JayB

Niiiiiiiiice. It was interesting for me to hear what he had to say after being in the thick of it for another year.

Not claiming either - but a contrary view seems to dominate the popular commentary around the world.

Could be a time cycle/sourcing difference. Info released when the Euro news bureaus are humming, etc. Speaking of reporting, one of the first things that my best friend told me when he got back from Iraq was that if his unit made it to a certain time without any explosions in their territory, they felt pretty confident that it'd be a quiet day, as any carnage that ensued after that point would be too late to make much of an impact in the Western daily news cycle.

And you know this is factually accurate how? Just following the news. Never encountered any stories of such events happening, and given the scale and tempo of Canadian deployments there, it seems unlikely that incidents where several civilians are killed at once will occur, and it's still more unlikely that such killings would occur with the frequency and scale that would be likely to serve as an effective transnational rallying cry for a Jihad against Canada. My larger point here is that for some reason people assume that Islamist's agenda is limited to reacting to specific, concrete grievances that have their origin in particular elements of US or Western foreign policy. This is certainly part of the story, but if you aquaint yourself with the history of the Islamic peoples and the terrorist's own literature it's clear that the sense of grievance that animates most Muslims has roots that go back for centuries, and the scope of the policy objectives that Islamic terrorists are persuing is much grander than simple retribution in response to Western policies of the last 30 years or so. Albert Hourani's "A History of the Arab Peoples" is a good place to start for anyone interested in a general history.

I am hardly a confirmed enemy of bolting, but if a leader who's competent at the route's overall grade could handle the first pitch without the bolts, and engaging in the bolting would substantially alter the character of the entire route, then that's two strikes against the potentially hypothetical bolts. The other factor to consider is whether having abundant bolting down low might lure in a leader who's likely to have his ass handed to him on the upper pitches. Heavy bolting also seems pretty contrary to the longstanding "ethic" of slab climbing, in which the mental fortitude required to run it out has been a much greater "part of the game" than in sport climbing, where for most of us the challenge is way more physical than mental most of the time. I like sport-climbing, but to me bolting the hell out of slabs is a lot like chipping jugs onto a sport route - in both cases you are eliminating the central challenge of the discipline.

Quite the dissappointing paucity of posts by the grand-champions. I'm note even asking for new material. Just cut and paste the good stuff here after you hit the "submit" button over at the Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, etc.

Probably more effective than killing thousands of innocent civilians will be at protecting us from future terrorist attacks.....next dumb question please. Canadian forces have yet to inadvertently kill any civilians in the course of their operations in Afghanistan, so it stands to reason that perhaps something other than outrage driven by the sight of Afgan civilians killed by Canadian forces may have been motivating the fellows who wanted to set-off the explosives in Toronto.

I'm really, really looking forward to reading the responses to this thread. TREETOAD, Fear-and-Greed, etc - show your stuff.

I noticed that statistic too. Interesting. Might be the single most impressive statistic that Canada has been able to muster in the decades long crusade to differentiate themselves from the cretinous hordes lurking to the South. I'm sorry that I don't have the time to respond to your question with anything other than a question of my own, which is, do you think that by withdrawing from Afghanistan, Canada could secure itself lasting immunity from terrorist attacks of this sort?

a sort of suicide fat fuckers. still, I remember when america was fit and thin, a quiet advertising brainwashing over a generation and BOOM!!! sleeper cells under the golden arches!! Ronnie Rat = Osama Bin Burger. No one has a choice when it comes to important things, i.e. your last election, hijacked, lied to, and taken down the garden path. Statcan Obesity Data for the GWN Canadian Obesity Stats

I'm not an authority on Toyota Truck/4Runner related camping modification trends, so I'm not sure. I just thought that RedBeard would get his feelings hurt if his initial query was met with something besides a lame joke (response #2) and useless information (response #1).

You can probably also modify the 4Runner to suit your camping needs pretty well by trading it in for a Taco with a canopy.

Never seen/heard of anyone rigging up the 4Runner Camper Mod, but never fear. The car camping folks have got you covered with this bitchen tent-car hybrid. "Finally - a shelter that combines the ease and convenience of setting up a tent AND that lovely car-interior ambience you've come to expect when you're crashing at a trailhead."

Just scrolling through the "Google News" feed for Canada, actually. Also some coverage on NPR this afternoon. So give me your nuanced analysis of why these men wanted to detonate a large explosive device in a major Canadian city. The global consensus seemed to be that the US had it coming on account of it's foreign policy, and Canada has been at pains to differentiate it's foreign policy for nearly 30-40 years, so what do you think motivated them to initiate this plot?

Since the received wisdom around the world is that every bombing of the US and/or attack on its citizens is a just, fully warranted, and legitimate response to American foreign policy, how do you explain the planned attack on Canada?

Dude - Carl. What is going on down there in SoCal? The cj001f Misanthropy Index © has been trending higher ever since you've made the move down there. Too much sunshine wreaking havoc with the Scandanavian constitution? BTW - how did pecs manage to work their way into this counter-rant?

Dude - Carl. What is going on down there in SoCal? The cj001f Misanthropy Index © has been trending higher ever since you've made the move down there. Too much sunshine wreaking havoc with the Scandanavian constitution?

So could someone point out the injury? There's got to be an ortho/radiologist amongst the lurker hordes.

Good rant but the odds are pretty high that at least some non-climbing friends and family will still continue to judge the hell out of the risks you take and the decisions you make. My Mom grudgingly accepted the way things are quite a while ago, but nonetheless makes it a point to inform me that she will spit on my grave if I get killed climbing. Then there are the sketchy-looking folks that look like they're at risk of killing themselves. Say something or no? Always a tough call. I've had people come over and provide some unsolicited, unnecessary, and incorrect advice before and it annoyed the hell out of me, but when I was just getting started, there were at least two occaisions where someone looked at what we were doing, got concerned, and spoke up. I was embarassed but ultimately grateful that they did so. For some reason there seems to be something about climbing that just makes it tougher to do this sort of thing.

The only initiative I would vote "Yes" on is an initiative that would terminate the initiative/referendum process once and for all in Washington. Good way for the legislature to chicken-out of making tough calls on the record by "letting the people decide," and one hell of a bad way to make policy.

It's already been 10 minutes since I posted that to troll Dru and I have yet to get a response, so this is clearly a damning failure of my own foreign policy.

Wonder what color the threat level is for this at DHS.

I suspect that we'll find that the root cause of the discontent that spurred the Canadian chaps to acquire 3 tons of ammonium nitrate with intent to deliver is most likely their inability to marry one another in the United States.

...clearly needs to be re-evaluated in light of this incident. Thankfully decorum prevents me from smugly suggesting that the citizens of Canada engage in a protracted bout of vocal auto-flagellation, soul-searching, and self-recrimination, in the wake of this occurence.

Both the Royal Columns, and this time of year, are incredibly bad for rattlers. I think a buddy and I ran into no less than 30 on a single walk off. "Hey - watch out for the rattler over there!" [rattle] "This one?" [rattle] "No, it was a couple of feet to the left." "Okay" [rattle] Insane. It was like being in the middle of a bad cross between the "Snake Pit" scene in Indiana Jones, and a Monty Python skit.