mattp

We've blown up Ampzilla twice, but the last time it went back to CAT, they did some serious tweaking and now it seems much better. It is a good power amp if you want to drive some big noise but with 225 watts per side, you gotta be careful!

When the white lightening is flowing, I pretty quickly find that I cannot even run my own stereo. The cartridge connections on my turntable are prone to dust problems and connection irregularities that just don't seem to be easy to handle after serious drinking! There's a reason that "kids these days" like cd's, I think. If you hit the wrong button, no harm is done.

I have, for sale, a massively powerful amp. It is a "power amp," meaning you need a radio receiver and a pre-amp as separate units, that kicks out 225 watts per side, and was when built the absolute top of the line. It's called "Ampzilla" and it has been completely factory rebuilt (upgraded), so it REALLY KICKS ASS. You need Ampzilla if you really want to rock, and if you don't have a lot of drunk friends running your sound system (it is a little wild and you can blow speakers and stuff). Send me a p.m. By the way - analogue rocks. I have a lot of vinyl and I like it! Unfortunately, everything new is ditgitally mastered so it seems that you just can't get new music that is all that good on vinyl.

Yeah, well I'm not saying he's my hero or anything, but I think he DID call this one right. You are probably right about the timing of when they will find these WMD.

Just over one year ago, Jim McDermott was in Baghdad. He made some public statements to the effect that he believee Saddam may in fact have been telling the truth wheh he said he was not hiding weapons of mass destruction or working with AlQueda, and he said the he thought GW Bush might lie to the American public and to the world about our reasons for going to war in Iraq. When criticised for going to an enemy country to make such remarks, "Baghdad Jim" said that he could not get any press coverage for making the same statements at home -- so the only way he might be heard was to engage in a staged production of making such statements in Baghdad. All over the U.S., conservatives were outraged that he would say such things -- and particularly that he would go to Baghdad to say them. I believe that some of our conservative pundits on this very bulletin board expressed their outrage that he would do so. It looks as if Jim McDermott was exactly right. What does the fact that the "liberal press" wouldn't cover him before he went to Baghdad say about that "liberal press?" What does the incident say about the enlightenment of the conservative pundits nationwide and on this little bulletin board we spend so much time on?

Quite interesting, Puget, but are you trying to suggest that somebody who sees the same concerns that were expressed fifty years ago, following a different war, is failing to exercise an "open mind?" Or are you suggesting that since it seemed to work out OK fifty years ago, we can be sure everything will be fine this time?

Dru alludes to a drawback of the Hilti coils without explaining what it is: they have a coil that is soldered or somehow otherwise attached to the end of the bolt and once you remove it to place a hanger over it, you have a tiny coil that can easily be dropped and which does not stick back onto to the bolt very solidly until you hammer it into the rock. You either have to mess around with the relatively small coil while you are hanging on the cliff or you have to tape it back onto the bolt after you have inserted the hanger the night before. Has anybody but my buddy the Safety Man used these Hilti coil bolts?

I called my buddy and he says that the bolts I mentioned here are in fact not called taper bolts. They are called Hilti Coil anchors. He says in his opinion they are just as easy to install as a wedge anchor. Taper bolts have a led sleeve at the end, and he's not really into those either.

Moderator! Moderator! He's doing it again.

Fairweather - You mis-state my point here. I do not think talk shows and commentary are in the same "category" as news broadcasts, and while you may be able to pull some statement out of one of my posts where I said that right-wing talk shows counterbalance the liberal views expressed on NPR, I don't believe I ever said that news shows and commentary have to be viewed as the same type of information or held to the same standards. If I did, you are correct to point out that I was wrong. Are you asserting that left wing think tanks are represented on FOX as often as right wing think tanks are represented on NPR because an NPR anchor appears on Brit Hume's show? Would you care to answer my question (Hakio's point, really) about how NPR listeners may be factually mistaken the way that Fox listeners are? By the way, you are damn right that I don't like FOX because it doesn't fit into my view of the world as it should be. I am not apologetic about that.

Fairweather - you dismiss the study reported by Hakiowa because (you claim) the source is unquesitonnably and hopelessly biased. That is a complete evasion of the point and a classic conservative dodge - discredit the source and ignore the statement). That study, and others like it, have consistently shown that those whose major source of news is Fox TV are very likely to think that we found weapons of mass desctruction, that Saddam was responsbile for 911, or that he was closely tied to Al Queda, or all three. None of the above are true. People who listen to NPR as their major sources of news are not likely to have thess "misimpressions" or any others that are anywhere near as fundamentally flawed when it comes to the FACTS underlying today's discussion of the war. I believe the Kato Institute and the Heritage Foundation are much more frequent commentators on NPR, then their liberal counterparts are commentators on FOX -- also that they are treated with much more respect and given much more of an opportunity to present their views coherently when they do so. Am I incorrect about this?

By "studs" I mean wedge anchors, not split shanks. I don't know anybody who regularly uses split shanks. I have removed and replaced lots of them, but I don't recall ever actually placing one. Unless bolting on lead, perhaps, I see little justification for using them -- even then it would be questionnable in my mind because you could place wedge anchors just about as easily but the simplicity of the split shank is a plus and that is why I do carry a few once in a while, for the purposes that Dru described. (I suppose that if you are committed to coming back and replacing them, the easier removal of the split shank might be a plus.) The difficulty in removing the wedge anchors is definitely an issue when it comes to replacing or removing them. This is why I have periodically been posting inquiries on this forum asking about devices/systems for removal that may be more portable than a 5 foot "love bar."

