Thinker

is Robert Fisk who writes for 'The Independent', a UK paper. http://www.robert-fisk.com/whats_new.htm October 27, 2003 Robert Fisk: Eye witness: 'They're getting better,' Chuck said approvingly. 'That one hit the runway' By Robert Fisk 26 October 2003 The Independent Running the gauntlet of small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades after check-in at Baghdad airport You need to take a military escort to reach Baghdad airport these days. Yes, things are getting better in Iraq, according to President Bush - remember that each hour that goes by - but the guerrillas are getting so close to the runways that the Americans have chopped down every tree, every palm bush, every scrap of undergrowth on the way. Rocket-propelled grenades have killed so many GIs on this stretch of highway that the US army - like the Israelis in southern Lebanon in the mid-80s - have erased nature. You travel to Baghdad airport through a wasteland. Heathrow it isn't. "OK folks, now you can leave your bags here and go inside for your boarding passes," a cheery US army engineer tells the first arrivals for Amman. So we collect slips of paper that show no flight number, no seat number, no destination, not even a take-off time. There's a Burger King across the lot, but it's in a "high-security zone" which mere passengers cannot visit. There's no water for sale. There are so few seats that passengers stand in the heat outside what must be the biggest post office in the world, a vast US military sorting hanger with packets of mail for every one of the 146,000 troops in Iraq, standing 30ft high in racks. But take a look at the passengers. There's a lady from the aid organisation Care heading off for a holiday in Thailand, and there's the Bishop of Basra in his black and red robes and dangling crucifix, and there's an outgoing television crew and the International Red Cross representative with a little Red Cross plane to catch to Kirkuk. There's also a British construction man up from Hilla who spent the previous night under fire with the local Polish battalion. "Rocket-propelled grenades and heavy rifle fire for two hours," he mutters. Of course, the occupation authorities never revealed that. Because things are getting better in Iraq. Behind us, a series of giant four-engined jets are climbing in circles into the hot morning sky, big unmarked jobs that fly 180 degrees to the ground in tight circles to take off and land, so low you'd think they would trip the runway with their wing-tips - anything to avoid the ground- to-air missiles that America's enemies are now firing at aircraft in the "New Iraq". "It's routine," one of the American engineers confides to us. "We get shot at every night." Among the other passengers, there's a humanitarian worker who's clearly had a nervous breakdown and some rather lordly Iraqi ladies escorted to check-in by an RAF officer with too much hair over his collar and, across the lot, a squad of American Special Forces soldiers enjoying the sun, heavy with black webbing, automatic rifles and pistols. Why do they all wear shades, I ask them? One of them takes off his sun-glasses. "What girl would look at us if they could see our real faces?" I agree. But they're an intelligent bunch of men, heavy with innuendo. Yes, they've got a safe house near Fallujah and combat casualties are sometimes "contained" within road accidents or drownings. A guy called Chuck wants to confide in me. "You know the most precious resource about this country, Bob?" he asks. "It's the Iraqi people. There's a lot of protoplasm here." I was contemplating the definition of protoplasm when the first mortar came in, a thundering roar that had the passengers ducking like a theatrical chorus and a big white circle of smoke rising lazily from the other side of the runway. There's a whizzing noise and another clap of sound. "They're getting better," Chuck tells me. "They must have put that one close to the runway." The other Special Forces lads nod approvingly. Another tremendous explosion, and they all nod together. Another big white ring rippling skywards, as if a giant cigar addict had sat down for a smoke by the runway. "Not bad at all," says Chuck's friend. "We used to have a five-mile safety perimeter round the airport," Chuck says. "That's now down to two miles. The max anti-aircraft range is 8,000ft. So two miles is on the edge." Translation: US forces used to control five miles round the airport - too far to permit a man with a hand-held launcher to hit a plane. Ambushes and attacks on the Americans have reduced their control to a mere two miles. On the edge of that radius, a man might just hit a plane with a missile range of 8,000ft. The Americans say there are two planes flying to Amman, at 10am and noon. Then another mortar round explodes in front of the hangars on the far side of the airport. And another. "This," the Bishop of Basra sermonises to me, "is the continuation of our 22-year war." I call a colleague in Baghdad. Airport under mortar fire, I helpfully report. "Heard nothing about it, Bob," comes the reply. "How many mortars did you say?" But the Special Forces men are enjoying themselves. An Apache helicopter races over us to strafe the Iraqi guerrillas. "Some hope," says Chuck. "They've already pissed off." Technicians in guerrilla warfare, the Special Forces men are coolly appreciative of anyone's professionalism, including that of the enemy. An American engineer pops up. If the TV crew will buy his guys Cokes, they can visit Burger King. A crackle of rifle fire from way beyond the airport perimeter. There must be a movie here, Walt Disney meets Vietnam. The Airbus belongs, incredibly, to Royal Jordanian, the only international carrier to risk the run to Baghdad once a day. At the steps, there's a squad of Jordanian security men in white socks - Jordanian and Syrian plain-clothes cops always wear white socks - and they insist, right there on the runway, in checking over all our gear again. Computers turned on, computers turned off, cameras opened, closed, notebooks out, even a sheaf of readers' letters to be prowled over. The Apache flies back, rockets still in their pods. Take-off is rather faster than usual. But there's no steady climb to cruising altitude. The Airbus turns sharply to port, G-forces pushing us into our seats, and there outside my window is the tented prison-camp city where the Americans keep more than 4,000 of their Iraqi prisoners without trial. The tents start to spin as the plane twists to starboard and then to port again, and there is the same prison camp outside my window, but this time upside down and turning anti-clockwise. I look around the cabin and notice fingers dug deep into arm-rests. The Airbus engines are howling, biting into the thinner air, and our eyes are searching for that thin trail of smoke that no one wants to see. Then the pilot levels out. A Royal Jordanian stewardess in a bright white blouse arrives at our seats. Things are getting better in Iraq. "Juice or red wine, which would you like?" she asks me. Reader, which did I choose?

