j_b

Here comes the witchhunt by the McCarthyists. When you are ready to present a factual argument, just let me know what isn't true in my post.

Noooooooo! Don't say, our privacy at risk? Who could have imagined? LOL Just about time you crawled out from under your rock since the GOP is out of power. Funny how it works.

The far rock ridge behind the rappeler seems to gain the better part of 500' or more in a nearly vertical section. There is nothing like that on Red. I'd say the relief on that ridge combined with the crag exposure pretty much rules out the Snoqualmie peaks. Also, I don't think the rock looks right for Lundin.

Rock bollard belays were standard technique before pins. I use them often to protect moves on semi technical ground when running belays or while short roping.

The close ups of the climbing could be somewhere around the W-SW face of the Tooth (a long way to go ..) but the peak and cliff band on the ridge across the drainage, i.e. to the right of the rappeler, do not match the local topography. I'd say the last pair of photos are a different place altogether because the buttress in the background on the right appears to be eroding in staircase fashion (basalt flow?), which is different from what we see in the other photos.

Where were the fake balanced budget types when they committed 3 trillion dollars to open Iraq for oil majors?

Screaming "pork" on a burning pig farm isn't going to get any traction. The drown-you-peasants hooverites have as much cred as when they claimed "the fundamentals of the economy are still strong" just a few months ago. Where were these fake "balanced bugdget" types when unaproved additional trillions of dollars were committed without strings or any transparency attached for financial institutions during the last month of the Bush regime: [video:youtube]oxuqmPyKqcs

Harsh? no, but it is clearly the wrong target. I mean, who are the idiots? Those who took advantage to stuff their pockets or those who cheered them on all these years while reciting trickle down gibberish?

From the horse's mouth: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/pao/History/x-33/facts_1.htm

Of course I see value in space exploration but I am also well aware that it had a unique role in projecting an image of America to americans and abroad. If you look at context, the Challenger disaster occurred just after the euro space program started getting results launching commercial satellites and great expectations were placed on the shuttle to show once and for all that it was the better program. It turned out that following the accident, Europe dominated that market for the next decade.

funny...insinuating that the challenger crew were mere cold-war pawns mostly makes me thing you're a jackass space exploration is frig'n awesome, manned or not, and i'll gladly pay tax money to support it where did I insinuate "that the challenger crew were mere cold-war pawns"? I expect better reading comprehension from a teacher.

Jeeeeeeez, man. You are one bitter fucking tool. It doesn't always have to be about the evil empire. Noting the role of space exploration in propaganda makes one a "bitter fucking tool"? You clearly can't open your mouth without revealing your cluelessness. Jackass.

The rock looks foliated as it tends to fracture along clean parallel planes (fracture cleavage). Also it isn't very weathered, which would also indicate some degree of metamorphism. The Tatoosh range doesn't fit the bill but the Tooth area does.

I heard it first on my car radio as well. The typical media orgy of hyperboles followed on for weeks as if captain america had been castrated.

Great upload Skeezix. What's the role of the stick during the throw? to give better control in aiming?

No. You forget to mention the option most oft used these last 30 years: putting it in the pockets of CEO's and investors. You are still arguing along the lines of the trickle down myth that never had any credibility and has even less today, if it's possible, considering it led inequalities to levels not seen in over 70 years while real income for most american had decreased over the last 30 years. Taking profits from A to invest in B or to put it in savings has no redeeming qualities for the people who produced the profit in A and find themselves without equivalent work for lack of investment by profit takers. How many large businesses have gone bankrupt while their officers made off with the loot or investors put their money in some other venture? You are obviously in denial. No. Neoliberals in sheep clothing took over Europe (Blair, Sarkozy, Merkel, etc..) through the usual lying fear rhetoric about economic decay, security, immigration, ... and were implementing the policies favored by economic elites until it came to an abrupt halt because the economy tanked and the casino went under. Would you care to tell us what % of the people live below the poverty line in that quasi tax heaven for capital known as the UK? (answer: around 25%) How about the state of the economic "miracle" in oft cited tax heavens Ireland and Iceland? I'll even question the basic premise of your argument, insofar a place like France that is among these countries that resisted the longest to the neoliberal policies of globalization often see the largest foreign capital investment in Europe apart from the UK where capital investement mostly goes through the City, i.e. in the casino economy that doesn't benefit the common joe. We can plainly see where that path took them. it is already 'effectively' reduced to 0 in many instances (when not negative) and i challenge you to show me how it translated into more quality jobs since it is your assertion that it would. Corporate tax rates are the lowest since before WW2. How many have invested and created living wage jobs over the last 30 years relative to the number of non-living wage jobs created? http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_welfare/real_tax_rates_plummet.php facts show that overall it'd be less even if you could point to some former hillbilly doing marginally better than before Manufacturing such as there was in the NE often demand skilled labor. Why would economic elites have never been as wealthy as today while inequalities have reached the level of that found in the age of the robber barons and our manufacturing base is essentially gone if solely 'maintaining profit margin' was the reason? The result of these policies are available for anyone to see and I am not sure how you can afford to keep denying them. Businesses left the NE because they could get cheap non-union labor elsewhere, which increased their profit. They didn't see the advantage in retooling where labor markets weren't "flexible" enough for their need to increase profits as if most of these people left farming by choice. please, don't offend me by pretending that being moral has anything to do with investing in places where labor conditions often resemble that of late 19th century america when mean north-south inequalities have tripled in 30 years. yours is a wildly overstated claim and I challenge you to show that globally, unfair trade has lifted more people out of poverty than it has caused to fall into poverty. Worth bearing in mind when cherry-picking data. I very much doubt that self loathing, including calling yourself a cretin, is really your MO

