murraysovereign

Hey, cool. Typing the word " S K U L L " makes a skull appear in your post. Is there no problem technology can't solve?

I don't have a link, but there was a piece in the paper the other day about some guy in Quebec or Ontario somewhere who had a seizure and, while he was convulsing on the floor his Pit Bull freaked out and attacked him, clamping onto the side of his face. So his buddy takes a baseball bat to the dog in an effort to dislodge it, but being Canadian he's more adept with a hockey stick than a bat, so he mis-times his swing and wails his buddy on the head opposite the side the dog is latched onto. They eventually dislodge the dog and get him to hospital where he's treated for nasty mauling wounds from the dog, a skull fracture from his buddy with the baseball bat... and surgery to remove the baggies of crack from somewhere in his privates (the article didn't specify exactly where) which had triggered the original seizure. So the guy comes to in the hospital to find part of his face gone, his skull fractured, his dog destroyed, and he's facing charges of posession for the purpose of trafficking. Some guys have all the luck...

Well, let's examine this, shall we? Let's imagine that, tonight, you are awakened by battering rams and explosions as the police take out your neighbour's door. What would you do? Would you respond by running out your own front door with guns blazing, in an attempt to take out as many cops as you could in the few seconds you'd have left to you? Or would you, maybe, peer out the window to try and see what the F!@# was going on, only to be told by the police in no uncertain terms to get back away from the window and stay inside. And unless you're a completely suicidal maniac, you would comply. If you were able to ask them what was going on, they'd reply that your neighbour was being taken into custody on suspicion of terrorist activities or some such, and that everything was under control and you should get back inside. And you probably would. This notion that you would respond by charging toward them with your .44 blasting away like in the movies is, as Tvash put it, pure adolescent fantasy.

Can I have it, then?

Why are you asking? Can't remember where you parked your bike?

Bullshit. Mahar Arar was charged with and/or convicted of absolutely nothing prior to being shipped off to Syria to be imprisoned and tortured. Similar treatment has been meted out by the US to who knows how many other totally innocent individuals in the years since 9/11 "changed everything". Same goes for all those nameless souls you've got locked up in Guantanamo Bay - what charges, trials, convictions have any of them been through? I agree Karl Rove should be allowed the sort of habeus corpus rights you espouse, but I also believe those same rights should be extended to everyone who is subject to US "justice".

What if the dog is carrying your MLU in its pack?

I spent the day there yesterday, just doing the tourist loop up Johnson Ridge. Pretty cool place. But I was appalled at the way they're fleecing visitors. I mean, $8.00 (in US dollars, even) just to get out of your car and walk around? C'mon, for that I should at least be allowed to have a campfire, but NOOOO. Not only are campfires not allowed, but even just camping isn't allowed, even if you're willing to pay extra. What is this, some sort of "social engineering" thing? And that movie they show you, well, it was pretty well done, but I thought it was kinda violent considering all the families with little kids there. Really, doesn't someone screen these things? But all told, it was a neat place to spend a day. Maybe if the NPS takes it over, then you won't have to pay extra to get out of your car, and they'll allow campfires- maybe even camping.

All the Seattle climbers will have already seen it at the opening date of the tour in Squamish.

Beyond Whistler the construction will be minimal - just regular maintenance stuff, as opposed to the total rebuild of the entire roadway that's happening to the south. Also much less traffic beyond Whistler. I think Whistler to Pemberton and back would be a really good ride. Kinda hilly (steep in a couple of short sections), but scenic, with good swimming at each end, and a nice rest/snack spot at the Pony Espresso when you get to Pemberton.

Like Snoboy said, it's pretty limited. There's a nice but short ride up Paradise Valley Road, and a longer ride up Squamish Valley, but that road is getting a bit pounded by heavy trucks involved in the Ashlu power project. And other than that there's Hwy 99, but it's mostly a construction site all the way south to Lions Bay. Or you can head north on the highway, in which case you'll get about half way to Whistler before you start running into construction zones again. Once the highway is finished it'll be much better, but it's all potholes and gravel and flagpeople right now, so not a lot of fun. OR... you can drive to Whistler and ride from there to Pemberton and back. Otherwise my advice would be to bring a mountain bike instead.

Bah! You call that a Great Wall? Pfft - that's nothin'. Now, THIS on the other hand, this is a Great Wall. And as the photo clearly shows, it's most certainly visible from space.

Adding insult to injury...

The beauty of it all is that we wouldn't be nearly as worried about Iran's emergence as a dominant power in the Gulf if someone hadn't gone in and taken out their only serious opponent. With Iraq removed from the balance, Iran becomes much more of a threat, which must be countered by propping up the state which, along with Afghanistan, had more to do with 9/11 than any other. So the US is arming one of the main backers of the 9/11 plotters in order for them to assume the role of someone who had nothing to do with 9/11, but who was removed from the scene in part because of their ostensible (albeit totally fabricated) involvement in 9/11. One Dumb Idea leads to Another Dumb Idea...

Either that person doesn't know London very well, or the picture is meant to illustrate a tide surge rather than a conventional flood. According to the turbulence and eddies created by the light standards on Westminster Bridge, the Thames seems to be flowing upstream.

It works because some people will believe anything they see in print, as long as it conforms to their preconceived notions.

Yeah, but the "unlimited no-fee campfires" option is sure nice. And I think if you're on the Alberta plan the beach-front room is standard.