I usually just concentrate on getting my toes out of the way...

On Devil's Tower a few years back I dropped the cap to my Nalgene bottle (OK, it was more than a few years back). To my amazement it landed on my shoe and stopped right there. I so badly wanted to yell up to my partner and have him check it out, but I figured it would disappear before I could explain the significance of a blue lid on my shoe. So I picked it up and went about my biznez of belaying.

Rebels attack; aid groups bolt Baghdad link

http://www.anneroumanoff.com/marga/marga3/scotch.html creative attempts are good, too.

Erik pontificates yet again......

Back in the midwest someone showed me how flashing my headlights between lowbeams and highbeams about 6 times in quick succession could change traffic lights from red to green....seriously. I tried it a few times, seemed to work best a few hundred feet from the intersections. Haven't tried it out here in the PacNW.

ditto. I've spent time on Rainier in the I, the Fitz, and the Eldo. I bought the Eldo for pretty much the same reasons Lambone gave.

and don't forget to polish your shoes, update your will, and chant between answering their questions. but seriously, I take off my hat and my sunglasses when waiting in line to cross any border.

THAT doesn't sound like any fun..... In any case, it seems like a reasonable followup test might be to test the difference in strength between the fig8 on a bight and the bowline on a bight. I suspect there's already loads of data on that and BD was confident that the fig8 would stand up to the torture...which it did in every case. edit: it's also interesting to note that when the bowline was used, the rope broke at the highest tension in the complete set of trials. Certainly not related and not significant, but still an interesting side note.

The 'point of the test' was to test possible differences in the strength of a clove hitch when used on oval biners vs D-shaped biners. Granted, there weren't enough trials performed to obtain statistically 'confident' data, but in my opinion it's more precise than a few sentences about clove hitches on logs without any quantitative data. I glean this from the results: Clove hitches probably won't 'slip' before the rope breaks in any situation I use them for. Clove hitches don't appear to slip at the 1,000 pounds cited in previous literature. CBS, how would YOU have attached the rope to the pulling mechanism without using a knot?

Damn....sorry for killing this thread by posting pertinent information....

Winter camping in Nebraska can come close....

check rescue supply catalogs, arborist catalogs, fire fighting catalogs, and army surplus.

