Thinker

Mr Drool-little, since you're obviously such a purist, why don't you bring the nuts and cams that you've made in your home made forge to pub club sometime. I'm sure lots of us would like to see them. While you're at it, bring along your rope too. In my opinion, buying gear made by someone else is just a step lower than using a guide service to help with the logistics and planning of a climb or expedition.....but we all do it.

I don't think I'd be a very happy camper if I was trippin and saw the horsemen of the apocalypse bearing down upon me, angels holding back the four winds of destruction, or hordes of people being executed in the battle of Armageddon. I prefer the gnostic feeling of celebratory ritual mixed with the paganistic mysticism it evolved from....a true celebration of life. In my opinion, the literalists who standardized the gospels and burnt the gnostics (and their texts) are just a bit oppressive.

a great alternative, and very probably closer to the true roots of real Christianity, would be The Gnostic Gospels. They're filled with mysticism, acid trip-like visions, rituals, and a sense of freedom that are noticeably lacking in the 'approved' version.

Do you think they used a US made helicopter and a US made missile to assassinate the guy?

Nope, not Ryan. I PM'd you.

Here's a link to more another thread with more info about Hell's Canyon. The photo is from Kevin Pogue's website. old thread http://people.whitman.edu/~pogue/climbing_areas.html see #12---Hell's Canyon Shapp, you probably haven't made the connection yet, but you provided me enough secondhand info to find a few of the climbs in Hells Canyon 4 or so years ago. We had no idea what we were climbing, nor did we care...it was great to climb in a place where there wasn't ANYONE or anything around but rattlesnakes, quail, and a few deer. I owe you one.

Lunar mountain has eternal light story By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor There are places on the Moon where the Sun always shines There is a "peak of eternal light" on the Moon - a region from which the Sun never sets, according to astronomers. A team led by Dr Ben Bussey of Johns Hopkins University in the US looked at images of the Moon's poles taken by the 1994 Clementine lunar spacecraft. The researchers produced a movie to show how illumination over the regions changed during a whole month. They found four areas on the rim of Peary, a 73k-wide crater, that appear to stay light for the entire Moon day. 'Peak of eternal light' The Moon's rotational axis is tilted about 1.5 degrees relative to the plane of the Earth's orbit around the Sun. As a consequence, the Moon has small but detectable seasons, and dramatic lighting conditions at its poles. The low axial tilt means there are crater floors and the poleward-facing sides of crater walls that never see the Sun at all. But are there mountains or the tops of crater rims, astronomers have long wondered, that always protrude into the sunlight? It had been thought that nowhere on the Moon was there a so-called peak of eternal light - although some research had identified a few north polar regions that stayed lit for 95% of the time. When one of these regions was dark another was illuminated, but it seemed there was no one spot that was lit permanently. The Johns Hopkins-led analysis suggests this conclusion may be premature. Unlike the lunar south pole, which has no mountains of eternal light, the north pole has peaks that are constantly illuminated - at least during the lunar summer. Speaking at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas, Ben Bussey warned the continuous illumination could be a seasonal effect that disappears in winter (for which there is no data). Moonbase alpha Finding a permanently illuminated peak makes the lunar north pole an enticing region for exploration and for the site of the first Moonbase. A location near the north pole that was constantly lit would have a relatively benign environment. Daily temperature changes would be only about 20 degrees Celsius, making lunar base operations easier than at the lunar equator where the temperature can change by 250 degrees daily. Bussey's team has also identified extensive regions of permanent shadow. These regions may harbour ground ice. Trapped water-ice in permanently shadowed areas at the lunar poles is consistent with data from the Clementine and Lunar Prospector missions and radar measurements made with the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. Astronomers know that concentrations of hydrogen are associated with permanently shadowed craters. However, they do not know the total concentration of hydrogen or whether or not the hydrogen is in water-ice or some other form. ***************************************** edit: check out the 2nd photo. it looks like a team of first responders administering first aid to another moonwalker who has a leg splinted....kinda strange...

WASHINGTON - The House of Representatives, amid an intensifying hunt for leaders of the al-Qaida terrorist network, voted unanimously Thursday to double the reward for Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s capture to $50 million. ********************** sounds to me like VP Cheney's cousin Frank ( a Haliburton high up) will swing by the US military HQ the day after this is passed, point out Bin Laden's hideout on a map (where, in fact, Frank has been delivering ribeye steaks by the ton for the last 2 years), and walk away with a cool 50 million that he'll split with Dick. Of course all of this is just my unfounded speculation, but let's watch and see just who ends up with this reward!

re failure: If you set the summit as your ultimate goal, then not summiting IS a failure. If you set coming home alive as your ultimate goal, then you succeeded. If you hoped to give it your all, experience the rush of winter climbing, and push yourself a little further than the last time out, then it sounds like your weekend was ultimately fulfilling. If Mallory and Irvine really reached Everest's summit, then they did NOT fail according to the logic Gripped, Lummox, and Cracked are using. But they did ultimately fail by dying on the climb in the opinions of the greater and more conservative numbers of climbers.

