mattp

Exactly, Peter. We could make all kind of arguments and speculate and whatever, and who knows - maybe this will turn into a big scandal - but Winter is right, I think, to view this as just a minor matter in the larger context of what is going on and it is a matter that can be spun lots of different ways. Whether you agree with Winter or not about the import of Bush's lie about why we went to war, this argument over Bush Admin tactics may turn out to be quite significant but it is just as likely to turn out to be little more than a distraction.

Bug, remind me never to go into the woods with you.

I have a partly destroyed tent you could set up just to occupy more space in the cc.com land grab.

Good Point, Mr. P. The cynic could counter that the CIA may be more reliable in this instance precisely BECAUSE we know they always lie in support of secrecy and in support of the powers that be who want to manipulate world affairs for American money interests, so if they are countering something from the Bush administration it MUST be true, but that argument actually makes your point rather than contradicts it. Many of those in the mainstream anti-Bush movement are probably just as narrow-minded and petty in their approach to these matters as the people they seek to dethrone (and it is in my view rather mainstream and not some extreme leftist agenda as some here would have us think).

Fairweather - I didn't miss your point at all. The fact that Willi Unsoeld signed his students up for a project didn't mean he endorsed it. Every year for approximately ten years in a row he signed his students up for stupid projects, just so that that they would get all fired up and try to make some big controversy over it. He was interested in having his students get all strident and stuff, but in most if not all of these cases I highly doubt he thought there would be any net affect on Park Service policies. This kind of manipulation caused him to be lauded by some and reviled by others. But that is a big sidetrack in this discussion. Most folks here would probably support your position (if that is your position) that the Park Service has been less than enlightened in their management of the Park. I'm chill.

Fairweather, he was somewhat friendly with some of the rangers up there but I don't think he was trying to be "part of the program." He was just trying to be provocative, taking a bunch of granola head college kids up there to kill trees in a mountain meadow. Kind of like modern day troll fishermen on this website.

This reminds me of a work party removing little trees around Paradise twenty-five years ago. Apparently, the Park Service was at the time worried that the meadows there were being encroached upon by trees so that the tourists' flower-gazing was threatened. Willi Unsoeld was teaching a class on wilderness management ethics, and volunteered his students to go up there and help the rangers remove the offending saplings! While some may note that the area around Paradise visitor center is not wilderness, the project spawned some good ethics debates.

Saber has a huge pre-set anchor at the first belay, and I don't know exactly where the next belay will end up because I can't remember when I even climbed that pitch, but I'm pretty sure you'll find plenty of very secure belay ledges up there - so much so that even if your anchor failed you aren't going to get the chop. Saber or Midway are both excellent choices.

This kind of sucks if we all agree with each other. How's about we take it to the next level: I think we should make a significant cut in our aid to Israel and demand that they comply with "the deal" before we are going to revise that cut; further I think we should say that if they aren't really on their way - in a very clear, concrete and convincing manner by, say, the end of one year's time, we're going to cut our aid further.

I pretty much agree with you there RobBob. It seems to me that just about everybody knows that the deal was made a long time ago and Isreal is going to have to pull out many if not most of those settlements and allow a real Palestinian state -- and we're not doing ourselves any favors by allowing them to postpone it. I believe that Isreal receives more American economic assistance than the next several nations put together, and our allignment with their policies with respect to Palestine is not only wrong, but a serious cause of trouble for us.

I'm with you, Sisu, but lets take these things one at a time, shall we?

nonanon - I guess I did miss your point. I didn't recognize him as a conservative columnist. I didn't really think you were pointing him out as an example of a liberal counterpart to Rush Limbaugh, though. I thought you just liked the quip.

Fairweather, again you mis-state yourself. Look at just about any political thread where the shortcomings of the democratic party was even tangentially mentioned and you'll see that most of us evil liberals are quite clear about how the democrats suck or about how liberal dogma is just that. Hell, just scroll up four or five posts and you'll see where I pointed out the obvious weakness in that liberal quip that alanon thought was so clever.

Jay, I largely agree with what you just wrote - but in focussing on Clinton's perjury, I think you miss the main issues here. I don't think anybody who labels Clinton a crook pins their argument on the fact that he lied about having sex with his intern, and although GW's lies about why we went to war probably constitute his single greatest immoral act, I don't think I or anyone else asserted that they constituted a crime under criminal law. I say GW is a crook because it appears pretty clear that he engaged in insider trading, fraud, bid-fixing, etc. etc. etc. Of course, I'd have to admit that he has not been indicted -- just as nobody connected with Clinton was ever indicted for Whitewater. In my own opinion, though, it is pretty clear that Bush did those things and they have not been investigated, whereas Clinton was heavily investigated and it appears pretty clear the Whitewater scandal was mostly trumped up. Just as you may think it is morally superior to be able to distort the truth successfully as opposed to not being able to do so (I guess that is what you said), you might say that Bush is a better criminal if he commits serious crimes and gets away with them, whereas Clinton committed the pettiest of crimes possible and did not get away with it.

Sorry Slop. I misunderstood. You ask a good question that is closely related to Chuck's initial queery: what do folks think about deliberately trying to make a climb bold (i.e. scary)?

