Crux

Now there be a bold proposition -- we should implement a freakin' leebrul healthcare plan. (?)

Chinese Oil Bids $18.5 Billion to Capture Unocal. Chinese currency is protected against world market valuation by communist government. Does U.S. toleration of this monetary policy amount to being a U.S. subsidy of Chinese economic power?

This is a new ruling, and maybe not as bad as we fear. Consider the legal case that carried the issue to the high court: Isn't it actually a matter of turning a slum into a viable community that can -- yes -- generate tax revenue rather than consume it? In the former situation, you pay higher taxes to fund the transfer payments made to the decrepit community. In the latter case, more of your tax money can go to support subisidies for...dare say it...the local Walmart. Look at the bright side: The decision might empower the private sector (with public oversight, as required) to 'seize' Walmart stores and convert those properties to viable parts of the community for businesses and homeowners alike! Consider the 400 empty Walmart stores now strewn across some 31 states as 400 examples of how private business may do well to improve things by converting abandoned commercial real estate to productive use.

The United States Constitution, Artical II, Section 4: "The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." In the wake of current events, now being asked are the following questions: "Is it a High Crime to engage in a conspiracy to deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the American people about the basis for taking the nation into a war?" "Is it a High Crime to manipulate intelligence so as to allege falsely a national security threat posed to the United States as a means of trying to justify a war against another nation based on 'preemptive' purposes?" "Is it a High Crime to commit a felony via the submission of an official report to the United States Congress falsifying the reasons for launching military action?"

I'd forgotten about this car! It's relatively inexpensive, reliable, and it gets good mileage. It's a Toyota Corolla that costs less because it carries the GM brand name and it may be just the thing for getting to the hills when the quarter is over. In about ten days, I might be looking around for one of these little rattle-buckets myself. Thanks for the idea!

Actually, yes, I'd likely favor those odds. However, as with some of the questions in the microbiology exams given in the course for which Kolata's book on the 1918 flu was required reading, the odds might lead me to a wrong answer. As evidenced by her pre-2003 PR photo, Kolata is looking good: Admittedly, the odds may still be well placed on fatty, and as surely as personal bias may have determined which study Kolata seized for coverage in her NYT column, it also determines the definition of what is fatty. For example, my fat microbiology professor would certainly call Kolata thin. But she would call ME thin also, despite abundant fat to the contrary: I'm 6-0, 215, and my old Levi's fit me as tight as my bones. Of course, I can't say for sure whether Kolata has similarly put on some pounds without a hands-on evaluation. Now, as much as I'd like to assess whether Gina Kolata can wear her old Levis, I am resigned to no better activity than finding the recent JAMA issue and evaluating for myself what kind of quackery it is that suggests I'm better off.

One dismissive interpretation: Because so many Americans now consume several hundred dollars per month on prescription drugs to control diseases secondary to obesity, they don't die as early as they did ten years ago. Thus, by the reasoning employed, being fat isn't such a health problem after all.

And then there's the story about students drinking themselves to death -- with water -- at fraternity hazing parties.

Good ride, nice shot. BTW: Will the new monorail to the Dosewallips campground be located on the old bridge?

48" sling, aka double-length sling, is about four feet long. (Go figure.) FWIW: In my collection, doubles tied with ring bend on old-school 1" tubular nylon webbing are slightly longer than 4 feet, and require 9 1/2 feet of webbing overall. Blue Water sewn slings (5/8" spectra-nylon blend) are 46" long. And Mammut double butt-floss slings (8mm Dyneema) are 43" long, off the hanger at PMS.

FWIW: With help from contacts found here, I was able to get medical releases as needed to avoid being being dropped from the nursing program. Just in time. Thanks, Mykal

By Monday or Tuesday afternoon? I've picked up one name along that line so far, for a Sports Med, office-based O.S. practice on Capitol Hill. If I can get in right away, it will be perfect. If not... I'm getting around w/o car; Capitol Hill, U-District... Sports Med clinics or office practices... Recommendations?

