mattp

Nice post, billcoe. To be sure, foreign relations and military strategy are two complex areas and it is, as you note, nearly impossible to predict whether if we encourage one friend or foe to take some action at one point it may bite us later. In fact, you could argue that our entire foreign policy since the beginning is as much as anything else a history of unintended consequences. And I agree with you: that doesn't necessarily argue that we should retreat within our own borders and let the rest of the world do what they are going to do. When considering various responses to something like a war breaking out in the middle east or a terrorist movement that appears to be spreading there will always be a lot of difficult choices that must be made based on incomplete and in many cases inaccurate information. But are you suggesting that means we shouldn't second-guess our government? Where Bug writes that the US is a terrorist nation some of you folks here really bristle but in viewing our actions in response to 911 I don't think he's far off. Maybe "rogue state" would be closer to the mark but however you label it, clearly we did the wrong thing. We should not have invaded a nation that did not attack us in the first place, against the wishes of our allies and without UN backing, based on lies. And then we bungled the invasion and the occupation so that Iraq is worse off now than it was before we went in. Iraq now poses a greater threat to us and to its neighbors than it did in 2001. Clearly, too, we did the wrong thing by having Dick Cheney announce that we were taking the gloves off now and then allowing our military and our intelligence services to torture prisoners and say to the world: we do not respect the Geneva Convention. I know many folks around here will cringe when I mention, too, that I think we've done the wrong thing by insisting that our soldiers can never be held accountable in courts of international law. It may be inconvenient or worse --many fear that such accountability will hamstring the heroic members of our armed forces -- but I think it is just plain wrong to undermine the concept of international law and human rights in that fashion. In the last seven years, the U.S. has said to the world: we believe might makes right and we're going to do what we're going to do without bothering to work with the rest of the world. I won't go as far as Bug and say we're the terrorists, but we are certainly a rogue state. I understand that many people in this country feel that our backs are against the wall and we have no choice but to fight the enemy wherever we find them. But the war on terror is not like eliminating the Nazi's in WWII. That was much more of a black and white situation and we pretty much had "right" on our side. But here, in this war (the war on terror), we've left the moral high ground behind and it is not at all clear that we couldn't have made just as much progress in Iraq and Afghanistan without doing so. You are right to say that it is all very complicated and as we sit here at the computer we have no way to really know how it would have turned out had we not invaded Iraq or had we not tortured the bad guys we captured there or had we not held those enemy noncombatants at Guantanimo but can you really say it is wrong to criticize our government for it's conduct of this war? Do you dismiss it all as simply a mistake, starting with our overthrowing the government in next-door Iran in the 1950's? Is that an excuse?

I went to see my favorite Seattle rocker, TAD, at the Mural Amphitheatre and somebody threw a roadkill racoon on stage during the first song. Tad said: "Hey man, that's not cool. That is a real racoon." The show was over. Not even one full song. Maybe we're different here in Seattle. But disappointed as I was, I thought well of TAD.

True that, but I have picked up partners around here quite a bit and have yet to meet anybody on cc.com who misrepresented their qualifications and wasn't up to the climb that we undertook. The only time that I have ever found somebody to have misrepresented their skills was one of the two times in my life that I signed up for a trip with a "guide." CC.com has a mix of climbers and for sure you might find someone in the partners forum who doesn't pan out, but keep your eyes open and maybe consider for your first climb with a new partner doing a climb where you feel comfortable and I think you'll probably do OK.

I’m having a difficult time wading through your post, Jay, but I think it comes down to this: 1. no population except an isolated one or one ruled by authoritarians has ever completely used up a resource or caused ecosystem collapse 2. long range planning is inherently difficult so we should not allow our government to even try it 3. business people will look out for the public good because it is in their self interest. OH: and 4. lawyers. What was the point again? I call B.S. on the first three but might concede on the fourth. As to your premise that each individual business owner or corporate board is probably best equipped to plan and run their individual operation, I think I agree. Although you profess some great rhetorical victory here I don't think that in any way suggests that we should not maintain government agencies or laws that seek to address resource management issues, long range planning, or whatever else you think would constitute evil "government intervention." I agree with you, though, that we should not be using taxpayer money to irrigate the central California valley and we should not subsidize ethanol production from corn.

It beats me. I'm guessing you and I are not supposed to know what they are up to However, we're talking about the companies that fought requirements for seat belts. I think J_B is probably not far off: the auto makers spend a hell of a lot more resources figuring out how they can control the market, talk people into buying cars they don't need, and manipulating politics in their favor than they do figuring out how to provide transportation for America that is not based on an unsustainable level of oil consumption, doesn't destroy our atmosphere, and isn't dangerous and a waste of money.

