mattp

I think you have not been paying attention there, KK. Look up the "Bush Doctrine." Here's a start: Preemption, Unilattralism, Strength Beyond Challenge, and Spreading Democracy. Lest you get too excited about the "spreading democracy" bit, consider our record of supporting democracy only when it supports us. The "new world order" is more like "we give the orders."

A good question for the American patriots among us: Why have so many American conservatives who argue that government can't even properly run a nursery fallen for the concept that it can run the world?

My advice is that, before you next call liberals "assclowns," you actually read a newspaper.

You are clearly delusional, and uninformed. Take the Non-Proliferation Treaty, for example: It is not the only arms control treaty. Bush withdrew from the ABM treaty, and I believe we have violated or said we would violate the Test Ban treaty, and chemical weapons treaty... Under Article VI of the Treaty, the U.S. agreed "to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control." Bush is waiving the NPT about when it comes to Iran, but ignoring it when it comes to us or to our buddies in Israel. Sure, nobody wants Iran to get nukes but it seems almost certain they are going to get them -- unless we invade I suppose -- along with any other nation that wants to spend the money. Our actions are weakening rather than strengthening the NPT. --- Take Bush's lies to get us into the war: If you deny he lied for this purpose, you are one of the last people anywhere who takes this position. Get your head out of the sand! --- Or that we are less secure now than before invading Iraq: Even the generals who are beholden to the President are saying this on a regular basis. Our military is worn out, we are stretched to the point where we would have a hard time responding to a crisis somewhere else, and we have given Al Queda a huge shot in the arm. --- and on and on. --- Get a grip!

Our little furball extends his best wishes.

Bush has taken an opportunity to have the entire world stand with us in an effort to curb global terrorism and shredded it. He lied to get us into this war that has made us less secure. He has nearly broken our military He has taken a huge surplus and turned it into a huge deficit. He has trashed virtually all if not all treaties that dealt with arms control. He has lied about global warming and refused to do anything about it. He has allowed the military under his command to engage in torture, to the public embarrassment of the US. He has run a machine more partisan perhaps than even the Nixon administration, leading to scandals over the operation of the Justice Department, outing of a CIA agent, manipulation of elections…. He has failed to accomplish his stated domestic agenda. How is he not a bad president? How was Carter worse?

The discussion started with a question whether Cindy Sheehan is a patriot or a deranged sikko, and Fairweather and I got around to arguing whether the news media should be required to tell the truth. Bush is the worst president we've had since god-knows-who has been ceded long ago.

Are you suggesting that there is something wrong with wearing women's undergarments? You bigot! In all honesty, do you think I should just come out with it and reveal what I'm wearing beneath the parka in my avatar picture?

Damn if you don't make a great troll! You'd do better if you weren't so transparent, though.

Nope. Same argument same Fairweather. Maybe it is time for you to quit again.... ... or shall we get back to politics and leave the "you of all people" out of it? When you want to debate history and policy, I enjoy your company!

Asshole? F*ck you. Last time you denied you had posted something (suggesting nuclear attack), I found it in less than five minutes. Liar? Nope. I indicated I was “pretty sure” I could successfully run the search engine because I knew that I had not tested such search engine. However, I believe you HAVE made the argument I am suggesting and if I had more time to read old posts I could find several examples. In either case, I clearly stated that I could not now find an example, so I apologized. Do you really maintain that you have never argued that it was wrong for myself or some other liberal, or Michael Moore, or anybody else to undermine the war effort? Seriously? I'm not talking about saying that you disagreed or that we were misguided, but that simply making the argument was wrong. Do you really argue that you've never said it was wrong to publicly state such a position? I'm surprised, but maybe as you did in this thread I have simply wrongly associated you with the positions taken by others on your side of an argument. As to your use of my full name, when there was no reason to do so, while hiding yours? As I recall, the second or third time you “quit the board forever” was when there was a thread where I predicted on page one that you would get upset and use my full name to try to anger me, and then freak out if I used yours. That exact thing happened on page two or three, and I pointed out that you should check page one. Should I fire up the search engine to find it? If you want to argue politics, lets argue politics. The rest of it is BS and you know it.

Don't even think of going to the Canadian Rockies - at least not for one of the rock routes. Even on the ever-popular East Ridge of Cavelle, where one would expect the route to have been cleaned from the constant traffic of Fifty Classics status, the entire thing from bottom to top is vaguely suspect and there is stuff falling down after being swept by your leader's rope every time he moves right or left.

Actually, Fairweather, where somebody in a political thread writes something about wishing somebody would execute the president I would say that is fully within the norms of political conversation on this site - where trolling and outrageous statements are "derigueur" to the point that I doubt the Secret Service felt the need to arrest your three treasonous fellow posters. Believing that fluff and puffery are what they are and that there is a reason that political figures are not given the same protection from slander that private citizens are, I'd say such banter is in fact far more acceptable in my book than combining personal attacks with going out of your way to try to intimidate somebody by using their full name, while jealously guarding your own anonymity, or posting threats of violence such as are found here on a regular basis. As to your prior condemnation of myself or others as treasonous for criticizing our government or suggesting that our military efforts were doomed to failure, I will admit I cannot without spending more effort than I care to undertake find any such quote of yours. I used the search function to look for Fairweather and "treason" and I got so many hits I didn't want to wade through them all. I'm not sure what I was doing wrong. Perhaps I am confusing you with someone else, but it seems to me I remember your arguing on numerous occasions that calling the President a liar was "out of bounds" without proof that he in fact did not believe what he said, or your arguing that one's saying the U.S. was on the wrong side of this war was anti-patriotic and undermined the morale of our troops, etc. I think you've used the term "treason" in some of these arguments. If I am mistaken, and you have actually argued all along that I and others on this site have a right to publicly criticize the government and condemn an immoral war, or that Mr. Kennedy or Mr. Moore have the same right, please forgive me.

