billcoe

pfffft: pass on Pink, I can belay up to 5.14 and won't flip you off either.

I have the Aztecs and to me, they feel real real slick at the slightest bit of dampness. This being the PNW, they stay in the basement a lot, reinforcing that I should move to Cochise or JTree. I might get the hightop JBs if they ever get them in, but Climbaxe (great local store) only had these then. Link to Supertopo Acopa discussion Congrats: where ya going Rudy?

Hey, I think Pink's middle finger is still generally straight out Mikey! Probably sprained it from all this typing. Pink, if you choose to show, I think there's gonna be @ 10-12 of us heading down mid-May if you need a belay on easier stuff once Mikey there has his way with you and you get totally worked and hammered.

I've seen lots of timeframes bandied about. I think the original one by the Israelis was 2 years. The US said Iran was and then changed their mind wasn't a threat. The Iranians are believed to possess the Chinese shore to ship missile that is believed to be able to sink an Aircraft Carrier. I suspect that the typical US Navy muscle flexing may not be one of the tools in the diplomatic box this go-round. I suspect that China would be very happy to see how their missiles perform against US Carrier groups in a no-fault, no PRC exposure manner. We can still see how they like US Submarines. Todays news (It's only April Fools day in the US BTW: _______________________________________________________ http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1238562879456&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull Apr 1, 2009 14:02 | Updated Apr 1, 2009 16:09 PM: We may be forced to attack Iran By JPOST.COM STAFF The primary imperative for the United States and President Barack Obama is to put an end to Iran's nuclear race, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said before his swearing-in Tuesday, adding that if the US failed to do so Israel might be forced to resort to a military strike on the Islamic Republic's nuclear installations. "The Obama presidency has two great missions: fixing the economy, and preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons," Netanyahu told The Atlantic. The Iranian drive for a nuclear weapon was a "hinge of history," he said, emphasizing that all of "Western civilization" was responsible for preventing an Iranian bomb. "You don't want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs," Netanyahu said of the Iranian regime. "When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran." Netanyahu suggested that Israeli preemptive strikes against perceived threats were the result of the Jewish people learning from a long history of grappling against those who threatened their collective existence. He cited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated calls to "wipe Israel off the map," as well as a recent remark by the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to the effect that Israel was a "cancerous tumor." However, despite Iran's singling-out of Israel, he said, the rest of the world would be well advised to take the threat emanating from Teheran seriously. He voiced support for Obama's strategy of engaging Iran in dialogue, as long as the negotiations worked swiftly to convince Iran to relinquish its nuclear program. "How you achieve this goal is less important than achieving it," he said, although he was not optimistic regarding the chances that dialogue could persuade Iran to reconsider its interests. Nevertheless, he said, economic sanctions could still make a difference. "I think the Iranian economy is very weak, which makes Iran susceptible to sanctions that can be ratcheted up by a variety of means," he said. Iran's leadership, Netanyahu added, was not immune to pressure, but fanatic elements made it extremely dangerous to risk relying on economic sanctions alone. "Iran is a composite leadership, but in that composite leadership there are elements of wide-eyed fanaticism that do not exist right now in any other would-be nuclear power in the world. That's what makes them so dangerous," he said. "Since the dawn of the nuclear age, we have not had a fanatic regime that might put its zealotry above its self-interest. People say that they'll behave like any other nuclear power. Can you take the risk? Can you assume that?" Netanyahu cited Teheran's tactics during its protracted war with Iraq in the 1980s as evidence of irrational behavior on the part of Iran. "[They] wasted over a million lives without batting an eyelash," he said. "It didn't sear a terrible wound into the Iranian consciousness. It wasn't Britain after World War I, lapsing into pacifism because of the great tragedy of a loss of a generation. You see nothing of the kind." " __________________________________________________________________ Info on Chinas missile system that will take out a US Carrier group, this was just printed yesterday, but rumors have been swirling for some time. Now it's more "official" coming off the US Naval Institute site. https://www.usni.org/forthemedia/ChineseKillWeapon.asp Report: Chinese Develop Special "Kill Weapon" to Destroy U.S. Aircraft Carriers Advanced missile poses substantial new threat for U.S. Navy U. S. Naval Institute March 31, 2009 With tensions already rising due to the Chinese navy becoming more aggressive in asserting its territorial claims in the South China Sea, the U.S. Navy seems to have yet another reason to be deeply concerned. After years of conjecture, details have begun to emerge of a "kill weapon" developed by the Chinese to target and destroy U.S. aircraft carriers. First posted on a Chinese blog viewed as credible by military analysts and then translated by the naval affairs blog Information Dissemination, a recent report provides a description of an anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) that can strike carriers and other U.S. vessels at a range of 2000km. The range of the modified Dong Feng 21 missile is significant in that it covers the areas that are likely hot zones for future confrontations between U.S. and Chinese surface forces. The size of the missile enables it to carry a warhead big enough to inflict significant damage on a large vessel, providing the Chinese the capability of destroying a U.S. supercarrier in one strike. Because the missile employs a complex guidance system, low radar signature and a maneuverability that makes its flight path unpredictable, the odds that it can evade tracking systems to reach its target are increased. It is estimated that the missile can travel at mach 10 and reach its maximum range of 2000km in less than 12 minutes. Supporting the missile is a network of satellites, radar and unmanned aerial vehicles that can locate U.S. ships and then guide the weapon, enabling it to hit moving targets. While the ASBM has been a topic of discussion within national defense circles for quite some time, the fact that information is now coming from Chinese sources indicates that the weapon system is operational. The Chinese rarely mention weapons projects unless they are well beyond the test stages. If operational as is believed, the system marks the first time a ballistic missile has been successfully developed to attack vessels at sea. Ships currently have no defense against a ballistic missile attack. Along with the Chinese naval build-up, U.S. Navy officials appear to view the development of the anti-ship ballistic missile as a tangible threat. After spending the last decade placing an emphasis on building a fleet that could operate in shallow waters near coastlines, the U.S. Navy seems to have quickly changed its strategy over the past several months to focus on improving the capabilities of its deep sea fleet and developing anti-ballistic defenses. As analyst Raymond Pritchett notes in a post on the U.S. Naval Institute blog: "The Navy's reaction is telling, because it essentially equals a radical change in direction based on information that has created a panic inside the bubble. For a major military service to panic due to a new weapon system, clearly a mission kill weapon system, either suggests the threat is legitimate or the leadership of the Navy is legitimately unqualified. There really aren't many gray spaces in evaluating the reaction by the Navy…the data tends to support the legitimacy of the threat." In recent years, China has been expanding its navy to presumably better exert itself in disputed maritime regions. A recent show of strength in early March led to a confrontation with an unarmed U.S. ship in international waters." Seen below in this artists rendition:

I don't think the NPS has any sense of humor. http://www.nps.gov/yose/ I think that's someone else's April Fools joke. NPS website doesn't make notice of anything but the Mirror Lake trail closure. "Campgrounds * Yosemite Valley: Upper Pines Campground is open; reservations are required. North Pines Campground is open for those with prior reservations in Lower Pines and will open on April 1 with reservations required (and new reservations available). Lower Pines Campground will open on April 4; reservations are required. Camp 4 is open on a first-come, first-served basis." Normal...for now. Web cam here -pretty stunning quality: http://www.yosemite.org/DSN/wwwyosemiteassociationorg/Content/Webcam/ahwahnee.jpg The death slab approach looks ....well ....uhhh....f*ed .....but it looked that way last rockfall avalanche.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20090401/ap_tr_ge/travel_brief_sj_valley_yosemite_rockfall Looks like the death slabs are both aptly named and probably impossible to safely climb to get to the base of the dome if anyone is considering it. This mornings fall is the latest round of what is looking more like a routine thing. The regular half dome trail should still get you there in one piece. Could be a climbing route or 3 was affected as well dependent on the rock origin. " Rockfall closes Yosemite trail near Half Dome AP 41 mins ago YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. – Officials say no one was injured in a giant rockfall near Yosemite National Park's iconic Half Dome, but it did close a trail. The tumbling boulders unleashed so much fury before daybreak Saturday that it registered as a magnitude-2.5 earthquake. The debris fell into Tenaya Canyon and buried the southern portion of the Mirror Lake loop trail. The park's geologist said the rockfall was reminiscent of one in 1996 that created an air blast that felled thousands of trees, killing one tourist. Geologist Greg Stock said the avalanche at 5:26 a.m. from Ahwiyah Point was the largest in 10 years, surpassing the October event that forced the park to permanently close part of Curry Village. Rockfall is the most powerful force of nature altering the park's topography."

