billcoe

The sky may be falling Largest bankruptcy ever: "Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LEH) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Monday in New York, listing debts of $613 billion"

If you can get everyone to believe the gloom and doom scenario it will be acted out. That simple. The next President will be Barak Obama. I have been putting my money where my mouth is using the glorious winnings from my "Hillary not being the democratic nominee" to fund this joyride. This is not to say I am looking forward to him f*ing up the county like I highly suspect he will. Just that it will be his turn. "Real change", the oft repeated and perhaps the only Obama campaign slogan, doesn't tell the koolaid drinkers if it might not be bad change. Like "Real Bad change". They will learn all this later of course, much to their chagrin. The true believers are already parsing their comments and blaming Bush for the future so that their guy can get a free ride...see that up there? I suspect BO may be the lesser of the 2 evils, and his Biden pick vs McCains pick, put it that way for me. I mean, I want to "believe" in the guy, but I don't "Believe" in the tooth fairy or Santa Clause any more for a reason. Belief is fine and all, but what have you ACTUALLY done in life? Not a hell of a lot in Obamas case.

no. Nothing about that post is serious. Thanks for raining on my parade though. I was trying to assist Peter to improve his Dawg baiting skillz. We are using a few of those monster bolts if that was part of the question.

Some notes in addition to whats been said. I have some garden trowels, but find that the best thing for fast cleaning of the kind of stuff I get on is an ice axe. You can whack a root with the adze, scrape moss if needed, and flip it around and use the pick both for deep cleaning of cracks and for pulling your self up hummocks if you're like me and feel it's difficult to not do some climbing while you're cleaning. The short, straight shaft, steel ice axes are the shitz. Not a curved shaft, not a lightweight aluminum model although both will work. For anything larger, like cleaning off ledges, the little bronco shovels that are like 2' long and have a plastic handle (Home Depot @$13) are nice cause they stuff in your pack and are real maneuverable. For harder dirt, or rocky ground, the shovel Ivan alludes to is a standard roofing shovel that has a wedge shaped fulcrum on the bottom which facilitates prying rocks off and is hard to beat for shoveling, chopping roots, and cranking out deeply rooted vegetation. Brad Jarrett told me to go buy a cordless blower, said for fine dust I would never go back to the palmyra bristle brushes ever again for the final cleaning. I bought one but haven't tried it yet. I'd pretty much believe anything he would tell me though. Weight about 5-6 lbs is all. I also bought a couple of the Russian nut tools for getting deep into cracks, as they are narrower and longer than about everything else out there. Always bring a dust mask. Adam and Ujahn. Who's been doing the work here!?

Post em up! I will eventually get some once I recover my camera and all my wide cams and big Bros. Everyone I was with seems to not think they have the crap. I triple checked my bag and it wasn't there (borrowed from Graham) but maybe it got left behind in the woods. You'd think it would be pretty hard to loose a #9 and #12 Valley Giant, but there ya go. Sh*t, just remembered where they are. Left them all at the cliff, just laying on the ground. An entire rack of wyde stuff: #4's up to through #12 Valley giant, 2 big bros, with the camera attached to the rack. ha ha! Glad it wasn't left at Smith or someplace popular:-) Probably over a grand of crap.

Good on ya as usual Ivan, but I need to ask: "Whats a Leeper Colony"? Is this classic Ivan-English speak? Do you mean the whole range of like doubles or triples of the Leeper Z pins? Or is this some real, actual piece? _____________________________________________________________ Fixed it so we can have the usual 50 page flamefest going.

Good to hear another good deed story. I personally think this is the rule, and not the exception, but that our propensity to blow up strange and bizarre shit on the news and only get fed that bullshit over and over and over makes us think the reverse is actually the case. Most people, rich and poor, are real good people. You just don't get the continual feed loop on the good news and good deeds because "they" don't make money on it.

Nice work dudes! Serious stuff with all the loose rocks you must have been looking at. 1 rock on the bean while on upper Wyeast and that 2000' or so ride down the talus would have been a bitch eh? Wow. to making it back.