Kurt may be right, Marylou. If some poor sucker thought this was a climber's website and came onto the Climber's Board and asked for a gear list for The Tooth, they obviously must deserve to be put down. The North Face should never think they have a right to host a slideshow and have someone mention it on this board. And yeah, and some poor schmuck who gets stuck on top of Glacier Peak, well he MUST be a big time loser. And anybody who ever retreated from a pin on an Index climb where the guidebook suggests carrying pins, well .... they just get what they deserve.

We've been using the studs almost exclusively. Yes, I think the "taperbolts" might be the ones I am referring to. One drawback is that they are not as easy to get, and I really have little experience with them and I'm not sure just how much my buddy has used them in field situations. I watched him place one, once, and it was a little clumsy starting it into the hole but otherwise it seemed OK.

Nope. 'Just made it up. Should I apply for a job writing text for O'Reilly?

I would expect them to have stories about US soldiers getting shot at, chucK - of course they do. But my argument was that if I listen to Fox news on the radio for a week, I bet I can find an introduction to a story that is more biased than that cited by Puget - especially if you look at it the way that Jim did and ask yourself, "which if any of these statements can be said to be incorrect?" I just made up an imaginary statement from a reporter introducing, say, a story about the latest even promoted by Wolfowitz or somebody, wherein the report parrots the lines that are told us daily by Rice, Bush and Rumsfeld. Is that an unlikely scenario?

I ask about your use of these bolts because in the past I found them problematic. It has been so long since I've tried them that I can't really remember what the problems were but I seem to recall having trouble getting them into the holes and getting them to properly "grab" - I think these problems may have been as frequent as one in ten or one in twenty. Have you ever had such issues with them? Maybe I was just a bumbler but I distinctly thought that regular "studs" were easier to place (of course I think that was something like 15 years ago and the hardware may not now be exactly the same). The very characteristic for which you recommend them - that they are so easily removed - is also a drawback of the five-piece bolts. Bolts quite often go missing, whether through the work of bolt-hating rock cops or vandals, and we don't always want to facilitate that. Apart from these issues, I believe stainless steel 5-piece bolts are rather spendy, so this may be the main reason I know nobody who uses them. I will always argue that one should not "cheap out" when it comes to hardware, though, and the simple fact that I don't know anybody who uses them is not necessarily a reason to think they are no good. What you say about the lower head profile and the ease of removal is correct and maybe I should take another look at the issue. By the way, my friend "the safety man" has some weird bolts with coils kind of like a helicoil that he says are WAY stronger for a given size than either studs or 5-piece bolts. Have you ever looked at those?

I'm having trouble wlith your links, there, Mr. ChucK. I bet you found something interesting, though. I just made that quote up.

Going to Rattlesnake Point in Ontario, we arrived late at night and for some reason we didn't want to head into the park so we pulled onto a farm road, and hopped a fence to roll out our bags where there was some nice flat grass on the other side. About six in the morning, I heard some snorting and cracked an eye open to see a big nose, with some big eyes somewhere not far behind. I shake the fog out of my brain and I realize it's a large cow, and then I notice that we are completely surrounded by ten or twelve of them. They are all standning in a perfect circle, staring at us. The big guy and his friends stand resolute as I nudge my buddy and we both sit up to start discussing what to do. Ethan stands up and waves his arms. No dice. He grabs a sack of tent poles that we hadn't used, rattles it and swings it as if he's going to whack Mr. Big (he's too scared to actually make contact). No luck. Whistling, shouting, whatever we try just doesn't seem to change anything. Five minutes later, farmer Joe must have opened up the barn or something. We didn't hear or notice any signal, but the cows just turned away and walked off.

Good job there, Jim. I immediately assumed PP was on to something at least as far as the idea that the "leader" he recited was pro democrat and anti-Bush, but I think you have correctly pointed out that to state, in a succinct manner, the truth about what is going wrong with Mr. Bush's war policy sounds partisan to us -- and the reason is because we are so consistently presented with a positive misstatement of things whenever any administration official is on the air. Think about it. If you heard a similar statement that consisted of postitive remarks about the success of Bush's foreign policies, many if not most Americans would be less like to immediately identify it as partisan because it would quite closely resemble what we hear daily from Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld: What do you want to bet, I could find a fox news story that begins with exactly this kind of leader. But you couldn't make the same kind of point-by-point argument that these statements are accurate, could you?

Why would the fact that NPR starts out with a provocative and partisan leader indicate that "the media is liberal?" What kind of partisan messages do you hear on leaders to news stories on FOX? Do fewer people listen to Rush's show? Or is it less credible? How many conservative pundits speak on NPR radio as compared to the number of liberal pundits who speak on AM talk radio? How are the conservatives treated on the "liberal" NPR as opposed to how the liberals are treated on AM talk radio?

If I listened to any number of a.m. radio stations this morning I bet I could have found just as striking an endorsement of Mr. Bush's foreign policy, no?

Please make the voices stop.

Uniroyal makes pretty good stuff, or at least they used to. Tough, too.

I just called the ranger station to attempt some follow-up after last weekend's ropeup, and the guy at the main reception desk told me that the Eightmile / Mountaineer Creek road reopened today at noon. I asked him about why it had been closed so long and he pointed out that it actually reopened ahead of schedule, but he also explained that the project was complicated by the fact that the bridges were not rated for heavy construction equipment so they couldn't get all their equipment over to both sides of the creek, and they had to replace the lower one first, and the upper one second. Also, he noted, they had to wait something like 3 weeks for the footers to set up each time they poured a new one. I asked him if there was any reason they couldn't have allowed hikers through the area in the meantime, and he said that it was part of the contact that they not allow it. He said that the contractors do not want the liability for possibly having the public around the construction activity, and this is a standard contract provision.