ivan

the watts guide is my fav guide book simple b/c he uses such happy verbs as "scamper" and "frolic" in the route descriptions

i'm not an avian prognosticator every ww2 vet i've talked to said they were certain we would win, and that we would emerge as strong and as powerful as we did - i don't sense that level of optimism about our current Global War on Everything (for sure, it's not a good sign when the italians bail out on you )

certainly not disputing that, merely pointing out that he was actually competent at doing something before he got the job. and hey, he was capable of sensible elocution too - he wrote autobiography as he was dying of cancer that regained his lost family fortune - can't imagine anyone being so inspired to read whatever gw's ghost-writers might be able to come up with. grant and bush. both alcoholics. both failed businessmen. both waged wars on brown people. both republicans. both total failures as president largely attributed to appointing cronies who ran the country into the ground while they're were doing god knows what. why do you think bush is better than grant?

i don't him or of him either, so sharing those stories here would be interesting...

of course for them too - i just am not very optimistic it'll happen - how much longer can this house of cards we've built go on standing?

you added LBJ - he i think it a far more interesting prez than GW, and more tragic - i think his "great society" was far more sincere and humane than bush's "compassionate conservatism" and it was the republican's crucifixion of the democrats for "losing" china and the korean debacle that helped push him over the line into escalting vietnam

lincoln refused to recognize the confederacy as an independent country Do you really think that GWB's actions are any worse than, say those of Andrew Jackson (Trail of Tears), William McKinley (Spanish American War), Woodrow Wilson (war monger beneath a guise of liberal/pacifist), FDR (attempted dictator), or the administration of Ulysses Grant? i've mentioned several of those guys in past threads as assholes of course, so no need to switch horses now - i'm not terribly worried about comparing the level of asshole - bad is bad. fdr left a better legacy overall for certain than bush. jackson's on the 20$ and i seriously doubt gw will be getting any monetary enshrinement now grant at least could do SOMETHING right before he was president. mckinley had better taste in vice-presidents and at least could WIN the stupid little wars he got us involved in. certianly, GW will be leaving our country in a weaker place at the end of his presidency then all the prez's you mentioned, except maybe grant (who at least had a fine beard, and oh yeah, also managed to make it onto the 50$!)

certianly jaded - but truth picks the person, not the other way around - i don't understand how anyone can see it differently - again, quoting gibbon, who put it so sweetly when he summarized history as "little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind." i don't see either political party as having a soul - they've both shown historically their willingness to trade in any of their values in order to get power - i don't really blame them for it either, it's roughly the same thing as lions tearing up zebras in the serengeti - and like lions, i don't want to trust them or have them in any position to hurt me

lincoln refused to recognize the confederacy as an independent country

Refresh my memory: were the draft riots before the so-called "Emancipation Proclamation" or after? And the proclamation was pure political expediency that specifically did not free slaves in border states. Wilson's Sedition act was certainly enforced - I can't remember the famous trial right now...I'll look it up. the EP was made it late '62 (and certainly there was a political calculation that it would prevent england from throwing in w/ the south, given their severe distaste for the peculiar institution), the draft riots occured shortly after g-burg in '63 - lincoln knew he couldn't touch slavery in the north until after the south was dealt w/ b/c otherwise maryland would go into full melt-down and lose him washington d.c. - at any rate, the 13th amendment was passed in '65.

joe's been around a bunch of years and has a sharp mind, so it would be foolish of me to dismiss his well considered opinions offhand regretably, i'm a thoroughly iconoclastic nihilistic twit and would have to admit the whole cycle of history (yes cycle, not linear path from bad to good that you itimated at w/ the "forward" comment) will never cease and the agonies of man will not end until man himself ends - i'm mostly just intersted in trying to make the brief stay i have here, and that of my kids, will be as less-bad as possible, which necesitates opposing war in all but the most astonishingly clear-cut cases of self-defense.

