billcoe

If I hadn't read to the end I would have though jb had written this. Really need to click the link to get the formatting and the charts or my copy won't read correctly. Included are the persons 2011 forecasts along with some interesting 2012 forecasts. Good stuff. I copied and pasted the article as it will disappear soon I'd expect. Link here: http://www.theburningplatform.com/ "2011 – CATCH-22 YEAR IN REVIEW Posted on 30th December 2011 by Administrator in Economy |Politics |Social Issues “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” - Mark Twain I published my predictions for 2011 on January 3, 2011 in my article 2011 – The Year of Catch-22. Humans evidently enjoy being embarrassed by how pitiful they are at predicting the future, because we continue to do it year after year. The mainstream media pundits don’t dare look back at their predictions or the predictions of the Wall Street shills that parade on CNBC and get quoted in the Wall Street Journal, eternally predicting 10% to 15% stock market gains. The multi-millionaire Wall Street strategists like the spawn of the squid, Abbey Joseph Cohen, have used all of their Ivy League brain power to predict at least a 10% stock price gain every year since 1999. The S&P 500 stood at 1,272 on January 6, 1999. As of this writing it currently stands at 1,261. ZERO appreciation over the last twelve years. The Wall Street mantra of stocks for the long run is beginning to get a little stale. If Abbey Joseph Cohen had been right for the last twelve years, the S&P 500 would be 4,000. For this level of accuracy, she is paid millions. Her 2011 prediction of 1,500 only missed by16%. The S&P 500 began the year at 1,258 and hasn’t budged. The lowest prediction from the Wall Street shysters at the outset of the year was 1,333, with the majority between 1,400 and 1,500. The same Wall Street clowns are now being quoted in the mainstream media predicting a 10% to 15% increase in stock prices in 2012, despite the fact we are headed back into recession, China’s property bubble has burst, and Europe teeters on the brink of dissolution. They lie on behalf of their Too Big To Tell the Truth employers by declaring stocks undervalued, when honest analysts such as Jeremy Grantham, John Hussman and Robert Shiller truthfully report that stocks are overvalued and will provide pitiful returns over the next year and the next decade. I will take my chances with a few predictions for 2012 after reviewing my lack of foresight regarding 2011. I declared 2011 the year of Catch-22 because no matter what happened, it would not translate into a positive result for the American people. This was my thesis: The United States and its leaders are stuck in their own Catch 22. They need the economy to improve in order to generate jobs, but the economy can only improve if people have jobs. They need the economy to recover in order to improve our deficit situation, but if the economy really recovers long term interest rates will increase, further depressing the housing market and increasing the interest expense burden for the US, therefore increasing the deficit. A recovering economy would result in more production and consumption, which would result in more oil consumption driving the price above $100 per barrel, therefore depressing the economy. Americans must save for their retirements as 10,000 Baby Boomers turn 65 every day, but if the savings rate goes back to 10%, the economy will collapse due to lack of consumption. Consumer expenditures account for 71% of GDP and need to revert back to 65% for the US to have a balanced sustainable economy, but a reduction in consumer spending will push the US back into recession, reducing tax revenues and increasing deficits. You can see why Catch 22 is the theme for 2011. My predictions for 2011 were as follows: The first half of 2011 is guaranteed to give the appearance of recovery. The lame-duck Congress ”compromise” will pump hundreds of billions of borrowed dollars into the economy. The continuation of unemployment benefits for 99 weeks (supposedly to help employment) and the 2% payroll tax cut will goose consumer spending. Ben Bernanke and his QE2 stimulus for poor Wall Street bankers is pumping $75 billion per month ($3 to $4 billion per day) directly into the stock market. Since Ben gave Wall Street the all clear signal in late August, the NASDAQ has soared 25%. Despite the fact that there are 362,000 less Americans employed than were employed in August 2010, the mainstream media will continue to tout the jobs recovery. The goal of all these efforts is to boost confidence and spending. Everything being done by those in power has the seeds of its own destruction built in. The Catch 22 will assert itself in the 2nd half of 2011. The payroll tax cut, extension of unemployment benefits and Bernanke’s gift to Wall Street criminal banks did nothing to help real Americans in the real world. The government manipulated GDP has languished between 0.4% and 1.8% in the first three quarters of 2011. Using a true measure of inflation, as detailed by John Williams at www.shadowstats.com, GDP has remained at a recessionary level of -2% to -3%. Easy Ben accomplished his goal of pumping up the stock market with his QE2 gift to Wall Street bankers during the first six months of 2011, with the S&P 500 peaking at 1,364 in late April. The market began to fall the second Ben stopped handing Jamie Dimon and his friends $4 billion per day, with the market dropping 18% in three months. The market has risen back near the breakeven level for the year based on Ben’s promise to keep interest rates at zero forever and the hope of QE3. A new perfect storm is brewing for housing in 2011 and will not subside until late 2012. You may have thought those bad mortgages had been all written off. You would be wrong. There will be in excess of $200 billion of adjustable rate mortgages that reset between 2011 and 2012, with in excess of $125 billion being the dreaded Alt-A mortgages. This