billcoe

I agree with you on that, and I've said that before. As Bush handed the ball to the current group (admittedly at the last moment) and the Democratic group ran with it, I didn't say it again here in response to Bob as the context of my post was that both the republicans and democrats appear to have the same game plan on this subject. As far as Samesame and wasting money goes, one of President Obamas biggest campaign pledges was to get us out of Iraq. I heard several versions of this, the most shocking was that he would have us totally out in like 4 months after he was elected. Gradually and quietly, he added time to that promise. I suspect that his current plan of leaving 50,000 troops in there until we are damn good and ready to pull them out would have been the exact one that John McCain was publicly admitting too during the election. I'm not saying this is Obamas fault or that it's the wrong thing to do at this late stage of the game, it's probably the best option. Bush and crew pushed us into that with an unusual unreserved zealotry rarely seen, and we have a lot of money invested in that shit hole due strictly to the repubs, but regardless: it appears currently as samesame business as usual. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/ Oh, and please, no one misconstrue this to mean I'd prefer McCain to Obama. I think we are much better off with Barak, especially if the pressure of being pres had caused a McCain heart attack and Palin had succeeded him. The man showed horrible judgment in choosing her for his running mate. It is interesting that the big picture policies (excluding health care) are often so similar.

Given the direction our deficit is going, it's a huge train wreck in process and it needs to be stopped. Even Obama is starting to take notice of it. We need to reverse the Bush tax cuts (it's happening) sure, but this guy is missing the big elephant in the room for not even breathing a word on our crazy overseas war spending that has been running us into the dirt.

Nice advice.

Helpful, it might make you helpful if you are answering a question.

Lets ask Raindawg for his opinion. Maybe he'll declare a fatwa.

I'm with you on this one Bob, thanks for clarifying your point. In fact, they say that's what happened with the recent bank bailout. We (the suckers/taxpayers) loaned the banks money at zero percent interest that we had borrowed from China and they turned around and shopped it to Europe and were getting up to 5% return on free (to them) money. The CEOS and investors are walking home with huge bonus's from out of our pocket. Unfortunately, we paid interest when we borrowed it (from the Chinese and others) and of course "We The People" still owe it. What can we do? Saying don't vote repub or democrat on it won't work as this one was done by the Democrats. Goldman Sachs, Citibank and JP Morgan all were top 10 donors of President Obamas. http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=n00009638 "You load sixteen tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go; I owe my soul to the company store."

Whats to spin? There's no "ahhh hahhh, gotya" here. Repubs have traditionally seen more support from business and the Dems from Unions. It's an ideological divide. Furthermore, as polical numbers change, so do contributions. It did for repubs when the Bush poll numbers sunk as well. Sometimes we see them chris and cross. Like Obama got a lot of big business support for his election, possibly due to a Bush rejection on the part of rational people in cluding business's so did Clinton. For instance, Archer Daniel Midlands was both Bush 1 AND Clintons biggest donor I think I remember. That's just how it usually shakes out Bob.

Quick, someone post a climbing picture or 2. So since 8:40 is double 4:20 what happens at 8:40 anyway? Twice the energy? Double dosing? Is 8:40 THE NEW 4:20 OMG!

LOL! Nice catch bone!

http://journalstar.com/news/local/article_87244502-a298-11df-98b1-001cc4c03286.html says eight years before the billionaires "death," Hughes substituted a Las Vegas derelict for himself and he moved on. Wow! Crazy stuff. I thought that the Glomar Explorer tale was out there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSF_Explorer

Hey, if you're going to sit on your ass and bitch like an internet climber (like the rest of us), and not a real climber like you are: the least you could do is share some awesome pics of you kicking ass out there someplace in the real world Mikey!

Cedar Wright looks like a good guy to partner with. Leader has his leg stuck and is threatening to full on blow and he stays right in the line of fire but best position to help. I was thinking if it was me in his place, I'd have a prussic on the TR line clipped to leaders harness and be out of underneath there and elsewhere within seconds of dudes first stomach contraction.

more like the bonehead has arrived. I can never tell if he's being incredibly sophisticated with his spray or he's a complete bonehead. ha ha! Left in extreme wonderment! Love it! Long time dude, show up more often.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Waarf. Better you chop your rope and die than one flake get rounded, that's what bone always say's. There's always more people to take their place, no loss, no worries!...Off to spray now, the bone has arrived. LOL! Hola Kevin!

http://outlet.libertymountain.com/shop/product.asp?p=2890&pg=3&c=2149&o=1&s=5 Semi-reasonable. As the dollar declines these will cost us more.

