billcoe

I do not. No comparison. Check it out, great books. http://www.amazon.com/Rising-Sun-Decline-Japanese-1936-1945/dp/0812968581/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276790163&sr=1-1 Get the 2 volume hardcover ed. for cheap.

Good news, the longest us war is about over. Bad news: we lose it. Debka file is calling it for the Taliban: The Afghan War nears end with Pakistan-aided Taliban victory DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis June 13, 2010, 9:33 PM (GMT+02:00) Taliban fighters with ISI-supplied weapons After eight years and four months, America's longest war is about to end, debkafile's military and intelligence report - although not in victory for the US-led NATO forces but at best in a draw, or at worst, in a win for the Taliban, al Qaeda's extremist partner. The repercussions of the US exit in these circumstances will impinge on American influence worldwide including the Middle East. The allies owe their reverses to five factors: Postponement of the Kandahar offensive, Taliban's acquisition of anti-air missiles and ability to strike anywhere in Kabul, the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Agency's extensive support for the Taliban, and a UN proposal to "de-list" some key Taliban and al Qaeda figures designated as terrorists. debkafile elaborates on these factors: 1. The big Kandahar offensive in southern Afghanistan this month, the centerpiece of the new strategy President Barack Obama approved last December along with a 40,000-troop surge, has been postponed until the fall - at the earliest. With the participation of American, British, Canadian and Afghan forces, this offensive was billed as the operation for turning the tide of the Afghanistan war. Washington was understandably reluctant to announce the postponement although, according to debkafile's military analysts, it was unavoidable after the disappointment of Operation Mushtarak in Marjah, which was to have been a dress rehearsal in another part of the South, Helmand Province, for the big show in Kandahar. In Marjah, the combined US-UK force and the Afghan army, which most of the time refused to fight, were unable to loosen the Taliban's grip on the town or prevent the insurgents from using it as a springboard for grabbing the whole of southern Afghanistan. Sunday, June 13, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and US commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal paid a visit to Kandahar to assure the local tribes they had not been abandoned. Karzai spoke with gusto about the coming offensive; he only "forgot" to mention a date. With the Kandahar delay, the bottom is about to drop out of Obama's overall war strategy. 2. Another deadly turning-point in the conflict was marked last week with the discovery that Taliban had acquired the missiles for downing Western helicopters and low-flying aircraft. The British Prime Minister David Cameron had to cancel his helicopter flight to the main British base of Camp Bastion on June 12 after receiving intelligence that the Taliban was preparing to shoot it down. Three days earlier, on June 9, an American Chinook crashed near Sangin in the Helmand Province killing all four US servicemen aboard. It was then that US and NATO commanders first realized that an unknown party had given the Taliban those anti-air missiles and instructed them in their use. This means that US helicopters can no longer provide ground forces with close air support and must fly at higher altitudes out of missile range. 3. In their White House talks of May 10-14,Karzai and Obama glossed over their differences by agreeing that the Afghan president would convene a "peace jirga" (a conference of tribal leaders) that would include chieftains and commanders associated with the Taliban as the first step toward national reconciliation. The conference did take off in Kabul on June 2, attended by 1,400 heads of tribes and factions. But when President Karzai's speech was in full flow, Taliban suicide bombers and gunmen burst in, hurling rockets and grenades. The President just managed to finish his speech before being whisked off the platform by security guards and driven away in a convoy of armored cars. The tribal chiefs saw for themselves that neither Afghan nor American forces were capable of promising security for any peace conference, whereas the Taliban were clearly able to operate freely in the Afghan capital and any other part of the country. 4. At the same time, Staffan de Mistura, the top U.N. representative in Afghanistan, put in a good word for the Taliban when he told reporters Saturday, June 12. "The U.N. is listening to what the peace jirga is saying. Some of the people in the list may not be alive anymore. The list may be completely outdated." Fueling momentum for a political solution to the nearly nine-year-old Afghan war, a U.N. committee is reviewing whether certain people could be removed from blacklist that freezes assets and limits travel of key Taliban and al-Qaida figures, the top U.N. representative said Saturday. 5. On Sunday, June 13, The Sunday Times of London ran a long article under the heading: Pakistan puppet masters guide the Taliban killers. It was based on a new report by the London School of Economics according to which Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency is providing extensive funding, training and sanctuary to the Taliban in Afghanistan. The report cites concrete evidence suggesting that support for the Taliban is the "official policy" of the ISI, which not only trains and funds the Afghan insurgents, but is officially represented on the their leadership council. Washington was shocked by this evidence so soon after President Asif Ali Zardar assured President Obama when they met in Washington last month that he could count on the commitment of the Pakistani government and intelligence resources to fight Taliban and al Qaeda, as a solid prop of US strategy for the Afghan war. But all the time, it transpired, behind their false face to US military and intelligence chiefs, the ISI has been collaborating with Taliban commanders in their operational planning and selection of targets, supplying them with weapons, explosives and roadside bombs and making grants to the bereaved families of suicide killers who murdered American and British troops. According to the LSE report, half at least of the 15 members of the Taliban's Quetta Shura (the council which runs the war from its seat in Quetta, the capital of Pakistani Baluchistan) are active officers of Pakistani military intelligence. "It is impossible to be a member of the Quetta Shura without membership of the ISI," said a high-ranking Taliban fighter. Given the depth of the ISI's integration in the Afghanistan Taliban's war effort against NATO, the US military might as well drop their efforts to cut the Afghan Taliban's weapons supply route from Pakistan. The revelations of the LSE are not new, debkafile reports, except for the fact that a prominent Western publication was willing to print them. They were covered fairly exhaustively in previous issues of DEBKA-Net-Weekly in the past two years. Most recently, on February 28, 2010, DNW 434 exposed a shady Pakistan intrigue behind the handover to the Americans of Abdul Ghani Baradar, whom they represented as Mullah Omar's first lieutenant the lost of whom would seriously impair Taliban's fighting ability - so they claimed It was in fact an ISI trick. Baradar was no longer important to the Taliban and his handover no great loss because he had turned coat and was looking for an opening for peace talks with the Americans. The ISI needed to get rid of him before he succeeded to keep the Afghan War on the boil, because as long as it lasts, both the Taliban and the Americans will be dependent on Islamabad and the Pakistanis will carry on pulling wires and playing one side against the other. The longer the Obama administration clings to the assumption that cooperation with Pakistan and its intelligence agency is the only course for beating the Taliban and al Qaeda, the more elusive an Afghanistan triumph will be for the US and its allies. http://www.debka.com/article/8846/

