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Well, I believe that if we did "nothing" in Iraq we would be much better off today not even considering the monetary repercussions.

This deserves it's own thread: Cobra Commander wrote For the cost of the Iraq War (so far) we could give every child in US full health coverage for a year, probably more ( > 100 million child-years of health coverage).

Sort of coincidence, I just read "The Dog Fighter" by Marc Bojanowski. Cool book.

Glad this isn't France

Are you gonna live out the rest of your days there?

This whole thing seems pretty sad. I don't think most of Newsweek's readers give much of a shit about whether or not a Koran got flushed. That probably didn't add effectively to the story. However, it sure pissed off a bunch of other people in a bad way. I'm thinking Newsweek might've thought this out a bit more. That said, trashing them for printing what they believe (and probably) is the truth; i.e., doing an important job in a democracy, is fucked up, and obviously a ploy to focus dumbass right-wingers away from the carnage that is Bush's Iraq (and weaken the voice of dissent, bonus!) What really made me sick was seeing Rumsfeld on TV last night looking all stern and condescending, railing on Newsweek for their part in the death of 17 people in riots, where this guy has the deaths of more than 100,000 people on his hands. Fucking sickening.

I thought you were supposed to use a blunt needle so as not to damage the sheath fibers, but just weave in between them. And use the mint or cinnamon dental floss. That way you still find the middle of the rope via taste if it's dark and your fingers are gloved or frostbitten. Distinctly colored nail polish is commonly used for marking metal gear (carabiners, cams, stoppers, etc) as an ownership indicator. I've never heard of using it for middle-marking a rope. Perhaps you got two threads mixed up.

I really liked climbing the N Ridge of Stuart, NW Corner NEWS, GM -> Heart of the Country, Rock On->SquamButt a lot. Probably better than, say, Diedre or Canary. What about you?

Interesting ambiguous misspelling!

I think he's just saying this!

Taking one from the book of Peter Puget!

"Manufactured Outrage While it's certainly a problem that Newsweek appears to have rushed the Koran story, it seems to me that the real problem, the problem much harder to fix and face up to, is the fact that the story was so believable in the first place. It doesn't take a big stretch of the imagination to conclude that an Administration which would sanction this, would also condone desecrating the Koran. And while it might be easier for certain persons on the Right to blame Newsweek for "ruining" America's image in the Muslim world, it's absolutely ridiculous to pretend as though our image wasn't already ruined because of previously proven abuses of power and a demonstrated insensitivity towards Muslims." link ""So now there's a bunch of right-wingers who are pitching the desecrated Koran riot story with the line "Newsweek Lied, People Died." Get it? It's funny, because it's making fun of what all the anti-war people said when 1,700 Americans were killed based on lies they were warned about but didn't listen to. What, don't you have a sense of humor? This isn't even not caring. It's beyond not caring. It's taking pride in not caring.... how the hell do people like Glenn Reynolds and Jonah Goldberg sleep at night?" link Both links from here

I agree that my WMD's case is greatly bolstered by perfect hindsight, as is the view of the quagmire that has become Iraq. Normally I wouldn't make such an argument but JayB put up the challenge with "Given what is now known about..."

I don't have a lot of time to write a big long post here, but I think, given hindsight, it is rather easy to defend the position of not invading Iraq. Starting with the obvious hindsight of not spending hundreds of billions in the lethal money pit of the current Iraq, not having to worry about non-existent Iraqi nuclear weapons, not getting 1600 US soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis (the ones we are there to save from Saddam) killed. Then moving on with rosy projections that we would have found out about the oil for food scam anyway, I think it's pretty easy to say that we (the US) would have been better off just sticking with the old embargo. Now, if you're thinking from the point of view of a defense contractor, a republican riding the wings of the Saddam-Al Qaeda connection to office, one of the many Iraqis who were being persecuted by Saddam but are not yet killed or imprisoned, an Iranian, North Korean, or Saudi Arabain leader/monarch/politician, or a recruiter for Al Qaeda, then I'd have to agree with you. In hindsight, sanctions would not have been better than the current situation.

The Big Time is sorta sucky (IMHO). But on the bright side, Wednesday night is NOT String Cheese Incident Night! Such a negative post! But it just shows how much I'll go through to meet the wonderful people that make CC.com what it is!

Yep. People would much rather hear about Jacko or some dumbass who almost got his ass shot down by an F-16 than "I told you so".

The media has been cowed. Noone wants to be the next CBS or Newsweek. Also, I think this isn't getting a lot of traction because it isn't really news. Everyone knows that the Bushies cooked intelligence. Everybody knew back then! The war supporters knew all the WMD stuff was BS, but they thought we needed to conquer Iraq anyway for whatever reason. They thought it would be easy and make us powerful. Now that it's blowing up in our face, they rightly feel some responsibility, and would just would rather not keeping hearing "I told you so". So anyway, in summary, NOT really big news, noone really wants to hear it again, and serious repercussions from those in power if this is reported with any vigor. The Bushies are really consolidating the power of the executive branch. They're trying to hamstring the courts. They're trying to take away power from the Senate. They're viciously going after the fourth estate. Getting closer to autocracy every day!

Does this make any sense? It's either one or the other isn't it? Either Newsweek is wrong and they should apologize, or descecrating the Koran has been systematically been used as an interrogation tactic and Bush should apologize? Though Newsweek for whatever reason, now wants to backtrack on their story, do you rightwing nutcases seriously believe that our guys did not wipe their asses on the Koran? "O.K., let's tie this guy up, dunk his head under the water until he's almost dead, but holy smoke Joe, don't mess with the Koran!"

Here's a Gold Bar w-station.

This is amazing that this story is hardly anywhere to be seen! Maybe it will develop by tomorrow? Nothing even in the NY Times or Washington Post? Has the liberal media been cowed? Or is this just a non-story?

This certainly is a changed cc.com when people are one-upping each other as to how kind they can be to the newbie!

Don't quite understand your point here RumR. Doesn't seem like many people or any are really ragging on this guy in this thread. In fact, I'm quite surprised no cc.com armchair hardman has chimed in to rant about slow gumbies getting in their way on the Tooth! Well maybe Fox did a bit, but I think that was a bit tongue in cheek?

Is this you guys? If so, PM me and I can email you a less crappy version of this photo (and the people in this photo are on p3 of Dark Rhythm).

I guess that was my point #1. That could be a dangerous plan on Outer Space. I have heard of many stories of outoftheir leaguers being benighted before topping out. Wouldn't want to climb up behind that! Course, you might get to be a big hero by saving all the gumbies by leading them down the notorious SCW descent. Might be a good way to earn some beers or other favors!