JosephH

Since the hurricanes that ravaged Florida a few years back and especially since Katrina - most insurance companies now attempt to either deny claims outright or quickly send a way lowball check. I'm guessing 15-20% walk away after a denial, another 20-30% take the lowball check, and the rest squawk. Those that squawk then probably get offered slightly more, and they only settle for the full amount with those folks who get really belligerent with them and ride out their bullshit making clear they're not going away. Regardless how you stack it, they undoubtably save a ton of cash progressively shining folks on... That was our case when my wife was hit by an Allstate driver and my brother's experience in Virginia with hurricane damage to their home. We had to send back the checks and get relentlessly in their face. So, if an insurance company just sends you a check out of the blue after an accident, the best course of action is to immediately Fedex it back to them and put them on notice you expect to be fully compensated according to the terms of your policy. If they jack you around then let them know you are contacting your state's insurance commissioner's office. Stay resolute, on point, and in their face - this is definitely a 'squeaky wheel' sort of deal... P.S. Anyone who has a way of getting involved with USAA should jump at the chance.

Please, please be extra gentle with it as that panel really is the only way to free climb the line - if it goes I doubt it will go free again...

It's not obvious until you are actually looking down on it and it's at the level of your feet. You can see a portion of it just above the purple traverse line in the technicolor pict, down and right from the yellow '126'...

Missed this first time through. Once you are established on the headwall, with the #9 hex in, you can literally just walk left to under 'Silver Crow'. I remember being amazed that it was like a 5.2 exercise where you could hang out all day in a free rest stance directly under 'Silver Crow'. It doesn't look anything like that from the ground or even when you're first approaching getting up on the headwall, but that is what I recall. All the more reason to finally make another run at it some time next year myself. I still have the replacement #9 hex I bought for the repeat go and still haven't used. Yeah, I don't think Ivan would like it all much if he weren't in some sort of peril when he's out.

A little forthrightness and honesty around the process would have made the product a bit more palatable. As it is, the only 'poverty' was a arduous deficit of integrity in every single conversation and email about the project from the moment he approached me on the topic - exactly what others conveyed had transpired years before. Pardon me for not being at all pleased with my interactions with Mr. Olson to date...

Let alone when he was repeatedly shopping for FA information for it while denying the whole time that's what he was up to and being too busy to bother checking in with the BRSP to see if they might have any thoughts or preferences on the subject or anything to add in the way of new or changed info...

Sorry - the blue '134' should read '124' in the photo. I always just assumed 127 (Axe of Karma) was the next one left, but as you say it could be up above as well. Hard to say. I've always interpret things this way though again I could have it entirely wrong...

Yeah, we put a tricam under the block just off the start from the Pipline anchor and no other pro until the #9 hex at the orange mark in the pic, as nothing is solid through there. The loose panel is not unlike the one that had to be trundled to open up 'Menopause', but in this case I'd very much like the one up to the traverse on this line to stay intact. I think this could be a rare case where it might very well be easier and safer to free climb that section then to try and aid it. And I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure 'Silver Crow' is the line you were attempting and that 'Axe of Karma' one line further to the left. Ivan, in either case, and as usual - way to get after it and good going. Bill, every year I look at the direct 'Sword of Damocles' start and every year I decide it isn't worth even trying.

Erden, With regard to - ("fascism then vs. Islamic fascism/caliphate now") - I do mean it verbatim. The former term was from Serenity's question and the latter from the undercurrents of the Neocons and far-right's ceasely drumbeat for war in the ME - neither are mine. My point is that attempts (in many cases successful) to cast the 'war' in cultural terms as a 'clash of civilizations' are an exercise in political hyperbole and christian-right fearmongering rather than a credible strategic threat grounded in reality.

If the comparison you have in mind requires casting our 'war' in cultural as opposed to political terms (i.e. fascism then vs. Islamic fascism/caliphate now), then I don't think it is a valid one. With regard to the sacrifice required of the average citizen - that was entirely by design. Americans 'got' Afganistan in the wake of 9/11; Iraq was a longstanding neocon wetdream which the administration knew would never fly if the average citizen's life were impacted in any significant way. Ditto Reagan's 'spending war' with the Russians. Both were supported by serious voodoo economics on the surface and manipulations of the credit markets behind the scenes. Our current crisis has both to thank. It started with Reagan and Bush Sr. and was used by again this administration to provide financial cover for the Iraq war in such a way it guaranteed the current finincial disaster. The suggestion I floated here, and elsewhere, in the past for engaging our citizenry is that the President be authorized to deploy 20k troops and support personnel (no contractors allowed) to any two non-contiguous conflict zones for six months. If they want one more body or one more day the following has to happen: - President must formally declare war and have it approved by Congress with a 2/3s majority of both Houses. - The day that happens dividends cease, interest rates and wholesale prices freeze. - A 15% nation war VAT goes into effect - A no-exemption draft starts immediately for everyone ages 18-35 (it doesn't matter what they do, just that society is [uniformly] disrupted) And those wartime provisions stay in place until the President declares the war at an end and the Congress passes a resolution to that effect by a 2/3s majority of both Houses. Set presidential war powers up that way and we would enter into very few wars and those we did would be over damn fast. And if we were going to attack Iraq we should have done so with three times the force levels, cleaned up our mess and restored infrastructure services and oil production within two years, and left within three telling them we'd prefer to not see a Shiite repeat of Saddam. As it was, we went in with the explicit objective of moving on to Iran and tended to the reconstruction of Iraq with a 'good faith effort' which made the carpetbaggers of the Civil War Reconstruction look like good samaritans.

