RuMR

About what I would expect from you. However, now that you brought them up, what is wrong with 'honor' and 'sacrifice'? You Lefties preach individual sacrifice for the good of the collective. How is a soldier's willingness to sacrifice any different? Further, how is 'honor' now a bad word? The problem with "honor" and "sacrifice" they're basically lofty-sounding abstractions designed for the parents of dead children and inscriptions on tombstones, to give the living some meaning for senseless waste. They have no meaning whatsoever in and of themselves: the same language is used by kamikazis, Prussians, Commies, Doughboys, Mongols, or Marines. The Nazi SS talked loads of this stuff, but through history's lens were they honorable and virtuous? Submission and sacrifice to the State is the essence of fascism but it's always dressed in the very same terms you unquestioningly swallow. Any "leftie" worth his salt would never accept your premise about "preaching individual sacrifice for the good of the collective". The ones I like tend to be a bit more historically literate and less prone to razzle-dazzle marketing campaigns dressed up as patriotism. Finally, "honor" is a bad word when it's used as first to charm impressionable boys and then as ideological cover to mask national chauvinism and belligerence. Denying the existence of honor is a long tradition of those lacking that trait. Honor is real and I have seen it personally. If less people would forget what honor was, this world might not be so bad. Things like Pride, Duty, Self Sacrifice and Honor should not be bad words. They are ideals that we MUST instill in our children; not try to erase. Perhaps the reason you are a nhilist is that you have nothing greater than yourself to believe in than a washed up philosophy that killed more people than the plague. My point is not that these things don't exist, it's that the relationships between the abstract ideas and what they're realistically in service to need to be examined. I think people can be honorable, exhibit virtuous qualities, etc. but that killing people in the service to and for the benefit of the State (much less invading and occupying Iraq) doesn't meet the criteria. Would you say this to a D-Day vet or a beach storming pacific theatre vet?? I think not... Personally, i disagree with this war from all sorts of angles, but addititonally, i think that there are sometimes justifiable, morally/ethically/legally, wars and combat. Arguably, blood should have been shed in Rwanda to prevent the atrocities there and additionally, it should be shed in the congo now...Iraq? Its a silly gentleman's war with waay too high of a price, both in american blood and iraqi...Perhaps, if it had been waged more intelligently, that price could have been lowered...

are you sure on the "on sight ground up" part, daryl? I thought it was used in terms of protection only...ie, its foil would be "rap-placed"...yo yo ascension used to be considered valid, and that would hardly be "ground up on sight"...just have to lower after each fall, that's all...

sure...anything can happen...I haven't inverted after my first couple of years...I fall alot...especially now... matt...i never commented on the helmet issue...i commented about the moment that you are disengaging from the wall...like i've said, i have a hard time envisioning myself going invert on steep climbing...slabs and trundling falls, all bets are off as you may "trip" up on the way down... perhaps i'm not pushing myself hard enough, but i generally have a decent sense of when i may be coming off...that split second for me is enough to get myself orientated (i think)...hard sport or trad ( "hard" is relative to the climber), i feel i'm a lot less likely to flip...even redlined...

inverted falls do not come from "nowhere"...they should simply never happen...i can not think of a time when i've flipped upside down...it just doesn't happen... learn to fall properly...also, learn when not to fall no matter what...

uhhh no...

a one person "standard"....now i've heard everything...guess i'll go paste some more anchors up to keep the falls to a "standard"...

eagle egos aloft!!!!!!!

Man, that would be bitchin'...at summersville, we would all go in and just rent a boat...perhaps that would be an option???

I woulda asked in person, and probably not too nicely, that you control your dog if i thought my family was being threatened by a dog. I agree that its not cool to drop a name via internet but you initially got in Pax's face first "I woulda smashed your head in with a rock" over something where he was flat out in the right...I apologize for the namecalling, but it still was a "tool" thing to do to both the dog and others...Its obvious that you recognize this, hence your apology...

you gotta admit that it wasn't fair to the dog to put him in a situation without his owner around, right? plus, its not fair to the other folks... somewhat of a sore issue with me as i've had a pack destroyed by a dog and on another separate incident, my kid bowled over...perhaps i should leash the kid???

oh...and here i thought he was gluing in his own anchors...

and why should complete strangers have to deal with someone's dog on a day off at the crag? totally annoying... ...leave the dog home...

that's funny...i just heard a rumor that you like the taste of sheep...guess bob's gettin' double duty... hahahaha

you actually left the ground with your dog unleashed? Fuckin' tool...that's not cool to your dog or others...

how's that tasty pole??

In the beginning, a fellow named Dru smoked pole and in the end, a fellow named G-spotter smokes pole...

Huge or not, it can surely be described as a "serious" fall. It was essentially a FF2 fall, since all the pro pulled out and he fell on his anchor. Any FF2 fall is serious regardless of the distance fallen and I would argue, regardless of the quality of the anchor. This magnitude of fall can get away from the belayer depending on a number of factors. No tool...he led from the ground, there was an entire pitch of rope to the anchor...fall factor was not very big...

i'll be laughing for a while yet, methinks...

Were any of them headfirst? unfortunately, no...

how's that ropegun training going? Runnin' laps on GNS yet? punter...

steep limestone climbing has 30+ foot falls that are common...If you climb in France, look at routes that are called "engaging"... Buoux, Ceuse, Verdon...all have cruxes located 10 to 15 feet over bolts...with 60m pitches and slack you look at 40 footers fairly frequently...nothing to hit but air though... Head to yosemite and you will find the same situation on many common routes...or, as Joseph pointed out, Eldo, gunks, seneca, etc...

how come anyone who disagrees with you has an ego problem? Tool...

sounds like fairyweather would fit in nicely...