is a recipe for millions of new foreclosures. The brainless twits on CNBC will dutifully report the number of completed foreclosure sales plunged by 24% in 2011, giving the impression to their non-critical thinking viewership that all is well on the housing front. What they will fail to point out is that the number of foreclosures in process went up in 2011 and now stands 59% ABOVE the level in 2009 at the height of our recession. The reason that completed foreclosures have fallen is twofold. The criminal Wall Street banks can’t prove they hold the mortgage notes on hundreds of thousands of homes and they have a few legal issues related to the massive robo-signing fraud they committed. Kicking old ladies and Iraq War veterans out into the street using fraudulent documentation has caused the Wall Street Too Evil To Believe Banks some public relations issues. Secondly, the Wall Street Plutocrats have these mortgage loans valued at 100% on their balance sheets due to the FASB gift of mark to fantasy accounting rules. Foreclosing actually reveals their assets to be overvalued by at least 50%. This may explain why millions of Americans are still in their homes after not making a mortgage payment for two years, as detailed by economist Tom Lawler: Given the number of loans either seriously delinquent or in the process of foreclosure at the beginning of the year, the number of completed foreclosure sales in 2011 is almost absurdly low, reflecting the complete screw-up of the mortgage servicing industry, and the resulting dramatic slowdown in foreclosure resolutions. As of the end of October, 2011 LPS estimated that there were 1.759 million seriously delinquent loans with the average number of days delinquent at 388 (compared to 192 days in January 2008), and there were 2.210 million loans in the foreclosure process that had been on average delinquent for 631 days. Completed Foreclosure Sales And Short Sales/DILs (thousands, estimates) 2008 2009 2010 2011(E) Completed Foreclosure Sales 914 949 1,070 815 Owner-occupied N.A. N.A. 785 608 Non-owner-occupied N.A. N.A. 285 207 Short Sales/DILs 105 270 354 380 Foreclosures plus Short Sales/DILs 1,019 1,219 1,424 1,195 Outstanding first liens: Jan-08 Jan-09 Jan-10 Jan-11 Seriously Delinquent (90+) 1,016 1,983 3,061 2,168 In Process of Foreclosure 860 1,386 2,110 2,203 The concerted effort to not complete foreclosures did nothing to slow the continued descent in home prices. As you can see in the chart below from http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/, real home prices will have fallen another 5% in 2011. Obama and his minions threw $50 billion of your tax dollars at the housing market in 2009 – 2010 with tax credits, loan modification programs, homebuilder tax loss carry-backs, and a myriad of other Keynesian claptrap solutions. They succeeded in pissing your tax dollars down the toilet as prices have declined another 12% in the last 18 months. Prices have fallen 42% nationally since 2006. I wonder who missed the boat on that development? “We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So, what I think what is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize, might slow consumption spending a bit.” – Ben Bernanke – July 2005 There are approximately 48.5 million homes with mortgages in the United States and 10.7 million of them have negative equity. Another 2.4 million have less than 5% equity. Considering it costs more than 5% in closing costs to sell a house that means 27% of home occupiers with a mortgage are trapped like rats in a cage. With 2.2 million foreclosures still in the pipeline and a looming recession, home prices will continue to fall another 10% to 20% over the next two years and one third of all home occupiers will be underwater. That sounds like a recipe for 10% to 15% stock market gains. Quantitative easing has benefited only Wall Street bankers and the 1% wealthiest Americans. The $1.4 trillion of toxic mortgage backed securities on The Fed’s balance sheet are worth less than $700 billion. How will they unload this toxic waste? The Treasuries they have bought drop in value as interest rates rise. Quantitative easing’s Catch 22 is that it can never be unwound without destroying the Fed and the US economy. Bennie and his Inkjets did a bang up job in 2011. He was able to expand his balance sheet from $2.47 trillion to $2.95 trillion in twelve short months. According to Ben and his Federal Reserve friends, increasing your balance sheet by $480 billion isn’t really printing money out of thin air and handing it to their Wall Street owners for free, so they can prop up the stock market and enrich their executives. Ben is now leveraged 57 to 1. He should move to Europe, where this level of leverage is commonplace. In comparison, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns were leveraged 40 to 1 when they went belly up. There is absolutely no way that Ben Bernanke could ever reduce the Federal Reserve balance sheet to the pre-crisis level without destroying the U.S. economy. He knows that and will never sell off those toxic mortgage assets. Not only won’t he reduce the Fed balance sheet, but by mid-2012 he will institute QE3 and buy another $600 billion of mortgage debt. His hubris knows no bounds, as his reckless illegal actions thus far have not driven interest rates sky high – YET. He has only destroyed the finances of senior citizens, savers and people who eat food and use gasoline. He will surely go down in history, but not the way he envisions. The rise in oil to $91 a barrel will not be a top. The Catch-22 of a declining dollar is that prices of all imported goods go up. If the dollar falls another 10%, the price of oil will rise above $120 a barrel and push the economy back into recession. As Bernanke printed like a drunken sailor during the first six months of 2011, the USD fell by 9% and the price of oil did exactly as expected, rising to a peak above $125. The NATO “intervention” in Libya also added a few