Luna

Sounds like it is a pain but certaainly could have been worse. Heal up dude.

I'm looking at their jacket and pants - experience or comments appreciated - thanks.

As the story further develops we see that the military folks that were there earlier did take away weapons, but these were more convential items, not the mx and such. They never even saw the IAEC seals on the bunkers according to today's Pentagon briefing. And the film from the ABC affiliate in Minnesota that shows the intact seals was take two weeks after the cited military unit was there, AND LEFT. Hey Peter Puget, where are you when your right wing trolls go south?

I think he said that: [quote If you have used mountain clothing (in decent condition) you want to part with give me a PM. Thanks.

Look who's in the hot seat for leaking the name of a CIA undercover agent http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35713-2004Oct15.html

Hopefully these liars will get tossed on their ear in a month.

Search function- learn to use it.

The transcript will likely read even worse than Bushie's performance. Anyone with more than a peabrain has to ask - how did this idiot get in the White House. He stumbled and bumbled, looked scared and defensive, and kept repeating himself because he could put together coherent sentences beyond 20 seconds or so. Then to fill up the other 100 seconds he would start repeating. The best among many blunders was when he said Saddam attacted the US. Wasn't close, Kerry was very sharp and straighforward.

Twas us. The "easy gully" Nelson talks about directly west was not to be found. A trip report in the ranger station also indicated an epic on the decent. We opted for the easier way down via the shoulder leading towards Ice Lakes, then a long travers back to Leroy Basin.

Climb: Mt. Maude-North Faace Date of Climb: 7/24/2004 Trip Report: Camped above Leroy basin, accessed via SF Jack/Maude col. Crossing over the rock ribs was easy - if it gets to be 4th class you're in the wrong place. Snow was excellent. Ice for last 60 ft or so. More confident climbers could leave the rope at home, last 60 ft of ice could be bypassed on rock. But this is likely to change as it was hot over there. Also left crampons in bag atop the route - see lost and found. Gear Notes: 3 pickets, 7mm rope, several screws but used only one.

After lunch forgot to put black OR crampon bag in pack. Left on talus adjacent to final snow/ice coulir closest to summit. Easy to get to from summit so if you find them please PM me.

When bush is kicked out won't it be the first time a dad and son are 1 termers and then kicked out?

This is one of the most absurd arguments I've seen, even for Spray! All you have to do is compare privately owned land to public. At least in publicly owned land there is a remnant of ecological integrity left in some places. Hmmm, wonder why the timber companies are always banging on the door of the USFS to log old growth, could it be because they managed their privately owned land into the ground years ago? And private grazing land is hammered compared to public lands. And I would argue that the areas of public land mismanagement are not from internal mis-comings but from external pressures from those with strong economic self interests and political interests. Many studies have been done on logging on public land and grazing on public land. The resounding results are that these activities cost the public (me and you) money and return few benefits except to a few users - individual logging companies and ranchers. Besides the cost of road building, time to manage these operations, fencing, etc. there is the severe environmental cost to public lands. These costs are no calculated and are spread thru the public "commons". So not only are these individuals getting a sweetheart deal, the true costs, including degradation of natural resources, is being picked up by the public. Peter - I suggest you talk to some folks in resource management and actually go and and get you shoes muddy before spouting off this theoritical crap.

I've used packing tape. Keeps the maps in pretty good shape.

Was up a Crystal on the tele boards today. Man it was sweet. Steep and deep!!! One of the best I've had in area, man my legs are beat. And hardly anyone was up there, had lots of fresh untracked - got there before the lifts opened and left by 2. Big day.

Interesting but many of the benefits listed are through the private sector (health care) which is used to attract better employees. Also, married couples get taxed at a HIGHER rate than two singles living together.

