JayB

I also think that any oversight committee would have to concern itself with mitigating climber impact on the landscape as one of its primary missions, as that, not bolting next to cracks, etc, is their primary concern. I would also be in favor of having this thread intensely moderated to keep superfluous commentary to a minimum....

I also think that what the committee has achieved in Eldo is impressive and would be worth considering in areas with an established climbing history, such as Index, Leavenworth, and even Vantage. Speaking of Eldo, if I am not mistaken Derek Hersey's "To RP or Not to Be" just saw its second and third free ascents after all of these years. Bolting that particular line would have been unthinkable, but replacing old fixed hardware with reliable modern gear and allowing the development of selected new bolted lines is not. Any management plan that provides for the preservation of rated X death routes, classic gear climbs, and for the development of bolted moderates in the same area, without any impinging upon the other - seems like a model worth considering. Seems like the FCCC is already in place in Vantage and cold possibly be a springboard for such a thing, a partnership or at least a dialogue between local activists and the land managers in the Tieton might not be a bad idea, and I'm sure that some such group would be easy enough to put together for places like Index. If nothing else perhaps groups like the FCCC and the Access fund could draw up proposals for what is and is not acceptable in terms of new route development in each particular area that would set some sort of a standard to guide the practice in each area that takes into account the ethics and idiosyncracies of each place. I don't think the model would work especially well in a new area, in that the pool of climbers with firsthand knowledge of the area would necessarily be limited to a rather small cadre, and secondly I doubt that very many people would be willing to endure both the hard work required to establish new routes and the ordeal of vetting their ideas before a committee.

I think the chances of generating a concensus on moderation are slim, so my suggestion to the mods is to moderate this little corner of cc.com as you see fit, and let it be known in that manner what's kosher and what isn't...

Hey - the thoughtful discussion and considerate replies lasted for at least 1/2 a day before the cc.com equivalent of "Groundhog Day" materialized once again. I had hoped for more, but this might be a new record. Let's build on that momentum - in a different thread, when the time comes.

Static Point: -Everything on Spencer's Spaceport up to and including American Pie has been restored. -Anchor below crux pitch on online could be upgraded with at least one modern stainless bolt. -Just about every bolt on offline below the second to last pitch. Excess 1/4" bolts left over after original re-bolting could be popped out on the next pitch. -Quicklinks on the hangers at the uppermost set of anchors where Online/Offline meet would eliminate the sling cluster there. -Artie-Rip could be upgraded with modern hardware for the bold mofos.

Probably not, but it might be a good one for another thread in THE NEW ROCK CLIMBING FORUM at some point.....

Good point. What I really meant to say, but did so quite poorly, was that dialogues that focus on concrete matters - whatever they may be- would probably be more constructive, be they about bolts, routes, access, future crag development, etc, etc, etc. Inasmuch as people want to get into entirely philosophical discussions about bolting, those have their place, but if they might require both heavier moderation and a greater commitment to civility than discussions centered on concrete topics. Speaking of concrete topics, anyone know what the deal is with the bolted route(s) on Garfield?

Nice!

It should be possible to limit the discussion of specific bolts/routes the the pro's and cons of the specific bolts/routes in question. If someone finds an sport-bolted clip up in an area with a longstanding trad ethic, and they are an adult, they should be able to limit their commentary to something along the lines of "I found such and such a line bolted at such and such a crag. This line is completely inconsistent with the ethic that has prevailed at this area for 40 years, impinges upon such and such a naturally protected line, and should therefore be removed." or "I recognize the line is inconsistent with the local ethics but it should be left alone for the following reasons, etc, etc." If someone wants to participate by posting something along the lines of "Some worthless piece of shit pussy put some (*&^ing bolts up and such and such a crag and I going to rip their head off and shit down their dickless throats if I find out who it is.." they should feel free to do so in Spray. FWIW, I think that the recent discussions concerning the bolts in Oregon at Flagstone and elsewhere have been pretty civil, despite the wildly divergent viewpoints expressed within them. Should be possible to achieve here with appropriate moderation. I think that what goes for crags could also go for forums. Some forums have been and should be a free-for-all, while others might actually evolve a more restrained ethic if the right precedent is established and enforced.

Word. I think that Peter Puget and other mods might would be willing to apply the aforementioned heavy hand in "THE NEW ROCKCLIMBING FORUM" so that there will be at least one area in which constructive dialogues can take place amongst folks with diverging viewpoints while the usual stuff goes on elsewhere. Hell, make me a mod and I will be happy to lend a hand to the moderation efforts in that forum.