Did you ever read about the medical experiments that the Japanese military conducted on Chinese prisoners? It was widespread, done on thousands and thousands of prisoners, and so disgusting that it would make a normal persons stomach, maybe even Josef Mengele's, turn. I suspect that more Japanese women would be putting out to the Chinese kids if they had a clue about that bullshit. The Japanese government suppresses this knowledge. As I understand it, they do not acknowledge the rape of Nanking and many other things as well in their history books. (I'm not saying we do not do similar things JB) So does the US, we're embarrassed because we said we would not prosecute the war criminals in charge if they would turn over the information that had conducted in these bizarre experiments on thousands of live (well, for a while) Chinese prisoners. Getting the research knowledge was more important to us than justice and we let the miscreants go free. Of course, there was the Bataan Death march too, that should be worth a lil somtin-somtin" no? :-)

When being a Chinese dude is the best! http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/831224-teacher-wants-sex-with-students-to-say-sorry-for-japanese-invasion "Anri Suzuki, 24, from Tokyo - is said to have a doctorate in Sino-Japanese history, but said she had specialised in studying the Japanese invasion of China and was ashamed by what her countrymen had done. She told the Chinese media: "We have to respect the lessons of history and although we cannot obliterate it we can try and make recompense. "I want to cure the wounds of China with my body, and I offer to do this by having sex with Chinese students in Japan." "I think it would be a symbolic compensation for them," she added." Wonder how long the waiting list is, I bet that's a pretty long line...........

