Jake

not. dont get caught. Yeah - air dropping food in the Wilderness seems like such a dastardly act. The damage to the environment is unimaginable!

"I don't think this rope is gonna hold a fall now that you knocked that loose rock down on it."

Tele_nut has some valid insight that more people might share if they were in his situation. I don't agree with all of it, but most of it is right on. On the other hand, though, icky and scary are cool adjectives. I'll have to use 'em more often.

"AMY GOODMAN: That's very, very good. Robert, you have been writing about an army of thousands of mercenaries that have been appearing in Iraq's major cities many of them former British and U.S. soldiers hired by the occupying authorities, Anglo-American authorities, and by dozens of companies."

Yeah sure, heinous stuff like this has happened forever. Its just really disapointing that people do it. How do you turn into something like what these people are? Its not like the people in that car were personally responisble for something personal - like killing their child or something. They were just driving down the street trying to stay out of trouble. Can't watch the TV of it - and not just cause its Americans - that kinda stuff happening to anybody is messed up. Makes me wanna smash my tv with a stick or something.

Man, I saw those videos on CNN, fucking nasty. They burn the people's car then stone em then hang em from bridges and cheer - and its little kids doing it too. Those people are less than human. Their views on the world, religion, and it seems like pretty much everything are fucked up. Disgusting. Too bad the army wasn't there (though the media managed to make it) to shoot the shit outa them.

Hey cool, this thread isn't endless partisan bickering... yet. There are many good points here - I don't think anybody is totally happy with the way things are - there are always probs. One thing I did notice about the foreign aid thought though is that the US spends WAY LESS per capita on foreign aid than other developed countries - I can't find a good link right now but there are good charts out there on this. Also, I don't think Presidents have much impact impact on the economy one way or another. Clinton didn't somehow create huge growth, Bush didn't cost everybody jobs, and his policies haven't really done much to contribute to the apparent recent improvement. As for losing jobs overseas, that's the way its gonna be. I don't really like it, but there isn't really any alternative. We can go the protectionist route, but what good is that really gonna do? Isolated parts of the economy don't really help anyone that much. Sure certain areas are good to protect, but extensive protection is obviously bad. So we're stuck with industrial and an increasing amount of technology based jobs going overseas. We have to focus on our competitive advantage - whatever it is we do best - whether it be computers or whatever. This is good - because we lead in these growing areas, but also sucks cause not everyone is a computer nerd. I wish you could still go out and a get a factory job where you old man worked 40 years and you too could get in 40 yrs, but that's not gonna happen. Today people are gonna have to focus more on getting an education - difficult, as you say, when you can buy a pretty good car for the price of one year of education. And, grad school of one sort or another seems to be more important these days - and that isn't cheap either.

My Flash has been great - pretty ideal in terms of grippyness I would say, but you're right questioning slipperyness. I was being lowered once once and the rope really started to whiz out cause my buddy with his sweaty hands couldn't hang onto a new slippery rope.

How much success have you had with Beal ropes? Never had one before but I'm considering picking up a 10.2 line now. I did a search here and Beal ropes seemed to get a pretty favorable review, but waddya think? Do they handle well, how is the wear?

Undoubtedly. Can't ski good if you don't look good.

What's with the heinous pink/brown color though?

Right on. Never been around on that side of Maude though it looked good from peaking over the top. Definitely have to visit now.

Not bad.

I can see the big pics - and they kick ass. How steep do those routes get anyway?

When I did it, there were bats on the first pitch ... so, what is the rating when you're crimping instead of using the bat infested jams? Depends... How big were the fangs?

Was it that dude with wanna be dreads on toprope knocking all the loose rock off with his feet? Hilarious.

That pic where the plane is going past the pickup low to the ground isn't a crash pic. I've seen it before and there are photos from several different angles that show that though it looks like its gonna crash, it doesn't. Apparently, the hill drops away really steeply on that side.

This is a candidate for the most useless thread of all time. And I'm stupid enough to take the time to post on it.

Got three at once.

Michael Jackson and tree octopus are enough to keep me outa trees fer sure.

Scope this article out. They have cool music to read by too. http://lexus.msn.com/id/2096069/

Cool. Looks like it might be a fun visit.

Bacon peak looks like it has some real bulk to it. How high is it?

That was definitely a cool move. Anybody care to translate HXS 7a/b or E7 into YDS?

Yeah. Knots take up way too much room. What size webbing were you figuring on using?