Post information about suspect anchors or old hardware in need of an upgrade, and/or updates about suspect anchors that have been replaced here.

Fact is, they do exist. And they do get erased. As a family man who doesn't get to climb as much as he wishes, it's a pain in the arse to spend a day doing restoration. I spent a day with Retro doing this kind of work and it required all day just to clean up two routes. I'd much rather be climbing. Restoration (the forum that will never exist, due to predispositions of some of our moderators) could certainly include discussion on upgrading old fixed anchors. Good idea. I have just started such a thread in THE NEW ROCK CLIMBING FORUM. Post info about suspect anchors there.

As far as restoration is concerned, I can't recall a time when there was ever anything but broad support for the notion that bolts should not be added to existing lines, or chopping those that are. As far as bolting is concerned, has there really been a swarm of bosch-toting gym climbers bolting every bold line in the state into oblivion? How many bold lines have actually been retrobolted in such a manner since the inception of this line? 1? 2? How many of those bolts are still in place? It seems to me that there's pretty broad agreement on these matters, as there is for the notion that sport-bolting should be confined to areas with an established sport-ethic like Exit 38 and Vantage as well. Is there someone putting up bolt-every-six-feet clip ups at Darrington, Static Point, Index, Castle-Rock, WA Pass, the Stuart Range, etc. etc. etc. that I am not aware of? The fact of the matter is that there aren't, and if there were, there would be almost no opposition to chopping them. All of which makes me wonder why the two of you are still bothering with the anti-bolting Jeremiads at this date. As far as restoration is concerned, I wouldn't mind seeing a list of routes in need of restoration myself. In this case, though, it would be a list of routes sporting rusty 1/4"ers that could use replacing and a way to track which of these routes have been taken care of.

Jesus dude. Glad you made it out and best wishes on a speedy recovery.

I am sure that my evil homonym has got your back on this one. Alas, I too will have to pass the baton. If only The Goat were still here to carry the torch....

Oh - and count me in for the meeting as well.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! No one can discredit some of the positions he believes in as effectively has he can! No banning!!!!!!!!! I would however be in favor of giving the guy his own PERMANENT ANTI-BOLTING TIRADE FORUM to serve as a vehicle to give his viewpoints on this topic even more exposure.

I wouldn't deny that there may be officials in this administration who have an interest in enriching themselves and their cronies by manipulating public policy in favor of their favorite industry, whatever that may be. I think that such individuals have been present in every single government established in this country since Jamestown, and will be present until this country no longer exists. Ditto for the rest of the world. I also suspect they are smart enough to know that these days odds of doing so successfully decrease in direct proportion to the exposure that their efforts get in the media. That's why the said individuals use things like riders in appropriations bills to get tax breaks, errect tarrif barriers against competition, waive costly regulations and other assorted, low profile methods to get what they want in Washington. These small measures increase operating profit at the public's expense far more reliably and immediately than following the form-sinister-ubersecret-cabal-and-decieve-congress-and-the-pentagon-into-doing-our-bidding method. Having an interest in manipulating public affairs for private advantage is nothing new. The previous statement is very close to Ambrose Bierce's definition of Politics in "The Devils Dictionary." However, having an interest in hijacking the government to serve one's private ends is one thing, being both capable and guilty of it in practice is quite another. Motive does not equal guilt, and while I agree that there's a motive here, no one - despite the presence of scores of groups in congress, the media, NGO's, etc that are literally desperate to discredit and unseat the administration by any means at their disposal - has yet to come forward with any legitimate evidence whatsoever to support the outlandish claim that there's a coterie of oilmen acting in collusion with the Pentagon, the President, and Congress to hijack the apparatus of the American government and seize Iraqi oilfields by force for their own personal benefit. Some Oil execs may fantasize about such things late at night, but the odds of them realizing their fantasy are low enough to put anyone that believes such a thing can occur without anyone getting ahold of incriminating evidence, or more importantly that the institutional safeguards built into the structure of the US Government are weak and feckless enough to permit such a brazen abuse of power (changing the wording on an energy bill yes, sending 150,000 troops and pursuading Congress tho spend hundreds of billions of dollars on behalf of your private crusade - uh - no), puts one in very strange company indeed. That's a theory that I would only expect to hear amongst Larouche supporters off in the ideological fever swamps. I could never quite picture you as a subsriber to "The New Federalist," but who knows.....

