ivan

b/c i don't want to drive 5 hours to climb sandstone slabs - i like cragging for practicing alpine skillz, and i've yet to encounter peshastin like rock in the high country of warshington!

the road's gated and probably won't be open for business for a few weeks at least

wyeast faces the rising sun, so warms up and gets slide happy faster than luetholds which lurks in the long shades of the west face

we have nukes - they have nukes. we have more nukes. so what? it's a MAD scenario all over again... and again, we were plenty arrogant in the 50s about our military strength compared to the PLA, and then they busted our asses all the way back to the 38th parallel and kept us there.

i certainly have no desire to spend a single dollar or see a single american killed over taiwan, so i imagine a chinese move into taiwan would largely go unchallenged by us. it's not the cold war anymore - we don't have to back taiwan out of a belief in the domino theory anymore. to militarily oppose chinese reconquest of taiwan seems to me roughly similiar to great britain deciding to get militarily involved on the side of the confederacy during the civil war. it's pretty much internal chinese affairs. again, chinese conquest of tibet seems far shakier, and regardless, in taiwan or tibet, we should punish china non-violently for abusing the human rights of people there. i don't fear china becoming some austin-powers menace either - like any powerful nation that has a long history of dominating a wide region, they want to have the biggest dick in their area, that area happening to be eastern asia - why should i, a north american, give a damn, especially if its a non-violent empire they establish? okay, if they try to militarily invade the middle east we can zap'em, but really they appear to be doing the same thing we're doing there and elsewhere in the world - sucking it dry of its resources. how can i complain w/o being a screaming hypocrite?

speaking of china and the einstein quote - we have fought a war w/ china in the past 60 years, 1 directly and 1 indirectly. we didn't win either. who gives a shit about taiwain? it seems like no one gives a shit about tibet, so might as well throw in a tiny island that's way more ethnically chinese to match it, eh? having a huge military and dealing w/ china is only going to increase our desire to use that military on china and fuck up my ability to buy rubber dogshit for 1/20th the cost it takes for a mexican to make the same rubber dogshit finally - tvash and bill should be fawk'n nice to each other - you're both good guys

it was still big and beautiful a week ago too

and while i'm at it, here's another einstein gem: "It may affront the military-minded person to suggest a regime that does not maintain any military secrets."

arms race/huge arms industry + militarism + belief that your view of the ideal world should be imposed on others = major causes of world wars 1 and 2 'you cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war' - albert einstein

i don't always agree w/ jay's posts, but i enjoy their consistent erudite nature and general lack of hateful vitriol - and thread drift's as natural as drunken sorority girls doffing their duds

heard an article on this on npr - seems counter-intuitive but you can't make the 5 much worse, so why not experiment, eh?

historical speculation is always just that, speculation. my point is that the way things actually worked out, with us not spending a titantic fortune on a standing army prior to ww2 (and persuing an aggressive foreign policy as a likely result), wasn't bad at all. we won the war, emerged as a super-power, and did not have nearly the same death and destruction as everybody else. how could that have been improved?

but how can you argue against the results? we went from having practically zero army to having the best military on the earth! what's the point of having all that ocean between us and the evil-doers if we can't just chill out and drink beer all day? The results? We were not even prepared to fight in Europe until like 1943. And in the meantime, the Nazis killed millions and the Brits suffered horribly standing their ground. the results = we won and took relatively few casualties compared to other belligerents again, then, would you have proposed in the 1930s taking the shovels out of the hands of all the wpa folks and giving them rifles instead and sending them across the ocean to fix what the euros were perfectly capable of fixing themselves? tvash is right - we would have taken casualties, adn likely far more casualties at that, if we'd played aggressor in asia and europe instead of isolationists

Ah yes, Patton - strung up by the press for striking a soldier. How ethics have changed. " The difficulty in understanding the Russian is that we do not take cognizance of the fact that he is not a European, but an Asiatic, and therefore thinks deviously. We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinese or a Japanese, and from what I have seen of them, I have no particular desire to understand them except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them. In addition to his other amiable characteristics, the Russian has no regard for human life and they are all out sons-of-bitches, barbarians, and chronic drunks." George S. Patton so do you admire the man or not? surely the world would have ended up much worse if he had been succesful in precipating a conflict w/ the ussr in 1945?

but how can you argue against the results? we went from having practically zero army to having the best military on the earth! what's the point of having all that ocean between us and the evil-doers if we can't just chill out and drink beer all day?

are you saying then that the USA should have kept a large military after ww1 and pre-emptively invaded germany in the 30s?

seriously, when is the demilitirazation of our nation EVER going to happen? it made sense to defy our historical tradition of maintaining only a skeletal standing army after ww2 under the looming and palpably massive threat of the ussr, but that's gone. the threats that remain do not begin to justify our gross expenditures that have inevitably corrupted our politics and foreign policy and domestic priorities. what was wrong with the military model we used for our first 150 years as a country?

now THAT is funny would be fun to see one of those editorials you refer to so the primary document itself coudl be sujbected to endless, inane, yet diverting, distraction