True dat, but Clinton ran under the "It's the economy stupid" and was elected with one of his primary ideas that we can and must keep our economy strong by borrowing and spending less. Too his great credit (I know I know- this dude had faults and failures, we all know it, for instance -he pitched a .50/cent a gallon gas tax that was well done and dropped it like a hot potatoe when he saw the political opposition starting to form against it) he succeed in fixing that issue, along with some other important and large ones as well. I so totally agreed with this part of your diatribe.

Hilti is pricy. However, you probably got like a 9/16 x 12" or something bizarre and big? For climbing project? Hey, if you're trolling for Pope and Raindowg Peter, couple of tips for you, I've learned that you have to be much more inflammatory. Say, tell them you named your drill after one of them and successfully bolted a crack GREAT ROUTE then post a pic of a bolted crack! The lil Dawg itching for action. The new Gold Standard 1/2 x 7" long. Top of the new bolted route who's name is say, "Teasin' the Dawg" or "Kickin' the Dawg in the nutz" or something equally clever. There are plenty of better bolted pics you could chose from as this route appears to be trad bolted, with bolts farther apart than normal trolling dictates. Cleaning a new line to bolt. See how happy this gentleman is? That's how you look when you stuff the Gold standard in that hole. Just trying to help out.

force your way through and survive.....I think it should be added:-) Biggest Ice fall I'd ever seen b4 or since swept that area once late August. The blocks were the size of houses and the noise was not something one could describe. Nice picture jtownsley!

I is are lookin fur dem ass well. Are lives is are incomplete till we git dem. boo yah! Hey!

You can put lipstick on a ... No sir! didn't work at all.

hmmm, if she is a fur trader is she still a virgin or would that devalue the price? Link If we could get paid for "fucking yourself", what kind of money could one raise? I hear that on this site a lot, never figured it could be a good thing.

Link Lindsay Lohan is planning on an isle of Lesbos wedding. 8D "First there were the matching tattoos, then the public declarations of love and now it seems Lindsay Lohan will marry her lesbian lover. ............" Ya got to admit she's easier on the eyes than McCain, who, by the way, is looking more like a vampire (no blood in his face if the tip off) than ever, even when not standing next to your future president Barak. Compare: see? I'm sayin'

It was a joke he hatched with my dad.

Don't ever be takin' no shit about my main man Charlie Brown, amazing human being and founder of George (ie converted the land from a Pig Sty to a town). If any Charlie Brown relatives ever read this and ever have need for even the smallest of favors, you have but to ask. Turns out I inherited a debt which I would be more than happy to repay. God Bless Charlie cause if it exists, he's up there in heaven.

free soda and chips from the vending machines?

My feeling is that you are gonna get one and there is nothing you can do about it. The main difference is that one has darker skin and is much younger than the other one, you will not be happy with either. Plan on it. Have a nice day.

We get it. Isn't it 80% of Alaskans love her? What does that say? Or the fact that a small town re-elected her. Small towns are notorious for looking at every little fault you or your relatives have? What does that tell you. We get that part T.

Well spoken. I think we all agree that the current US policy of "we're angry douchbags and don't care what you, our friends or enemy's, say or do, we'll take care of it any way we damn well see fit" is one of the most counterproductive long term strategy's available to us 99% of the time.

No - we have been successful as a country and for 50 years we have used both the military and diplomatic channels. That is not to say we have been perfect. I use the word successful...and we have been by anybody's estimation. Not perfect.

