murraysovereign

The True "Squamish Trifecta": 1 - Karaoke at the Chieftan Hotel 2 - Peelers at the O.P. 3 - Meat Draw at the Grizzly Bar

Perhaps you just have a natural affinity for "Idiot" tests...

I made numerous attempts at getting to the top of an unstable pile of paperwork before bailing in frustration, retreating to safer ground, and "bivy-ing" in a good book.

Topo for the refurbished Peasant's Route is available at Valhalla Pure in exchange for a 50-cent donation to the Bolt Fund. Millenium Falcon is apparently still wet on the first couple of pitches - given the topography and amount of vegetation immediately above these pitches, it's not surprising. Forecast for the next few days is hot and dry, though, so the seeping may have abated by Sat/Sun.

I heard of a similar case recently, maybe the same one. This person needed a sex-change because they felt they were a male homosexual "trapped" in a woman's body. WTF? If you're in a woman's body, and you're sexually attracted to men, doesn't that just mean you're a heterosexual woman? Why should surgery be needed to "correct" that?

As mentioned in an earler post, I sit on a couple of the District of Squamish "Citizen's Advisory Committees" and am using those venues to push for some sort of parking lot surveillance / patrol program for next summer. We have asked the RCMP to produce a report detailing where, when, how these break-ins are happening, as well as their advice on the legal boundaries within which volunteers can operate, and how best to coordinate our efforts with theirs. (By the way, I now know of at least one sting operation over the summer involving a couple of "bait" cars loaded with gear, auxilliary police hiding in the bushes with cameras/radios, and squad cars positioned on the highway both north and south of the stakeout. While they were watching the one parking lot, two or three breakins occurred at a different parking lot about a mile away . This is NOT going to be easy.) But the RCMP can only report to us about those cases that were reported to them. I don't doubt that there have been a number of B&Es that, for various reasons, the police never heard about. If any of you are have been victim of a vehicle theft that was not reported, I'd appreciate it if you would PM me with as many details as you can recall - where, when, how, type of vehicle, what was taken, etc. I'll add that information to the file the RCMP give us. The more data we have to work with the better. Thanks.

Yep, sure do. And pretty much the whole thing has been in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea since Gulf War Sr. That's a nice picture of about 1/6th of it in your link. But at least ours is fully deployed (well, except the part that's in dry-dock), not sunning in Hawaii or running away from storms like the majority of the US Navy. Why the Hell do you bother building all those things if you're not going to put them in the game?

And on the subject of weird superhero types: there'll always be an England

Well, of course. You have to open the top, otherwise there's not enough head-room to accomodate the Gorilla costume. Have you ever tried driving a Model T in a Gorilla costume with the top up ? Pretty uncomfortable, I would think.

As a sometime-Gorbie also, I'm offended that teenage girls won't blow Gorbies. I mean, is that a Hate Crime, or what?

One of the more recent "Ex-Presidents" - I think it was Bush Senior, maybe Reagan or Clinton, can't recall exactly - told how he used to go out onto one of the balconies of the White House from time to time. If you look up near the top of some of those columns from the back side apparently you can still see some of the charred wood. Seems we didn't do a very thorough job of incinerating the place, and they were able to save a good part of the original structure. Anyway, he used to go and look up at this blackened bit of history just to remind himself that nobody and nothing is completely invulnerable. He said it used to bring him back down to earth when he got to feeling a bit cocky about being top dog and all.

"Battlefield Earth" Roger Ebert compared it to riding a bus with someone who needs a bath. He said it was "not merely bad, [but] unpleasant in a hostile way." The New York Times touted it as "the worst movie of the century." I lasted through about 1/3 of it before shutting it off. Some day perhaps I'll try to watch the whole thing, just to see if it's really as bad as it seemed.

Trask said: "Dru, say what you want but lately when the shit hits the fan and the U.S. needs help, Canada is conspicuously absent, much like their French brothers. What gives? Do you have anything but a wisecrack to answer this question?" I think I can reply to that: Gulf War I - we were there. Afghanistan - we were there, and still are. Gulf War, Jr. - no we didn't "officially" participate, because we disagreed with the manner in which GWB pushed his personal vendetta down the world's throat. BUT, if you check the roster, you'll find that many of the countries that signed onto the "Coalition of the Bought and Paid For" sent no actual material support of any kind. But Canada? There were more Canadian troops attached to and serving alongside US forces in combat in Iraq than most of your so-called "Allies" combined. And we increased our commitment in Afghanistan by something like 5,000 troops specifically so that US Forces in Afghanistan could be re-deployed to Iraq. The Canadian Navy has been on station in the Gulf region for several years now, and at an increased level since September 11, assisting US and other naval forces in intercepting suspected arms shipments, Al Quaeda fugitives, etc. Believe it or not, Trask, we've been there all along, even though we declined to sign George's stupid little self-agrandizing piece of paper. And I hesitate to remind you, Trask, but when the shit REALLY hit the fan, in 1939, the US - that great defender of Liberty and Freedom - refused to get involved until late 1941, and then only because the Japanese hit you so hard you've never forgotten it.

Jeez, here we go again. You're not one of them "anti-semantics" are you?

Actually, when you get out into the extremes, the whole "Left/Right" method of characterizing individuals starts to break down. Stalin and Mao both instituted highly centralized systems in which the government exercised almost total control over every aspect of daily life. So did Hitler and Mussolini. Hitler's National Socialism placed the needs of the individual well below the needs of the "Volk": hardly what we would consider "right-wing" thinking, but he is typically considered to be the poster boy for the extreme right. Stalin holds the same position for the extreme left, but Stalinism had about as much to do with Marx's socialism as Rush Limbaugh's form of conservatism has to do with that of George III. Pol Pot is truly in a league of his own, neither left nor right, just "out there". There's someone who at least fits the "inherently deranged" hypothesis.

