graupel

Which chair are they supposedly approving? I can't find a newspaper article or press release on Crystal's site that actually says which one. The Seattle Times is not explicit either: I couldn't find it on the Olympian website either.

and today's tasty spambot catchphrase is: homeomorphic,the general agitation,homeomorphic,the general agitation,homeomorphic,the general agitation.homeomorphic,the general agitation,homeomorphic,the general agitation. This one is kinda like those magnetic letters you put on the refrigerator to make strange phrases: migrant cameramen police tape addendum. descriptive dirichlet huzzah corcoran miriam mach rep. osmium ta baffin fledgling, clement borderline commonweal contradistinguish agenda absolution.

Or to be more specific, their government started it. If folks think it is appropriate that a citizen dies that has no connection with the military or political structure of the country, then why should we be so distraught about deaths associated with September 11th? Should all war be fought to see who can intimidate the other side more by killing as many citizen non-combatants as possible?

It's been a long time since I was there, but I think there might be a couple moves allowing you to climb down into the gap making it so you don't have to do an Olympic style broad jump. Anyway, the upshot is if you are not exceptionally freaked out by exposure, you don't need anything gear wise, and it is straight forward. If you don't have any technical gear along, it is quite a rewarding summit if you are backpacking in the area.

You mean like here on CC.com?

I don't see why anyone should see it as such a big affront on your senses to encounter one. Most of the time, they are well buried in the summit cairn. For that matter, if registers offend you, do you knock summit cairns down? Do you remove all rappel slings? Do you do simul-rappels like they do in the Needles so that no anchors or slings are used on the summit? For that matter, what color is your tent? Some folks get upset about color pollution too. If you are running into a big box style register in most cases it is a popular summit. I find these considerably less objectionable than someone with their cell phone out shouting to their buddy in the city "Guess where I am?"

Free WiFi may be more common than you think. http://www.wififreespot.com/ Also places like King County public libraries have pretty high speed access.

The book "Medicine for Mountaineering" tells you how to make your own. Get some crystalline iodine and some high proof alcohol and a teensy dropper bottle and you are good to go. Apparently alcohol allows more iodine to remain in solution so the drops can be more concentrated when you drop them into your water. Also, the alcohol allows it to dissolve even it is colder, unlike the tablets which get stubborn in the cold. I used for a trip to Nepal, and I think I remember doing the whole trip on one little bottle, so it is pretty compact.

Only if you buy his Orwelian speak. * "No child left behind" means if students don't achieve a certain level in testing, funds get cut off. Yet to reach these goals of testing, no funding has been provided, setting the schools up for failure. This sets the stage for government funds going toward charter and private schools, and after that happens, public schools are going into the toilet. The less privileged then truly get left behind. * "Healthy Forest Initiative" means cutting trees. As a reaction to the fires in places like southern California where so many homes were lost, "to save the forest" they are going to cut some of it down. Only problem is there isn't a requirement to do it near the homes that they are trying to save. * "Improving the environment" by dismantling pollution laws. * "The reconstruction of Iraq will be paid with the proceeds from Iraqi oil". After 90 billion and counting and the plea for other countries to excuse Iraq for their debt, I'd call this a tad bit of an overstatement. * "And when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace" - GW Bush A good case could be made that Bush does nearly the opposite of what he says he is going to do.

What should really happen is the press should question the timing of this revelation. I listened to the news story on NPR, and the interviewer asked whoever they were talking to (someone from Pakistan, a reporter probably) about the timing since this guy was caught on Sunday. The Pakistani had no explanation. The interviewer should have brought up this advanced prediction of an apprehension to add further skepticism to the story, but did not. I hadn't been listening to the news earlier, but on network TV it appeared as though the mention of the news story came out shortly before they had Kerry do his speech at the convention (Thursday), which is just too much coincidence.

A valid reason for an axe that doesn't have to be short is your typical glacier slog. For this use, having it be able to reach the ground (on whatever angle you choose to use it) helps give some stability when you are tired. It would be very frustrating to have an axe that is super short and have to carry it in the hand yet never get to touch the ground. The premise here is that if you are on a glacier and roped, your ability to stop not only affects you, but your partners that you are roped to. For that reason, when you want to safeguard in crevassed terrain, a ski pole even if it has a whippet is not sufficient for a self-arrest with more force. A ski pole also isn't adequate for constructing a snow anchor either. Most of the time a 65cm works well enough. Those that say to bring a 50cm, are you really saving weight if you then have to bring ski poles and a picket to achieve the same set of uses as one ice axe that is not as short?

