Phil K

Is that your real hair?

It seems that the implied objection to teachers' salaries is that they've got it too good. We all remember those carefree days of summer vacation, and some resent the perception that teachers get to spend ten weeks doing jack while getting paid a fair wage. And that comes out of our stolen tax money. The horror. Add to that the fact that kids fail to measure up to the high standards we all grew up with, and it appears that teachers aren't even doing a very good job while taking home all of those sweet tax dollars. Never mind that the raw materials; kids with many challenges that aren't their fault (Have you looked at the public school demographics lately?), mainstreaming of learning challenged children, unmanageably large classes, etc, and it's nary impossible for even great teachers to consistently meet performance goals. It's a tough job with a high burn out rate, and begrudging someone making a pretty good living at it is petty and selfish. Something that hasn't been mentioned yet; consider the value that society derives from the collective effort of our teachers. Beat them down, make it a less attractive profession, lower the quality of those who stick with it, degrade public school education, and see how well plays out in terms of social and economic health of the nation. Jeez.

FW must have been a champion in third grade playground arguments, 'cause he's got all the techniques honed to perfection.

I remember talking with Norm Winn, who used to lead trips for the Mountaineers and has been active in the effort to expand NCNP (sorry Jason), about being on the Brothers Traverse on the morning of the eruption. Try looking him up. http://old.seattletimes.com/text/2019048690.html

You're implying that someone here is even more of a sociopath than Ted Cruz?

Excuse me. I thought this was Spray.

Interesting piece. I seriously have to wonder if you actually read your own post as you left out a few bits like this: In 2003, the Indiana Supreme Court invalidated East Chicago Democratic Mayor Rob Pastrick’s primary victory because of massive fraud. Pastrick, an eight-term incumbent, lost in a 2004 repeat election. Forty-six people, mainly city workers, were found guilty in a wide-ranging conspiracy to purchase votes through the use of absentee ballots. FW, nice try cherry picking information to imply the exact opposite of what the article states again and again. That being: individual voter fraud is so uncommon as to have virtually NO effect on election outcomes. Heck, this isn't even a case of individual voter fraud, but rather of a group of insiders trying to manipulate the system. Corrupt pols of any stripe deserve to be outed and punished. Too bad Katherine Harris (using her position as FLA Secretary of State and with the complicity of Governor Jeb Bush) was able to get away with improperly purging thousands of legitimate likely Democratic voters from Florida's registration lists in 2000. Too bad Kenneth Blackwell (while simultaneously serving as both Secretary of State AND co-chair of Bush's re-election committee) was able to manipulate registration and voter machine access enough to flip the state in his boy's favor. But you don't care about that shizz.

Libtard Lies and Self Deception (of course!) Analysis of the resulting comprehensive News21 election fraud database turned up 10 cases of voter impersonation. With 146 million registered voters in the United States during that time, those 10 cases represent one out of about every 15 million prospective voters. “Voter fraud at the polls is an insignificant aspect of American elections,” said elections expert David Schultz, professor of public policy at Hamline University School of Business in St. Paul, Minn. “There is absolutely no evidence that (voter impersonation fraud) has affected the outcome of any election in the United States, at least any recent election in the United States,” Schultz said.

OK, I'll put you down in the "Fuck it, let the billionaires run this country" column.

Can a person not love their country and still wish to see it fundamentally transformed? I'd say that I fall into that category myself. 'Murica is a great place, with vast potential, but over the past 30+ years it's been regressing to a land of haves and have-nots, where huge concentrations of wealth have the game rigged in their favor by pitting the the little people against one another along racial and social divides and rendering them so dumb, skeered, and angry that they'll vote people like Senator Snowball into office where he can do the Koch's bidding and help screw the bejesus out of them. Bring on fundamental transformation! BTW, the world, and our Dog-Blessed corner of it is in the process of fundamental transformation whether we like it or not. Who's gonna call the shots?

How about this? http://arcg.is/1D22v7W

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/03/platinum-coin-option_n_4351706.html?1386084682 THAT lefty rag?

Source? WIki cites various people who proposed the idea, but Our Beloved Tyrant was not among them. Curiously the concept has arguable legitimacy under a statute passed by a Republican congress in 1996 over Democratic opposition. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillion_dollar_coin

Fixed.

Much as it pains me, I'm going to agree with FW to a degree. Obama has disappointed me in many ways, though mostly not for the same things that get FW foaming at the mouth. I would be fine if he were held to account for Drone activities, but they would also have to haul Bush, Cheny, Rummie, John Yoo, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen and their 81 million taxpayer dollars, and the whole clown car of psychopaths who came up with this crap in the first place off to the Hague for trial. Ben B: you must not have gotten the memo; it doesn't work, isn't necessary, and is counter to US and international law. I can remember watching W's speech right after 9/11 with dread, knowing that we were headed for a poorly thought out, belligerent over reaction that was going to destabilize the region and sow the seeds for a bumper crop of new terrorists. Fine freaking mess we have now, eh? Thanks boys, for doing what needs to be done. Not.

Interested in OR pants. Paging Mr. dubxion! Check your inbox

Here is a pic of some wreckage up near the head of the creek that flows from Gold Lake into Lake Dorothy. Are you familiar with the wreck up by the hairpin on Highway 20 (Washington Pass)?

My one, and only TR. Sorry if I seem like cranky ol'man; I just hate to see these kids and their GPSs and their fancy cell phones crowding the backcountry and acting like their some kind of reality TV stars.

Things are well melted out. GPS coordinates? We don't need no stinking GPS coordinates. Leave that BS at home.

Der R-wand is gefallen. Cool trip, eh?

Maybe that's why I usually ended up going for the salad bar.

I'm sorry to hear that. My comments were not directed at him, or anyone else in particular. I do find that there is often a plethora of unnecessary cairns in off trail areas, usually where it should be perfectly obvious or easy enough to figure out the way on one's own. No disrespect to John, super cool TR.

Who here remembers Mountain Song that used to be where the Buffalo Run is now? I still miss the salad bar and hippie vibes.

And while you're at it, stop building those stupid little cairns where they're not needed.