j_b

sick!!! nice pix. do it. there isn't a more relevant climbing discussion topic imo.

if you want to see a weird/sick movie check out "irreversible". i could not watch it in its entirety. alpinek is right. http://www.slate.msn.com/id/2087768/ "Although Gen. Eisenhower had been worrying about guerrilla warfare as early as August 1944, little materialized. There was no major campaign of sabotage. There was no destruction of water mains or energy plants worth noting. In fact, the far greater problem for the occupying forces was the misbehavior of desperate displaced persons, who accounted for much of the crime in the American zone. The Army history records that while there were the occasional anti-occupation leaflets and graffiti, the GIs had reason to feel safe. When an officer in Hesse was asked to investigate rumors that troops were being attacked and castrated, he reported back that there had not been a single attack against an American soldier in four months of occupation. As the distinguished German historian Golo Mann summed it up in The History of Germany Since 1789, "The [Germans'] readiness to work with the victors, to carry out their orders, to accept their advice and their help was genuine; of the resistance which the Allies had expected in the way of 'werewolf' units and nocturnal guerrilla activities, there was no sign. …"

i can't tell if al_pine is being sarcastic. anyhow not reporting how many iraqi soldiers and civilians are victims of 'precision' bombing and other 'collateral damage' is hardly liberal. as a matter of fact, the only press that bothers with these numbers is the alternative press. http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

is it what you'd tell largo when he mentions his avoidance of all slcd anchors?

i don't know anything about the accident discussed so the following is of a more general nature. besides the issue of slcd's pivoting when shock loaded, the main difference between a passive piece and a cam is the importance of friction. friction is needed for cams to bite and expand. however, rock friction is ultimately not very relevant for a passive piece to work as it becomes wedged further into a constriction. in coarse rock slcd's are usually fine (great) although sometimes i feel there is still a concern with smaller cams notably with regard to contact area and local rock roughness (how large is the contact area relative to the spacing of roughness elements). to address these concerns, i have to agree with what was said especially the use of mixed anchors (especially on fine grained rock such as limestone and basalt).

ha! yes. who do you believe these days? http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20031104/us_nm/economy_layoffs_challenger_dc_2 US Job Cuts Surged 125 Percent in Oct.-Challenger Tue Nov 4,12:03 PM ET Add U.S. National - Reuters to My Yahoo! NEW YORK (Reuters) - The number of job cuts announced by U.S. employers more than doubled in October, after declining for two months, calling into question the strength of job market as other segments of the economy surge. Planned layoffs at U.S. firms shot up to 171,874 jobs in October, from 76,506 in September, job placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said on Tuesday. Layoffs were at their highest since Oct. 2002, when 176,010 job cuts were announced. Some economists say the data may not provide a complete picture of the labor market, but investors seeking clues about Friday's employment report sent bond prices higher after the Challenger report. "With factors like technology, outsourcing, and consolidation working against job creation, any job market rebound we see in the near future will be relatively small," said John Challenger, chief executive at Challenger, Gray & Christmas, in a statement. In a signal that the job market may face another difficult month in November, Tyco International Ltd. on Tuesday said it would eliminate 7,200 jobs as it dismantles its far-flung global empire. "We're not out of the woods yet with regard to the labor market," said Lehman Brother economist Drew Matus. The job market won't really turn the corner until the economy shows a few quarters of strong growth, Matus said. [...]