There was a large bureaucracy at one time, but that got trimmed down pretty aggressively over the years, beginning with the Mulroney government but continuing under the subsequent Liberal governments. Nowadays, Parks Canada is pretty lean - certainly compared to mid-80s staffing levels. As for "padding the accounts of ... state employees and provincial administrators" well, yes, payroll is probably the single largest expense that Parks has to cover. I would hope that Parks employees are well compensated for their work, but I doubt many of them are getting rich or "padding their accounts", as you seem to imply. And you "don't buy" that this goes back to a conservative government in the 80s, but that doesn't change the fact that this goes back to a conservative government in the 80s. And yes, "those horrible right-wing programs" are still in place, mainly because they work. Parks is happy because they now have some security of funding, rather than waiting to see each year how much money the federal government would grant them, they can actually plan several years in advance because they have more certainty on the revenue side. The federal government is happy because they no longer have to take the flack for every spending decision or every program cut or every fee increase. And judging by the steady growth in annual park visitation levels over the past 20 years, the market still seems to feel they're getting value for their money. And in case you haven't noticed, the "lefties in power now" aren't actually lefties. In fact, the "lefties in power now" are the direct ideological descendants of... Brian Mulroney. And... charging people for campfires is "social engineering from the left." But charging people for basic health care is... free market capitalism at its finest. Maybe charging people for campfires is capitalism, too? Or maybe charging people for health care is social engineering from the right? Or maybe charging you for anything is social engineering, and charging anyone else for anything is capitalism? Which is it? In one breath you decry us as a bunch of socialists, and in the next you bitch and piss and moan because we're not socialist enough. Make up your mind.

It didn't used to be that way. You can thank that Reagan-butt-licker, "Lyin' Brian" Mulroney and his conservative government for those fees, KK. Prior to his "rationalising" of the national parks, the fees were more in line with what you currently pay in the US. But having failed in his first policy initiative (which was to reopen the parks for resource extraction in order to pay for their operating costs), he was reduced to "Plan B", which was to cut the parks service off from the funds previously taken from general revenues, and forcing them to become more self-financing, if not entirely so. Now, national parks have only a few sources of revenue available to them, short of reopening the coal mines in Banff, or logging Gwaii Hanas. Mainly they have visitors, who use park services, so guess who gets to pay? So if you're unhappy about it, you can blame, not statism, but rather a conservative government that wanted the parks to run more as businesses than as public amenities. You got a problem with that? As for charging you for campfires, there's a simple reason for that. They want to discourage campfires, pure and simple. Campfires represent nothing but an expense to the parks service, one that poses not only increased risks of wildfires, but also produces thick palls of campfire smoke blighting the air quality and the visual esthetics of the area. So they charge a fee so that people will think twice about lighting a fire. Use a stove instead - I can't remember the last time I lit a campfire, in or out of a national park. And if you absolutely insist on getting back in touch with your inner Cro Magnon in some sort of "New Age Male" drum circling, smoke-eating fire ritual, well, fine, go right ahead. But all the fire wood has to be hauled in from outside of the parks, and the ash has to be hauled out. That costs money. Why should the Canadian tax payer be forced to subsidize your pyromania?

Yeah, but how many of those ascents have been verified by independent observers? What we need is some sort of organisation that could establish rules for speed climbing, and maybe a central website that could list all the speed climbing records, with maybe a forum so people could discuss the merits and qualifications of all the various speed climbers and their fastest ascents and stuff like that. It'd be great - anyone want to set that up?

"Revlon" stocks are going to take a pounding

not even the same. True dat. JFK got drawn into a civil war in Vietnam after the French came to their senses and pulled out. Bush created his very own civil war in Iraq and is now trying to figure a way to get out, all the while criticizing the French for having enough sense to not get drawn in.

Being Japanese - in fact, being pretty much anywhere on Earth outside the United States - they would have conducted all their research in metric. So they would have used a kilogram of beef as their basic working unit. When that story gets printed in the United States, they have to translate "common sense" units into "U.S." units, hence the 2.2 pounds. I read once that it takes approximately 10 kilos of grain to produce 1 kilo of beef (or 22 pounds of grain to produce the aforementioned 2.2 pounds of beef, if you prefer). And human metabolism is such that it takes about 10 kilos of beef to produce 1 kilo of human. So it takes 100 kilos of grain to produce enough meat to produce 1 kilo of human. If that 10:1 figure is accurate, we could feed ten times as many humans by simply feeding them 10 kilos of grain, instead of first feeding the grain to cows and then eating the cows. The multiples of waste - energy, water, greenhouse emmissions, pesticides, fertilizers, hormones, antibiotics... - are huge.

But all those crazy stupid loan schemes are a significant contributing factor to those shockingly high house prices. Don't worry, though, all those stupid crazy loan schemes are also a significant contributing factor in the impending shocking reduction in house prices. If I was you, I'd wait before buying anything.

That why the said Kennedy was shot for money. Trying to stop Nam. Its all conspiracy shit for people that don't want to think. Easier to blame a politician. Ok....smarty pants.....what is your take on why JFK was shot? OK, I'm going to say this one more time. Listen up: JFK was shot as part of an elaborate conspiracy to assasinate Lee Harvey Oswald. End of story. Now, can we please move on, already?