ivan

grooooovy

fuck dogs, i'd be happier if we could leash gods

it's a big, big world out there but if you want to stay localish the gems to get hard for, in my humble opinion are: - n side routes on rainier - nooksack tower - johanessberg - index traverse - big wall cool things at index like davis-holland, green dragon, town crier, etc. - bear peak - darrington cool shit - liberty crack that's a good start

'specially if combined w/ a ski-descent of thermogenisis?

"i have a better idea!....shit, it was the same bad idea..."

"dogs fucked the pope - no fault of mine"

n' I watch you manage to snore even while sucking down coffee w/ yer eyes closed there was that one time you got to watch me hang out in the rain in a down bag on an itty-bitty ledge from your deluxe bivy sack...

the earliest written records human's left behind were chest-beating pieces about who'd they'd killed and what they'd done to be remembered forever - self-importance is in our dna - kinda makes sense, given the reality of evolution (which of course has also created this new nuisance of yours )

is it time for the Two Minute Hate yet? i'm feeling nappish but god i love to nurse a hard grievance

that actually IS pat - they'll have all the details at 11 - excellent catch

i've been thinking very long and hard about things and i'm afraid it turns out You're All Wrong

likely a mote pt - like saying smart phones suck - the tide of history turns but one way...

bumper-sticker of the day Someone doesn't understand the nuanced relationship between idea and argument. No surprises here. w/o nuance, nothing is funny, and funny is my whole gawddamn raison de'etre

an honest answer and appreciated... ...but clearly a viewpoint that can't help but result in our nation being regarded with contempt by the world, as well as undermine everything grand and beautiful about our national ideals. better to be a live bastard than be virtously dead...i can see why some are in to it, and to some extent every man sees things that way - i choose to try to keep that shit to a minimum.

bumper-sticker of the day

jesus, luke's drone-tr of desert tower climbing yday looks absolutely amazing - hard to hate, though yeah, I suppose they detract from the sense of wilderness

another simple question: were the united states in the same situation as iran, does anyone think for a moment we'd act any less belligerently on the issue of nukes?

I'm willing to conceive of jay as a reasonable guy - I answered his questions as well I could and would be interested in his response: isn't it hypocritical that one well established nation-station can have nukes but others can't under threat of death? if it is in fact hypocritical, isn't that a problem for a nation like ours that prides itself on its ideals, or are we just to make the old fashioned naked assertion of "might makes right" and be honest about the mere lip-service we offer said ideals?

agreed - i'm as gob-smacked n' leery-leery of georgia-based religious lunatics as those in the levant

i doubt we're that far apart when it comes down to it boy-o - certainly selling nukes is a big no-no - i see the decision of a state to join the nuke club as being a big deal w/ the devil that comes with the following basic rules: - if you use a nuke against a nuke enabled nation, expect them to use every nuke they have against you in retaliation - if you provide a nuke to a 3rd party, you get the same treatment if they choose to use it - in the aftermath of a nuke strike, the aggrieved party is highly unlikely to be interested in bullshit things like who actually is to blame, and will begin Response Scenario #1 against all the usual suspects - if you are nuke enabled, and choose to begin a conventional war against another member of The Club, the likely time that will elapse from the start of said war and the first use of nukes will be roughly equivalent to the amount of time it takes a high-school kegger to get out of control - if you are a member of The Club, your use of nukes against anyone for any reason comes w/ a 75% assurance the other members of The Club will annihilate you in short order for breaking the seal (for example: iran gets nukes, nukes israel, usa reduces iran's population to 1/100 of pre-nuke population (and yes, now strong odds Club members on iran's periphery come into play - india's unlikely to fire on us as they don't have the same supply of hate, but maybe - china and russia are still close enough and cantankerous enough and well-supplied enough that they could push the whole thing to the awful conclusion though - it would be a sad decision we'd take in our anger, and the consequences would be awful (but that's what we get for being in the Club) i don't agree at all that we as a nation have backed that far away from the nuclear abyss - the american public's response to 9/11 is highly instructive - in the aftermath of a nuclear strike on the united states the mood of the public will be one solely bent on massive revenge - the essential logic of the cold war ain't going anywhere i agree, possession of nukes by religious fanatics is grim indeed - guess that's what comes w/ being born into this age (could be worse i suppose, while i live w/ the threat of nuclear incineration hanging over my head, i can also watch inter-racial chinese porn for free at any hour and eat fresh tomatoes in february ) i have some hope in the premise that a state, in order to develop nukes and the many delivery systems needed to threaten us with total destruction, needs to have a relatively sane population to produce them

maybe we'll be lucky and live through some sorta major eruptive event and get to FA something on a monumentally reworked mountain?

should the amish be allowed to have atomic power, pending certain re-arrangements in their world views? christ, how i'd like a pay-per-view of a bare-knuckle brawl betwixt an amish bruiser n' a committed buddhist

can't argue w/ that in the end it boils down to which one you dug more: dr strangelove or on the beach? the philosopher asks: if life is everywhere in the universe, and intelligent life the inevitable result of evolution, why don't we see evidence of alien beings in all directions? the cynic concedes that, once a creature develops certain powers, the forces that led to the creation of those powers can't help but use them to blow the whole thing apart so long as the bar keeps serving pan-galactic gargle-blasters it'll all stay groovy

libtards are double-plus bad

ye certainly have embraced my old professor's mantra of "dazzle them w/ brilliance or baffle them w/ bullshit," good sir you had a lot of fancy footwork in there, I doubt i'll answer everything you asked or consider every argument, but here's my 3-minute response yes, I do think all states (using the consensus definition humans have established over the ages for what a state is (and incidentally, would you contend iran or north korea don't meet it?)) have the right to build the defense force they feel necessary to defend themselves - no, I don't think deterrence will always prevent the use of those weapons, though we've managed the better part of a century to have them and not use them - Russian atheists probably were more concerned w/ the here and now than fellers dreaming of forty virgins and a pie-in-the-sky, and thus less likely to invite a nuclear holocaust. the details of what is/isn't a state i'll leave to you to hash out (can I apply the supreme court's pornography definition? sure seems to work ) - does isis call itself a state? yes. do I think it's a state? not yet, but maybe someday. do I want a future nation-state that calls itself isis to have nukes? no, of course not. would I consider myself a hypocrite to say the usa could have nukes, but not this future isis-state? definitely. would I be okay w/ our country annihilating that state prior to using those weapons? no. afterwards. yes, though I'll concede it was a bummer it had to come to that. I'm a happy-go-lucky nihilist - douglas adams was my prophet but he's dead now and that's all that matters of course a utilitarian will bend the rules to benefit himself and his family. it possible that I'm as lousy a nihilist and utilitarian as I am a climber/father/teacher/human-being/etc not certain what to make of your "argument from equality" - is equality even a real thing? I just thought it was a slogan