admit that if we overthrow Saddam's secular Arab nationalist government, Iraq's Sunni Arabs will be disillusioned and full of despair. They are likely to turn to al-Qaeda as an alternative. So, folks, what I'm about to do could deliver 5 million Iraqis into the hands of people who are insisting they join some al-Qaeda offshoot immediately. Or else. So why do I want to go to war? Look, folks, I'm just not going to tell you. I don't have to tell you. There is little transparency about these things in the executive, because we're running a kind of rump empire out of the president's office. After 20 or 30 years it will all leak out. Until then, you'll just have to trust me.

SLC is only 50% M-bot. They're easy enough to ignore unless they happen to be driving one of those cars with the flashing red and blue lights and packing side arms.