Why did the Democrats endorse the action with a nearly unanimous vote then? Did the figures in the administration from the oil business have any less interest in and potential to gain from the affair when the matter was brought to a vote? Why Blair? Why Pereya? Why the Vilnius group? Any plausible action would not only have to have factual evidence to support it, but also explain their motivations and behavior in a credible manner. This is but one of the many reasons why the Cabal theory is unconvincing.

yes, that is one explanation. You can explain the fact that when you depress the spacebar on your keyboard, little invisible flying elves that live inside your computer make it move across the screen. That is one explanation for the phenomena. Somone may even believe that, but that doesn't mean anyone else should in the absence of factual evidence to support such a claim. Argument by conjecture is not a winning strategy IMO. I have actually addressed that several times, e.g. "Then there's the still more ludicrous claim that some nefarious oil company cabal orchestrated the war behind the scenes - so farfetched that you've probably got Oliver Stone shaking his head in disbelief - despite the open vote in Congress in which both parties in both houses overwhelmingly authorized the President to act. The Oil Cabal theory would also have to account for the numerous UN resolutions passed in an effort to address the Iraqi situation, because everyone knows that China and Russia were on the payroll and all about providing diplomatic cover that the cabal could use as a pretext for ultimately seizing the oil. Ditto for 1440" I mean, it's not like there are any checks and balances built into the Constitution that could possibly curtail anyones efforts to use the public office of the Presidency for private advantage. That was a phenomenon wholly unknown in all of the centuries prior to the arrival of the Constitution, so the fellows drafting the document naturally failed to address such things and left us with a prostrate Congress that is a mere supplicant before anyone who wants to abuse the office to make a buck. Now I get it, that's why Congress, including most of the Democratic candidates, authorized the resolution that authorized the President to use force against Iraq. All in the oil company's pocket. That's also why Tony Blair argued so passionately for intervention. Everyone knows he's a right-wing hack put in place to serve as a mouthpiece for American oil interests. Ditto for Jose Pereya, and all of the heads of state in the Vilnius group. Besides, if the Democrats ever got wind of such a plan, they would never think to publicize it because they have no interest whatsoever in regaining the office of the presidency on the basis of hard, facutal evidence documenting the conspiracy. The fact that they are well on the way to nominating Dean as their front runner gives some credence to this notion, but still. And I mean, Nixon was able to execute a simple burglery in perfect secrecy, and Clinton was able to engage in private sex acts in the oval office without anyone ever knowing, so it's pretty likely that an administration could manipulate the entire edifice of the American government and the millitary to serve their every whim as part of secret plot to enrich themselves without any evidence of their plan coming to light. I mean, it's not like Cheney, Bush, and Rumsfeld have net worths in the tens of millions of dollars, and no one in the administration was making any money in the private sector, so it makes quite a bit of sense that they'd have to use the Oval Office to do so. Much less effort than investing their assets and letting compound interest take over. Stong theory, impeccable evidence, and some very strong arguments out there to support j_b's claim. I would the expect Black Hellicopter crowd to believe such things, but am very surprised that the two of you do. Oh well. At least we can agree that Exit 38 is the state's premier climbing destination, so that's something.