He had a Chinese knock off, might have kept the hand as the Leatherman would have successfully ground down or chewed up the rock (it was only sandstone) instead of being a weakassed piece of shit that failed when he needed it most. I read part of this book in Victors house while waiting for him to get off work in Yosemite and it was pretty good.

U want him 2 be a fluffy, hot Ewe don't ya?

Hi brother was held at Guantanomo for like 6 years, tortured, and then released - with no charges. How f*ed is that/

We finally agree on something. The few times I ever wound up on an US Airbase in foreign soil, they were eating unlimited shrimp F*uking cocktails and drinking champagne for lunch while the 2-4 times we ever had beef meat it was venison...no shit. I'm thinking, "how stupid am I for not being part of this circus." Naturally I've advised my son that the air force is the only way to go. Go gay: go smart. Air force gets all the goodies.

Mullet dude finally gets his day in court! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/23/ali-al-marri-accused-al-q_n_178246.html "PEORIA, Ill. — A man locked up for seven years after being accused of plotting terrorist attacks in the U.S. as an al-Qaida sleeper agent pleaded not guilty to federal charges Monday and was told his fate may be decided by the end of the year. U.S. District Judge Michael Mihm set a May 26 for the start Ali al-Marri's trial on charges of conspiracy and supporting terrorism, but acknowledged it would be moved and delayed."

I love it when a young tuff like AKA chestbeats with something like "What are YOU doing for your country?"...when the person on the other end served decades ago. Kids these days! I got out before you went in: whats to talk about? ______________________________________________________________ This is a Patriot act update if you want to do something other than howl on the internet (this isn't all of us but for me sometimes its just easier to yammer here:-) Thanks again JH for the reminder of how many freedoms we have and how important they ALL are. Little here....little there....pretty soon you're goose stepping down Les Champs-Elysees...which might be too egregious if you could stop and shop at the Louis Vuitton store a scant 2-3 blocks from the Arc de Triomphe there and the dollar was worth something. http://www.reformthepatriotact.org/ "On December 31, 2009, three provisions of the Patriot Act will sunset. This is the perfect opportunity for Congress to examine all of our surveillance laws and amend those that have been found unconstitutional or have been abused to collect information on innocent people, including last year's changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Attorney General Guidelines (AGGs). Despite the many amendments to these laws since 9/11, congress and the public have yet to receive real information about how these powerful tools are being used to collect information on Americans and how that information is being used. All of these laws work together to create a surveillance superstructure – and Congress must understand how it really works to create meaningful protections for civil liberties. The ACLU's recent report, Reclaiming Patriotism, provides more information on parts of the Patriot Act that need to be amended. * National Security Letters (NSLs). The FBI uses NSLs to compel internet service providers, libraries, banks, and credit reporting companies to turn over sensitive information about their customers and patrons. Using this data, the government can compile vast dossiers about innocent people. Government reports confirm that upwards of 50,000 of these secret record demands go out each year. In response to an ACLU lawsuit (Doe v. Holder), the Second Circuit Court of Appeal struck down as unconstitutional the part of the NSL law that gives the FBI the power to prohibit NSL recipients from telling anyone that the government has secretly requested customer Internet records. * Material Support Statute. This provision criminalizes providing "material support" to terrorists, defined as providing any tangible or intangible good, service or advice to a terrorist or designated group. As amended by the Patriot Act and other laws since September 11, this section criminalizes a wide array of activities, regardless of whether they actually or intentionally further terrorist goals or organizations. Federal courts have struck portions of the statute as unconstitutional and a number of cases have been dismissed or ended in mistrial. * FISA Amendments Act of 2008. This past summer, Congress passed a law to permit the government to conduct warrantless and suspicion-less dragnet collection of U.S. residents' international telephone calls and e-mails. This too must be amended to provide meaningful privacy protections and judicial oversight of the government's intrusive surveillance power. "

Move along rodent. This is a thread about rodents, not a thread for rodents to post in. CYA

Gloom and doom in case you missed it. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/business/economy/27portland.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&ref=business

That's a very good point. Is it time to start posting climbing pictures yet?

That's good to hear Matt. My first hand info is older than you sad to say:-) I think one thing which may be difficult to ascertain, is if that is a real fact or not. In the VA system, people who are victims of poor medical care, much more than in private hospitals where a quick call to an attorney will get you registered as a statistic when they file, do not usually even say anything. I'd double check how those stats are produced is all. Assuming you've seen stats. As a FYI, I don't have but 1 possible conservative buddy (Jimmy O and he's really out there on some issues and hardly a conservative like you would normally think of), all of them are liberals. This is PDX you know, "home of the other white meat".

