JosephH

Yeah, but at that price point you're always equivocating over the allocation of precious resources - smoke or drink? Drink or smoke? There is no god.

There's little tougher in this life then being too broke to buy good scotch and tequila...

Bulletin boards? Jebus, it's obviously even worse than I imagined over there these days. Have the stairs and sidewalk gone in as well?

Those were two old guys who had never been there before, maybe they don't get outside much. It's just another inevitable consequence of Ozone leakage now that DZ/FS is in the guide book.

One day we were doing some engine repairs to our antique, 1938-vintage cruiser about a 1/3 of a mile of a sleepy section of North Vietnamese beach. The entire crew was a pretty beat after a couple of nights doing harbor raids further north and from just being out at sea for going on sixty days which makes everyone a bit more than cranky after the ship's store runs out of cokes and cigs, lifers run out of alcohol, and everyone else out of dope. The gun crews I was part of were all particularly frazzled and having [a shitty] 'lunch' when the general quarters alarm sounded yet again - "general quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations" and everyone goes flying for the exits. We get halfway to the hatches when we hear "Dive! Dive! Dive!" and all go WTF!?!? Turns out one of the guys on bridge watch thought it would be funny as a joke to play a submarine general quarters tape he had. Unfortunately for him, the Captain was one of the guys trying to get some rest after a long night and didn't think it was very funny.

The popularity of the area is lost on the nesting Peregrines and it's pretty remarkable WDFW is making this a voluntary closure for now (which I suspect means it will be monitored for the open which is very good). If this nest isn't successful and the WDFW suspects it's due to climber disturbance then you can bet it will be an involuntary and unmonitored closure next year. Best if WDFW gets the signs up sooner than later and that climbers keep getting the word out.

And that's just the first six-pack. It just goes to show drinking is just so much more dangerous than climbing...

I went through this exercise two years ago and likewise found the peak data to be the biggest issue. Also, doing a native iPxxx app is one thing, doing a cross-phone app is another and I'd go with phonegap, sencha, or mono if I were going down that road as native android apps are kind of nasty.

To paraphrase Rumsfeld on the realities of war: "You don't fight with the politicians you wish you had, you fight with what you have." Nothing new there and right up with saying we just didn't install the right local government as well. Same as it ever was and the same shit we dealt with in Vietnam. And we swept Afghanistan and Iraq initially because they weren't spun up yet and we never did what was necessary to secure the place, nor could we ever had at those force levels. And in what sense is the evolution and perfection of IEDs - (both indigenous and from Pakistan and Iran), increasingly sophisticated and coordinated suicide attacks, and Afghan army infiltration attacks constitute "conventional warfare"? Cluelessness is a perspective; daily rocket attacks on our strongest base eleven years on is reality.

So for eleven years and a trillion dollars we still can't protect the capital and our most secure base. Asymmetric warfare at it's best. We should just walk away, rename it Vietnastan in honor of lessons learned, and call it good. Conditions are not going to improve so keep your wits about you. God you are a fucking idiot; spouting off jargon that you don't understand. 'Asymmetric' has somehow become indecipherable private 'jargon'? I would hope not after spending a trillion bucks perfecting it to the point where we still don't own the roads and can't keep our main base from daily rocket attacks eleven years on. Yep, that's some real secret sauce you're slinging around dude.

Hey what do they say / do about this over there these days? Seemed to be one off the biggest hassles being over there if I recall correctly. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leishmaniasis#section_4 Some dated commentary: http://www.epinews.com/news4_leishmaniasis_OEF_OIF.html And the latest yellow book entry: http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbook/2012/chapter-3-infectious-diseases-related-to-travel/leishmaniasis-cutaneous.htm

So for eleven years and a trillion dollars we still can't protect the capital and our most secure base. Asymmetric warfare at it's best. We should just walk away, rename it Vietnastan in honor of lessons learned, and call it good. Conditions are not going to improve so keep your wits about you.

Heads up - keep your head down. US prepares for last major Afghanistan offensive

Looks like they're starting to probe Kabul - keep your head down from the minute you leave the airport - hopefully just get a flight from the airport to the base in Kandahar.

Master Cams - $48 bucks a throw; $80 bucks - not worth the difference unless you've got money to burn. A few years back during the recall crisis I was trying to help Dave with some ISO/QA/QC systems work (or complete lack there of) around the axle hole drilling and stem assembly and got to I speak with someone in the business who was also trying to lend a hand and who twice tried buying CCH. He'd run all the costs of manufacturing and said, as designed, they were too labor intensive to be profitable at a retail price point he felt comfortable selling them. His team had done some design refactoring on the stem sleeve to make it easier to manufacture, but neither buy attempt ended up closing for a number of reasons. In the end, I'd say his analyses were spot on.

Burn'em while ya got'em...

Man, that's the offer of a lifetime for someone who wants to up their game a notch. Gonna go all that way without hitting the Black?

And Israel’s Airstrike on Syria’s Reactor

It's not like Israel hitting nuke plants as our proxy is anything new. The prospect of coupling nukes with Iran's recent missile advances has raised Israelis concerned, but it's the prospect of them hardening those sites with an infrastructure of Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems, or derivatives thereof, which is really pushing buttons. The Russians have backed off sales, but there is speculation Iran managed to get a couple from Belarus and / or Libya. This is a very capable missile system and should Iran get such an infrastructure in place it would be very costly to attack their facilities with anything other than cruise missiles - i.e. using those GBU bunker busters could be quite difficult.

Nothing new here, same as it ever was other than 'Barry' actually transferred some GBU-28s due Israel from a 2005-6 sale where the Bush administration only talked. In the gap the Israelis developed the MPR-500 seen here penetrating three of four reinforced concrete barriers still relatively intact. All in all I wouldn't underestimate the Persians anymore than I would the israelis and think attacking them will end badly for everyone.

Nice - long drive, classic line...

I'm sure that will work fine, but would note all the locals I know there use twins for anything long.

I wouldn't in any way confuse twin and double rope technique or comparative hassles. There's no circumstances where I find twins more hassle than a single. Doubles are another matter and can be a desperate hassle if you don't really know what you're doing; more an east coast deal where most experienced folks have belaying with doubles down cold (or used to) and don't think twice about using them. Overall there's not enough combined difference and weight savings between a 9.8/6 pairing and twin 7.5s to make up for the hassle of dealing with the 6. I'd only go there if I was desperate to save every ounce, and even in that case I'd probably just try to lose a pound off myself first.

I know the 'drill', but I've also seen places littered with fixed draws where only about half of them were really necessary. And there are wire fixed draws that would be way less intrusive than chains, but a bit pricey spread across only ten guys. http://www.climbtechgear.com/cable-draw-22kn-5-000-lbs-blue/ (and when I inquired a year ago they said they could make them up in stainless as well - but for the price it might be worth just ebaying a nicopress of your own to make them) Either way, I suspect if you make a solid effort to camo the place out it would go a long way towards helping out with a lot of the concerns and show a good faith effort to self-manage the place.

Wondered how long that was going to take... It's been suggested before, but now might be a good time to consider taking a couple of days to camo all the hangers, swap out any slings that aren't black/gray/tan, and remove any fixed draws that aren't absolutely necessary.