bucks to the price of a barrel of sweet crude. DXY One-Year Chart for DOLLAR INDEX SPOT (DXY:IND) The complete implosion of Europe and the ensuing weakness of the Euro have given the false impression that the U.S. dollar is a safe haven. The USD has regained its losses and will end the year exactly as it started versus a Euro heavy basket of world currencies. With annual deficits equaling 10% of GDP, a national debt now exceeding 100% of GDP, and Ben Bernanke in perpetual printing mode, the USD is destined to reach its intrinsic value of zero. With Brent crude still above $108 a barrel, employment still weak, and double digit food and energy inflation slowing consumer spending, the ECRI knows a recession during 2012 is baked in the cake. The imminent collapse of the European Union as Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain are effectively bankrupt. Spain is the size of the other three countries combined and has a 20% unemployment rate. The Germans are losing patience with these spendthrift countries. Debt does matter. It seems I was wrong about Europe. It turned out to be much worse than anyone envisioned, with Italy now the likely fuse that blows the whole thing sky high. The ECB has made Ben Bernanke look like a lightweight by increasing their balance sheet by 44% to over $3.5 trillion in a futile effort to solve a debt crisis with more debt. It seems central bankers are programmed to print until the very end (see Weimar). The European Union will not survive 2012. Too many countries, too much government debt, too many zombie banks, too many bureaucrats, too much austerity rammed down the throats of citizens, and not enough honesty or reality based solutions. State and local governments were able to put off hard choices for another year, as Washington DC handed out hundreds of billions in pork. California will have a $19 billion budget deficit; Illinois will have a $17 billion budget deficit; New Jersey will have a $10.5 billion budget deficit; New York will have a $9 billion budget deficit. A US Congress filled with Tea Party newcomers will refuse to bailout these spendthrift states. Substantial government employee layoffs are a lock. State and local governments have laid off 535,000 workers since 2008. With borrowed Federal government stimulus handouts evaporating into thin air during 2011 – 2012, this total will reach 800,000 by the end of the next year. The U.S. Postal Service will do their part by cutting 28,000 jobs in 2012, even though they need to cut 100,000. States and municipalities based their budgets on the revenues produced by the fake debt driven housing boom from 2003 – 2007. The tax revenue dried up, but the union jobs added are a gift that keeps on costing taxpayers billions. States and localities can’t print, so layoffs will continue. There is a growing probability that China will experience a hard landing as their own quantitative easing has resulted in inflation surging to a 28 month high of 5.1%, with food inflation skyrocketing to 11.7%. Poor families spend up to half of their income on food. Rapidly rising prices severely burden poor people and can spark civil unrest if too many of them can’t afford food. According to official government statistics China’s economy continued to boom in 2011. But, of course Chinese government reports make the BLS look honest. The fact is the Chinese stock market has fallen 28% since April as the property bubble deflates. If their economy has truly grown at an annual rate of 8% to 10% over the last five years, why is their stock market down 62% from its 2007 high? SHANGHAI INDEX One-Year Chart for Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index (SHCOMP:IND) The price inflation in food and energy prices, along with the property bubble bursting has led to breakouts of civil unrest across China. China’s two biggest markets – Europe & the United States – are in or near recession and are buying less of their crap. They can only build so many vacant cities and shopping malls to create the appearance of growth. The hard landing is about to get harder in 2012. The Tea Party members of Congress are likely to cause as much trouble for Republicans as Democrats. If they decide to make a stand on raising the debt ceiling early in 2011, all hell could break loose in the debt and stock markets. It seems I got the timing wrong on this prediction, but the August showdown was a doozy. The threat of a government shutdown resulted in the stock market collapsing by 18% in a matter of weeks in August. Our beloved politicians then came up with another bullshit non-solution by creating a commission which, after months of negotiations, failed to do anything. The $1.2 trillion of automatic spending cuts will never happen. The slime that inhabit the hallowed halls of Congress will pretend to cut, while actually increasing spending. And so it goes. The stock market has risen from its October low based on Easy Ben’s assurances to keep interest rates at zero forever and the anticipation of QE3 in the new year. Will the consensus forecast of a growing economy, rising corporate profits, 10% to 15% stock market gains, 2 million new jobs, and a housing recovery come true in 2011? No it will not. By mid-year confidence in Ben’s master plan will wane. Corporate profits did rise, mostly due to Ben Bernanke providing free money to the Wall Street Mega-Banks so they could generate risk free profits on the backs of senior citizens getting .15% on their savings. It also helps when the same Wall Street banks can make accounting entries declaring that future loan losses will be minimal and the toxic mortgages on their books aren’t really worthless. Who knew accountants could do so much for America? Abbey Joseph Cohen only missed her stock market projection by a smidgeon. The S&P 500 is essentially unchanged for the year, while the NASDAQ and Russell 2000 will finish in the red. The country did not add 2 million new jobs. It added 1.4 to 1.5 new jobs. Too bad the working age