I climbed there about 4 years ago. Great limestone, all bolted from what I could see. I suspect there's a lot more routes now compared to when I was there. Sounds like Vert has the updated scoop on the place. Please share!

looks like some 3rd graders made this one.

fyi, Thursday a the Hen is Rockabilly night... still kinda twangy, but a nice change from the usual venues.

this post is not addressed to anyone particular...but have you SEEN a map of the barrier route? The route planning was obviously done by politicians and not engineers. http://www.seamzone.mod.gov.il/Pages/ENG/map_eng.htm

I'll plug the Hen again.....so to speak. It's like Halloween there every night of the year. Hats, boots, and matching belts. It's almost like stepping out of Seattle and into a little bar in Wyoming when you walk in the door.

Man Thought He Was Running Over Bin Laden Wed Mar 17,10:15 AM ET MONTPELLIER, France - A French artist allegedly traumatized by last week's Spain bombings was convicted of trying to run over a pedestrian he mistook for Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and ordered to pay the man $615. The 35-year-old defendant, identified as Pierre, was sentenced Tuesday by a court in this southern France city to a three-month suspended prison term. The man he tried to run over was unharmed. Pierre's lawyer, David Mendel, said his client was the "victim of a hallucination" while driving Monday through Montpellier's historic center. The victim, a man in his 30s, was able to run from the oncoming car, which crashed along the side of a street. "If it was (bin Laden), we would have won $5 million," Mendel said, referring to a reward.

A friend of mine in Idaho packs goats. http://www.srv.net/~goatz/packgoat.html They sure are cute little things when they're young.... http://www.srv.net/~goatz/allfive2.jpeg

my 2 cents would be to live somewhere where it's easier to escape to Squamish rather than harder, i.e. north over south.

I find it ironic (and tragic) that many politically moderate Arab and/or Muslim nations are being targeted by Islamic extremists. Maybe we can learn a few lessons about how to deal with the problem by watching Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Turkey, and to a much smaller extent Spain, deal with these issues. And speaking of Spain, Spain was once THE model of tolerance. From roughly 723 to 1200, Moslems, Christians, and Jews lived in relative peace. As 'Children of the Book' Christians and Jews were largely protected under the moderate Moslem government. Though there were outbreaks of intolerance, esp in the later years, the system worked very well. In general, the Christians kept to themselves and degenerated into a very financially poor community, while the Jews integrated into society, held political office, and developed a rich heritage in Spain. Art, architecture, literature, and science flourished in that time period. Numerous Europeon 'scholars' went to the vast libraries in Spain and 'discovered' many astounding scientific facts, which they translated into their vernacular languages and published as their own discoveries. It wansn't until religiously radical Moroccan mercenaries were brought in to fight the northern Christian armies (and subsequently decided to stay) that the overall political climate started to become more radical in Spain...and finally the Islamic government suppressed both the christian and Jewish communities. Most people are only familiar with the ultimate outcome when the 'Moors' were driven out of Spain by the invading Europeon/Christian armies.

I fully expected to see a 'take THAT, you whiners' message from Jon when and if the site came back up.

I thought it was the IT guys here at work messing with me...

you have not been paying attention. i have been saying since my first post in this thread that terror has its roots in despair. stop predatorial policies enforced by the most powerful army/economy in the world and it'll take care of itself. I disagree. There will always be somebody or some group who is dissatisifed with the prevailing government, no matter how unbalanced their view may be. It's not always despair that drives these things, many times it's ego or pride, and stopping predatorial polices won't have any effect on these people. For instance, I don't really know much about the Basque separatist movement, but it seems that they really don't have much to complain about except that they don't want to be part of Spain. Domestic US terrorists typically don't like the federal government, but is anyone really being predatorial with them? To the contrary, their personal rights are probably the best protected in the world. There are many other examples.

I may have made 3 or 4 posts there, but mainly just lurked.

I was actually quite afraid to open this thread entitled "Spray Movement". I figured someone had posted a ratemypoo.com photo of the day here. I was pleasantly surprised..... I don't care WHERE the spray is, but I do think it's part of the character here.

I'm actually surprised that none of the big guns from rec.climbing haven't shown up here, or at least we haven't made the connection yet. Lord Slime and Mad Dog....where are you? Mike Garrison would give CBS a run for his money on some of the geeky science stuff....(said affectionately, as I count Mike as a friend.)

I posted this on last week's thread too, by mistake...damn. Hey, great job on getting this decided a few days beforehand! I think it can only serve to increase the number of people who show and the fun quotient. As I've stated before, when the destination is decided on Tuesday at 4 it essentially limits attendance to people who have internet access on Tuesdays at 4 to 6pm....which may eliminate some of the most colorful people reading the board. See you there! Squid, are you showing? btw, Squid's idea for The Little Red Hen in Greenlake would be an absolute hoot to have a pub club at. They have country dance lessons on Tuesday nights for and hour or so before the band starts (no cover on Tuesdays)...it would be some cheap entertainment to watch...or to participate in. Plenty of room, pool tables, a bit smoky, but I've never had the food there. http://littleredhen.com/pages/cal.htm