Yawn, of course "Pro-audacity", he's an open source guy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audacity

Whoh! you read some crazed stuff. Right below that was this one. Check out the last line which I made bold. "Man's penis freed from metal pipe with industrial grinder A man who got his penis stuck in a steel pipe had to be cut free by firefighters using a metal grinder, after doctors in casualty could not free his genitals from their metal trap. An angle grinder at work Medics at Southampton General Hospital struggled to get the man's penis out of the stainless steel pipe, because the restricted blood flow had caused it to become erect. Instead, they resorted called in Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service. The fire crew turned up with a special equipment unit from St Mary's station in Southampton and seven firefighters to help, in what a spokesman understatedly described as a 'delicate operation'. The firefighters used the four-and-a-half-inch industrial metal grinder to cut the pipe from around the anaesthetised man's penis. The penis was left bruised and swollen, but otherwise unharmed by its traumatic day. The man, thought to be aged around 40, did not explain to hospital staff how exactly the pipe got stuck around his penis, after he presented himself at the hospital's Accident & Emergency department on Tuesday morning. He was said to be 'quite concerned and anxious'. A Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service spokesman said: 'It was a very delicate operation that required a very steady hand and the crew was worried about things getting too hot during the cutting. 'It's certainly an unusual call-out, and I'm sure the man won't be getting into that situation again.' Watch manager Greg Garrett from the Redbridge fire station told the Southampton daily Echo: 'I’ve only come across this type of thing three or four times in my 17 years as a firefighter. It’s not a daily occurrence.'" huh, 3 or 4 times....what....wait.....

That's not a fair question Bill. See, I got old and fat, and currently have more money than brains or skill. Coupled with poor conditioning, I'd easily trade money for the weight: and lots of it - if it was needed for a project....well, you can see where I'm at. I see them come up for sale on occasion, and they are not near that price linked above. I bought a few in Oz few years back for $ 7 each, which seemed cheap. They are incredibly light, and for the route like you and Marcus did up in Alaska, peak 11,300? - you don't want to be carrying any weight if you could help it, let alone a bunch of Chouinard old school chrome moly steel. If you get up on a rock band someplace, a couple of these in the right place if you had N. Wall Hammer to wham em in......might save your life, reduce the time needed to bail or protect a deadly runout vergalased rock section. $30 still seems way high, $10 seems low (BD/Chouinard chromemoly pins are more than that now even used usually.) So someplace in between. If you are planning on heading to any of the international places where Russian go, (Tibet/Nepal/Kyrzkstan/Someortherstan) they might have sold some to finance a trip and you or a buddy could score big if you took a few extra bucks. Of course, I still can't conceive that someone paid $143 for a single USED Green Alien, so again, I'm probably a bad one to ask. Do you have a project coming up?

I had a great time hanging with you that day JH, thanks. It was a hell of a lot more enjoyable than what I've been doing, and having a great ground support crew (Kenny and Hanmi, a sharp-eyed pro photographer no less!) lined up, ready and dialed-in was awesome. BTW, I got home early and exhausted, had taken a shower and was probably sleeping by 3pm. My wife just shakes her head as I'm waking up all bleary-eyed, pillow-haired and muscle sore creaking around and smiling she says: "you sure got old:-)" It's nice to do something which has value to other people that is also enjoyable and in which one survives to play another day. Appreciate both your organizational skill of dialing this in and your company out there, thanks again for the invite. Good times! Thank you again for the photos Hanmi!

Great sequence Hamni, thanks for sharing them. Love how you panned on that boulder all the way down.

Yup, great looking kids Paul. They are always cute at that age, then they grow up LOL! My son finally took up climbing when he went off to college, he's home on summer vacation. Mom put him to work shoveling bark dust around the house and I did the same cleaning new lines. Here he is cleaning a new route we did that he named Runaway Weasel! The slab around the corner he's thinking will be named "Prancing Unicorn"..... When my buddies went to Yosemite, one rainy day they sat around the fire talking all the route names that could start with "Coe". A couple were disappointed that this one wasn't tagged "Coedependant". LOL

Yeah, ..and his face looks so sanguine!

Yes, it use to be. Wholly dependent on weather, slope conditions, party skill level, your confidence in your skill and theirs, what you would be facing on route -etc etc. None of us were there so can't call it at all IMO. They may have been plunge stepping down fantastically perfect slightly soft snow in awesome conditions and hit a short ice patch that they didn't see on the way up. Who knows. In either case, I suspect that there is nothing to learn which we do not already know. I read these with sadness, or when a family loses a great kid like Luke Guldberg and the 2 he was climbing with, but it happens -and when it does, it's always sad. These are choices we make to face these things or not, the mountains will never be 100% safe for any of us. Skill, talent and luck all are present in varying degrees - always. Regards to all. wow, 2 folks posted while I was typing, guess I need to speed up....

"The big spenders, whom you usually elect, tend to build powerful campaign organizations. Then they steam roll the small spenders, like myself, and then you elect the big spenders, and then you suffer under the tax burden that the big spenders put on your shoulders. You who are the workers have to carry the load of big government with its many acts of destruction and its many wasteful rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul programs and its various wars. You workers are carrying a heavy, heavy burden that you may have voted for. This limits the share of your production that is left over for you to consume. Although we sheeple are the foundation of power, we sheeple are regularly shorn. Let us unsabotage our economy. Vote for the small spenders ... especially the small spenders who understand economics." I can't argue with it....

Not Mark, Matt....Matt Spohn I think.... He posts on Cascadeclimbers so he can step up and say himself, but like many of your better climbers, dude climbs more than he posts. You been playing whack-a-mole with that thing? LOL! They should take it back, Metolius is good about that kind of thing.