population went up by 1.7 million people. But our friends at the BLS, when they aren’t manipulating away the inflation that real people in the real world experience every day, have the gall to declare the unemployment rate has fallen from 9.8% to 8.6% in the last twelve months. How could this be you might ask, since the working age population went up by more than the number of people who found jobs. Easy if you are a BLS government drone. Everyone knows that things are so good out in the real world that 1.8 million Americans decided to kick back and enjoy the good life by leaving the workforce. It wasn’t because they gave up looking for the jobs that were shipped to the Far East by the mega-corporations making record profits and paying record bonuses to their executives. It’s just a rumor that those long lines at food banks around the country have a few of these “lucky” non-members of the workforce in them. The housing recovery is just around the corner. Larry Yun, chief liar for the National Association of Realtors, assures us that it’s the best time to buy. We all know that the NAR is a bastion of honesty and truth. Just because they reported 3 MILLION more home sales than actually occurred between 2007 and 2010, you can’t scorn, ignore and treat everything they say as a bald faced lie. If Larry says the housing recovery has arrived, it must be true. Revised Previous % Change 2007 5,022,000 5,652,000 -11.1% 2008 4,124,000 4,913,000 -16.1% 2009 4,334,000 5,156,000 -15.9% 2010 4,182,000 4,907,000 -14.8% When the pundits on CNBC sum up the year, they will not be touting the fact that gasoline prices went up 10% in the past year and the average price for a gallon of gas was the highest in U.S. history. They will not be proclaiming that even the government manipulated CPI shows food prices up 6% and clothing prices up 5% in the last year. I’m sure glad Ben Bernanke doesn’t see any inflation on his radar. Maybe he should ask his chauffer about his inflation. Lastly, the stocks for the long run crowd will not be yakking about the fact that gold finished up 10% for the year and has been up for TEN consecutive years. I wonder whether the numbskulls on CNBC can look at the chart below and figure out why gold is up ten years in a row. The national debt reaching $20 trillion by 2015 is a given. I wonder whether the price of gold will be higher. Maybe I’ll give Abbey Joseph Cohen a call and ask for her prediction. Overall, my assessment of what would happen in 2011 wasn’t too far off. But, it was the things that I and virtually everyone on the planet missed that will reverberate in 2012 and for the next ten years. Our 20 year Crisis deepened, became more violent, and clearly revealed that the establishment will use all their power to put down protests and crush opposition to their corrupt crony capitalistic policies. The major developments I missed regarding 2011 included: The self-immolation of a young Tunisian man set off revolutions around the globe, toppling U.S. supported dictators in Tunisia and Egypt. Dictators attempted to retain power by killing citizens by the thousands. The self-immolation of a man in New Hampshire in front of a courthouse was completely ignored by the mainstream media. I wonder why. The Arab Spring has resulted in revolutions in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and Libya. Depending upon how much oil was at stake, the U.S. has supported the dictator or the people whenever it suited them. This is called democratic principles. Young people across the U.S. were inspired by the Arab Spring and began to Occupy Wall Street and many other streets in 97 other U.S. cities this past Fall. The spirit of these protests was against Wall Street criminality, Washington corruption, and corporate malfeasance. Peaceful civil disobedience by citizens of this country was met with beatings, tear gas, mass arrests and bulldozing their encampments. Students were maced while sitting in front of a college building. Ultimately a Department of Homeland Security coordinated attack on all the protests squashed the movement. The American people were too distracted by Dancing With the Stars and the latest iGadget to notice. The corporate media did their part by spewing misinformation and propaganda about the Occupy Movement, while the Wall Street Elite giggled with delight from their NYC penthouse suites. Shockingly, no bankers were prosecuted despite clear unequivocal evidence of the greatest financial fraud in world history. The former head of Goldman Sachs, U.S. Senator, and NJ Governor continues to eat caviar and drink champagne in his glorious mansion after stealing $1.2 billion directly from customers’ accounts. These funds now reside in the pocket of Jamie Dimon and his upstanding JP Morgan institution. The Federal government methodically moved closer to a totalitarian regime by passing legislation that will enable them to imprison U.S. citizens without charges. The only remaining area that has allowed critical thinking Americans to find the truth – the Internet – is on the verge of being locked down by the Feds. Pending legislation will allow them to shut down any website that may inconvenience their agenda. We inch ever closer to Orwell’s vision of the future. No one in the MSM or government anticipated that the only truthful, honest, forthright politician in Washington D.C. – Ron Paul – could possibly win the Iowa caucus. His message of freedom, liberty, self reliance, and non-interventionism has struck a chord with young people and those capable of distinguishing between MSM propaganda and reality. The establishment is terrified of Ron Paul and is now on a mission to destroy him. What they don’t realize is their time is coming to an end. The existing social order will be swept away in a violent manner. The youth of this country will lead the charge. 2012 should be a real doozy. I’ll take another shot at predicting the unpredictable with my next article: 2012 – The Year of Living Dangerously."