Are you really calling yourself a cretin? Because I certainly didn't call you that. And you do have a habit of disappearing when taken to task, for reason you only know, as well as a habit of not addressing what you are told. Wow! Didn't I say that not taxing resource extraction, decreasing progressive taxes, decreasing corporate taxes, and decreasing social spendings, when the real economy shrinks and good paying jobs are outsourced, all the while increasing regressive taxes on sales and services, and increasing spendings on law and order, results in budget shortfalls that are bound to get worse as revenues from the casino economy crash? Whichever hat they wear, they are responsible for the policies described above that are typical of market fundamentalists. Progressives do not have the undemocratic super-majority necessary in the state legislature to change policy. Changes would have been vetoed by either Davis or the gropinator anyway. I read 13th which is on par with other rich, highly urbanized regions. Thankfully, living in California isn't like living in Texas in terms of service availability, you ought to know by now that nothing is free. But most importantly, taxes as a fraction of average income is below the national average. right, let me check what the dominant "business tax climate" has brought on the overwhelming majority of americans ... Trend in corporate California state taxes up to 2003: Abstract Since 1988, California Corporation Tax revenues grew much more slowly than both the California economy and other major sources of California revenue. In fact, inflation adjusted Corporation Tax revenues actually declined during this period. This paper finds that much of the apparent weakness in the California Corporation Tax can be attributed to policy decisions. Estimates are presented of the revenue losses from: the creation and expansion of new forms of business organization, growth in the use of corporate tax credits (most prominently the Research and Development Credit and the Manufacturer’s Investment Credit), increases in the use of Net Operating Losses, corporate tax rate reductions, and the water’s-edge election http://www.ftb.ca.gov/aboutFTB/Tax_Statistics/Corporate_Tax_Trends.pdf I never said 95% of the people were taxed too lightly. I said that progressive income tax has been partly replaced by regressive taxes, which has displaced the burden of state revenue onto the middle and lower classes. I didn't argue it but it is clearly true that national policies are also to blame. Note that your condition ("in a manner independent ...") is bunk because it wouldn't be surprising for state policies to reinforce the dominant dogma. But, here is one example of how it can happen: "In late September, while the major presidential candidates debated solutions for reforming the federal corporate income tax, a little-noticed ruling by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) opened the door for widespread corporate tax avoidance by a few of the biggest, most profitable financial institutions in the country. The IRS ruling, which took Congressional tax writers by surprise, will almost certainly push the federal government—and many states—further into the red at a time when they can least afford it.Generally, corporations that report tax losses in a given year are allowed to apply these losses against profits in future years. But this ability to “carry over” losses from one year to reduce taxes in future years has limits. For example, when one company buys another company that has tax losses, the law prevents the acquiring company from using the purchased company’s tax losses. There’s a very sensible reason for this rule: to ensure that companies don’t purchase other companies simply as a tax dodge. But a little-noticed September IRS administrative ruling creates a specific, temporary exemption from this rule for banks acquiring other banks whose tax losses are attributable to bad loans. The rule is apparently retroactive." http://www.ctj.org/pdf/irsruling20081106.pdf "advantages" for corporations but not people. Lower prices for walmart plastic junk never make up for loss of good paying jobs. This is a strawman argument because I am not a protectionist. Fair trade includes clauses about worker welfare and environmental protection. There is a cost to doing business that includes living wages and paying for externalites. Communities also have built these industries in many different ways, why should robber barrons steal them away? Wanting so-called free trade without fair trade measures will have the average person in the US meet the chinese 95% of the way toward their condition, including not uncommon slavery of children, if it's what we have to compete with. Appropriate state services demand progressive income tax policies. Anything else and the majority of us will live in slums. It's just a matter of time.