They say that a negative and a negative is a positive. So if we could see the Iranians get a nuke and drop it on us, that would be quite the big positive there when you add it with this. Of course, we are on track militarily to seriously ramp up the pressure starting in July/Aug of 2010. There, that's positive.

I have the unnerving but distinct impression that the photographer, given how jerky the camera work is, either has his own Frog or is filming that monkey with only one hand on the camera. In either case, it just seems wrong to watch that on so many levels.

I'm just guessing here. Probably wants to hike the PCT to access the Mt. Probably feels like if there's any snow on route (probably isnt as it slid off), that's manageable or they can bail, but doesn't want to have to both posthole and routefind on snow all the way in.

Serious John? Because they were able to fix their exposure on the 20billion agreement today? What's your take on this, you know those BD guys. If you want to diss, post anonymous.

I'd forget about that 1 year target, total bullshit. here's my quick look take on it: "Clarus Corporation (Clarus) was formerly a provider of e-commerce business solutions. In December 2002, the Company completed the sale of substantially all its business assets. The Company is seeking to redeploy its cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities to improve stockholder value and are seeking, analyzing and evaluating acquisition and merger candidates. As of December 31, 2009, the Company did not generate any revenues from its business operations". SO.... Current total Cash Per Share (mrq): $4.64 (and no debt). So you are giving them $6.50 and getting $4.64 in value and blue sky. How much is the blue sky worth to you? What was BD and Gregory making in profits per share? If it's $2 and over and you think they'll maintain or increase sales and profits, then it's a buy based on value, otherwise it's greater fool theory, which is fine too. Frankly, they might do great, I'll consider it - but I don't trust Kanders to not find a way to stuff it down the shareholders throats.

Damn - sorry to hear of it. "said crews will remove the victim from the mountain later today." I don't envy the "crews", today's the kind of day you want to snuggle up next to a fire.

Yeah, Sherri is setting a high standard for kindness and good behavior! :kisss:

