JosephH

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.

And will be so as long as we continue to misapply our military might as badly as we have for the past five years...

A perfect example, if ever there was one, of exactly how our rights are systematically eroded with the implicit assistance and approval of rightwing [and incredibly naive] nationalists. Either that, or you're just flat out too damn stupid to put your paw on exactly what has happened over the past six years. "Basic liberties"? I suspect you won't wake up so long as gun rights are the last right they strip from you. Just extrordinarily blind, clueless, or will be on the frontlines with the government if ever they do make such a move. And that threat will always come from the right in this country.

Hmmm, hard to believe it's already been a year since his funeral. Still fairly surreal to contemplate. Bill, thanks for bumping this and reminding us...

WTF? Why would anyone head out to paint Beacon Rock and then just paint something else entirely and call it Beacon Rock? Doesn't seem like he even needed to bother going our there to paint that picture. Nice painting and all, but - huh? Love the Connell one given how much time I spend down at the boat launch looking at that view while watching for the Peregrines.

I would say off hand that no one has disrespected America more than the folks who've been running the country for the past eight years. They've not only disrespected it at every turn; they've deliberately, repeatedly, and systematically violated the Constitution, Bill of Rights, rule of law, and the intent of the Founders of our nation. They'll get away with it without legal prosecution because the country just wants to move on. But you can bet your ass the shredders at the White House, Justice, Interior, Pentagon, and in the offices of most agency heads will now be working non-stop until the inauguration

Having replaced 64 anchor sets and checked, reset, and / or replaced most of the pins at Beacon I can categorically state the pins far and away out performed the [non-stainless] bolts there - by an overwhelming margin. One or both bolts were bad and / or spinners in 52 of the 64 anchor sets whereas only 1/4 of the pins needed to be reset and another 1/8 needed to be replaced. Oddly, the bolts from the 90's were in the worst shape. Most all the pins of all ages back to the 60's were bomb. But as Ivan said, YMMV by rock type and locale - in Beacon basalt the pins more or less permanently weld. That said, as far as I concerned [at Beacon], the only pins appropriate for fixing are medium and long Lost Arrows, Bugaboos, and Hard / Soft Euro pins. 99 times out of 100 pro fits where Angles were located, Knifeblades are too thin, and short version of any of the pins are just not robust enough to withstand both falls and environmental conditions over time. Personally, I'm guessing stainless only buys bolts parity or a slight improvement over the above-sized pins [at Beacon]. But what I learned having done that work over three years is that I'd rather clip a pin over a bolt any day of the week. Also, it's important to note that what fixed pins and bolts have in common is they both need to be actively maintained over time. Any assertion to the contrary is misguided and a misunderstanding of the nature of fixed pro in general. Bolts and pins both need to be checked at least every ten years and better every five years.

In the [almost] post-mortem I remembered I the thursday before last I took my parents for a flu shot and got one myself - could also have all been a bad reaction to that apparently...

The roots of the crisis extend back as far as our 'strategy' for outspending the Russians while not inconveniencing the middle class. Reagan and Bush Sr. were largely responsible for the run up to this crisis. W's people just put it into hyperdrive to cover the true economic impact of the Iraq war...

Me too! It kind of sucks spending 24 hours never being further than four feet from a defibrillator unit.

I suspect it will improve the break. This will be one of the more interesting experiments ever done when it happens...

Obama and Biden could get two terms and over the course of eight years of them in power you'd never see an example of the explicit [two trillion dollar] socialism directed to the wealthy, upper, and middle class that the Republicans have just engaged in. Republicans - Capitalists on the way up, Socialists on the way down, and hypocrites in either direction.

Docs said multiple EKGs and bloodwork were negative, I maxed out their stress tester, and the before & after ultrasounds of the ticker were good. They said I had a very strong heart. Good to know (or at least Rhoda was happy to hear it...). The only indicator of what might be wrong was an elevated white blood cell count. They said it looked like I got hammered by the dual onset of a virus and 'acid reflux' which simulated a heart attack - go figure. But I've never experienced a sensation like that for hours on end so it was pretty disconcerting. I ended up there as my step-sis is an ER doc in LA and when I called her about it she sent me to Good Sams. She said a younger doc friend hers went to a conference in Florida and ignored very similar symptoms and ended up dead the next day. Better safe then sorry, but I was unprepared for the level of triage and fuss! Had to basically rip the IV out of my arm and the monitor patches off to get finally get the discharge process moving or I'd still be there. I see I'm getting home just in time for the weather to go to hell - can't complain I guess as I've now been checked out for another year or two of climbing...