Actually, I was arguing against the notion that all every deployment or use of US forces is driven by solely by economic motives. Yeah, Afhganistan, the Balkans, Somalia - all about getting our hands on the abundance of vital resources that they control. Plausible claim. My bad. I just hope that one day we recoup the scores of billions that we have invested in getting our hands on that North Korean crude that The Dear Leader has been trying to keep from us for all of these decades. Yes, the abundance of oil in the Middle East is what endowed the Middle East with its strategic significance, but to assert that the invasion of Iraq was precipitated solely by the desire to physically monopolize a resource that we can aquire in adequate quantities at a much lower cost on the open market, and had nothing whatsoever to do with the actions of the regime in power goes beyond silly and into the realm of willful delusion in order to preserve the Manichean "Rest of the World Good, America Bad" status quo in ones own head. The first of the specific claims that the Left flank has been making is that the US invaded Iraq to control the oil, with the assumption being that there would be a net economic benefit that we derived from the action that would exceed the cost. As I showed above, that is an impossibilty, and no one has put forth any figures or arguments that come anywhere close to addressing, much less disproving this claim. Then there's the small matter having to do with the 1991 war. We had the 500,000 troops on the ground and a favorable geopolitical environment to operate in, but we left the country in Saddam's hands because....we were just there to seize his oil. Makes sense. Makes more sense that a coalition force of Europeans and Arabs would send there troops over to lend a hand in that particular effort since everyone knew that seizing the oil was our sole policy objective. Moreover, if all the US wanted was access to the oil and had no concern whatsoever about what Hussein would do with the proceeds, it would have been far simpler and far more logical to strike up a deal with him, buy all of the oil he could pump, and let others deal with the consequences. Surely if Hussein were to rearm, none of his neighbors in the region would become the least bit concerned about there own safety, and begin arming themselves to the hilt in response. There is cetainly no history of armed conflict in the region, so that would be a silly thing to worry about. Never happen. Saddam rearms after years of systematic humiliation, and he'll take up kintting and crosswords to occupy himself and will never use them against anyone, and if he does its not like anyone would acutally die. Likely outcome. Then there's the still more ludicrous claim that some nefarious oil company cabal orchestrated the war behind the scenes - so farfetched that you've probably got Oliver Stone shaking his head in disbelief - despite the open vote in Congress in which both parties in both houses overwhelmingly authorized the President to act. The Oil Cabal theory would also have to account for the numerous UN resolutions passed in an effort to address the Iraqi situation, because everyone knows that China and Russia were on the payroll and all about providing diplomatic cover that the cabal could use as a pretext for ultimately seizing the oil. Ditto for 1440. Who is the silly one here again?

What course of action (or inaction) would you all have endorsed? Seems like you've got three options; abandoning the efforts at containment altogether, continuing the embargo, or removing Hussein by force. There are costs and benefits associated with each option, but none is risk or cost free. If I recall correctly, when confronted with the necessety of making concrete choices, it seemed as though the preferred option on the Left was to continue the embargo in some form, even though the left had spent the previous decade rightfully decrying the humanitarian costs of the embargo. But simply ending the embargo and walking away while covering our eyes (the only option left if you want to end the embargo and have ruled out the use of force to remove Hussein) and ears to the potential consequences and chanting "La La La La La" doesn't seem to be an especially well informed or nuanced approach to the problem either.

Nimitz Class: CVN-71 Theodore Roosevelt Displacement: 96,358 tons Length: 1,040 feet Beam: 134 feet Speed: 30 knots Power plant: Two nuclear reactors, four steam turbines, four shafts, 280,00 shaft horsepower. Aircraft: 90 Armament: Sea Sparrow missiles Four Phalanx anti-missile guns

Phalanx: "Close-In Weapon System (CIWS) Phalanx is a fast reaction, rapid fire 20mm gun system. It provides R.A.N. Surface Units with a terminal defence against anti-ship missiles. It is designed to engage anti-ship cruise missiles and fixed wing aircraft at close range. Phalanx automatically engages functions normally performed by independent systems such as search, detection, threat evaluation, aquisition, track, firing, target destruction, kill assessment and cease fire. Weight - 13,600 pounds Gun Type M-61A1 Gatling Rate of Fire - 4,500 Rounds per minute Magazine Capacity - 1550 Rounds Calibre - 20mm Ammunition - Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot (APDS), Depleted uranium sub-calibre. Penetrator converted to Tungsten in 1988. Sensors - Self contained search and track radar. " "Features: Phalanx provides ships of the U.S. Navy with a "last-chance" defense against anti-ship missiles and littoral warfare threats that have penetrated other fleet defenses. Phalanx automatically detects, tracks and engages anti-air warfare threats such as anti-ship missiles and aircraft, while the Block 1B's man-in-the-loop system counters the emerging littoral warfare threat. This new threat includes small,high-speed surface craft, small terrorist aircraft, helicopters and surface mines. Phalanx accomplishes these engagements via an advanced search and track radar system integrated with a stabilized, forward looking infra-red (FLIR) detector. This integrated FLIR provides Phalanx with an unique multi-spectral detect and track capability for littoral warfare threats and dramatically improves the existing anti-air warfare capability. Block 1B also incorporates new Optimized Gun Barrels which provide improved barrel life, improved round dispersion and increased engagement ranges."

Aren't most destoyers equiped with something called a "Phalanx?" From what I recall its a system composed of some sort of computer controlled mega-round machine gun type deal for knocking down inbound airborne stuff at close range. Could be for planes but I seem to remember it being dedicated to missile defense...