I live in the Seattle area and I am looking for a medical doctor or other suitable practitioner who can see me right away for a brief visit to fill out a medical assessment form and/or provide a medical release that I need in order to stay in school. Eighteen days ago, when riding down the sidewalk along 4th Avenue behind Seahawks Stadium, I caught a long, deep crack in the pavement with the front wheel of my road bike. The wheel plunged into the crack and I was tossed hard onto the sidewalk. I faired not too badly for the fall, suffering only some minor cuts, a dislocated finger, and a fractured clavicle. (I walked away.) I remember a chorus of parking lot attendants asking me if I was OK as I popped my finger back into place immediately after the fall. What a deal. (I really messed up this time.) After relocating my finger but failing to fix my own shoulder, I turned to find the bicycle standing upright with the front rim crushed within the crack in the sidewalk! (The bicycle didn't even fall over.) Anyway, I pulled the bike out of the sidewalk and hiked up First Hill to Harborview and checked into the ER for some X-Rays and a professional evaluation. About five hours later, I was discharged with a big bottle of oxycodone in my pocket and with my left arm in a sling. Five days after sustaining the injury, I still wore an arm sling when I showed up for the first day of classes in a registered nursing program that I was accepted into last summer. I had no idea that my injury would be a big deal to anybody at school. But when I was asked why I had my arm in a sling, my explanation was summarily met with notification that I'll almost certainly be disqualified from the nursing program for failing to meet minimum physical fitness standards. From that point on, it's all been red tape. After the third day of classes, I kept an appointment with the Wednesday orthopedic clinic team at Harborview. New X-rays were taken to see what the bone looked like two weeks after the accident, and after an orthopedic surgeon performed her assessment of my condition, she gave me the medical release that I asked for. Unfortunately, after I submitted the release to my school, I learned that it did not adequately cover all details as needed and was therefore rejected. Also, my efforts to contact the doctor to get the release amended have proven futile because she is insulated by a very tightly managed schedule. (Even the charge nurse was unable to contact this doctor when I went in the next day.) The school will not yield from its position, never mind that I've made an athletic rebound from the injury and can demonstrably perform at levels up to and exceeding all the objective standards set down by the school. And I am running out of time. The first mandatory practical exam is Thursday; they say if I don't get cleared to physically participate by then, I'll be out. My next appointment with the Harborview orthopedic team is not until October 27 -- not soon enough. So right now I am urgently looking for a practitioner who can see me right way, preferably on Monday or Tuesday afternoon. Again, I am fully able to perform as required. I have more than the required strength, can use both hands with ample dexterity, can count past ten, and so on. But it's turning out that red tape and bureaucracy may cause substantial further harm to me after the actual accident. If any Seattle-area people reading this board can be of any help in regard to this matter, please contact me right away. Of course, any fitness and recovery issues related to a clavicle fracture and posted here will also be valued. PM or email with contact info if available. Mykal Crooks

To climb "Route I" up the SE Summit of Warrior (when it's snow-free) I'd say you need to bring an ability to climb up a low class 5 pitch and a short length of rope to get back down. To clarify my point of view, here is my experience: Ten years ago I ascended the SE summit of Warrior Peak by way of the 6320' saddle above Charlia Lakes. From there I went up and over peak 6974' and down to the 6700' Warrior Peak-Alphabet Ridge saddle and then up and over the NE summit of Warrior to the saddle between the two summits of Warrior. I was traveling with a light backpack and GP mountaineering boots all the way. No problem until standing at that first pitch below the SE summit of Warrior. Granted, as a snow climb it would be easier. For any serious rock lead it would be easier. But for a person maxing out while cruising at class 3 or 4, carrying a backpack, and wearing GP mountaineering boots, the SE summit required some extra concentration. Like the book says, "the first rock pitch above the snow [or scree] is actually quite difficult." I got up, all the while hoping I could find "Route 2" to be an easier way to down-climb. No such luck. To get back down, I scavenged a bunch of abandoned rappel slings, daisy-chained the old webbing together, and used it to rappel. (When I got home, I added rope to my gear and signed-up for a basic climbing course.) mC

True, it isn't happening just in Salem. I can't forget: Up until about two years ago, my favorite ground for a regular jog stretched around Meadow Point from Golden Gardens to Carkeek Park and back. When the tide covered the beach to the sea wall, I'd run beside the tracks. One day when I was running southbound, I watched a fast and quiet northbound commuter round the corner at Meadow Point and roll over a woman who was walking toward me with her back to the train. I retrieved her bank and identification cards from the bushes to where those pieces were disbursed like feathers. Friends of the woman were hysterical over her sudden death, but one observed that he wouldn't have expected the train to have been travelling northbound on the left track, as if parallel sets of train tracks are somehow configured like highways into left and right lanes. mCrux