You'd like Ivan if you met him I bet.

Say what? Nobody ever got infected with HIV, or otherwise died when they shouldn't have, simply because they were in a "regular" hospital and exposed to some risk or disease? I was referring to clean sterilized scopes in colonoscopies Matt. Sure, all hospitals are infectious places, and sponges do get left in surgical openings. I shouldn't have said never. There's thousands and thousands of hospitals doing mega thousands of colonoscopies out there. The VA is most likely doing a tiny amount in comparison. Should be easy for you to find a link of one that didn't properly sterilize colonoscopy scopes and infected someone. It is damn uncommon, and I have seen substandard care with my own eyes at VA'S that is not present in regular hospitals.

Well spoken Erik. I think that's a good summation of a complex issue. Since you brought up the VA as an example, let me add that I'm happy they can get their technological act together, however, the VA has been known for substandard, piss-poor, inefficient and lackadaisical health care for decades. Not the records kind of thing, as we know this can and has happened elsewhere: VA Loses data on 26 million veterans in 2006 link I mean actual care. As if on cure, here's yesterdays news "MIAMI -- The Veterans Affairs hospital in Miami has suspended performing colonoscopies while authorities investigate why equipment used in the procedure hadn't been properly sterilized. Earlier this week, the hospital urged more than 3,000 patients who had colonoscopies between May 2004 and March 12 of this year to get tested for HIV, hepatitis and other diseases. The VA has identified three sites that failed to properly sterilize equipment between treatments. Ten people treated at affected VA facilities in Tennessee and Georgia have tested positive for infectious liver disease. A spokeswoman says the VA will make sure they get treatment even though it's not known if the infections came from colonoscopies at its hospitals. " I've personally seen people die there who should have lived. Nice of them to treat those folks (for life), although it will be a significantly shorter time period than had the VA not screwed them up. This NEVER happens at regular hospitals as they don't want to get sued. You can't sue the government. If our government had a better track record in medical care, I think it would be easier to jump on the government will fix everything and make it better bandwagon due to the issues that exist with the current system: some of which you pointed out, although there are many more. ps, I apologize for the inflammatory, unfair and misleading title:-)

Nice work on the Pillar. This should get you started:-) Kyle on left, Geoff on the right ON THE TOP!

i could not readily make myself a home-made bomb of ok city fame - the inconvenience is itself a deterrence - if you could buy 500 lb fragmentation bombs at walmart, per your view, i would imagine we'd see them getting used... WFT hey? That's crazy talk. Your earlier supposition on the M1 Abrams tank. They cost an estimated US$4.35 million. Each. To produce, not including development costs and maintenance. What sized garage do you have anyway that you can make this happen? Who's going to go buy one of those when if they are really F*ed up and serious, they can go to the feed store and literally buy shit in bulk? For many many years, machine guns and dynamite was not regulated AT ALL. How many schools were ever blown up? Shit, we use to find dynamite when I was a kid just laying around. Never figured out how to blow it, I had to wait for the military to show me that. (I was in charge of EOD, Emergency Ordinance Destruct, for my company and as training got to blow up all kinds of stuff on a real regular basis) A 500 lb JDAM costs the US over $20,000 NOT including development costs and they buy in huge big time bulk. You think any private company can compete at all in that ball park. Nope. You can't even go buy a little machine gun cheaply today -have you priced any of this out? Ain't gonna be happening because the folks with those kind of resources GENERALLY don't do shit like that. (OK, there was millionaire Nazi recently caught assembling a dirty bomb). Nah, it's about political freedom. Did you mull this over? The question that remains Ivan, is why they (Mexico and not us) are so fucked up when guns are readily available here, and they have had tight gun restrictions since 1968? Answer that in your own mind to your own satisfaction before you read on please. Hmmmm?

Why? Just say hi. Then call the Newberg library.

Yet everything that Tim McVeigh was able to scrounge up is apparently still freely available for now and no one is blowing up any building or killing kids right now. Furthermore, no one is taking a full 5 gallon gas can and pouring it in and around the exits at crowded theaters and torching it for fun.... Do you not find all of this curious?

yes and the meth is fine by me as well.