Holy mother of $#@X! Shit. Full text of jmaces link- this sounds authentic, which if true, means that this horror show is in it's infancy and in all likelyhood about to get much much worse. "Editors' note for first-time visitors: What follows is a comment from a The Oil Drum reader. To read what The Oil Drum staff members are saying about the Deepwater Horizon Spill, please visit the front page. (Were the US government and BP more forthcoming with information and details, the situation would not be giving rise to so much speculation about what is actually going on in the Gulf. This should be run more like Mission Control at NASA than an exclusive country club function--it is a public matter--transparency, now!) OK let's get real about the GOM oil flow. There doesn't really seem to be much info on TOD that furthers more complete understanding of what's really happening in the GOM. As you have probably seen and maybe feel yourselves, there are several things that do not appear to make sense regarding the actions of attack against the well. Don't feel bad, there is much that doesn't make sense even to professionals unless you take into account some important variables that we are not being told about. There seems to me to be a reluctance to face what cannot be termed anything less than grim circumstances in my opinion. There certainly is a reluctance to inform us regular people and all we have really gotten is a few dots here and there... First of all...set aside all your thoughts of plugging the well and stopping it from blowing out oil using any method from the top down. Plugs, big valves to just shut it off, pinching the pipe closed, installing a new bop or lmrp, shooting any epoxy in it, top kills with mud etc etc etc....forget that, it won't be happening..it's done and over. In fact actually opening up the well at the subsea source and allowing it to gush more is not only exactly what has happened, it was probably necessary, or so they think anyway. So you have to ask WHY? Why make it worse?...there really can only be one answer and that answer does not bode well for all of us. It's really an inescapable conclusion at this point, unless you want to believe that every Oil and Gas professional involved suddenly just forgot everything they know or woke up one morning and drank a few big cups of stupid and got assigned to directing the response to this catastrophe. Nothing makes sense unless you take this into account, but after you do...you will see the "sense" behind what has happened and what is happening. That conclusion is this: The well bore structure is compromised "Down hole". That is something which is a "Worst nightmare" conclusion to reach. While many have been saying this for some time as with any complex disaster of this proportion many have "said" a lot of things with no real sound reasons or evidence for jumping to such conclusions, well this time it appears that they may have jumped into the right place... TOP KILL - FAILS: This was probably our best and only chance to kill this well from the top down. This "kill mud" is a tried and true method of killing wells and usually has a very good chance of success. The depth of this well presented some logistical challenges, but it really should not of presented any functional obstructions. The pumping capacity was there and it would have worked, should have worked, but it didn't. It didn't work, but it did create evidence of what is really happening. First of all the method used in this particular top kill made no sense, did not follow the standard operating procedure used to kill many other wells and in fact for the most part was completely contrary to the procedure which would have given it any real chance of working. When a well is "Killed" using this method heavy drill fluid "Mud" is pumped at high volume and pressure into a leaking well. The leaks are "behind" the point of access where the mud is fired in, in this case the "choke and Kill lines" which are at the very bottom of the BOP (Blow Out Preventer) The heavy fluid gathers in the "behind" portion of the leaking well assembly, while some will leak out, it very quickly overtakes the flow of oil and only the heavier mud will leak out. Once that "solid" flow of mud is established at the leak "behind" the well, the mud pumps increase pressure and begin to overtake the pressure of the oil deposit. The mud is established in a solid column that is driven downward by the now stronger pumps. The heavy mud will create a solid column that is so heavy that the oil deposit can no longer push it up, shut off the pumps...the well is killed...it can no longer flow. Usually this will happen fairly quickly, in fact for it to work at all...it must happen quickly. There is no "trickle some mud in" because that is not how a top kill works. The flowing oil will just flush out the trickle and a solid column will never be established. Yet what we were told was "It will take days to know whether it worked"...."Top kill might take 48 hours to complete"...the only way it could take days is if BP intended to do some "test fires" to test integrity of the entire system. The actual "kill" can only take hours by nature because it must happen fairly rapidly. It also increases strain on the "behind" portion and in this instance we all know that what remained was fragile at best. Early that afternoon we saw a massive flow burst out of the riser "plume" area. This was the first test fire of high pressure mud injection. Later on same day we saw a greatly increased flow out of the kink leaks, this was mostly mud at that time as the kill mud is tanish color due to the high amount of Barite which is added to it to weight it and Barite is a white powder. We later learned the pumping was shut down at midnight, we weren't told about that until almost 16 hours later, but by then...I'm sure BP had learned the worst. The mud they were pumping in was not only leaking out the "behind" leaks...it was leaking out of someplace forward...and since they were not even near being able to pump mud into the deposit itself, because the well would be dead long before...and the oil was still coming up, there could only be one conclusion...the wells casings were ruptured and it was leaking "down hole" They tried the "Junk shot"...the "bridging materials" which also failed and likely made things worse in regards to the ruptured well casings. "Despite successfully pumping a total of over 30,000 barrels of heavy mud, in three attempts at rates of up to 80 barrels a minute, and deploying a wide range of different bridging materials, the operation did not overcome the flow from the well." http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7062487 80 Barrels per minute is over 200,000 gallons per hour, over 115,000 barrels per day...did we seen an increase over and above what was already leaking out of 115k bpd?....we did not...it would have been a massive increase in order of multiples and this did not happen. "The whole purpose is to get the kill mud down,” said Wells. “We'll have 50,000 barrels of mud on hand to kill this well. It's far more than necessary, but we always like to have backup." Try finding THAT quote around...it's been scrubbed...here's a cached copy of a quote... http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:WDj-HORTmIoJ:www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/deepwaterhorizon/7006870.html+%E2%809CThe+whole+purpose+is+to+get+the+kill+mud+down,%E2%80%9D+said+Wells.+%E2%80%9CWe'll+have+50,000+barrels+of+mud+on+hand+to+kill+this+well.+It's+far+more+than+necessary,+but+we+always+like+to+have+backup.