This just kills me. The Feds spend millions of dollars growing hydroponic pot down an abandoned mineshaft somewhere in Manitoba, and produce garbage. They could have saved us all a lot of time and money by sending a harvesting crew into the Kootenays where the stuff grows wild like a weed, and it's all premium stuff. You can probably find higher quality pot growing in the ditches along Highway 3 than will ever come out of that stupid cave in Flin Flon.

Not just liquid freshies - heard on the news last night that mopping up operations at the Kelowna fire and others in the interior have been greatly helped by snowfall, and that more is forecast for southern interior BC above 1400m.

Fortunately, the anchor probably won't be needed: the leader is wearing crampons, so he'll have secure footing in the knee-deep snow.

Did it with the brother-in-law a couple of summers ago. We descended from the col in the winter photo, roughly following the shadow line, until about 1/2 way down, then contoured over to join the ridge on the large shoulder, then went up from there. Pretty straight-forward, fun day out.

Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities" is probably my favourite of the "classics". And, although it may have lost some of its immediacy with the end of Apartheid, Alan Paton's "Cry, the Beloved Country" is a pretty powerful read. As others have pointed out, anything by Bill Bryson is well worth the price of admission. I never would have read "The Mother Tongue" but the subtitle intrigued me: "English, and how it got that way."

Yeah, not too many still being made. Boreal Ballet Gold is the only one I can think of that hasn't already been mentioned. I think Saltic may be making a high-top as well, but not sure.

worked (sort of) until 6:00, then went to meeting of one of the local "advisory committees" that I sit on. Spent about 45 minutes getting everyone worked up about the need to do something about parking lot security in the area. Printed out all the cc.com postings I could find on the subject, and read out a few of the more pointed ones for the group to hear. Your anger and frustration made quite an impression, believe me. Mayor was there, and he's as concerned as any of us, but has limited resources to throw at the problem (District of Squamish is basically broke - like municipal governments everywhere) but will assist in any way they can. Arranged for Staff Sergeant Cliff Dougherty (head of local RCMP detachment - roughly analagous to Sheriff) to appear at next month's meeting to discuss the specifics of the problem - frequency, location, persons responsible, etc., as well as legal angles re what we can and cannot do, what's been tried elsewhere blah blah blah. Hopefully out of that meeting will come some concrete plans for next spring/summer. Talked about a bunch of other stuff, too, but I won't bore you with the rest of it.

I know exactly what Bob means on this one - it's one of my favourite pet peeves. Approaching a red light, with a car in the left lane ahead of you, but apparently intending to drive straight through when the light changes, since they're not signalling a left turn. So you pull up behind them at the light, and when the light turns green ... then they hit the turn indicator. But now you're stuck behind them for however long it takes for them to be able to make the turn. If they'd had their turn indicator on while they were waiting, you'd have known they were turning left, and you could have changed into the right lane and not got stuck behind them. Basically, it comes from not understanding the purpose of turn indicators. They aren't for telling other drivers what you're doing at this moment: they're for telling other drivers what you're planning on doing, giving everyone a little advance notice of your intentions

Sorry, Murray. Most Americans have little interest in any balanced history and even less willingness to be "even handed about it" if by that you mean a willingness to recognized the fact that our foreign policy is driven by corporate greed and a fundamental belief that we are and should be able to run the world. Actually, I don't agree. In my experience Americans individually are more than willing and able to take a balanced view of things. Granted, there is a tendency for them collectively to adopt something of a herd mentality in times of crisis, but to attribute to the whole of the American people some sort of deliberate obstinance or willful short-sightedness is grossly unfair to the vast majority.

Korea ended in a stalemate, yes, but given that the likely alternative would have entailed an all-out war with the Republic of China, at a cost of untold millions of dead and culminating in a Communist victory or nuclear war, possibly both, I'd say a stalemate was not a bad outcome. Besides, the whole Korean adventure came about in large part because the United States basically highjacked the Security Council and turned the UN into a tool of US Foreign Policy (sound familiar?). Zaire and the Congo are in fact one and the same, Fairweather, and the mess in the Congo originally came about because of Belgium's utter failure to allow for an orderly transfer when they finally withdrew from their former colony. They basically just walked away, even though they knew full well a bloodbath would ensue. The UN tried, and to some extent succeeded in trying to contain the unrest and kept it from spreading throughout Central Africa. Trying to hold the UN to account for the Congo, as if it was the UN's fault somehow, is spurious. Zimbabwe - not Zaire - is "formerly Rhodesia" and is currently run by a racist, fascist dictator. Kinda like the previous rascist, fascist dictator of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) - except Ian Smith was white. Again, how that is the fault of the UN escapes me. And let's not forget that it wasn't the UN that helped put Saddam Hussein in power, and it wasn't the UN that put the Shah into Iran, and it wasn't the UN that installed and propped up any number of brutal dictatorships in Central and South America for most of the 20th Century. So if we're going to point fingers, let's be even-handed about it, shall we? If you want to talk about back-stabbing, there are plenty of examples to go around. Certainly the UN has done an imperfect job of maintaining global peace and security, but it's not nearly as useless and ineffectual as you would make it out to be. Perhaps if the US would try working with the international community the system might actually stand a chance. Instead Washington seems intent on pissing in the world's face one minute, then browbeating them for not helping extend US foreign policy objectives the next. And they can't figure out why the same people they've spent the last year insulting and ridiculing and lying to at every opportunity are now reluctant to help clean up the resulting mess? If GWB is feeling lonely and isolated all of a sudden, I'm afraid he's got no-one to blame but himself.