Curious that the fearful would think it is okay to delay the election and consequently the results when the Supreme Court decided that it wasn't okay to provide additional time to count the votes in Florida in 2000.

Employment for prisoners is a good thing. Look, these guys are captive, so if they don't do something productive, they are going to just learn to become better criminals. It isn't like it is slave labor, as working is voluntary. They get paid, they just don't get to go to a conventional home at night. Learning or re-learning responsibility makes them better citizens, such that hopefully they can lead straight lives upon being released. Plus, you are assured of having an honest employee since these guys are given quite a bit of scrutiny so that if they get out of line it will be noticed. Back to the original thread, you sure can't tell from the picture how this device might perform any different than what is already out there.

While I would likely agree with any derision of Bush, I don't see why all the Republicans get their tighty whiteys in a bunch over "releasing the videotape". It sounds like this was not intended to be a televised event, but more a fundraiser. As long as it isn't a government function, they aren't under obligation to publicize discussions or even off-color jokes that might have occurred. We can't even get Bush and Cheney to disclose what they do while they hold office, and they get upset about entertainment? Who did Cheney talk to in closed door meetings when formulating his energy policy?

Also if you are parked somewhere early in the morning within the park boundaries, be prepared to be hassled by "the man". I've done drives down to enter early, then tilted the seat back to rest after the drive and been harassed multiple times by rangers looking for that sort of thing on the start of their work day. Had I been in a sleeping bag demonstrating I had been there longer, they probably would have written a ticket. I'm pretty sure I have talked to folks that have gotten caught at Paradise before. The guy in the Tetons was the worst. Waiting for the clouds to part to let some light through at sunrise, he was insisting that I couldn't sit in the car with my eyes shut, that I needed to keep staring at the scenery or keep driving. The common requirement of having law enforcement credentials brings out the "jerk" in some rangers who then are trying to put their ticket pads to use.

I guess suppressing fires over the years had nothing to do with it. I guess the writer is saying, "Them dang trees are out there growing unchecked like weeds, so ya needs to mow it all down so there is no fuel for the fires".

This thing may be an editorial, but for me it sure fails to make a point. If your opinion is not well translated in an editorial, what is the point of writing and publishing it?

A little more detail: http://aspentimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040713/SPORTS/107130008

Your post reads like you are expecting to hitch a ride back to Cascade Pass. It may be possible, but at best, it will likely take the rest of the weekend to accomplish it. You post that you will be coming out Friday. Well, nobody is going to be there to give you a ride that day. Saturday, anybody that is there would likely be out doing something for at least the day Saturday. If you are really lucky, somebody after their day out on the trails is going to want to put an extra 4 something hours into their day to haul your smelly butt back around to Marblemount and yet another nearly 20 miles of dirt road. You better have pretty effective powers of persuasion to talk a stranger into that. The Forest Service doesn't service the campgrounds with the regularity of a garbage truck. They would likely visit the road even less with the reduced distance available due to the bridge out (less things to maintain, not that they do that anymore anyway). In short, if you have any sort of schedule you are trying to stick to for your return to civilization, you would be best advised to talk someone into helping you to position your car on the way in rather than hoping for a ride on the way out.

So, since you believe this and post this here, do you also believe in the wacko end-of-the-world religious predictions too? Because these guys buy into your doom and gloom too http://www.calvaryprophecy.com/ The same letter from the "anonymous retired lawyer" appears there too. Seems like a potential candidate for internet hoaxes: no source, billed as coming from someone you should trust "i.e. lawyer". If a father were to actually write a letter like this to you, you should disown him as a windbag. Also, among the many points that whoever wrote that diatribe brought up, multiple sources contend that the population of prisoners at the prison where the abuse has been brought to light contained a high percentage of detainees that were not charged with anything, so claiming that they deserved harsh treatment just because they were Iraqis is a poor argument.

Nothing hypocritical about wanting folks to see your opinion by going to your movie. For him to do extensive interviews would risk over saturation in the media so that folks would believe they have heard the story already and not feel the desire to see the movie. Like him or hate him by his movie, but to attack him because he is fat or likes hot dogs is just a diversionary tactic for someone that doesn't want to address the content of his movie.

Regarding the "Nazi" term that ruffles feathers when talking about Bush, perhaps more accurate is Fascist: from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism and from http://www.remember.org/hist.root.what.html Okay, things are not a perfect match to this description, but close enough that it should be alarming.