Reading this, I am left wondering: what was Jay's point? Yes, if we do absolutely nothing to plan for the inevitable we'll be forced to stop running all our cars on oil when the price of oil skyrockets or when water in the central California valley reaches the "price correction" we'll stop growing cotton there, but is he REALLY suggesting that we SHOULD leave it up to the big three automakers and the agribus farmers in California to conduct all long range planning? Ford and farmers cannot afford to plan for the future. They have to make money this quarter or next or maybe the one after that or they'll go out of business. Without government intervention, by Jay's own thesis, we will and should continue unsustainable industrial practices until those industries are forced to change those practices, a force that in many cases will come with the collapse or near total destruction of a non-renewable resource and which even Jay must acknowledge could possibly trigger financial and political crises as well. Meanwhile, we are paying Ford and the farmers to hasten the day.

Hey tomtom: good to see you. I was hoping you'd come back to defend your assertion that Obama ran just as sleazy a smear campaign against McCain as McCain ran against him! Let's see it. Meanwhile, I'd have to say that I doubt Obama has a place in his office for Monica, but maybe that is just me. You could be right.

You are right about the expected rough ride and also about the lack of leadership on the Democrats' part, j_b, but do you REALLY expect Obama to lead a big sweep of Washington? I certainly hope he's going to put a new color on things and I expect we will see some real but modest changes in policy and priorities, but I doubt he's going to take apart the military industrial complex, cut the disparity in income between rich and poor by a huge percentage, or turn America green over night. Howard Zinn is not on the transition team.

Actually, I think he may have been doing it to get you all worked up, j_b. I think it is lame to post disingenuous arguments with the sole aim of riling up the other guy but it seems to pass for entertainment around here. It has been a tradition since the early days of the site and it is not uniqiue to cc.com.

C'mon, Bill. Everybody knows he wears jack boots. He probably hates cats, too.

You may well end up very disappointed, j_b. I don't think he is likely to really shake things up. As to the war? Anybody who read the newspaper very carefully knew Bush and co. were lying. In order to vote for or support the war you either had to believe that it was a good idea anyway or, in the case of an elected official, that you wouldn't be reelected if you came out against it.

I'm afraid I don't have much to add, Pope. Bad faith insurance cases are tough and even if your repair bills are extraordinary there usually isn't enough money involved to make it worthwhile to file suit. I don't think an attorney will take it as a contingency case, so the insurance company knows that it can drag its feet and make the pretrial process expensive and you'll likely run out of war chest - and if you do have a contingency attorney they'll just do it to the attorney. Good on you for sticking with it, though. A lot of times I think the insurance companies say no to close call or even not so close call claims just hoping the consumer will accept it. Years ago, the Insurance Commissioner used to be very helpful on these matters. I know Kriedler is supposed to be fairly consumer friendly and I think he may have to some degree gone against insurance companies on issues related to bad faith. It might be worth a call or threat of a call.

Are these routes that you're putting up with ten bolts and one piece of gear so desperate that there are only a few specific spots you could realistically stop and clip from and spacing the bolts differently would be impossible? I don't know anything about the climb under discussion, Kevbone's "style," or much else that may be relevant to this discussion, but when reading this I do feel compelled to offer a comment: based on my past experiences when bolting pitches and trying to eliminate or minimize bolts, I believe that I have often made mistakes by focusing on a desire to minimize bolts above the more sensible goal to use the obvious or sensible placements. I realize that the quote I am responding to was not proposing "minimize bolt counts" but, rather, "move bolts around to make the trad pro unnecessary." I wonder, though: had Kevbone tried to engineer the pitch in order to make a .75 camelot unneeded he likely would have ended up with something that feels unnatural and may even be needlessly scary - unless he placed the bolt next to the crack. (He tell us that the crack is in just where you want the pro.) If you are developing a pitch for repeat ascents, my choice is to do the best job you can. For a pitch that has ten bolts, I think bolting it so that it is easy to make the clips and so that they protect the difficult moves takes priority over eliminating the .75 camelot placement. I don't necessarily agree with Rudy's maxim here: that a bolted pitch at a sport area should not require trad pro. I was not happy to see somebody add unnecessary bolts to "Son of Jesus" at Little Si because the gear was good. Ten years hence, I am resigned to the fact that this was done and I won't call for chopping those unneeded bolts but I wouldn't suggest that anybody developing a ten bolt plus one camelot pitch move things around to eliminate need for the camelot or else just bite the bullet and bolt the crack. It is OK to carry a .75 camelot on a sport rack. At Ozone, it is probably OK that the guidebook says "bring ten draws and a .75 camelot to use between the 4th and 5th bolt." I agree with Will, though, that it is probably not ethically all that different to just go ahead and add the 11th bolt. But I, personally, probably wouldn't do it.