%E2%80%9D&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us "The "top kill" effort, launched Wednesday afternoon by industry and government engineers, had pumped enough drilling fluid to block oil and gas spewing from the well, Allen said. The pressure from the well was very low, he said, but persisting." "Allen said one ship that was pumping fluid into the well had run out of the fluid, or "mud," and that a second ship was on the way. He said he was encouraged by the progress." http://www.houmatoday.com/article/20100527/ARTICLES/100529348 Later we found out that Allen had no idea what was really going on and had been "Unavailable all day" http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/05/27/interview_with_coas... So what we had was BP running out of 50,000 barrels of mud in a very short period of time. An amount far and above what they deemed necessary to kill the well. Shutting down pumping 16 hours before telling anyone, including the president. We were never really given a clear reason why "Top Kill" failed, just that it couldn't overcome the well. There is only one article anywhere that says anything else about it at this time of writing...and it's a relatively obscure article from the wall street journal "online" citing an unnamed source. "WASHINGTON—BP PLC has concluded that its "top-kill" attempt last week to seal its broken well in the Gulf of Mexico may have failed due to a malfunctioning disk inside the well about 1,000 feet below the ocean floor. The disk, part of the subsea safety infrastructure, may have ruptured during the surge of oil and gas up the well on April 20 that led to the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig, BP officials said. The rig sank two days later, triggering a leak that has since become the worst in U.S. history. The broken disk may have prevented the heavy drilling mud injected into the well last week from getting far enough down the well to overcome the pressure from the escaping oil and gas, people familiar with BP's findings said. They said much of the drilling mud may also have escaped from the well into the rock formation outside the wellbore. As a result, BP wasn't able to get sufficient pressure to keep the oil and gas at bay. If they had been able to build up sufficient pressure, the company had hoped to pump in cement and seal off the well. The effort was deemed a failure on Saturday. BP started the top-kill effort Wednesday afternoon, shooting heavy drilling fluids into the broken valve known as a blowout preventer. The mud was driven by a 30,000 horsepower pump installed on a ship at the surface. But it was clear from the start that a lot of the "kill mud" was leaking out instead of going down into the well." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870487560457528013357716426... There are some inconsistencies with this article. There are no "Disks" or "Subsea safety structure" 1,000 feet below the sea floor, all that is there is well bore. There is nothing that can allow the mud or oil to "escape" into the rock formation outside the well bore except the well, because it is the only thing there. All the actions and few tid bits of information all lead to one inescapable conclusion. The well pipes below the sea floor are broken and leaking. Now you have some real data of how BP's actions are evidence of that, as well as some murky statement from "BP officials" confirming the same. I took some time to go into a bit of detail concerning the failure of Top Kill because this was a significant event. To those of us outside the real inside loop, yet still fairly knowledgeable, it was a major confirmation of what many feared. That the system below the sea floor has serious failures of varying magnitude in the complicated chain, and it is breaking down and it will continue to. What does this mean? It means they will never cap the gusher after the wellhead. They cannot...the more they try and restrict the oil gushing out the bop?...the more it will transfer to the leaks below. Just like a leaky garden hose with a nozzle on it. When you open up the nozzle?...it doesn't leak so bad, you close the nozzle?...it leaks real bad, same dynamics. It is why they sawed the riser off...or tried to anyway...but they clipped it off, to relieve pressure on the leaks "down hole". I'm sure there was a bit of panic time after they crimp/pinched off the large riser pipe and the Diamond wire saw got stuck and failed...because that crimp diverted pressure and flow to the rupture down below. Contrary to what most of us would think as logical to stop the oil mess, actually opening up the gushing well and making it gush more became direction BP took after confirming that there was a leak. In fact if you note their actions, that should become clear. They have shifted from stopping or restricting the gusher to opening it up and catching it. This only makes sense if they want to relieve pressure at the leak hidden down below the seabed.....and that sort of leak is one of the most dangerous and potentially damaging kind of leak there could be. It is also inaccessible which compounds our problems. There is no way to stop that leak from above, all they can do is relieve the pressure on it and the only way to do that right now is to open up the nozzle above and gush more oil into the gulf and hopefully catch it, which they have done, they just neglected to tell us why, gee thanks. A down hole leak is dangerous and damaging for several reasons. There will be erosion throughout the entire beat up, beat on and beat down remainder of the "system" including that inaccessible leak. The same erosion I spoke about in the first post is still present and has never stopped, cannot be stopped, is impossible to stop and will always be present in and acting on anything that is left which has crude oil "Product" rushing through it. There are abrasives still present, swirling flow will create hot spots of wear and this erosion is relentless and will always be present until eventually it wears away enough material to break it's way out. It will slowly eat the bop away especially at the now pinched off riser head and it will flow more and more. Perhaps BP can outrun or keep up with that out flow with various suckage methods for a period of time, but eventually the well will win that race, just how long that race will be?...no one really knows....However now?...there are other problems that a down hole leak will and must produce that will compound this already bad situation. This down hole leak will undermine the foundation of the seabed in and around the well area. It also weakens the only thing holding up the massive Blow Out Preventer's immense bulk of 450 tons. In fact?...we are beginning to the results of the well's total integrity beginning to fail due to the undermining being caused by the leaking well bore. The first layer of the sea floor in the gulf is mostly lose material of sand and silt. It doesn't hold up anything and isn't meant to, what holds the entire subsea system of the Bop in place is the well itself. The very large steel connectors of the initial well head "spud" stabbed in to the sea floor. The Bop literally sits on top of the pipe and never touches the sea bed, it wouldn't do anything in way of support if it did. After several tens of feet the seabed does begin to support the well connection laterally (side to side) you couldn't put a 450 ton piece of machinery on top of a 100' tall pipe "in the air" and subject it to the side loads caused by the ocean currents and expect it not to bend over...unless that pipe was very