While PP's table is interesting, it is a cleverly simplistic tool used by the conservative right to show how burdened the upper income levels are taxed. So here's what I say. It's a complicated issue. 1) One ploy often used to play down growing inequality is to rely on rather coarse statistical breakdowns - dividing the population in to quintiles. From there it's a short step to deny that we're really talking about the rich at all. PP's table comes from a Republican committee (aren't they all now) and bears a striking resemlence to info put out by the right-wing conservative Heritage Foundation. You can present data that show there has been some increase in the share of income (and tax burden) to the top 10% of taxpayers and then point out that anyone with income over $81K is in that top 10%, which is middle class - right? Wrong: the top 10% contains a lot of people whom we would still consider middle class, but they aren't the big winners in the last 30 years of tax reduction. Most of the gains in the share of the top 10% were actually gains in the top 1%. In 1998 the top 1% started at $230K. In turn, 60% of the gains of that top 1% went to the top 0.1%, those earning more than $790K. And almost half of those gains went to a mere 13,000 tax payers, the top 0.1%, who had an average income of $17 million. (Pikety-Saez research institute and non-partisan Congressional Budget Office data). In 1970 the top .01% of taxpayers had 0.7% of total income, that is they earned only 70 times that of the average. But in 1998 the top .01% received more than 3% of all income. The 13,000 richest families had almost as much income as the 20 million poorest. And the trend continues more so in the Bushie Admin, Hmmm, who needs tax relief? 2) Taxes in the US are lower than they have been in a long time. Middle income Americans are paying about 26% of their income in taxes, which has been roughly the same since the early '70s (including state and local - varies by state of course). Meanwhile, wealthy Americans have seen a sharp drop in their tax burden. The top tax rate is now 35%, half of what it was in 1970. And with the exception of a brief period between 1988 and 1993, that's the lowest rate since 1932 (CBO). The effective rate on corporate profits has been cut in half since the 1960s. The 2001 tax cut phases out the inheritance tax, which is overwhelmingly a tax on the extremely wealthy; in 1999 only 2% of estates paid the tax, only 3.300 estates worth at least $5 million. The 2003 Bushie tax act sharply cuts taxes on dividend income, another boon to the very wealthy. By the time the Bushie tax cuts have taken effect, people with really high incomes will face their lowest average tax rate since the Hoover Administration. By 2002 the US take in taxes was 26.3% of GDP, and will be lower in coming years. This is a low number compared with almost every other advanced country. In 1999 Canada collected 38.2% of GDP in taxes, France collected 45% in taxes and Sweden, 52.2%. In the US, taxes, as a percentage of GDP are at their lowest rate since the Eisenhower administration. I know - you thinking our economy and life is still better here. Canadians can expect to live about 2 yrs longer than Americans. In fact live expectancy in the US is well below Canada, Japan, and every major nation in Western Europe. Male life expectancy is lower in the US than Costa Rica. 3) So here's the picture. Americans pay low taxes by interntional standards. Most people's taxes haven't gone up in the past generation, the wealthy have had their taxes cut to historic levels. Even before the recent round of tax cuts, when compared to a generation ago or international tax levels we had nothing to complain about, and higher incomes have reason to celebrate. Yet we see the rage about being "enslaved" to taxes. These days 1% of families receive about 16% of total pretax income and about 14% after tax income. Not trivial. That share has roughly doubled in the past 30 years. So what gives? Neo conservatives vision to make smaller government, reduce social benefits including SS and medicare and create a greater dog-eat-dog society. Oh except the military spending of course.

Sorry for the double post but pp, so the fuck what? This aggregating of the data is a great right wing ploy to make it look like the poor little rich guys are oh so burdened. That's rich (pun intended). They have plenty to live on after their recent tax breaks for god sake. Give the rush line a rest already.

Hmm. Given this and pp's chart I'd say the upper 1% are getting a good deal

Here's a couple of stats for you. Blue Cross of Conn. spends the same amount in administration as does the entire Canadian Government health care system. The US spends about 2.5 times in medical administration as does other industrial countries. The reason is obvious - we have 60 different insurers that place a heavy admin burden on medical practice. Seems like consolidation is in order. Good luck on that one however.

There are some recent records of them in the North Cascades, particularly in the Okanogon. But unless you are are very skilled and experience observer it's impossible to tell the two apart in the field. The best characteristic is the striping on the tail, which is hard to see.