I like clever quips, too, nonanon, but I don't think one can compare a visit to the vice president's residence with a night in the Lincoln Bedroom. If that guy had a regular radio show where he told his listener's: "listen up, folks, this is the REAL news of what is happening in Washington - and particularly if it was heard on hundreds of popular radio stations nationwide - I'd say he might be that liberal equivalent that I asked Gunt about.

I didn't make that assertion, but I am not aware of a "liberal" website or talkshow host that purports to disseminate "news" and is even remotely equivalent to the Drudge Report or Rush Limbaugh in its link with mainstream media and its propensity to lie, distort, and publish unfounded rumours. There may be one - can you point me to it? I promise I won't cut and paste their lines onto this bulletin board.

I'm with you, Josh and Bug. Anybody who actually thinks Clinton was dishorable and a criminal and GWBush is neither must be deliberately ignoring the obvious or they are a complete idiot. Check out GW's history of insider trading and manipulating real estate deals in Texas and look at all the connections between his admin and the oil companies and enron and the contractors for rebuilding Iraq. None of that has seen any organized investigation like Whitewater, where the investigations went on for years and years and very little of the allegations turned out to be accurate - or at least nobody could find enough evidence to bring any indictments. I'm not saying that Clinton wasn't a crook, but can anybody really say that Clinton was a crook and GW Bush is not? C'mon. Also, anybody who cites the Drudge Report and Rush Limbaugh as an information resource must also be ignoring the obvious - that these guys' mission is to make up lies and amplify unfounded rumor and otherwise spread misinformation that is damaging to the evil liberals. You may like their arguments or think they raise provocative issues, but to cite them as a primary source of believeable information shows only that you don't really want accurate information about liberals or liberal policies.

Slop, I more or less agree with Pope on this boldness thing. It is not nearly as bold to lead that 30 foot runout after you have preinspected/rehearsed/cleaned and bolted the pitch on rappel. Whether you want public badass recognition or just your own sense of accomplishment at having been truly bold, you really gotta do it from ground up. You can only proclaim yourself partly bold if you made the redpoint after rehearsing or preinspecting a climb. As to the liability question, I am aware of nobody who has ever been even named in such a suit, let alone successfully sued for wrongful bolt placement. Thus far, I think, it has been assumed that rock climbing is so clearly and obviously dangerous that anybody who starts up a climb has assumed responsibility for taking that risk. The only contrary case that I remember is the Black Diamond harness nearly 20 years ago. There may have been one or two others, but even in the case of accidents on guided climbs I don't think it is easy to hold the guide service, whose job it is to safeguard their clients, responsible. Lets hope this doesn't change, because otherwise we'll all be lining up to sue each other every time there is an accident - and we'll be suing not only the first ascent party, but the Forest Service who didn't keep us from going there in the first place, our belayer who should have hopped as he caught us, and the party in front of us who recommened we skip that troublesome clip or who should have warned us about that loose block. We'd then have to purchase liability insurance and be prepared to show "proof of insurance" to the climbing ranger in order to go climbing.

Trask: we cannot view IP address in all forums. I could not view chirp's IP address this morning and I WAS only guessing, using the same information that is available to you. Or maybe not -- are you chirp?

If Dwayner wanted to use a single identity - his name - he could do so. I'm not saying anybody has to use their real name around here, but if they elect not to do so and somebody gets confused about who they are, it is their own doing. I thought I made it clear that I was only guessing about chirp's identity when I wrote "if I'm not mistaken." Perhaps I wasn't so clear.

Yeah, and count me out on the Sitkum, too. I've skied it twice, and thought it was just fine both times. I'll probably do it again some time, but I won't admit it. JoshK is right. Only losers go that way.

I have no "special" knowledge of Chirp's identity, so I may well have been wrong. But from this and other posts, I concluded that to be who he is, and if I was right, I think it is somewhat silly to pretend he is some anonymous admirer. Your post promted me to check his profile, though, and i found he links himself to a personal website so maybe he is a real person apart from Dwayner. Either way, it wouldn't be the first time somebody did such things with an avatar, (using a false identity to pretend to be a different character from their other identitiy and talking to or about themself, or mis-identifying somebody and mistakenly accuse them of using this "ploy"). If anybody thinks this is a problem, they of course always have the option of logging on with their real name. Is there something about my moderator status that means I should not speculate about chirp's identity?

Pope is correct that you can not always (I' can't) correctly read a pitch while on a top rope and you can't completely tell where the subsequent leader is going to want/need pro, but I think that on multipitch climbs, just as many or more mistakes will be made by developeing from the ground up. They'll be different types of "mistakes," though: unnecessary hanging belays, half-pitches heading in the wrong direction only to force an awkward traverse to get to the next pitch, bolts placed where there was a good stance and the climbing looked intimidating immediately above but turns out to be easy, or bolts placed next to a crack which was filled with filth and invisible to the first ascent party, etc. As to the bolt ladder, it is not a choice of putting the bolts so close together that you can lock off on one and reach the next or putting them so far apart that you have to make the moves. For an example of this, try a Layton Kor bolt ladder some time. If subsequent parties aren't using those stupid stiffy dogbone draws, they can stand in their slings and use tension if needed as they stand up and reach a bolt that may be over 6 feet overhead - much too high to reach from being "locked off."

If I'm not mistaken, Al, he just did - in the post immediately above yours.