well, it's true bush acknowledged only reading headlines himself then having to be filled in by his staff. i don't know about you but within a couple of days of the 'rescue op.', i had read several articles about the doctor who travelled to the us camp to tell them where she was and how well they cared for her ... to be turned around without being able to tell his story as well as how the dramatic story of the rescue was overblown because the iraqi military was long gone from the hospital. i find it hard to believe that nobody in the administration heard about it until now.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/11/08/wruss08.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/11/08/ixportal.html Putin's language is becoming the talk of the vulgar By Julius Strauss in Moscow (Filed: 08/11/2003) President Vladimir Putin has a reputation for foul-mouthed asides, but Italian journalists sitting in straight-backed chairs in a Kremlin reception room cannot have expected what was coming. Opposite them, Vladimir Putin, immaculately dressed and statesmanlike, answered a question about one of the country's notorious billionaires. The interpreter's voice petered away into embarrassed silence. "You must always obey the law, not just when they've got you by the balls" is a rough equivalent of what Mr Putin had said. For a western politician such a salty choice of words, shown on national television, might mean political embarrassment, even censure. But President Putin, once seen as a faceless KGB officer with a wooden delivery, now regularly sprinkles his public statements with the argot of the street. Moscow liberals are appalled and say he is betraying his lack of pedigree for the highest office in the land. But many ordinary Russians adore Putin's earthy indiscretions for the grit and defiance of convention that they convey. For many, they carry echoes of Nikita Khrushchev, the most boorish of Soviet leaders who took off his shoe at the United Nations and banged it on the lectern. Prof Robert Russell, the head of the Russian department at Sheffield University, said: "Like Khrushchev, Putin has an earthy turn of phrase. It means people see him as one of their own. He's always controlled and usually rather unemotional but there's something else Russians respond to, something more visceral. I think he does these things deliberately for that reason." Mr Putin had only just come to power when he uttered his first corker, saying he would deal with Chechens by "wiping them out in the shit house". Last year when a French journalist asked a hostile question at a European Union summit in Brussels, the Russian president said: "Come to Moscow. We can offer you a circumcision. I will recommend a doctor to carry out the operation in such a way nothing else will ever grow there again." When the translation was released, European Union officials expressed their fury. In Russia it ruffled few feathers. In recent history, the Kremlin has not been blessed with great orators. Joseph Stalin, who had a gruff Georgian accent, was repetitive and uninspiring. Leonid Brezhnev was interminably hard on the ear, especially after his first stroke. Mikhail Gorbachev spoke bureaucratic, convoluted Russian. Boris Yeltsin's tone was annoyingly familiar and his words often slurred. Mr Putin, by contrast, has shone. "He is the first president we can call a professional public speaker," said Alexander Volkov, a linguistics lecturer at Moscow State University. When the cameras stop rolling, Mr Putin is even reported to resort to mat, the bawdy and highly taboo domain of Russian invective that forms the mainstay of prison, military and teenage street slang. According to the Russian writer Victor Erofeyev, Mr Putin told the veteran Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov: "We don't fucking need a military base in Cuba!" Perhaps Mr Putin's vocabulary owes something to the example set by his hero, Peter the Great. Mr Erofeyev says that while decapitating rebellious Kremlin guards, Tsar Peter let out an immense stream of foul language, "a legendary tapestry of 74 words woven together by the force of his wrath". Nevertheless the diminutive judo black-belt continues to quarry the mines of the vernacular with confidence. At a recent meeting of leaders of the former Soviet states, he urged them to work harder and to stop "just chewing snot from one year to the next".

on user-polished limestone. it gets so slick i can't believe people climb the stuff but the euros don't seem to have any problem with it. around here, i'd say index on a hot and muggy summer day but i think most everyone around me is affected as well

wherever you climb be sure to warm up before you start crancking. something with an approach would be good.

i find it interesting that some people have no problems with having regular joes being better informed than their president on so many issues.

"If the conquest of a great peak brings moments of exultation and bliss, which in the monotonous, materialistic existence of modern times nothing else can approach, it also presents great dangers. It is not the goal of grand alpinisme to face peril, but it is one of the tests one must undergo to deserve the joy of rising for an instant above the state of crawling grubs. On this proud and beautiful mountain we have lived hours of fraternal, warm and exalting nobility. Here for a few days we have ceased to be slaves and have really been men. It is hard to return to servitude." Lionel Terray

i can already see it ... sys admin types thumping down hard on the sacred handbook 'the power of windoze" while shouting "And then we began to see this face…the face of Linus Torvalds. And finally we said, ‘There’s the enemy. That’s our enemy. That’s the man that hates us. And all of those that follow him.”