Until my last visit, I never felt the French were rude at all as long as I made an effort, however pathetic, to blunder my way through introductions and basic questions in French. I've always tried to respect some French sensibilities, however: talk in a low voice at the restaurant so your conversation is not heard three tables away, say "bonjour" when you enter a shop, etc. etc. Even in Paris, I have found nearly everyone I met to be friendly enough for my taste. I haven't tried to actually "make friends," though. On my last trip we kept wondering: were WE doing something different or had our President pissed them off or just what was going on?

Fairweather, you of all people should be careful about you arguments. I'm pretty sure I could run a couple of searches and find a dozen places where you have posted that some anti-war or anti-bush post from myself or others who you dislike were "treasonous," or where somebody posted a hostile note about Bush or Cheney and you suggested the secret service ought to show up and take them away. In thread after thread, I have written that I recognize your position, or that of some other right winger, but I disagree with it. I have said you are wrong, or maybe deliberately twisting things, but I have never said you have no right to post. You, on the other hand, have often said others have no such right. As to accuracy in news media, you are clearly right that it would be difficult to define a standard, and it would be equally true that the government could abuse any discretion it might have to enforce such a standard. However, without any standard or with the erosion of any standards that previously existed, we are suffering complete disinformation on issues like the Iraq war, global warming, you name it. Our present government routinely lie to the press and worse. They manufature entire stories and series of stories and carefully plan how to feed them to the media. They have repeatedly lied to Congress (a felony under US law), and they lied to the entire world about what they were doing in Iraq and Cuba and how they were doing it (if this is not an International war crime, it should be). Where news media executives, whether at FOX or NPR willingly went along with this, they failed to serve their public trust and there should be fines. Where they manufactured a false documentary and broadcast it as history, the same is true. I'm not sure I could make a case for jail time, but civil fines would certainly be warranted. I don't know the laws of media broadcast, but I would not be surprised if there are current regulations or laws that would suggest that broadcast licenses should be revoked for falsely repoting "news."

If The Reagans documentary was passed of as history, when the broadcaster knew it to be false, and if it was broadcast on a mainstream media channel, I would have the same opinion. Is it "censorship" to expect (or require if I had the power to do so) that public presentations avoid slander? I realize that our public figures do not have the same rights in a slander case that private citizens do, but don't even you believe that we should be making political decisions based on accurate information? Clearly that "Road to 911" was not based on a simple difference of opinion, but based at least in part on lies. Was Reagans the same?

Sorry to confirm your suspicions here, Fairweather, but I too would say that where a broadcast network presents a program as "history," knowing it to be false, somebody should probably go to jail - or certainly pay a fine. If they presented commentary that was indicated to be opinion, I wouldn't feel the same way. Our airwaves are a public resource and they are, in my opinion, properly regulated as such. They should not be coopted for propaganda. Maybe you don't agree, but I feel that the American public must have access to accurate information, including the history of our "war on terror," if there is to be any real democracy. And that is with the small "d." Oh: and did I really imply that Scott was against free speech? Where?

Did I imply that he did so?

Dreamer was originally established about 1980 or so. The most recent bolting activity up there has been some installation of rappel/belay anchors, but I'm not sure anybody has done any of that or any bolt replacement in the last couple of years.

It is in the Boulder River Wilderness, though.

The EDK has a straight profile on one edge. The idea is that when the knot catches on an edge of some kind, it will flip out of the way allowing the straight side of the knot to pass the obstruction. It is no better in cracks.

Whose security is he defending. Surely not yours and mine, as this war has by all accounts made us less secure. I believe she and a large number of other people feel she is honoring her son's memory in speaking out against this war. To ignore the obvious fact that this war is wrong, and to fail to speak out, would be to allow all of these deaths not only to have been suffered in vain, but might be seen as furthering the crime that is this war. I can understand how you may disagree with this outlook; I assumed you would, but I think she is far from pissing on her son's grave.

Clearly, you can't have an army if the soldiers take it upon themselves to decide whether the foreign policy behind any given war effort is valid, but on the other hand there are limits to the extent a soldier can justify "doing wrong" based on "orders." In the Nuremburg trials, for example, it was decided that Nazi soldiers could not justify their commission of war crimes as simply following Adoph Hitler's command. That principal is widely acknowledged to this day, even by our own government who has fought to keep us out of the World Court precisely because they don't want American soldiers or civil leaders tried for war crimes.

You wouldn't argue that this was was "in fact necessary," would you Scott?

The II is the grade rating, same as it ever was. F4 is, if I remember correctly, 5.2 or thereabouts. The "F" ratings paralleled the 5.x ratings as you moved up toward 5.9, but F1 was like grade two or something.