JosephH

Wait, am I supposed to equate a democratic, failed, lobbied solar attempt or Corzine's bad judgment with the level of corruption involved with Cheney's 'energy policy' or the choices of legions of republican board directors and executives on Wall St. Jesus, as scandals go those are lamer than the republican field itself. Rove is going to have to role up his sleeves and dig deeper if he wants to do any real damage. Maybe he's getting lazy if this is the best he can do.

Damn, been buried so missed this until now. Sorry to hear this news as I'm sure you were. We all try to persevere as climbers and to be optimistic so I can see how vague clues could be easily overlooked in the beginning. I would imagine early on it's not easy to diagnose either which is tough as well. As someone with a child off in college, I'm glad the vaccines are now available even if they only hit part of the HPV spectrum - some protection is better than none. Best wishes to you in your fight and thanks for bringing it all to light so we have the chance to take better we care of ourselves. Hang tough...

Now Revolvers and autoblockers aren't academic. After my first decent fall on a grigri I wrote them off for trad leading, though I did still use a modded one for roped soloing for a number of years until the Eddy came along. I've used the Revolvers a couple of times and thought they definitely have a place at the party relative to drag. You can skip some drag-related slinging on bomb placements, but I still wouldn't skip slinging anything that needs to stay put.

Oregonlive pays off... http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/1647139/After-Six-aided-by-Plaidman

I did it the day after the first day I tried them.

I never did try the JB's, but I have the TC Pro's and immediately had them paved over with 5.10 rubber. In the end I find them pretty much a wash with my Kaukulators with a slight bit more flexibility which is both a plus and minus depending on what I'm doing.

I never know quite what to make of these discussions. Academically interesting to a point I suppose, but pretty much worthless on rock unless you really are some kind of a rocket scientist I'm guessing. Or at least I've never found this kind of information particularly useful, but that could just be me as I'm usually trying pretty hard not to think that hard when I'm climbing. Overall, my take on it is most of this stuff either comes intuitively on lead, is learned through bitter and unfortunate experience, and that you're probably operating out of your league if it keeps being an issue over an extended period.

Hmmm. In general, I always try to sling things well to minimize rope drag and when that looks like it isn't going to be possible I switch to half ropes (though it can be hard to find belayers competent with halfs - more of an east coast deal). I also have climbed above a lot of marginal pro over the years and have [successfully] fallen on quite a bit of it. In most cases I've used screamers on placements I thought were real borderline and had that pay off as well. IMHO I'd say sling to minimize drag as much as possible and deal with marginal pro independent of that. Oh, and when I've been runout over marginal gear I've never wanted my belayer to fuck around with attempting a 'soft catch', but rather just lock that puppy up and either my gear holds or it doesn't.

Would be classic if it weren't really that scary - or maybe you're just spoiled from climbing in the hyper-competent atmosphere of your own backyard...

PM me if you want it back. Phenomenally gorgeous day out here today...

0-270

Which is the more treasonous abuse of executive power: a) president assassinating U.S. citizens or b) president killing thousands of U.S. citizens (troops) in a pre-emptive war started on the basis of lies and manufactured intelligence? If you're going to go after Obama for utilizing policy and powers established by Bushco, then you'd have to go after Bushco for any number of treasonous acts.

The republican field is now wide-open for Donald, Jeb, Palin, Joe the Plumber, David Duke, and Charles Manson. Ted Williams may also run if they can thaw him out in time for NH's Xmas primary.

None if you aren't going to climb with them as halfs / doubles. In Red Rock I use them as twins (always clipped together) and I bought them for use as twins. People tend to use doubles / halfs when routes wander or they are worried about sharp edges - mostly often the former. I pretty much just use doubles / halfs for routes with sharp edges and because of that I don't use the 7.8's, but rather I bump up to 9.X's. It should be noted that learning to belay doubles / halfs takes time and some never really master it. It's a pretty advanced skill when its done well and typically an angstfest for the leader when it's not.

I have the monster 7.8's as well. Mainly just use them up in the Red Rock canyons. You may want to explore some of the smaller rap devices as I suspect it would be a bit unnerving rapping them on the wrong device.

...But he's got high hopes, he's got high hopes He's got high apple pie, in the sky hopes

Which is total bullshit. Really, you can actually type that with a straight face...? 1970 - Penn Central Railroad 1971 - Lockheed Corporation 1979 - Chrysler 1980 - Chrysler Corporation 1981 - Harley-Davidson 1984 - Continental Illinois 198x - Savings and Loan Crisis (we sure learned from the deregulation attempt) 1991 - Executive Life Insurance Company 2008 - The Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. 2008 - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac 2008 - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. bailed out by the federal government and Berkshire Hathaway 2008 - Morgan Stanley bailed out by The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ 2008-2009 - American International Group, Inc. multiple times 2008 - Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008[15] 2008 - Citigroup Inc. 2008 - General Motors Corporation 2008 - Chrysler (again) 2009 - Bank of America And those are just the highly public tip of the proverbial iceberg. That, and the level of private sector / corporate lobbying and feeding at the federal trough is simply astounding. Face it - 'free enterprise' and 'capitalism' is about profits; the minute they become loses the private sector is the perfect model of socialism.

God, nothing worse than a geek with a grip on history screwing up perfectly good internet arguments.

One word - Willy

Normal market mechanics are one thing, systemic fraud on a scale not seen in recent times is another. What happened politically in the decade prior to '99 and what followed financially was nothing less than organized crime on an institutional scale and a open raid on the four main forms of consumer debt. From board members, to underwriters, to originators, and hell, even higher-ed boards and financial aid directors - the system was deliberately gamed at every level. That it took a couple of years to gin/spin-up and co-op a ubiquitous fraudulent infrastructure isn't exactly a surprise. Again, the fact all the origination mills are now foreclosure mills pretty much says it all. Everyone on Wall St. and in DC want to talk about our current situation from the perspective of market dynamics - no one wants to acknowledge what really went on and the fact we basically arrived here on a wink and a nod.

Interest rate distortions...hmmm. As opposed to, say, systemic fraud in the loan-securitization market as we sliced, diced and obscured our way through the four principle forms of consumer debt in an orgy conducted of originators, SPV's, trusts, rating agencies, insurers, etc. And let's not lay any blame on derivatives-gone-wild. Did interest rates play an supporting role? Sure, but top-to-bottom fraud and greed across the board was doing the driving from where I sit. And curious how now, on the way down, the foreclosure system has turned into a cesspool of fraud riddled with the exact same criminals who were originating loans on the way up. There were a lot of distortions alright, but interest rates may have been the least of them...

They could suck harder if Christie and Palin would announce - could be a big opening for Jeb Bush as well.

And your argument is Ron Paul isn't?

Republicans don't think and believe the only things that are free are wars because they pay for themselves.

From one of the cooler threads on SuperTopo... and CABLE-SUSPENDED PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE DESIGN FOR RURAL CONSTRUCTION