yes. the official reason will be that 'their kernel is evil'.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=572&ncid=811&e=3&u=/nm/20031103/lf_nm/australia_bridge_dc Bridge Climbers Become Part of Sydney's Landscape Mon Nov 3, 8:29 AM ET By Belinda Goldsmith SYDNEY (Reuters) - Day and night, a few lines of tiny figures the size of gray ants can be spotted scrambling up the arches of the iconic Sydney Harbor Bridge. With breathtaking views of the city's spectacular harbor and Sydney Opera House, the world's first commercial bridge climb is attracting more than 300,000 climbers a year with its success prompting its founder to look overseas to start similar projects. [...] In October 1998, his first paying customers scrambled up a series of steel catwalks and ladders to the top of the 12-lane bridge, first opened to traffic in 1932. There's been no looking back. More than 300,000 climbers a year now pay up to A$225 ($160) each to trek up the bridge, with BridgeClimb celebrating its millionth climber in April and reported to have posted turnover of A$50 million last year. Cave said about 60 percent of climbers were from overseas, with Britons making up the largest proportion of climbers followed by Americans, while 20 percent were from Sydney and its surroundings and 20 percent from elsewhere in Australia. A recent survey in Britain found climbing Sydney Harbor Bridge ranked 12th on a list of 50 things people wanted to do before they died. Swimming with dolphins was first. [...] Cave, who owns 30 percent of the BridgeClimb with five partners, said he was looking for similar projects elsewhere but declined to give details of exactly where in the world. But the only venue to be made public to date is New York's Brooklyn Bridge when the city's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, announced talks were ongoing. This is now not certain.

"The thought of approaching action aroused strange and contradictory emotions in me. I felt an immense pity for all the little men who toiled on in the prison which society has succeeded in building against the open sky, who knew nothing and felt nothing of what I knew and felt at that moment. Yesterday I was like them, and in another few days I would be like them again. But today I was a prisoner set free; and tomorrow I would be a lord and master, and commander of life and death, of the stars and the elements." — Giusto Gervasutti. many of us have felt more or less the same way (probably with less gusto) at some point while climbing in the hills. is this something you have also felt while pursuing other activities that do not pertain to 'facing nature on its own terms' or is there something intrisically different about the hills and the freedom they provide?

yeah! they could take clues in subtlety from some cc.comers and talk about the size of their feet

ok, that's funny. but i still think you may be missing my point. some of you, placed the blame on this guy for being irresponsible, a flake, or whatever, while in fact he may be quite purposeful. there are 2 aspects where the company may have been wrong, firing him altogether and firing him while he is in the hospital. as a matter of fact, we cannot dismiss the possibility that he thinks the company is justified in letting him go (there is no indication that he is 'whining' in the article). in turn, we can also ponder whether it was such a good idea to let him go while he is recovering in the hospital.

1) we don't know what happened the 1st time (5 minutes late? car break down? mother in the hospital?) 2) the article is equivocal regarding the weather. it says 'sudden snow storm'. note that it is consistent with not knowing that the weather was going to turn bad. 3) as far as not notifying anyone of his whereabout, it may be something he never does for philosophical reasons or it may be that he decided to go at the last minute in the middle of the night and he lives alone, etc ... 4) the work project may have an unrealistic deadline as is not uncommon or he is behind because he missed 5days of work while stranded. etc ... basically we don't know. a little quick to judge, no? there is one thing that we pretty much know however. he did not have to learn of his dismissal while lying on a hospital bed and facing the prospect of losing digits.

was it the new reality tv show: lunch time at the trailer park

http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2003/11/04/web_use/index.html Nov. 4, 2003 A new book argues that, contrary to employers' beliefs, letting workers surf on the Web can yield some beneficial side effects. "Personal Web usage in the workplace has a negative perception, especially among administrators who often see it as inefficient and creating a decrease in work productivity," said Claire Simmers, an associate professor of management at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia and co-author of a human resources guide to worker Web use. According to research, doing personal Web surfing while on the job can lead to better time management, stress reduction, improvement of skill sets and helping to achieve a balance between work and personal life. Simmers and co-author Murugan Anandarajan of Drexel University based their book on an analysis of employees who had Internet access at work.

i assume there is a big difference between being assigned a story and being told what goes in it, or editorializing about a news item (examples in initial post) instead of presenting all the facts. from article above, the comments of Av Westin, a longtime ABC news executive who is now executive director of the National Television Academy: "Roger runs the place with an iron hand and he was put in place there by Murdoch, who selected him for his politics. In that sense, what's happened at Fox is a carry-over from all Murdoch's print publications, where the publisher's politics and editorial preference is reflected in the news hole to an extent that isn't true anywhere else in American journalism."

foxnews is the most watched cable news channel (or at least it was in march .... gasp)

i wouldn't say they are like the rest of them. i don't believe there are many newsrooms where it is deemed acceptable to receive a daily memo from the boss on how to cover the news. this said, i concur on your point about objectivity and they can do whatever they want as long as people are aware of what's going on.

sisu' s post makes it clear that it is about land, they just happen to have different religions which complicates matters.