Here's some info on hitches and knots I was forwarded via email over a year ago. The same info may be on Paul's website, I don't have time to check: We did not really have any clove hitch data on file here so I conducted a quick test with the following results: All tests involved a bight knot (i.e. Figure 8 or Bowline) being used to attach one end of the rope to the moving crosshead of our universal testing machine and the other end of the rope being attached to the stationary base of our testing machine via a dressed down Clove Hitch on a Carabiner. The load rate was 200 mm/min (~8 in/min). Test #1: Knot: Bowline Rope: 10.5mm Std Biner: Oval Result: Rope Broke at Bowline @ 3378 lbs (Note: Figure 8 was used for the rest of the tests) Test # 2,3: Knot: Figure 8 Rope: 10.5mm Std Biner: Oval Result: Rope Broke at Clove Hitch @ 3236 & 2876 lbs Test # 4,5: Knot: Figure 8 Rope: 8.1mm Dry Half Rope Biner: Oval Result: Rope Broke at Clove Hitch @ 2034 & 1873 lbs Test # 6,7: Knot: Figure 8 Rope: 10.5mm Std Biner: Light D Result: Rope Broke at Clove Hitch @ 3142 & 3208 lbs Test # 8,9: Knot: Figure 8 Rope: 8.1mm Dry Half Rope Biner: Light D Result: Rope Broke at Clove Hitch @ 1918 & 1909 lbs Conclusions: There does not seem to be any significant difference between using a Oval and a Light D with a Clove Hitch. None of the Clove Hitches slipped at all (I don't know what would happen if the ropes were soaked). No only do Ovals and Light D's have difference geometries but they also are made from significantly different rod stocks; the Oval stock is quite a bit bigger than the Light D. You may be curious why these loads are much less than the strength of our Runners (22 kN / 4946 lbs) or a hand sized Camalot (16 kN / 3597 lbs). There are several reasons for this. First, during a lead fall the top anchor "feels" almost twice the tension in the rope. This is due to the climber generating force on one side of the lead piece and the belayer resisting this force by pulling on the other side of the piece. The second reason is that the ultimate strength of a climbing rope is not nearly as important as it ability to absorb energy. More energy it can absorb, the smaller the peak forces generated during the fall. BD ropes are well below (by at least 30%) the CEN criteria for maximum impact force during a test fall. Climbing ropes are amazing in their ability to absorb energy, I have never heard of a case where one has "broken" during a fall (it is possible to cut a rope as I am sure you know). I hope this answers your Clove Hitch question. Sorry to go on the tangent but whenever I supply real data to a customer I try to help convey the conclusions that can be drawn from it. Paul Tusting, ME Black Diamond Quality Assurance Engineer

I'll say it. A clove hitch is not a good knot for tying in with. In fact, it would be quite difficult to tie in with. I love it for lots of other reasons, but not for tying in. (I do know that's not what you really meant to say...just couldn't resist. )

4. No knot to forget to untie after climb. That in itself would unnerve me. Anyone else?

Yep, who needs to know a knot you can tie into a rope with when you don't have any other gear at hand? A bowline on a coil is absolutely worthless to practice. Who needs to know a knot you can tie around a tree with a bight in the middle of a rope? One of my regular partners climbs using a bowline with a Yo finish. I trust him to tie it properly and maintain it throughout the day....but I do look at it at the belay stations to double check, and I'm sure he looks at my tie-in knot from time to time, too.

from an objective source (http://www.rockandpaddle.com/rock_climbing.htm#Tying Knots): The Double Bowline Despite its wonderful quality of being easy to untie after hanging and falling, it consequently has been known to loosen on its own when unattended, such as on a big wall. It is also not as easy to recognize if tied incorrectly. However, with proper supervision, and a secure back-up knot, it can also be used as a knot for climbing.

right: wrong:

CAN easily be mistied with the tail on the outside of the loop, instead of on the inside (Anyone who has tied a bowline will know what I'm talking about.) plus, the knot needs to be retightend on a regular basis to prevent it from disintegrating.

fig-8's do not need to be backed up, but.... consider what backing it up with half of a dbl-fisherman's would do should one botch the fig-8 (as has oft happened). I could tie in with an overhand knot, and if it were backed up as described it would still be sound....a bitch to untie, but safe.

Now I know whose pocket this fell out of at the last pub club I attended....

from the NPS morning report. Saguaro National Park (AZ) Africanized Honeybees Attack Visitors On September 1st, a Tucson man and his 13-year-old son were attacked by Africanized honeybees while climbing on a cliff face in the park’s Tucson Mountain District. During the climb, the boy reached for a handhold above him. The rock he grabbed apparently dislodged a portion of the beehive, which neither climber had observed previously. The bees immediately began stinging the younger climber, who was on belay 50 feet up the cliff face. His father quickly lowered him and assisted with removal of his climbing harness. Both father and son were repeatedly stung as they ran back to the trailhead and their parked car, approximately 200 yards away. Other park visitors transported both individuals from the trailhead to a nearby fire station; from there, they were taken by ambulance to a local hospital. The father had been stung over 200 times and was hospitalized overnight. His son was stung about 50 times and was treated and released. The park has contracted with a local bee exterminator to treat and remove the bees. Africanized honeybees (AHBs) are a hybrid between non-native domesticated strains of European honeybees and an African strain and were accidentally released in Brazil in 1957. AHBs were first detected in Arizona in 1993, and at Saguaro in 1994. Although there have been several minor bee incidents since 1994, this is the most significant attack ever recorded at Saguaro. Aggressive behavior in AHBs is generally related to defense of an established colony. AHBs attack swiftly and intensely, and are more likely to sustain a prolonged attack, sometimes following victims up to a mile. Attacking AHBs can deliver 400 to 500 stings in a short time; the accumulated toxin from 500 stings can easily kill the average adult.

nice try....but the added weight of the liquid on your helmet could create a lethal amount of momentum should you slip or flip over backwards. Picture an infant taking it's first steps...essentially a tiny body taking it's huge head out for a walk. Best to stick with a Camelback, or a platypus in a fanny pack.