you're also having fun w/ the history, FW - you're attributing the 1000 deaths in the draft riots to lincoln? uh, he sent in troops to bring an end to a violent riot begun by pissed off micks who didn't want to fight for niggers. and while lincoln certainly shit on the constitution, he did at least do it for the purpose of freeing a people it was within his jurisdiction to emancipate. similiarly, adam's alien acts were never really enforced, and repealed by jefferson

saying we've always been wrong so therefore we should just keep being wrong is not logical woodrow wilson was an asshole, as many historians have said it seems odd that so many people begin their counter-diatribes w/ "you don't really believe that" - why in the fuck would they write such lengthy responses if they didn't? it's not like they're running for president and therefore NEED to lie.

tvash don't mess w/ that chronic no more after he woke up in a bangkok whore-house in a gorilla suit a face-full of lipstick

funny - just read and highlighted that quote a couple hours before reading this - of course it took an army of africans to kill so virile a fellow!

now all your internets are belong to us!

sorry, on a gibbon-bender this morning: on the decline and fall of the roman empire, and substituting "military-industrial complex" for "soldiers": "but the tyrant's avarice, stimulated by the insatiate desires of the military-industrial complex, at length attacked the public property...the MI-complex, among whom this sacrilegious plunder was distributed, recieved it with a blush; and, hardened as they were in acts of violence, they dreaded the just reproaches of their friends and relations."

edward gibbon, replacing "legions" with "democrats" and "guards" with "republicans" and "emperors" with "presidents": "the democrats imitated the example of the republicans, and defended their prerogative of licentiousness with the same furious obstinacy...but when the last enclosure of the constitution was beaten down...with bloody hands, savage manners, and desperate resolutions, they sometimes guarded, but oftener subverted, the throne of the presidents"

bob marley the clancy brothers beethoven johnny cash wierd al

not saying they wouldn't be replaced w/ an entirely new set of fucking annoying, damn-near irresolvable problems if someone could get off their ass already and invent the holo-deck, all this madness will get a lot more tame ...so long as they can keep the power on.

very nice bill. so, senor winter, i respect both of ya'lls opinions a good deal - what say ye? personaly, as a believer in several ufo-based conspiracy theories, i worry not for the future - we will all Be on the Mother-Ship Very fucking sooN!

i was kinda with him till he got to #2 the rant is interesting in that it would indicate these are not simply wild-eyed uneducated psychos - they do not appear at all ignorant of history, nor of our many hyprocrises. there are several barbs in there that i think truly hurt because they are, well, true. we certainly have played power politics on the international scene, we have waged war on civilian populations in the name of peace, we have denied others democracy when it didn't suit our needs, we have denied and abused human rights when it was inconvenient - and certainly much of this has gone on right before our eyes while the masses cheered. the conclusion that we deserve death is of course inane, and the demand that we forego all other theologies in favor of islam is stupidly medieval. it is regretable that there is no room for debate w/ these folks, as we do have some things in common, and not necessarily all good characteristics at that. it does seem clear that 99% of our problems w/ them would go away if we'd tell israel to go fuck itself. i'm sure they'd still be able to survive too, even if we did stop selling them tanks and fighters. clearly our attempt to act as intermediaries ain't amounting to much...

I agree with the first, but totally disagree with the second. Even as an advocate of use. I have watched 2 people on seperate occasions tie a single fig 8, thread their harness and start to climb w/o checking. They noticed after a few feet, but it indicates a complete lack of attention to detail. pot=paranoia pot does not = safety ymmv my natural personality is much more lackadasical and cavalier when sober - stoned, i triple check knots, placements, basics - it certainly doesn't make me faster, but certainly more cautious

explain bill - what do you mean a faux wilderness? still, always hard fighting the urge to heap color language on a fawking okie, no?

raindawg = buzz-kill the stupidiest thing to ever happen to me and my party in the mountains happened when i was climbing w/ 2 non-smokers and i was without - this disaster would never have occured had any of those things been different, i am sure smoking pot = paranoia = attention to safety i respect your personal choice though, dawg - i just really don't understand it. jeebus, even buckley dug on it!