much larger than the machine itself, which you all can see it is not. The well's piping in comparison is actually very much smaller than the Blow Out Preventer and strong as it may be, it relies on some support from the seabed to function and not literally fall over...and it is now showing signs of doing just that....falling over. If you have been watching the live feed cams you may have noticed that some of the ROVs are using an inclinometer...and inclinometer is an instrument that measures "Incline" or tilt. The BOP is not supposed to be tilting...and after the riser clip off operation it has begun to... This is not the only problem that occurs due to erosion of the outer area of the well casings. The way a well casing assembly functions it that it is an assembly of different sized "tubes" that decrease in size as they go down. These tubes have a connection to each other that is not unlike a click or snap together locking action. After a certain length is assembled they are cemented around the ouside to the earth that the more rough drill hole is bored through in the well making process. A very well put together and simply explained process of "How to drill a deep water oil well" is available here: http://www.treesfullofmoney.com/?p=1610 The well bore casings rely on the support that is created by the cementing phase of well construction. Just like if you have many hands holding a pipe up you could put some weight on the top and the many hands could hold the pipe and the weight on top easily...but if there were no hands gripping and holding the pipe?...all the weight must be held up by the pipe alone. The series of connections between the sections of casings are not designed to hold up the immense weight of the BOP without all the "hands" that the cementing provides and they will eventually buckle and fail when stressed beyond their design limits. These are clear and present dangers to the battered subsea safety structure (bop and lmrp) which is the only loose cork on this well we have left. The immediate (first 1,000 feet) of well structure that remains is now also undoubtedly compromised. However.....as bad as that is?...it is far from the only possible problems with this very problematic well. There were ongoing troubles with the entire process during the drilling of this well. There were also many comprises made by BP IMO which may have resulted in an overall weakened structure of the entire well system all the way to the bottom plug which is over 12,000 feet deep. Problems with the cementing procedure which was done by Haliburton and was deemed as “was against our best practices.” by a Haliburton employee on April 1st weeks before the well blew out. There is much more and I won't go into detail right now concerning the lower end of the well and the troubles encountered during the whole creation of this well and earlier "Well control" situations that were revieled in various internal BP e-mails. I will add several links to those documents and quotes from them below and for now, address the issues concerning the upper portion of the well and the region of the sea floor. What is likely to happen now? Well...none of what is likely to happen is good, in fact...it's about as bad as it gets. I am convinced the erosion and compromising of the entire system is accelerating and attacking more key structural areas of the well, the blow out preventer and surrounding strata holding it all up and together. This is evidenced by the tilt of the blow out preventer and the erosion which has exposed the well head connection. What eventually will happen is that the blow out preventer will literally tip over if they do not run supports to it as the currents push on it. I suspect they will run those supports as cables tied to anchors very soon, if they don't, they are inviting disaster that much sooner. Eventually even that will be futile as the well casings cannot support the weight of the massive system above with out the cement bond to the earth and that bond is being eroded away. When enough is eroded away the casings will buckle and the BOP will collapse the well. If and when you begin to see oil and gas coming up around the well area from under the BOP? or the area around the well head connection and casing sinking more and more rapidly? ...it won't be too long after that the entire system fails. BP must be aware of this, they are mapping the sea floor sonically and that is not a mere exercise. Our Gov't must be well aware too, they just are not telling us. All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit...after that, it goes into the realm of "the worst things you can think of" The well may come completely apart as the inner liners fail. There is still a very long drill string in the well, that could literally come flying out...as I said...all the worst things you can think of are a possibility, but the very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more. There isn't any "cap dome" or any other suck fixer device on earth that exists or could be built that will stop it from gushing out and doing more and more damage to the gulf. While at the same time also doing more damage to the well, making the chance of halting it with a kill from the bottom up less and less likely to work, which as it stands now?....is the only real chance we have left to stop it all. It's a race now...a race to drill the relief wells and take our last chance at killing this monster before the whole weakened, wore out, blown out, leaking and failing system gives up it's last gasp in a horrific crescendo. We are not even 2 months into it, barely half way by even optimistic estimates. The damage done by the leaked oil now is virtually immeasurable already and it will not get better, it can only get worse. No matter how much they can collect, there will still be thousands and thousands of gallons leaking out every minute, every hour of every day. We have 2 months left before the relief wells are even near in position and set up to take a kill shot and that is being optimistic as I said. Over the next 2 months the mechanical situation also cannot improve, it can only get worse, getting better is an impossibility. While they may make some gains on collecting the leaked oil, the structural situation cannot heal itself. It will continue to erode and flow out more oil and eventually the inevitable collapse which cannot be stopped will happen. It is only a simple matter of who can "get there first"...us or the well. We can only hope the race against that eventuality is one we can win, but my assessment I am sad to say is that we will not. The system will collapse or fail substantially before we reach the finish line ahead of the well and the worst is yet to come. Sorry to bring you that news, I know it is grim, but that is the way I see it....I sincerely hope I am wrong. We need to prepare for the possibility of this blow out sending more oil into the gulf per week then what we already have now, because that is what a collapse of the system will cause. All the collection efforts that have captured oil will be erased in short order. The magnitude of this disaster will increase exponentially by the time we can do anything to halt it and our odds of actually even being able to halt it will go down. The magnitude and impact of this disaster will eclipse anything we have known in our life times if the worst or even near worst happens... We are seeing the puny forces of man vs the awesome forces of nature. We are going to need some luck and a lot of effort to win... and if nature decides we ought to lose, we will...."

