JosephH

God, I love it when you get all up and O'Reilly - it brings out the real you...

Like the sound of both of those - please give Ujahn my number.

Bill, I will and I'll also be still going out to Beacon until Feb 1st. every time there's two dry days in a row if any real 'Northwesterners' are still climbing outside then...

This is fucking rich! The same semantic, parsing bullshit brought to us by Bubba! I'm gonna frame your comment, and whenever I need a good laugh, pull it out. Look, I don't know you well enough to say whether you're a complete f#cking idiot or not, but if you can't parse the truth out of that semantic bullshit then you're making the answer to that question pretty obvious. Hell, maybe you'd like to enlighten us as to exactly how the war has helped make us more secure and lay out your 'solution' to the way forward - you clearly didn't read or understand mine...

You seem utterly dense on how this all works. Staying makes us less safe by showing China we don't have the will to succeed. Leaving makes us less safe because we will have simply helped out Iran, stirred up a hornet's nest, and then walked away. That's why it was completely ignorant to invade Iraq in the first place. As much as many of us aren't used to the idea anymore - sometimes huge f#ckups have bad consequences and leave one with no good options to pursue.

The military is completely against attacking Iran - that's what we pay Israel for if push came to shove (and it hasn't yet).

Again, they don't have the force levels to lock down the border of Baghdad, let alone the country. That's because Rumsfeld decided to test the neocon's fast-and-light-ME-dominos theory and because now the American public won't pony up those troops for a venture gone south so badly. They particularly don't understand why we are nation-building in Iraq when we can't seem to rebuild New Orleans or even our bridges at home.

There is a clear threat - from Islamic terrorists, various parties in the Middle East, Iran, and China - and the administration has done just about everything humanly possible to put us more at risk by the day. Their complete inability to wield the world's most powerful military and economy to our strategic advantage and for our security is the reason they will end up known as the worst presidency in US history. P.S. And your question about securing the borders in Iraq - they didn't because they didn't and don't have the force levels to do it. My advice on Iraq from a couple of years ago

This administration LOST the war before a single American ever set foot inside Iraq. Their hubris and incompetence at every turn in this war makes our involvement in Vietnam look well-planned and brilliantly executed by comparison - especially so in light of the lessons it offered which were completely ignored. There is no solution - that's exactly the point. Which part of Bush-Sr.-didn't-push-on-to-Baghdad-for-good-reasons don't you get? This administration handed OBL, Iran, and China the whole deck of cards the day the W., Cheney, and Rumsfeld decided to invade Iraq. Support the war? The war was grevious neocon mistake foisted on the American people in a blatant and deliberate act of treason. Nothing could be more anti-American than this particular war - just ask the Iran and China who are loving it.

You've got a short memory. I was jabbing you with a barb that someone else used a few months back. Keep up the bragging, btw, it's real impressive. I could certainly be mistaken, but we and the B-52 crews were the only 'frontline' operating broadly and consistently in, around, and over NV. We logged enough hours over NV skimming treetops and dodging groundfire on SAM recon flights, absorbing AK/120 fire during shore raids, and three Soviet torpedo boats in Haiphong as to not take such barbs quietly - particularly when reanimated by a hypocrite like you. And as a kid who grew up in the woods hunting, I'd have traded my place in that helo and derelict 5" gunmount with anyone on the ground in a heartbeat. Clearly my mistake, following the family Naval tradition was definitely the wrong call at the time.

So, how old are you Fairweather (KKK and a few others)? 42 or under? If so, exactly why aren't you serving in Iraq? If you're older, and have kids, have you or are you going to encourage them to enlist if the are of age or as soon as they come of age? Again, you folks talk a lot of shit, but when and where do you back it up with your life and that of your family? So - when there's a megaslaughter occuring somewhere in the world that could be averted or constrained through the use of force, as in Rwanda, the Balkans, or Darfur - I take it that you recuse yourself from the conversation since you won't personally be there manning the lines? How about when discussing humanitarian relief in the wake of the Tsunami? If you aren't going to be there putting your hands to work, then you aren't qualified to persist in the conversation? As far as this chickenhawk business goes - the only people who *are* qualified to take that particular line are people who volunteered at a time when war was either imminent or ongoing. Fighting because you were drafted doesn't negate your service or heroism, but it does limit the extent to which you can bait people who - like you - did not volunteer to do so. As for the non-veterans who are playing the chickenhawk card, what acts of voluntary sacrifice and sustained valor have you engaged in that qualify you to question anyone else's bravery, exactly? I may not agree with the argument that if you are not personally exposed to the risks inherent in a particular action - whether it be apprehending criminals, fighting fires, rescuing stranded climbers, etc - then you have not business commenting on it, but I can at least understand where the sentiment comes from when the people who *have* borne the risks associated with that particular activity are doing the talking. What I can't fathom is someone who hasn't been there on whatever front line we are talking about being shameless enough to appropriate someone else's risk, valor, bravery, and peril and pretend as if it were their own in an effort to bait people who their *own* character and deeds give them no basis whatsoever to critique, much less talk shit to. The point, your assumptions and logical repartee aside, is that there is a lot of clueless, patriotic, pro-war shit-talking goes on here by folks who have no idea what they are talking about and have not - and would not - put, nor allow themselves to be put, in harms way to back up those words. It's exactly this perverse and cowardly personal hypocrisy which is the dominant theme at every turn when you peel back the cover off this administration. Be it their military, foreign or 'family values' policies - next to none of these spineless f#cks walk their talk and live the bullshit they shovel in their ruthless pursuit of power at the expense of both our Constitution and the nation's standing in the world. At one time, it was pretty rare to run into this kind of posing cowardice and hypocrisy in climbing circles and I liked that about climbing. Times obviously change.