A new cost in warfare in the ME, is the fact the medivacs are more readily available. That, and today's mash units are better equipped and more effective. A lot of folks in really bad shape who, in previous conflicts, wouldn't have made it back home are now and so the size and costs of the casualty stream from the war in Iraq is much higher than worst case scenarios expected - not that the administration was going to do anything for the VA regardless. For an entirely elective war, and one in planning several years in advance, the administration did nothing whatsoever to ramp up the resources our soldiers needed once engaged and did everything in their power to slash at the resources they needed on their return. Hard to imagine an administration with a more generic and cavalierly disposable view of our men and women in uniform. As far as Obama being the new Carter, you clearly don't know much about Chicago or it's politics...

Emanuel's voting record...

This traverse was one of the first climbs my old partner and I did at Beacon back in '87. It's actually a nice free climb up until you have to head up the column line ('Silver Crow' I believe). That's the point we had to stop becasue the girls were getting real impatient to split. You get a perfecct #9 hex where the orange circle is and then you can just walk left across the traverse as there is a several inch wide 'ledge' that goes across it. There are also a bunch of McGown bashies across the traverse. When we bailed we rapped off the #9 hex and it stayed up there for a couple of years before someone went that way again. If you go back up on aid, please be extremely careful of the delicate loose panel structure in the green box as it's the only thing that makes free climbing it possible. was meaning to get back up there before I got preoccupied with 'Menopause'.

There's also still endless FA opportunities in most all of the canyons for those so inclined. You could go down and easily do a new route every day if you just walked 2/3s of the way back in First Creek or went up to the second higher tier of lines. Ditto for Mt. Wilson - plenty of good stuff available from almost all sides.

A primary root of our economic problems was the shift of society's use of debt onto a set of financial engineering models which were inadequate to the task of modeling human behavior, and which were badly misused by people with less then good intentions. Part of the current dilemma is that no one in the 'market' isn't prepared to operate without underlying models of some sort and so it will probably take a year or two for the engineering wonks to retool the modeling such that they might better reflect reality and to set them in a regulatory framework which hasn't existed to date.

Anyone who has axes to spare for Conrad's efforts...

on that we pretty much agree...the question is was the Chief of Staff chosen to beat down the republicans or the dems? He was chosen to insure their agenda can successfully navigate Congress...

Only #1 and the latter half of #3 are a) true, b) attributable to Bush and c) positives. And the latter of these driven entirely by and for the interests of friends of Cheney's in the oil industry. Whatever you think the motivations are, they are positive for our country and in some instances those outside this country. #1 is true, as is the largest conservation set-aside in the Pacific But... - #2 isn't true - The first part of #3 has essentially been a glaring failure by the standard of Repub/Bush criticisims of the Clinton efforts - our approach to #4 has simply generated 10 new leaders for every fallen one, and tens of new terrorists daily across the ME; - total farm subsidies mentioned in #5 are nearly the same levels as when Bush took office and much of it simply shifted from 'food' to 'energy' subsidies - #6, definitely not a positive. Could have done that with a Predator and a bit of patience with far fewer of the glaring global negatives which are the war in Iraq - #7 You're right is largely a result of Buh's "contributions"; i.e. OBL accomplished goals beyond his wildest dreams simply using Bush and the neocons as a proxy - through them he inflicted endless damage on this nation - "mission accomplished". And being the type of guy he clearly is he won't bother until he can produce something orders of magnitude more dramatic then the last attack.

Ivan - I definitely wasn't accounting for culture or mores of the times...

google > fbi nsl abuse 2008 google > fbi fisa blanket 2008 google > fbi wiretap abuse 2008 google > fbi "patriot act" abuses 2008 Any of those would get anyone interested started...

P.S. When the founders of our nation spoke out about evils such as these they weren't laying any card-carrying, borders, or boundaries around their thinking... "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..."

I'd say some of you guys haven't been following the FBI's widespread and systematic abuse in turn of each new power that it has been granted by law or administrative rule over the past six years. And that's the problem. Once the mindset is in place for the widespread of abuse of non-citizen rights, it is a very short plank and slope to applying that mindset to citizens - and that is exactly what has happened to many U.S. citizens. Torture, rendition, and quitmo? It's stump simple - you can't preach freedom, human rights, and democracy while practicing the exact opposite. And you can't rally the world against evil dictators by accusing them of crimes you yourself are committing. It ain't rocket science.

There is only one Obama and that is the one that came up through Chicago politics - all the rest are simply a reflection of the hopes and/or fears of the ones doing the looking. [ And that view has been validated by his choice for Chief of Staff. ]

Only #1 and the latter half of #3 are a) true, b) attributable to Bush and c) positives. And the latter of these driven entirely by and for the interests of friends of Cheney's in the oil industry.

The rise and use of PMC's is not about individuals 'making a difference' - they are a symptom of our nation making extremely poor choices around how we maintain, develop, and exert our military might. Eisenhower would view them as a pustule and advanced sign of just how far this particular disease has spread. As far as pay goes - under the same operative mentality that spun the PMC's up to begin with - outsourcing rapidly becomes the rote path to maintaining an attractive balance sheet. Loyalty is not these guys stock-in-trade; in fact, I'd say the guys signing these big contracts checked that at the clubhouse door long ago.