found him!

Holy crap! Irony defined. http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/World/Story/STIStory_540739.html "Jun 15, 2010 Jesus statue hit by lightning MONROE (Ohio) - A SIX-STOREY-TALL statue of Jesus Christ with his arms raised along a highway was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm on Monday night and burned to the ground, police said. The 'King of Kings' statue, one of south-west Ohio's most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati. The sculpture, nearly 19 metres tall and 12 meters wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown in a game of football. It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained early on Tuesday. The fire spread from the statue to an adjacent amphitheatre but was confined to the attic area, and no one was injured, police Chief Mark Neu said. Travelers on Interstate 75 often were startled to come upon the huge statue by the roadside, but many said America needs more symbols like it. So many people stopped at the church campus that church officials had to build a walkway to accommodate them. The 4,000-member, non-denominational church was founded by former horse trader Lawrence Bishop and his wife. Mr Bishop said in 2004 he was trying to help people, not impress them, with the statue. He said his wife proposed the Jesus figure as a beacon of hope and salvation and they spent about US$250,000 to finance it. -- AP"

I think this is the kind of thing that could easily screw any of us over. I'm sure this girl thought that adding the rubber bands was a "safe" thing to do, and never saw this coming. For most of us in that situation, we would be unlikely to notice that these things were all set to kill us. Be safe all.