I think everyone in the states believes that Al Jazeera is bad because the US government tells us so. Does anybody actually watch it before drawing that conclusion? There was an interesting interview of the film maker of a documentary called "Control Room" on the Charlie Rose show about a week or so ago. This movie tries to show how "news" on the Iraq situation is rendered differently depending on the point of view. A review of the movie is shown here: http://worldfilm.about.com/cs/documentarie1/fr/controlroom.htm I haven't seen this movie either, but it might be useful to see before drawing conclusions. Official website about the movie: http://www.controlroommovie.com/ The web shows that it is playing at the Landmark Varsity Theater 4329 University Way NE, Seattle

A World Of Hurt:[Op-Ed] Maureen Dowd. New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: May 9, 2004. pg. 4. The flinty 71-year-old kept it together as John McCain pounced and Hillary prodded. But soon he was once more giving snippy one-word answers to his inquisitors, foisting them on his brass menagerie or biting their heads off himself. By Friday evening, when the delegate from Guam, Madeleine Bordallo, pressed him on whether ''quality of life'' was an issue in the Abu Ghraib torture cases, you could see Donald-Duck steam coming out of his ears. ''Whether they have a PX or a good restaurant is not the issue,'' he said with a veiled sneer. Rummy was having a dickens of a time figuring out how a control-freak administration could operate in this newfangled age when G.I.'s have dadburn digital cameras. In the information age, he complained to senators, ''people are running around with digital cameras and taking these unbelievable photographs and then passing them off, against the law, to the media, to our surprise, when they had not even arrived in the Pentagon.'' Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, mourned that America was in a ''world of hurt.'' If Gen. Richard Myers knew enough to try to suppress the CBS show, Mr. Graham asked, why didn't he know enough to warn the president and Congress? Donald Rumsfeld, a black belt at Washington infighting, knew the aggrieved lawmakers were most interested in an apology for not keeping them in the loop. He no doubt was sorry -- sorry the pictures got out. The man who promised last July that ''I don't do quagmires'' didn't seem to be in trouble on Friday, despite the government's blowing off repeated Red Cross warnings. But who knows what the effect will be of the additional ''blatantly sadistic and inhuman'' photos that Mr. Rumsfeld warned of? Or the videos he said he still had not screened? Dick Cheney will not cut loose his old mentor from the Nixon and Ford years unless things get more dire. After all, George Tenet is still running the C.I.A. after the biggest intelligence failures since some Trojan ignored Cassandra's chatter and said, ''Roll the horse in.'' Colin Powell is still around after trash-talking to Bob Woodward about his catfights with the Bushworld ''Mean Girls'' -- Rummy, Cheney, Wolfie and Doug Feith. The vice president still rules after promoting a smashmouth foreign policy that is more Jack Palance than Shane. And the president still edges out John Kerry in polls, even though Mr. Bush observed with no irony to Al Arabiya TV: ''Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to destabilize their country, and we will help them rid Iraq of these killers.'' The only people who have been pushed aside in this administration are the truth tellers who warned about policies on taxes (Paul O'Neill); war costs (Larry Lindsey); occupation troop levels (Gen. Eric Shinseki); and how Iraq would divert from catching the ubiquitous Osama (Richard Clarke). Even if the secretary survives, the Rummy Doctrine -- using underwhelming force to achieve overwhelming goals -- is discredited. Jack Murtha, a Democratic hawk and Vietnam vet, says ''the direction's got to be changed or it's unwinnable,'' and Lt. Gen. William Odom, retired, told Ted Koppel that Iraq was headed toward becoming an Al Qaeda haven and Iranian ally. By the end, Rummy was channeling Jack Nicholson's Col. Jessup, who lashed out at the snotty weenies questioning him while they sleep ''under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then question the manner in which I provide it.'' Asked how we can get back credibility, Rummy bridled. ''America is not what's wrong with the world,'' he said, adding: ''I read all this stuff -- people hate us, people don't like us. The fact of the matter is, people line up to come into this country every year because it's better here than other places, and because they respect the fact that we respect human beings. And we'll get by this.'' Maybe. But for now, the hawks who wanted to employ American might to scatter American values like flower petals all across the world are reduced to keeping them from being trampled by Americans. As Rummy would say, not a pretty picture.

Apparently you overlook the minor issue that the takeover of Iraq was elective. The 87 Billion is to try to shore up a mess Bush started without international support. Nobody wants troops coming home in body bags, but I bet you would have heard considerable more discussion if Bush had asked Congress to sign a $100 Billion check as a down payment before going in.