ScottP

2nd and 3rd pitches of Rattletale 10a/b

Take a cue from the rats.

Goddamn! You can't see the forest for the trees!?! Woof!

He apparently fell from a small height onto someone else who was using a nail gun. The cops talked to the guy with the nail gun but determined it was an accident. I saw this on CNN this morning. The "resident expert" held up a tape measure and a drill bit and said, "You can see how long this nail is. It is pretty long. The guy is lucky, though he might have some neurological damage." No shit.

George Carlin's take on precognizance of death: "You might wonder why I would even suggest that someone can affect the manner and style of his death. Well, it's because of a mysterious and little-known stage of dying, the two-minute warning. Most people are not aware of it, but it does exist. Just as in football, two minutes before you die you receive an audible warning: "Two minutes! Get your shit together!" And the reason most people don't know about it is because the only ones who hear it are dead two minutes later. They never get a chance to tell us. But such a warning does exist, and I suggest that when it comes, you use your two minutes to entertain and go out big. If nothing else, deliver a two-minute speech. Pick a subject you feel passionate about, and just start talking. Begin low-key, but, with mounting passion, build to a rousing climax. Finally, in the last few seconds, scream at those around you, "If these words are not the truth, may God strike me dead!" He will. Then simply slump forward and fall to the floor. "

Be VERY cautious... I nearly burned my retinas pulling a pair of black panties off my first redhead.

A friend of mine was trying to fiddle in some pro while climbing wet rock on one of the pitches below the Tower on Serpentine Arete. He sketched and fell from about 15 feet up. Back pedaling down the slab, he hit the snowbank I was standing behind, bounced off the top and disappeared over the side. The rope zipped through my hand as I locked off the ATC I was using. He was't hurt, but I got second degree burns despite stuffing my palm in the snow once he had stopped falling and I was able to switch hands on the brake end.

CLAIM: "I went to Congress with the same intelligence. Congress saw the same intelligence I had, and they looked at exactly what I looked at." FACT – CONGRESS WAS OUTRAGED AT PRESENTATION BY THE WHITE HOUSE: The New Republic reported, "Senators were outraged to find that intelligence info given to them omitted the qualifications and countervailing evidence that had characterized the classified version and played up the claims that strengthened the administration's case for war." According to Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA), many House members were only convinced to support the war after the Administration "showed them a photograph of a small, unmanned airplane spraying a liquid in what appeared to be a test for delivering chemical and biological agents," despite the U.S. Air Force telling the Administration it "sharply disputed the notion that Iraq's UAVs were being designed as attack weapons." CLAIM: "The budget I just proposed to the Congress cuts the deficit in half in five years." FACT – WHITE HOUSE ESTIMATES OMIT INEVITABLE COSTS: The President's proposal to cut the deficit in half deliberately "omits a number of likely costs" such as the continued cost of Iraq and its own defense spending plans. All told, he is proposing roughly $3 trillion in new tax cuts and spending, including $1 trillion to make his tax cuts permanent, $70 billion for the Alternative Minimum Tax, and $50 billion more for war in Iraq. The result is that the deficit is predicted to be "in the range of $500 billion in 2009" – not even near half of what it currently is. CLAIM: "I think, if I might remind you that in my language I called it a grave and gathering threat, but I don't want to get into word contests." FACT – BUSH MADE FAR MORE DIRE STATEMENTS BEFORE THE WAR: While the President did call Iraq a "grave and gathering" threat, that was not all he said. On 11/23/02, he said Iraq posed a "unique and urgent threat." On 1/3/03 he said "Iraq is a threat to any American." On 10/28/02 he said Iraq was "a real and dangerous threat" to America. On 10/2/02 he said, "The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency" and that Iraq posed "a grave threat" to America.

Isn't the Wall Street Journal generally a non-photo publication?

"The problem with conservatives is they want it both ways or try to change the rules to suit their own ends."

In related news, Secret Service agents stormed a meeting of opponents of the Brightwater Sewage Treatement Project in a Seattle suburb after receiving reports of idle threats against shit...

I meant it to go in the Rapture thread.

According to this map, it seems you could come in from the Chiwawa or White River. This link doesn't show the Chiwawa or White River roads as being affected.

I think this is it:

Yeah, lot's of chickenheads.

Free Cat (***) on Hag Crag was looking pretty green last time I was up there, as was Bravo Jean Marc (**), which, in my opinion is a pretty good pitch.

There was a letter to the editor in the Seattle Times complaining that people who contribute to environmental causes should not be referred to as philanthropists because they aren't contributing to humanity. It seems there is considerable disconnect out there between the importance of a healthy environment and the sustainability of life on this planet. Providing money to help maintain clean air and water isn't a humanitarian gesture?

oops

Power Places for me are where there is an energy from the surroundings or past events. I'm with MattP on El Cap Meadows,(dawn or dusk.) Another place for me is standing on the knoll looking down past the memorial at the Little Bighorn Battlefield. White markers in twos and threes scattered from the draw up the slope to the final cluster where the last stand occured was a very powerful place.

I climbed the western most summit about 20 years ago (aided a 30 foot pinnacle on a couple of knifeblades and a few small nuts after a couple thousand feet of scrambling.) Checked out the main wall on the way up and down. There is a steep gully/chasm that separates the scrambling from the wall. I noticed a corner of sorts that starts deep within the chasm and ascends to a fairly large, flat ledge. From there it looks like steep cracks and face climbing for many pitches. The rock looked reasonable.

I'd like to see him fight a grown male silverback.

RatFink:

Go left when you can from the base of the cables (as you step off) and follow the path of least resistance. My recollection is it's less than an hour from base of cables to base of route. My friend Rob woke up during the night at the base to find a bear hanging from a lieback hold 40 feet up the start, swiping at the food bag Rob had hung. Rob pitched a rock at the bear, nailing it in the back. The bear lost it's grip and decked. Rob went back to sleep only to wake again later to find the bear yarding on the fixed rope with his teeth. Another rock and the bear split again. When Rob grabbed the fixed rope in the morning, the remnants of his food rained down from the shredded bag the bear had eventually managed to get.