I'm glad I'm not the only person on this site who gets bristly at police power plays. And I understand your point of view and sympathize with it. Yet I see this as more justified than most police actions and there are significantly bigger issues to worry about for freedom and our country. I will say (first time ever) that I do admire the fact that Pat got involved with the ACLU and is actually doing something about it. Regards to all! in advance for whatever lame shit Rob is gonna say.

I disagree but I think I understand where you are coming from Don. First, I wasn't there. Nor were you. The person you quoted, who was there, says they were happy with the outcome. The officers needed to confirm that the perp, a psycopath who would kill them and apparently anyone else as well, if he could or needed too, was not in a position to do so. They felt this was the best way. No one was hurt, and everyone quickly got on their way. Police made a call and the public safety certainly factored in to their decision. A gunman with a gun in your back directly behind you, in a crowded room full of hypersensitive civies, could easily take a bunch of officers down. You should save your rancor for the creeping totalitarianism we all see everywhere else. For instance. When I was a lad, rangers were not cops and not armed. They were there to help folks, not be Law Enforcement Officers. LEO's are trained to control any situation they encounter. Thus, when we now encounter these "officials" in the regular course of business instead of feeling equality and the warm fuzzy, we are often left feeling like a "subject" that needed to be warily watched and even controlled. We are not equals, but underneath them in stature. There is an us VS them dichotomy. The rangers have better radios now and can easily do what they use to do back then: ie,call in State Patrol when they needed too. This jackwad, for instance, would not have gotten away under the old way of doing business. Yet they sell things line rangers Andersons death to us as the kind of things that make it necessary to control us citizens...subjects. We see these kinds of thing percolating through out our lives, instead of a quiet knock on the door by the local sheriff who will discuss it with you, you now have a SWAT team of heavily armed storm troopers kicking doors in and screaming at folks. Slamming them to the ground to maintain "control". Even if the victims are just a couple of old folks who are not harming anyone. I don't think that kind of thing is going to have a happy or good path for our country.

So via the media, they issued a Fatwa that proclaimed that the guy said mean things about America. So also via the media, he said he didn't say most of those mean things. Based on media coverage alone clearly someone had to step up and off him, and our glorious leader took charge and got the job done. Thank God. Everyone knows that it would have drug on and on had they allowed the father to continue to try and seek a judicial review. Can't have the courts involved. Even an indictment. Rob, that you continue to pop off with dumb ass comments that clearly show a lack of either reading ability and/or intelligence is a source of amusement to many here. Not me of course. Others. It might be too much to ask you to use your brain. ...LOL! Jus sayin' Carry on all!

Thanks for that heads up Steve. It's most likely to protect the wind farm operators from frivolous lawsuits. Those blades do kill things. They appear to take out bats, for instance. The bats can't see (ha ha) the blades and predict the path of travel and get whacked. It's just a matter of time till an eagle flys into a blade as well. The permit says: "The permit, if ultimately issued, stipulates that there must be no net loss to breeding populations of golden eagles from the wind farm project. That means for every protected bird permitted killed, developers must contribute to conservation efforts for breeding them." Win win win? We get power that is generally better-easier on the environment. Sure as shit better than coal which runs 50% of the US power needs currently. (remember, no free lunch?) = WIN The wind farms escape the ambulance chasers looking to pad their bank accounts, thus fueling more investment and more power = WIN If an Eagle does chance to fly into a blade (not a win!), which might occur, then developers must contribute to conservation efforts for breeding them. Which is only a win till the excess birds fly over to your project and it gets shut down? = still a WIN?

Glad you didn't vote for the fascists. I see you believe that the President, and his democratic party advisers, is infallible and that he alone can and will make the correct decision every time on when it it appropriate to kill Americans who need to be killed. Well... I guess some have argued that they did accidentally murder an innocent 16 year old American kid at the same time when they got the alleged low-life Al-Awawaki: but hey, can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Nothing fascist at all with the democratic party to see here folks. Move along.