Thanks for the link Jeffy. I'm studying nutrition in a summer class now, and will be comparing some fad diets as part of the course-work soon. During recent courses in physiology, the topic of low-carb or no-carb diets came up came up several times. The Atkins diet is a popular example, and users proclaim it a good diet for reducing obesity. When I run into somebody that says they've started using the Atkins diet, sure enough, they gleefully proclaim how much weight they've lost in the first weeks alone! But in physiology, we were taught how and why the sudden weight loss is primarily caused by dehydration. I observed that after the body has dumped 10 to 30 pounds of water to combat acid ketosis, these people got real quiet as they went back to the carbs to stay alive. But the fad goes on. It seems a growing number of Americans are becoming desperate. As we all know, obesity is emerging as a sort of epidemic in this country. In my opinion, Americans have collectively taught themselves to forego moderation in their eating habits. As a result, a huge percentage of the population is conditioned for malnutrition, and many individuals are deeply uncomfortable with good nutrition. Thus, good nutrition is often denied as a solution to obesity. Instead, individuals will typically engage one malnutrition scheme or the other, and the Atkins diet is one example. At the core of the problem, I think, is the prevalence of long-term behavioral training that effectively conditions individuals to feel most comfortable when they are eating an immoderate diet. As a result, in order to consume enough, people consume too much. In contemporary American society, intensive malnutrition training often starts in childhood at which time it becomes a part of innate behavior; therefore, the training may be practically irreversible. Fad diets don't change that. As an anecdotal example of childhood training for obesity, I offer the following example: Early this year I observed a mother essentially forcing her two-year-old daughter to eat cookies when the girl did not want to eat the cookies. The mother had just arrived at a daycare center to get her daughter at the end of the day, and the mother pulled out a large-sized plastic Ziploc sandwich bag stuffed with Graham crackers and held them up for the child to grasp. The child didn't want any of the crackers. So the mother reached into the child's stroller and pulled out another big sandwich bag, this one stuffed with Oreo cookies. Again, the child said, "No! No want cookies!" As though on a mission for which she had been trained, the mother persisted. She reached into the stroller and brought out yet another bag, this one filled with Fritos corn chips. The child continued to decline to eat (she had recently been fed in the daycare) but the mother continued pestering the child to choose from the bags of cookies and crackers until the child finally started munching away on the Oreos. Super-size we! mCrux

Wilderness designation does not impose a moratorium on trail building. The Forest Service can build new trails in designated wilderness areas, and has done so when resources were available and construction served the mission of wilderness designation. New trails constructed in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area provide good examples. mC

Spray

Oh. I get it. Wilderness areas are a crime against the Constitution, and proponents of wilderness designation should be "handcuffed and incarcerated" because they are proven harmful to America and Americans. We climbers should rise up and stop the imposition of this wicked "hideous and many headed Medusa" that stands against "the way mankind learns how to better steward his Genesis-mandated job over all the earth." We must allow "not ONE SQUARE INCH MORE" to be designated as Wilderness. Moreover, over time, we will do well to see to it that there are "a LOT of acres LESS of such areas." As Soiled Boy says, we have seen the destruction of democracy in the Dosewallips valley (of all places). Is it not now time to stop the madness! Email you senators! Senator your emailers! But please go on without me. I'm sorry. I'm just too fucking busy accessing my favorite areas in places like the Alpine Lakes and North Cascades to do what I know is right. I've always been that way. BTW: SB, you don't mind if I be campin' in yer backyard on my way to the Dose, do ya? Just think of it as an access issue. We'll get along just fine. mC

Favorite route up Daniel is South Spur. Have attained South Spur by three approaches, all starting from Salmon La Sac. Approach #1: From Venus Lake, ascend talus on west side of lake, pass through gap above lake, and then downclimb or rappel a short way to gain traverse north to the west flank of the South Spur. Climb the flank of the spur, and eventually cross through a notch to reach the slog field to summit. Approach #2: Follow Spade Lake trail only until reaches approximately 5400 feet. Instead of turning west or northwest with the trail as it goes to Spade Lake, continue ascending north to follow the ridge between Lake Vincente and Spade Lake. Attain series of benches on the east flank of the ridge, above Vincente Lake; crux was a short, steep pitch up the face of fallen cornice to cross over the ridge near The Citadel. After that, an easy traversing descent contours north and then west to Venus Lake. Approach #3: By way of the Shovel Creek drainage; way trail to Shovel Lake is found off the Waptus River trail near "the big rock." To hike from Daniel Summit to Hinman, I've avoided direct approach to the West because of chossy steps not apparent on the map. Downclimb and rappel would be an adventure. Else descend into Lynch Draw over the glacier. I camped at Pea Soup Lake, then descended a bit into Foss drainage to gain traverse to permanent snowfield that leads up to gap between Daniel and Hinman. Slog from there. Continue to La Bohn Gap and figure it out from there. Either direction, can make exit back to Salmon La Sac. mcrux

Soilboy dutifully went through the motions online. Pull says Bush is winning the wad.

[quote Please stop attempting to get this legitimate ACCESS thread moved to the SPRAY forum... Legitimate access issue? I don't think so.

Yeah to that... Moore reminds me of Bill O'Reilly in so many ways. But where is the story? Today's story: Vice President Cheney is still promoting on television the lie that Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaida had a collaborative relationship. Moore uses stories like that to justify his own no-holds-barred effort to discredit the Bush administration. That's the story.

Eeek! Was looking at hike up GP by way of White Pass. Tips on where to find more info on N. fork Sauk washout?