I have no opinion on that

Good find PP. I think that the point is that the artical was written for Brits and Euros enamored by Obama, to explain to them why the race is so close. Perhaps you folks who dislike the artical have a better explanation why Obama is behind in the polls? Lets hear it if you do. Said: "Barack Obama the speechmaker is being rumbled There is a yawning gulf between what the Democratic candidate says and how he has acted. That's why the race is so close Gerard Baker It's funny how the harder you look at something, the harder it can be to understand it. I can't recall a US presidential election that has attracted more attention. But neither can there have been a time when the world has watched what goes on in America with the nonplussed, horrified incomprehension it has now. Travelling in Britain this week, I've been asked repeatedly by close followers of US politics if it can really be true that Barack Obama might not win. Thoughtful people cannot get their head around the idea that Mr Obama, exciting new pilot of change, supported by Joseph Biden, experienced navigator of the swamplands of Washington politics, could possibly be defeated. They look upon John McCain and Sarah Palin and see something out of hag-ridden history: the wizened old warrior, obsessed with finding enemies in every corner of the globe, marching in lockstep with the crackpot, mooseburger-chomping mother from the wilds of Alaska, rifle in one hand, Bible in the other, smiting caribou and conventional science as she goes. Two patronising explanations are adduced to explain why Americans are going wrong. The first is racism. I've dealt with this before and it has acquired no more merit. White supremacists haven't been big on Democratic candidates, whatever their colour, for a long time, and Mr Obama's race is as likely to generate enthusiasm among blacks and young voters as it is hostility among racists. In a similarly condescending account, those foolish saps are being conned into voting for Mr McCain because they like his running-mate. Her hockey-mom charm and storybook career appeals to their worst instincts. The race is boiling down to a beauty contest in which a former beauty queen is stealing the show. Believe this if it helps you come to terms with the possibility of a Democratic defeat. But there really are better explanations. One is a simple political-cultural one. This election is a struggle between the followers of American exceptionalism and the supporters of global universalism. Democrats are more eager than ever to align the US with the rest of the Western world, especially Europe. This is true not just in terms of a commitment to multilateral diplomacy that would restore the United Nations to its rightful place as arbiter of international justice. It is also reflected in the type of place they'd like America to be - a country with higher taxes, more business regulation, a much larger welfare safety net and universal health insurance. The Republicans, who still believe America should follow the beat of its own drum, are pretty much against all of that. You can argue the merits of each case. But let me try to explain to my fellow non-Americans why Mr Obama's problems go well beyond that. Even if you think that Americans should want to turn their country into a European-style system, there is a perfectly good reason that you might have grave doubts about Mr Obama. The essential problem coming to light is a profound disconnect between the Barack Obama of the candidate's speeches, and the Barack Obama who has actually been in politics for the past decade or so. Speechmaker Obama has built his campaign on the promise of reform, the need to change the culture of American political life, to take on the special interests that undermine government's effectiveness and erode trust in the system itself, Politician Obama rose through a Chicago machine that is notoriously the most corrupt in the country. As David Freddoso writes in a brilliantly cogent and measured book, The Case Against Barack Obama, the angel of deliverance from the old politics functioned like an old-time Democratic pol in Illinois. He refused repeatedly to side with those lonely voices that sought to challenge the old corrupt ways of the ruling party. Speechmaker Obama talks about an era of bipartisanship, He speaks powerfully about the destructive politics of red and blue states. Politician Obama has toed his party's line more reliably than almost any other Democrat in US politics. He has a near-perfect record of voting with his side. He has the most solidly left-wing voting history in the Senate. His one act of bipartisanship, a transparency bill co-sponsored with a Republican senator, was backed by everybody on both sides of the aisle. He has never challenged his party's line on any issue of substance. Speechmaker Obama talks a lot about finding ways to move beyond the bloody battlegrounds of the “culture wars” in America; the urgent need to establish consensus on the emotive issue of abortion. Politician Obama's support for abortion rights is the most extreme of any Democratic senator. In the Illinois legislature he refused to join Democrats and Republicans in supporting a Bill that would require doctors to provide medical care for babies who survived abortions. No one in the Senate - not the arch feminist Hillary Clinton nor the superliberal Edward Kennedy - opposed this same humane measure. Here's the real problem with Mr Obama: the jarring gap between his promises of change and his status quo performance. There are just too many contradictions between the eloquent poetry of the man's stirring rhetoric and the dull, familiar prose of his political record. It's been remarked that the biggest difference between Americans and Europeans is religion: ignorant Americans cling to faith; enlightened Europeans long ago embraced the liberating power of reason. Yet here's an odd thing about this election. Europeans are asking Americans to take a leap of faith, to break the chains of empiricism and embrace the possibility of the imagination. The fact is that a vote for Mr Obama demands uncritical subservience to the irrational, anti-empirical proposition that the past holds no clues about the future, that promise is wholly detached from experience. The second-greatest story ever told, perhaps."

She got screwed up kittens?