You bet Nastia, but only if you carry my old tired out of shape bones up in your backpack:-) Too old and tired to be tagging summits.

Couple of secret ones, 2nd from the top of that pile is this 600-800' high unclimbed cliff not far from PDX. Oh YES, she will be mine:-) My version: And to piss off Dwayner:-) LOL!

Woot, found some or all of the Northwest Trail Alliance stuff out in Forest Grove (your new neighbors Shapp?): http://bikeportland.org/2011/12/31/trail-building-tools-trailer-recovered-64510 While the Evergreen folks are up and running due to donations, http://forums.mtbr.com/washington/evergreen-burglary-duthie-754388.html but are still looking around Renton/Kent etc etc area for: " Stihl MS361 chainsaw S/N 278259296, Stihl MS362 chainsaw S/N 283554201, Stihl MS250 chainsaw S/N 286670652, Echo MS-440 chainsaw, Stihl Backpack leaf blower, Tractel GripHoist Tu-17 S/N 01226 ($1,750 list price), large 8-ton to 2-ton pulley blocks, Shimano Saint special edition Dakine Builder’s backpack, Sette black hardtail with Avid Juice brakes, Shimano Saint crankset, all black Manitou Nixon fork (no stickers), Sun Rhyno Lite wheels, Specialized DH tires (very strange build I know – it’s called leftovers + internet special). I’ll follow up with some pics." ...and a whole lot more unmarked stuff, grip hoist, rigging equipment, chaps, hammers, bits, packaged work gloves etc etc. Best of luck to them as well.

Sweet! Bet it's nice over there, post up some pics when you get time, even it it's just some awesome beach bikini shots from the Costa Brava or eating prawns and everyone tossing the shells onto the restaurant floor until they are a foot deep.

Bring your crystal ball out and share what you think will be the big news and stories of this coming year. I see Israel attacks Iran as the main story. It's currently timed for before the US election and the country rally will behind the administration and Barack will get re-elected. There is a small chance it will fire up much quicker than that for obvious reasons. Much like a magician waving a wand, the Israeli attack turns off the lights and power, initially confusing the Iranians. They quickly achieve their objectives and get the hell out. The US knew this was about to occur and had pulled the 5th fleet out of range of the Iranian Silkworms. Simultaneously or soon thereafter we jump in and sink 2 Iranian ships of the East Coast. Military thinking correctly having ascertained that they are carrying nuclear weapons spirited out of the former USSR and adapted/connected to a short range missile to cause an EMP burst over the East Coast. To show support and for their own political gain: Hezbollah, an Iranian client, attacks Israel from Southern Lebanon. Lebanon quickly turns into a untreated and fetid overfilled Privy-hole with civil war raging as the Mossad preparation had all but split the country and prepped the Christians and Druze to line up. A few Hezbollah leaders are surreptitiously whacked and the country slides into full on civil war and war with it's neighbors to the south. Hezbollah and Hamas are lit up by the IDF but are still able to fire up missiles they'd dug in too deep to hit. An outraged Israel quickly moves troops into Lebanon, Syria had already been neutralized by a Turkish invasion and support of opposition forces, and still a bloody and indecisive civil war continues as Palestinian refuges pour out of the slums like pissed off ants from an antpile to do their part. This tit for tat with Iran ends soon but the Lebanon conflict continues. The net cause is gas substantially exceeds $5.00 an ounce, and I receive the bet payout of an ounce of gold. Yet economic stagnation comes as well. Citizens blame Obama and politicians, not realizing that they have contributed as well. As noted above, the net result of this attack soon before the Presidential election is that Americans lock arms and re-elected President Obama to a second term. As the Republicans now control the house AND senate, fractious infighting causes Jimmy Carter style "political gridlock" accompanied by argumentative and stupid news stories no rational citizen can stomach or understand and the economy stagnates simultaneously. Stagnation results in civilian outrage, riots and lawlessness and more creeping totalitarianism which is accepted by the sheeple thinking that they will get security. When they don't....not much can be done of course. Obama gets a couple more far left folks nominated for the supreme court to fill vacancies, not much changes there as the conservatives who control the house and senate are outraged and won't vote for them. Gridlock ensues....everyone gets worn down with the grinding and economic malaise that big debt, high gas prices, and other country's having their own economic issues bring. That's right, I said that. Coming this very year.

That would be a nice thing Alex. What a sad situation, my thoughts and prayers for the loved ones and little ones she left behind who have to face the terrible loss. I hope that the others that this guy shot recover.

As Sobos wisdom and advice was met with a "Fuck YOU" by the Prince ....I'd recommend elevating this conversation and taking it up with the Marmot King. Clearly no one on this board has that kind of vig. If the Marmot King is unavailable (due to hibernation issues) we can take it to the Burger King. Flame on.