Wikipedia's entry on Heston's: Political activism Charlton Heston (left) with Marlon Brando, James Baldwin, and Harry Belafonte at Civil Rights March 1963. Heston with United States President Ronald Reagan during a meeting for the Presidential Task Force on the Arts and Humanities in the White House Cabinet Room, 1981.Heston campaigned for Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson in 1956 and John F. Kennedy in 1960.[11] When an Oklahoma movie theater premiering his movie was segregated, he joined a picket line outside in 1961.[12] During the civil rights march held in Washington, D.C. in 1963, he accompanied Martin Luther King Jr. In later speeches, Heston said he helped the civil rights cause, "long before Hollywood found it fashionable."[13] Following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, Heston and actors Gregory Peck, Kirk Douglas and James Stewart issued a statement calling for support of President Johnson's Gun Control Act of 1968.[14][15] He opposed the Vietnam War and said he voted for Richard Nixon in 1972.[16] By the 1980s, Heston opposed affirmative action, supported gun rights and changed his political affiliation from Democratic to Republican.[17] He campaigned for Republicans and Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan,[18] George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.[19] Heston resigned from Actors Equity, claiming the union's refusal to allow a white actor to play a Eurasian role in "Miss Saigon" was "obscenely racist."[20] He said CNN's telecasts from Baghdad were "sowing doubts" about the allied effort in the 1990-91 Gulf War.[20] At a Time Warner stockholders meeting, he castigated the company for releasing an Ice-T album which included the song "Cop Killer", which depicted the killing of police officers.[21] According to his autobiography In the Arena, Heston recognized the right of freedom of speech exercised by others. In a 1997 speech, he rhetorically deplored a culture war he said was being conducted by a generation of media, educators, entertainers, and politicians against: "...the God fearing, law-abiding, Caucasian, middle- class Protestant-or even worse, evangelical Christian, Midwestern or Southern- or even worse, rural, apparently straight-or even worse, admitted heterosexuals, gun-owning-or even worse, NRA-card-carrying, average working stiff-or even worse, male working stiff-because, not only don’t you count, you are a down-right obstacle to social progress. Your voice deserves a lower decibel level, your opinion is less enlightened, your media access is insignificant, and frankly, mister, you need to wake up, wise up, and learn a little something from your new-America and until you do, would you mind shutting up?"[22] In an address to students at Harvard Law School entitled Winning the Cultural War, Heston said, "If Americans believed in political correctness, we'd still be King George's boys - subjects bound to the British crown."[23] He went on: "The Constitution was handed down to guide us by a bunch of wise old dead white guys who invented our country! Now some flinch when I say that. Why! Its true-they were white guys! So were most of the guys that died in Lincoln’s name opposing slavery in the 1860s. So why should I be ashamed of white guys? Why is “Hispanic Pride” or “Black Pride” a good thing, while “White Pride” conjures shaven heads and white hoods? Why was the Million Man March on Washington celebrated by many as progress, while the Promise Keepers March on Washington was greeted with suspicion and ridicule? I’ll tell you why, Cultural warfare!" He later stated, "Political correctness is tyranny with manners."[24] Heston accepting a presentation rifle at 2000 NRA convention with the now well-known exclamation "From my cold, dead hands!"Heston was the president and spokesman of the NRA from 1998 until he resigned in 2003. At the 2000 NRA convention, he raised a rifle over his head and declared that a potential Al Gore administration would take away his Second Amendment rights "from my cold, dead hands."[25] In announcing his resignation in 2003, he again raised a rifle over his head, repeating the five famous words of his 2000 speech.[26] He was an honorary life member.[26] In the 2002 documentary film Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore interviewed Heston in his home, asking him about an April 1999 NRA meeting held shortly after the Columbine high school massacre, in Denver, Colorado. Moore criticized Heston for the perceived thoughtlessness in the timing and location of the meeting. Heston, on-camera, excused himself and walked out. Moore was later criticized for his perceived ambush.[27][28][29] Actor George Clooney joked about Heston's failing health at a 2003 National Board of Review award ceremony, saying that Heston "announced again today that he is suffering from Alzheimer's." When questioned, Clooney said Heston deserved whatever was said about him for his involvement with the NRA.[30] Heston responded by saying Clooney lacked class, and said he felt sorry for Clooney, as Clooney had as much of a chance of developing Alzheimer's as anyone else.[31] Heston opposed abortion and gave the introduction to a 1987 pro-life documentary by Bernard Nathanson called Eclipse of Reason which focuses on late-term abortions. Heston served on the Advisory Board of Accuracy in Media, a conservative media watchdog group founded by Reed Irvine.[32]

it was hard not to like ole'charlie - as a kid i really dug on the movie version he starred in of the short story "leinigen versus the ants" as well as the super-sweet "omega man"

"all we are is dust in the wind, dude"

Such nice sentiments coming from someone who doesn't know shit about the man. Good journey, Chuck. You'll be missed. More love from the left. Someone dies with whom they disagreed, and it's time to dance on the grave, and sling shit. hey, us lefties don't believe in jeebus, so why should we respect the dead?

ah yes. given enough time, obama too will have opposed civil rights legislation and roe v. wade; he too will have wished to bomb iran and further the occupation of iraq. obama too will come to oppose health care coverage for children and veto anti-torture legislation. it all makes sense now. given enough time, everyone will turn into.... an extremist republican.

they already looked fine and climbable last thursday

seems a shame not to have at least a token picture of rock climbin in w/ all those others - no doubt tvash can 'shop it up a bit and insert a few moons and bacon-bits to make it tastier **** removed to protect the innocent ****** feel free to give me shit for frenching on the piece while clipping it - my interest in falling on a single 8 mm cord in the middle of fuck was quite low koflachs - so hawt for edging!