Huh? Talk about simplistic. So, we've been spending a ton of money to help prop up regimes in Iran (in the past) and Saudia Arabia, and Kuwait; and are spending over 110 billion the past several months because - what? -we like sand? Do you think we would give a rat's ass if there were no oil there? That's naive.

Not to beat this fish to death, but, as a scientist (yea I know, egghead to some) there is not a balance of science on both sides. Science figures out causes and effects, lays out the facts. What to do with that is the argument between the industry and the activists. So heres the facts: Farmed salmon are dyed Farmed salmon have caused problems with parasitic sea lice in wild runs (recently in BC) Farmed salmon waste causes problems with the sea floor as their waste products accumulate year after year. It takes about 3.5 lbs of ground up fish to make 1 lb of farmed salmon. A net loss of protien. Escaped salmon Atlantic salmon are escaping, even here in Puget Sound, and getting into spawning runs of wild fish, competing for the same resources. Higher PCB content in farmed salmon vs wild, from a number of studies in England, Norway, B.C., and the US. Heads up when the industry backers start screaming "bad science". What this usually means is results that they don't like. If you still like to eat farmed salmon, cool. But the facts are still the same. Opinions on what to do with these facts are for the policy makers. That's where it get grey (color of farmed salmon), the facts and science are clear. Gotta head out to Squamish now. So get out there and climb something this weekend!!!

Ah, back to your usual standards of not addressing the facts but going to name calling. Very mature and makes for a lame argument. And it's a good tactic to talk about "bad science" when you offer no science. You need to educate yourself on the issue before trying to argue them. You would not get so bashed that way.

Fish meal and fish oil are the most heavily contaminated feed materials" --European Commission Health & Consumer Protection Directorate-General (2000). Opinion of the Scientific Committee on Animal Nutrition on the Dioxin Contamination of Feedingstuffs and their Contribution to the Contamination of Food of Animal Origin. As a result, an analysis of British Columbian salmon found that farmed salmon was nearly ten times higher in PCBs than the wild variety. "This pilot study examined five commercial salmon feeds, four farmed salmon (one Atlantic, three chinooks) and four wild salmon (one chinook, one chum, two sockeyes) from the Pacific Coast for PCBs (112 congeners), polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs ¯ 41 congeners), 25 organochlorine pesticides (OPs), 20 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and methyl and inorganic mercury. The farmed salmon showed consistently higher levels of PCBs, PBDEs, OPs (except toxaphene) than the wild salmon. The mean concentrations in pg/g were 51,216 vs 5302 for total PCBs; 2668 vs 178 for total PBDEs; 41,796 vs 12,164 for total OPs (except toxaphene). The farmed salmon levels are likely a consequence of the elevated level of contamination found in the commercial salmon feed (mean concentrations in pg/g were 65,535 for total PCBs; 1889 for total BPDEs; 48,124 for total OPs except toxaphene)." --Easton, M D L, Luszniak, D and Von der Geest, E (2002) Preliminary examination of contaminant loadings in farmed salmon, wild salmon and commercial salmon feed. Chemosphere 46, 1053-1074, at p. 1053 "The health significance of human exposure to PCBs and dioxins has been subject of extensive discussions. The most recent assessment of the risks for human health from PCBs and dioxins has been performed in 1998 1 , when a WHO consultation group agreed on a tolerable daily intake (TDI) of PCDDs/PCDFs ("dioxins") and dioxin-like PCBs in the range of 1 - 4 pg Toxic Equivalents (TEQ)/kg body weight, stressing that the upper range of the TDI of 4 pg TEQ/kg should be considered as a maximum tolerable intake on a provisional basis and that the ultimate goal is to reduce human intake levels below 1 pg TEQ/kg bw/day." --European Commission Health & Consumer Protection Directorate-General (2000). Opinion of the Scientific Committee on Animal Nutrition on the Dioxin Contamination of Feedingstuffs and their Contribution to the Contamination of Food of Animal Origin.