Justin, I'll take the 3 MSR – ½ Liter Bottles 5 $/each if you are in the vicinity. Check your PM's

Indeed. Wish you all well on that fight. I was hoping for an update on that long ACLU fight to give Ivan a heads up on his earlier question regarding use of judicial overview to protect citizens from crazy unconstitutional moves by the President and unconstitutional laws from congress. Meantime, this might be the further answer in this story I've copied below. I'm referencing the state sanctioned murder of Al-Awaki, a US citizen in Yemen, wherein Obama issued a "Fatwa" on his ass, and the dads court case to keep his kid from being murdered outright without a trial was tossed as he had "no standing". While Al-Alawaki, when told in the news that the US would kill him on sight, issued a press release claimed he didn't do that stuff and wisely chose not to stick his head into the noose by trying to return to the US himself. He was killed shortly thereafter by a US drone strike. Along with another US citizen, his 16 year old son, who was riding next to him. The idea that the President can outright murder a citizen without judicial review for things he claimed he didn't even say, is a new idea for our country. I'd like to see us turn away from that path unless the dude is an active threat. "Sticks and stones...." News story should be titled "Opps". "U.S. Officials Fear They were 'Played' in 2010 Yemen Strike [An Nahar] U.S. officials suspect that Yemen fed them false intelligence for a 2010 strike against al-Qaeda suspects that killed a local leader locked in a dispute with the president's family, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. Lot of that going around in this administration. The disclosure of such an incident would complicate relations between the two allies at a time when Yemeni President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... is seeking to visit the United States amid months of popular protests demanding his ouster. The May 25, 2010 U.S. missile strike, launched on intelligence supplied by the Yemeni government, killed Jabir Shabwani, 31, deputy governor of the central Mareb province, whose long-standing relations with Saleh's family had soured. "We think we got played," the Journal quoted an official as saying, adding that other officials do not believe there was a Yemeni plan to kill Shabwani. Saleh has been a key ally in the covert U.S. war on Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a group increasingly seen as a threat to the United States comparable to the global network's core leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistain. Saleh has also faced months of massive protests demanding the end of his 33-year reign accompanied by growing unrest that further threatens stability in the impoverished and largely tribal country. Earlier this month Saleh requested permission to visit the United States, setting up a dilemma for U.S. President Barack "We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us" Obama, who has relied on the Yemeni leader as an anti-Qaeda ally but has also voiced support for the pro-democracy revolts sweeping the Arab world. The Journal said some U.S. officials doubt the military was intentionally misled in the 2010 strike but said it raised troubling questions about the reliance on Yemeni security forces for intelligence. The Journal quoted Yemeni officials as denying that they had any knowledge that Shabwani was at the site of the air strike. " Speaking for myself, I'd like to see the slide towards anarchy and battle I see coming down the pike. Totalitarian goverment and increased control and avoidance of the rule of law on the one side - and my fellow citizens (just look at some of these boards and forums) getting jaded and hateful about goverment on the other. I don't see it being a good direction for the country. We need to start balancing our budget and respecting the rule of law again.