The problem with cretins is they never tire of showing the extent of their dimwittedness. By opposition to people like JayB who never fail to disappear when taken to task.

I don't know what else you expect from conservatives. It's not like they can use reality to support their point of view. Short of weaving, dodging, cherry picking facts, unsubstantiated ad-hominem attacks, ... what exactly do you want them to do?

I don't know what it all means either JB. Maybe you can figure it out later? I can't imagine where they will get that 3.7 billion! Now what was Jayb sayin' before you started flaming him....hmmmm? Lets re-read the thread shall we? I didn't say that it was irrelevant to the discussion but said I wasn't sure how it related to the article. Your ignoring the elephant in the room (most of the increase was spent on jailing people while there was no increase in social spendings per capita during a longstanding downturn in the real economy) while pointing out that little increases, on we don't know what, add up, led me to question what exactly you wanted to convey. Let's be honest here, when the government-is-the-problem people point to government spending increases without mentionning the main reason for the increase while they usually support decrease in social spendings, there is reason to be concerned about the logic and facts they use to support their argument (stated or implied). Now you can cut and paste the same post again but I am not sure how it'll clarify what you are trying to say.

A billion dollar's here.....a billion dollars there, pretty soon it adds up to real money! (apologies to the late Everett Dirkson for stealing one of the best lines in history) I am not sure how your comment relates to the article, especially since it leaves little doubt that no significant additional money per capita was spent on social programs despite deteriorating employment.

Wow! What incredible insight based on a seemingly innocuous posting sequence. Couldn't you also tell on which buttcheek I have an ingrown hair? Jackass!

You mean like The Surge of forces and accompanying strategy changes in Iraq that you and your fellow Dems said would never work? What is it you think has "worked" over there? Except the deaths of thousands of innocent lives caught up in the greed of the powerful. Small (well, large) correction. At minimum 100,000's of additional death due to war occurred in Iraq since 2003. In fact, studies published in the Lancet, using the latest sampling/statistical methodologies put the number over a million. A number to be added to the hundreds of thousand of iraqi dead imparted to depleted uranium ammunition used during the 1st gulf war, the embargo that caused incredible hardship especially on young children, and the semi-secret war on Iraq during the 90's under Clinton.

Like all market fundamentalists, JayB blames increase in California state spendings but he doesn't explain where the increase comes from: "State general fund spending has increased by some 33 percent over the last five years, from $77.5 billion in 2002-03 to $103.5 billion in 2007-08, but three-fourths of the increase can be fairly attributed to inflation (17 percent) and population growth (7 percent). That leaves about $7.4 billion in real spending increases. The education, health and welfare spending that Democrats champion increased only slightly, if at all. Meanwhile, spending on prisons increased by $4.3 billion and payments to local governments to cover losses of revenue from license fees on cars account for another $3.1 billion. And who were the most adamant advocates for locking up more felons in prison (11,000 more over five years) and cutting those car taxes? Republicans. Although Schwarzenegger ran on a pledge to end "crazy deficit spending," his first act as governor was to reinstate the car tax cut that predecessor Gray Davis had erased in a desperate bid to close the deficit. And Schwarzenegger has resisted suggestions that the state release low-risk inmates to save money." http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/1176798.html

as of 2004: "Though California elected its governor on a platform of “jobs,jobs, jobs,” high-paid jobs may be California's fastest growing export.1 Offshoring – outsourcing of jobs overseas – has hit the Sacramento region: Hewlett-Packard's Roseville headcount has dropped by 1500 since year 2000, as their India headcount soars past 10,000.2 “We're trying to move everything we can offshore," affirms HP services chief Ann Livermore, citing substantially lower labor costs. Intel too, has hired a thousand new software engineers in India and China4 while shaving a thousand workers from its Folsom site.5 Oracle’s 175 Rocklin employees had to train the workers from India who would replace them." ... "Assembly member Carol Liu, D-Pasadena, sponsor of AB 1829 which would mandate that state funded contracts remain in the U.S., cautions that "offshoring may save money in the short run but it will cost us more in the long run as more and more Californians find themselves without jobs." etc ... http://www.programmersguild.org/docs/comstock_magazine_draft.pdf I won't even go into quasi-systematic tax evasion enabled by tax heavens and deregulation.