I agree with Wayne that all devices and methods of roped soloing basically suck from the hassle factor. But, if you can get a method down cold and efficient that works for you it is possible to break through to a different realm with it. I don't have the "getting somewhere on a timetable" type of objectives that Wayne seems to enjoy, but I do genuinely enjoy getting in a bunch of pitches of stuff. And when I have it dialed in there isn't much that's more sublime than it and it goes about a 1/3 faster than climbing with most partners.

as a REMF, right? No, actually, I spent 6 on, 6 off, 24x7 in a 5" 38 gunmount on a cruiser from 300yds to 2 miles off the North Vietnamese coast for just under a year, daily firing what came to be a bit shy of 400k rounds including the only attack on Haiphong harbor during the war. All this at a time when old 5" mounts were going-off self-destructing like so much popcorn. When I wasn't in the mount I was on Marine helicopters over NV looking for SAM sites for the night's mission. Try again, and exactly why don't you support this war or our troops with your service and life?

Well there you have it, I did serve so assholes like you could avoid it and talk all tough and patriotic while ducking serving themselves.

I am definitely not a "Nothwesterner" and I'd have been gone a long time ago if we could move my stepdaughter out-of-state.

No, I just want to know when you back up your bullshit with service. You're exactly right - it is a volunteer army - the only question is why haven't you and Fairweather volunteered...?

So, how old are you Fairweather (KKK and a few others)? 42 or under? If so, exactly why aren't you serving in Iraq? If you're older, and have kids, have you or are you going to encourage them to enlist if the are of age or as soon as they come of age? Again, you folks talk a lot of shit, but when and where do you back it up with your life and that of your family?

You and Serenity can go round and round with the semantics of employement and citizenship. But when you are talking about private, non-military armed forces you are speaking of mercenaries - our mercenaries, but mercenaries just the same. The extensive use of PMGs in a military conflict is a patently bad idea for, both for the corrosive influence on our servicemen and women, and for the lack of political and military control and accountibility they represent. Ditto for private intelligence resources being provided by the same groups. Nothing they are doing couldn't be done by government and military personnel, period - assertions to the contrary are bullshit and are based solely on a lack of will on the part of our government to maintain adequate and appropriately trained protective, intelligence, and military resources. That, and a strong desire to avoid accountability and skirt the Constitution. The recent rise of PMGs is strictly due to Republican/defense contractor corruption and a completely misguided conservative and neocon agendas.

I'd go out...

Many competent folks like Wayne use a Soloist, and recently a Canadian used one to rope-solo Astroman, but you should be aware they may not hold upsidedown falls or even falls where you only go horizontal. Particularly stay off climbs with low cruxs where, if the Soloist fails, slack and rope stretch may allow you to deck despite using a backup knot. I know of one person who decked in such a situation after falling and going just horizontal and was considerably worse for the wear. Given he routinely free solos 11+, he would have been way better off without a rope on the climb he decked from roped soloing with a Soloist. I'm personally sticking with the Eddy as I despise having anything on my chest or any linkage between my chest and harness.

They should just shorten it to Albe and call it good - or Albuquerky. Next week the Sandias, Red Rocks two weeks after that...

Talk to me about roped solo climbing...

Will be in Albequerque on and off all winter working so I guess I'll be shifting my climbing to the Sandia Mtns for the time being...

NOAA La Nina forecast - good for you alpine types, sucks for rock however. The lower image is the pertinent one...

It was beautiful out there today, hopefully more of the same tomorrow morning...