No. Although you can write to your congressman or someone who cares. Well, ask Pat how long the ACLU has been trying to get into court over the federal government "monitoring" ...lets call it what it is, warrantless surveillance, the recording of all phone calls in the US. All of your phone calls are recorded and checked. All. The internet is watched with equal zeal. Warrantless surveillance via computers, looking for the boogieman and the terrorists, criminals. If we aren't one I suppose we really shouldn't care if the feds hang out in your closet or your bedroom. Record our phone calls and read our email. Is that violation of privacy and generally accepted to be violating the constitution? Yes, pretty much by unanimous agreement. Is it still going on? I think so. Does the ACLU, with deep pockets and plentiful skilled lawyers have the right to take it to court to have it looked at and stopped? No. The courts say they do not have standing. You can have your politician do something about it. Last I heard, since the article I linked the ACLU had refiled the case and it had been tossed out again. http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=27371 "The American Civil Liberties Union's Steven Shapiro is one of the best lawyers in the United States. Still, he was flat wrong when he told the New York Times that a federal appeals court's July 6 dismissal of the ACLU's challenge to the Bush administration's now-defunct Terrorist Surveillance Program "deprives Americans of any ability to challenge the illegal surveillance of their telephone calls and emails." No, no, no. The ruling by the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the plaintiffs--the ACLU, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), journalist Christopher Hitchens, et al.--do not have standing to sue does not deprive Americans of the ability to challenge the warrantless surveillance of al Qaeda's wartime communications into and out of the United States. It deprives them of the ability to challenge the program in court. They can challenge it through political channels--and already have done so successfully. Bowing to criticism, the administration eliminated the program, at least in its most controversial form, early this year." So the "program" was "eliminated" but the NSA still records every call. So it goes. As long as we are on the subject, the Telecoms get immunity for facilitating and helping the government recording all of your email and phone calls. (todays news). "Court OKs immunity for telecoms in wiretap case By JASON DEAREN A federal appeals court on Thursday said a 2008 law granting telecommunications companies legal immunity for helping the National Security Agency with an email and telephone eavesdropping program is constitutional. A unanimous three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court ruling that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, passes constitutional muster. The appeal concerned a case that consolidated 33 different lawsuits filed against various telecom companies, including AT&T, Sprint Nextel, Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. on behalf of these companies' customers. The plaintiffs, represented by lawyers including the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, accuse the companies of violating the law and the privacy of its customers by collaborating with NSA on intelligence gathering. The case stems from new surveillance rules passed by Congress in 2009 that included protection from legal liability for telecommunications companies that allegedly helped the U.S. spy on Americans without warrants. "I'm very disappointed. I think the court reaches to try to put lipstick on a pig here," said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who argued the case before the panel. "I think what Congress did was an abdication of its duty to protect people from illegal surveillance." In its ruling, the court noted comments made by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding the legal immunity's role in helping the government gather intelligence. "It emphasized that electronic intelligence gathering depends in great part on cooperation from private companies ... and that if litigation were allowed to proceed against persons allegedly assisting in such activities, `the private sector might be unwilling to cooperate with lawful government requests in the future,'" Judge M. Margaret McKeown. Thursday did not bring all bad news for plaintiffs challenging the government's surveillance efforts. In a separate opinion on Thursday, a three-judge panel of the court revived two other lawsuits that challenged the warrantless surveillance program. Two groups of telecom customers sued the NSA for violating their privacy by collecting Internet data from AT&T from telecom companies in the surveillance program authorized by President George W. Bush. Government lawyers have moved to stop such cases, arguing that defending the program in court would jeopardize national security. The suits will be sent back to U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Emails seeking comment from AT&T and the U.S. Department of Justice weren't immediately returned." Have a nice day.

Holy crap, maybe less adventure but it sounded better staying home! LOL, good on youze guys for the peak bagging adventure.

Just in case you are looking for a $25 one Pat. http://www.rockclimbing.com/classifieds/Detailed/Climbing_Hardware/petzl_grigris_3567.html

There's only ONE way to rock. Have a nice day.

No sense of humor. I loved some of the comments. So, as this is your first post, getting all cranked on the shrimp issue, we assume you agree with the origonal poster when he said: Not that anyone gives a shit, but it's interesting you don't breath a word about it and only jump on the thread sounding butt hurt about the shrimp thing. For myself, I don't agree with the mans statement about goverment. Furthermore, we spend a shitload on science, some of it is stupid and wasteful, some of it is beneficial to the entire world and adds to the worlds knowledge base. All large systems have inefficiencies. We should be able to laugh at the former, and bow in respect and awe to those who are in the latter. Most of the time, no one really knows which side pure science is on, it just is. I know a guy who just discovered a new planet. A new planet. Think of that. You paid for it too, wait, OK, those of us paying taxes paid for it. So that's in that last category...for now. In either case, lighten up Francis.

To start, get a map and look for a rental fairly close to you work. Don't sign a long term lease unless you have too, and in your free time look around for a neighborhood which fits what YOU want out of life. For us in Oregon, my wife works 3 blocks from our home and is a pretty happy camper, while I get the F**ing sucky 25 min commute. although I got it in 15-18 min today and am writing to my senators suggesting that Christmas holiday be extended. For a couple of years. The commute through the traffic to the mountains on a Saturday or Sunday at 5 to 6 am is remarkably good, and only a couple days a week for a person with a regular job. Whereas a 5 day commute of 3 blocks to work will make you smile everyday. By spring, you should have any potential after work spots triangulated with your job to get a good location- FOR YOU. LOL! Great advice.

I'm guessing that no one has explained to the lad that ya got governments and you have "governments".... We have the former.....generally and fortunately. Until Jesus comes back, pulls everyone up to heaven by their topknots and then multiplies, perfection isn't available. However, there is black, there is white, there is grey. We got grey... some black and white. If it wuz a rainbow, it would have a small pot of gold under one end. ... and some chocolate cupcakes too. No one is going hungry, unless they want too. Choices are available.

Used Gri gri 1 Pat? http://www.mountainproject.com/v/grigri-for-sale-45-shipped/107404612 or Gri Gri 2? http://www.mountainproject.com/v/fs-grigri2/107417073 or new? one 2, $80 free shipping

See if this moves the discussion along. PS, it's the comments you have to read, hilarious. CLICK THIS LINK BUT READ THE COMMENTS UNDER THE STORY LOL!~

If it was Metolius brand toilet paper you could send that shit back and magically get a perfect condition brand new roll of clean white sparkling Charmin' back.... ...or as it's not used climbing gear and thus unsafe, you could list it on Rob's list @ work for a low low price....