Maybe so, tomtom, but your own tactics leave at least as much to be desired where you drop your little barbs and then refuse to follow up or defend some broad proclamation. You actually think Obama and Biden smeared McCain as much as McCain and Palin smeared him? Go back to the paradigm thread and explain how it is that YOU haven't been the one who must have been hiding under a rock for the past year. JB is shrill, to be sure, but that isn't why you and Puget don't try to take and defend coherent positions in these threads. Lets see some discussion here!

Yup. We're always fully of happy thoughts following a cc.com bait and bash. I love you guys.

It definitely doesn't work that way around here, bill. I don't personally attack Fairweather or KK, for example, and their employ of insulting rhetoric is 10 to 1 compared to mine, but I certainly draw a lot of their vitriol. I see PP's point, to degree: the name calling is a turn off. But I think the imbalance in the political threads stems much more from the fact that some people don't want to have a real back and forth discussion than it does from perceived slight.

Two factors that may influence your choice of footwear are the rest of your itinerary and your budget. If you are on a year-long-discover-the-world trip you will likely be on a tight budget and you should know that you don't HAVE TO spend money on shoes for the Khumbu hike. I've seen German tourists crossing snowfields at 17,000' with wool socks pulled over their sandals for traction and they made it with all toes intact. Had weather been poor or there was a lot of new snow, these particular trekkers would have been willing to sit it out in a tea house for several days, however. This may not be your plan. If you are going there for this particular destination and if you have some pennies to spare, good shoes will treat you well.

Fair enough. Plenty of folks don't have the taste for the single malt. But don't tell me you're a "Baileys man."

Climbing has largely been a family affair for me. My mother was an avid hiker and birder and first took me on a hike up Mt. Monadnock at age 3 (my father grudgingly accompanied although he would rather have stayed home with the New York Times and our cousins were a no-show). At age eight my uncle drove me and my buddy up to Monadnock and dropped us off to camp overnight unsupervised. It was terrifying when the raccoons came in and raided in the middle of the night but we survived and made a successful summit bid the next day. My older brother took up rock climbing in college and showed me how to set a top-rope when I was 12. With a buddy, I then learned how to climb by reading Freedom of the Hills and going to the nearest crag and trying things. A couple of older guys showed us how not to kill ourselves. My brother took me to the Tetons when I was 15, and at 16 I swung leads in the Bugaboos. My wife and I met sort of over climbing. I've climbed in the Bugaboos with one nephew, and taken another to Mt. Erie for his introductory climbs. Here's my brother, nephew, and high school friend on top of Snowpatch Spire two years ago.

KK and Minx? Two of my favorite sprayers. And here's to Billcoe, Sobo, and PC13, too. MKPorwit and Kevbone? OK by me. Is this to an on-line drink-up only? OK: Cheers.

I don't know about change.com, but it doesn't look to me as if obama.com has changed that much since last week although I suppose it may just LOOK as comprehensive as before but have dropped all the substance. I wonder if the Washington Times is news you can believe in.

And I agree with Bug (big surprise). I think it is not only interesting, but how we perceive this election will affect American politics as we move forward.

We clearly need more of everyone trading slams around here, but do you dispute the premise that McCain ran a disgraceful campaign based in large part on smear and innuendo and that Obama mostly rose above it? Maybe you and TomTom can get together and cite examples of how Obama and Biden were just as lowlife as McCain and Palin? I'd like to see it.

Sobo, I get some of your point about labels but, in Michigan where I grew up (even in the liberal hotbed of Ann Arbor) any mixed race person who looked black at all would have been perceived as black. And in the Seattle neighborhood where I now live there were originally covenants barring blacks, jews, and people of Arab descent. In the 1950's I bet it would have caused a serious reaction had even Obama with his white mother moved in.

I didn't say they DIDN'T do it. But attack was clearly much more central to the McCain platform than it was to Obama's. We didn't hear a lot about the Keating scandal, for example, or McCain's "paling around with" G. Gordon Liddy, or that he crashed three jets. In fact, one could easily have watched TV news for the last year and not known anything about these stories. In addition, Obama almost completely avoided attacking Palin. Wisely, he stepped back and let her trip over herself. Obama certainly took advantage of a poor helpless George Bush, but here again I don't think there were lies told that even come close to the distortion of Obama's relaionship with Ayres, for example, or in the final days the assertion that he had taken a stand dramatically different from McCain on domestic coal.