You don't want to know what I think. Really. Good luck.

I have radically changed my opinion of the parents: "The family of failed teen solo sailor Abby Sunderland says they cannot afford to pay for her rescue. Her mother, Marianne Sunderland, who is pregnant with the family's eighth child, said the family did not have the $300,000 necessary to compensate Australian rescue officials, the Courier Mail reported. "We're not wealthy people," she said. "What price would you put on a child's life?" " Why do they essentially ask us to value her life higher than they do? Assholes. The Aussies are not going to ask for the scratch though. Oh, did I mention that they will be trying to cash in on this story and that "the young woman has vowed to attempt another circumnavigation"?

hmmmm, thank you for the offer that warms any gear whores heart Joe, but I couldn't make it past the payment page. E-mail sent.

OMG!!! I just watched that WITHOUT ANY SOUND (I'm at work, don't ask) and I was cracking up the whole time. I missed it earlier but that shit is hilarious!!!! It's almost enough to make you start to cry. Thanks for finding and sharing that one Pete!

As if there wasn't already too many damn ways to get the chop, here's one that's new to me. The video is very clear: http://www.ukclimbing.com/videos/play.php?i=20 http://www.rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=2348785;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;page=unread#unread

[shame] yes, I do: the lips were flappin' fast and furious....Superlight sounds correct as well. thanks I do like having the best these day's to compensate for age and physical weakness. I like the combo of DMM and Trango noted above, but I really do want to know why you feel these are the best?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-14/human-trafficking-report-ranks-us-world-countries?cid=hp:mainpromo6 "For the past 10 years, the State Department has issued annual reports on human trafficking worldwide, ranking most of the world’s countries on a scale of 1 to 3. But one major country was always left out: the United States. This year, in a sign of the Obama administration’s more humble approach to foreign affairs, the U.S. has subjected itself to some of the same scrutiny it applies to other countries. The report, which comes out Monday, makes it clear that almost 150 years after the passage of the 13th Amendment, slavery still exists in America." Blah blah, report says we're still doing better than most. Thought you'd want to know. We should legalize/decriminalize prostitution.

Oh hell yes! Big time congrats on your new found freedom!

Hopefully the Afghan people will benefit from this and peace and progress will again come to them.

Really? at 56 grams? I see they have a keylock nose, which isn't a big deal to me, and they're well priced, but why are they the best? Maybe I should phrase it thusly, "Why are they better than Trango superlights which are shockingly lighter at only 41 grams and can be utilized in lots of places where a light weight unlocked carabiner would normally be utilized. And why are they better than the DMM Sentinel HMS which (like the Superfly) weights less at 54 grams and has a larger gate opening (nice for walls and multiple party clusterfriggages). Most importantly when your buddy drops his only belay device from 12 pitches up, can be used for rapping and belaying with a Munter Hitch? "