JayB

Kosovo, Somalia, Haiti (or are we talking about suntan oil)? And....Sudan actually has quite a bit of oil. Several countries that are opposing any action to reign in the janjaweed millitias there have significant oil interests in that country - but I have yet to hear any recriminations of their actions or indictments of their motives from the "No Blood for Oil" crowd. I would say that the usual bureaucratic inertia and in Europe - remember the Balkans? -and the fact that we have no significant millitary assets to spare at the moment are more significant factors in the perpetuation of this genocide than anything else. The Euros have hundreds of thousands of troops engaged in nothing more consequential than guarding the local cafe but don't look for them to deploy any time soon.

If you feel bad - just think about the house or the Senate. Oh wait...

I remember spending an entire summer working 12 hour shifts in a factory, then coming back to campus and interacting with someone who billed themselves as a "labor activist." The guy was wearing all black, part of which included a turtleneck, had never held a tool in his hand from what I could tell, and certainly had never spent any time working in a production environment, and I could not help but think that the moment that this "labor activist" showed up on the factory floor and began to lecture/attempt to "raise their consciousness" of his erstwhile constituents, they would either ridicule him, or kick the living shit out of him, and more likely do both. This - in a nutshell - summarizes the fundamental problem that the Democrats face as a party. You cannot hold a major portion of the electorate in thinly veiled contempt, address them with condescension, AND expect them to vote for you. Clinton seemed to understand this.

See above.

See above.

Deep breaths people.In. Out. Repeat.

If you apply that "dehydration rule" to states above the Mason Dixon line that's pretty accurate.

OMFG that should be a hillarious episode. I hope that it includes Sean "The Ambassador" Penn as well.

"It is our responsibility as scientists to look at the data in an unbiased way, and draw whatever conclusions follow. When we discover a mistake, we admit it, learn from it, and perhaps discover once again the value of caution." Good luck. My prediction is that this will have all the impact of the "Hobbit" discovery has had on the field of "Creation Science," which is to say none whatsoever, because ideology has played at least as significant a role as data in the climate change debate. Ditto for genetically engineered crops, etc.

Only a small fraction of the offensive assets that we would actually use against Iran in this situation are engaged in Iraq, so this is a puzzling conjecture. By this logic, if we removed all of our troops from Iraq and brought them home, the Iranians would feel threatened by our millitary capabilities in ways that they currently are not. What is incredible is the notion that ground forces would be the first thing that the US would deploy against nuclear installations when we have cruise missiles, precision guided bombs designed specifically to destroy hardened targets, etc that are a better match for this set of objectives. If you were to argue that diplomatic rifts with Europe have made it more difficult to apply pressure on the Iranians, this would be a more reasonable statement, but there has never, ever been any determination on Europe's part to do anything other than occaisionally scold them in public while continuing to do business with them in private, so the odds that Europe would help us strongarm Iran into compliance even if we hadn't invaded Iraq are slim indeed. Like it or not, the only thing that is going to slow the Iranian nuclear program down is precision strikes, a la' Isreal's strikes against the Osirak complex. Would you support such a move as a last resort after conventional diplomacy failed? If not, then your criticism of the Iraq War on the grounds you cited above ring rather hollow.

Once any commodity is sold it becomes available to the buyer who makes the highest bid. Period. Once supertanker leave the dock in Iran the Iranians really have no control whatsoever over who eventually owns it. They sell it to buyer A, who sells it to buyer B, etc, etc, and eventually it ends up in the hands of the highest bidder. The odds of the Iranians shutting off the taps when the price of oil is at a 20 year high are especially remote, and the rest of OPEC remembers very well what happened after the last embargo, when a combination of reduced demand as a result of an oil-shock induced slowdown in economic activity, increased energy efficiency, and a spike in supply brought on by a surge in exploration and development combined to make the price of oil implode. Anyone who thinks that the rest of the Middle East is going to sign on for that again, especially for the sake of a country ruled by mullah's practicing a brand of Islam that they hold in disregard, if not contempt, is remote indeed. Plus there's the fact that Iran's population is not especially fond of their leaders, none of whom are anxious to stoke the fires of popular unrest by making the economic situation in their country any worse than it already is.

For beta there's www.climbingboulder.com - not sure about discussion forums there. There's also regional forums at www.rockclimbing.com that includes the rockies. Also a fair number of folks from CO post on rec.climbing.

I have an older Toyota - 1995 4WD extra-cab. How much does the labor run for installation on the air-lockers?

I have also wound up in ditches at least 3 times so I am very open to suggestions...

BTW - anyone out there put an air-locker on as an aftermarket mod? Just wondering what the damage is. I figure about $1500-2000 but would be pleasantly surprised if it can be done for less.

Yes.

Yeah - in a perfect world I would add an ARB air-locker to the rear differential, but the chains will have to do for now. I have been putting chains on the front for drives that primarily uphill, and on the rear for drives that are primarily downhill. My reasoning for this arrangement is that on uphills I want the chains to help move the vehicle forward, and having the most traction under the wheels bearing the most weight seemed to make sense, and the traction up front seems to enable quick corrections of fishtailing on climbs. I put the chains on the rear tires when I am heading mostly downhill, as in that case I am most worried about being able to stop as opposed to being able to go, and have reasoned that having traction up front and nothing on the back while gravity is moving you downhill could cause a quick 180 if the rear wheels were to break loose - but I will change my ways if it turns out what I have been doing for years and years is less safe than what other people have suggested. I've only used chains on one axle at a time because that's all I've ever had.

I am touched. From what little I have gleaned about your identity when not disparaging your politics over the years, I got the idea that you climb rock at a pretty high level, but don't much care for alpine climbing and/or winter activities that would require much mountain travel in the winter. Yet this chain-quip thing hints at such endeavors. Interesting...

Sexual Chocolate: Here is it, comrade. Whenever you get the urge to post a passive-aggressive quip in another forum, link to this thread and fire away. Speaking of which, that new variation on the pot-kettle riff that you deployed against Iaxx was quite inspired. I sincerely hope that you will grace this thread with remarks, retorts, and rejoinders that are laced with a subtle malice of equal caliber.

I have made a special purpose post in spray so that you can do the passive-aggressive quip thing there.

As humorous as it was useful, Choco. Thanks.

You Suck and You Must Be Punished....

Well - the times that stand out were: A couple of (snow-filled) solo-ditch extractions. One or two steep adobe-mud covered grades in southeastern Utah. Hiking out to the trialhead after a winter overnight and dealing with about a foot of new on the road. The mother of all traction related debacles involved driving over a sustained dip in a logging road which was concealed by a 3-inch ice-layer , and having the whole truck drop in up to the headlights in late season depth hoar - while it was snowing heavily. By the time I got out of the trench and back onto the road there was nearly a foot of new on the road. Thankfully the snow-banks were pretty high on either side of the road and I was able to carry quite a bit of momentum up the hills. I think that in every case good judgement would have been quite a bit more helpful than a good set of chains, but I have given up on acquiring perfect judgement so chains it is. Looking into one of the models pictured here: http://www.tirechain.com/31X10.50-15LT.htm and leaning towards the "Diamond Heavy Duty," models as the best compromise between ease of use and maximum traction.

I have the cable chains for my Toyota pickup right now, but have been in a few situations where the combination of cable-chains on the front wheel and 4-low has been just barely adequate. So - I am planning to get some real chains for my truck for the times when the going gets really nasty. For those of you who own or have owned a burly set of chains, has your experience been that they are all pretty much the same, or is there a brand that is actually superior to the others in terms of ease of use and traction improvement?