ashw_justin

OMG! They aren't even dividing by any skeletal lengths to normalize the threshold!

The House of Reagan-Bush (of which the Honorable Scalia is a member) knows exactly what I am about to say but may pretend not to for the sake of politics: at this point these guys will be far more 'useful' if they are let 'free.' Surely a plan has always existed to release the detainees into the wild and see what happens. Intelligence will have them under a microscope, will know where they go, who they meet with, how many shits they take every day. I would expect nothing less. Either that, or the real criminals among the detainees do something stupid and the hawks have more excuses to continue the 'war' on 'terror.' It's 'win-win.'

That which you can not control, deny to others. When freedom, sexuality, etc. are the property of 'God' and his salesmen, the monopoly is highly lucrative.

Bah! This video reeks of typical liberal mildness and subtlety. I'm sure the Republicans could come up with a far more hilarious "I'm voting Democrat." (Or does that exist already and I missed it?)

Good for you. I would guess that most people don't even go this far to practice. I don't think it is easy to simulate the real thing though. It is always much more important to avoid having to rely on self-arrest to save yourself. If you are having to self-arrest, you're already 80% screwed. Practice can't hurt though. You could always do one of those crevasse rescue courses to put it in some context. The only time I have had to 'self-arrest in combat' I had a snowboard on my feet, which obviously sucked. I simply lost edge control while traversing water ice. The board acted as an anchor, putting my into a face-up head-first slide. I had to do some flipping moves a few times to get the board back under me. I was also trying to use a ski pole to self-arrest at the same time but it was pretty much useless. I don't think an ice axe would have been much better. I think I was just very lucky that I was able to get the board back under me.

Weather has been the major factor in a lot of accidents lately. Nature: it's stronger than us and it doesn't care.

Well for the moment this is all based on an unverified account of a single person on the internet.(?) But I have to agree that it sounds like the severity of this accident has more to do with flipping over and lack of head protection than with the willingness to fall on gear. One could argue that had the leader been wearing a helmet and/or did not invert, then testing the gear (with a good piece below it) might have been safer than climbing high above untrustable gear and then decking. Of course anyone is free to suggest that a climber should try avoid this kind of situation altogether.

Sure they are climbers. Climber is a relative term anyway. Let's try not get too sensitive/defensive/embarrassed here, alright? You don't have to take it personally.

Ok, so this thread is winding down to: ultimately there is little to no difference between the national guard and the regular military, in terms of commitments, responsibilities, appropriate use of personnel and resources. The NG website itself makes it pretty clear: Perhaps the recruiting is even honest about that, even though in the past the impression may have been that the National Guard is meant to, well, guard the (this) nation. In this case, one party is lying. Either the deserter/objector is lying about how he was recruited, or the Guard lied to recruit him. Ok so, hypothetically, what if he had been drafted? Assuming that the strong critics here would still find reason to hold him in contempt, how would you do so in the absence of the voluntary contract? Would he be compelled to comply simply by virtue of his citizenship? Or do you simply have no tolerance whatsoever of conscientious objection? If it were based upon the refusal to commit what is considered an international war crime?

After reading your swill, it's obvious that truth has no meaning to you regardless of the conflict in which we are engaged. Carry on with your delusion. Where have I offended truth? Feel free to point out any of my delusions that can be proven false. I am just talking shit about what could happen in the future. You seem to think that I consider them reality. Who is the delusional one? But don't worry, I won't remember to make you eat your words if any of my 'swill' actually comes true.

That's what I'm saying--one might feel conflicted if troops were actually being used to do this. You guess no, I guess yes. Frankly, looking at the bigger picture, I'm not sure which would be better for the U.S.A. at this point. I understand that and I'm not really surprised that it is being done now. Truth has no meaning when speaking of potential outcomes that the future may hold. I invite you to call me hyperbolic and untruthful when/if we are out of the middle east.

I wonder how it would feel to have promised one's life to defend America's God-given right to $2/gal at the pump? This would all make a lot more sense if the White House would just admit that we have forcefully annexed Iraq. To them it must seem natural to use the national guard to defend a new piece of the empire. McCain will have some timely political announcement that he will save us all from high oil prices by tapping into Iraqi oil, and continuing to intimidate the region with our military presence. Nobody seems willing or able to stop the U.S. from doing this, so it must be okay. That is until we push too far.

Yeah, too bad he didn't know that he was 'promising' to rot indefinitely in a Middle Eastern shithole in order to 'guard' someone else's nation. Or are we going to construe every military operation we do from now on as 'guarding' the United States of America? I guess that makes sense if they just consider the entire planet to be the property of the USA. Of course, when another country decides guard itself, our political geniuses will call that 'terrorism.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7444116.stm

Particularly considering the rapid rise in what almost seem like designer disorders these days, at this rate we ought not to be surprised if ADD, SAD, and who knows, maybe PMS, start becoming solid insanity defenses for planned, premeditated, violent, lethal crimes. I am imagining a potential future where all acts of violence are finally explained as spontaneous uncontrollable psychoses. But that won't be a problem, because they will simply have renamed all the prisons to 'asylums.'

On another note, as much as I think this guy should be held responsible and accountable for his violent and inexcusable actions, I am actually pleasantly surprised that the idea of charging him for some kind of 'terrorism' didn't materialize, especially having heard of 'terrorism' charges being brought against people for whom they would have been far less appropriate. Here's wikipedia's quote of the feds' definition: It looks like they went with a hate crime charge instead. Now I personally don't think this is any better, since this kind of charge also condemns not simply an act, but a political or social state of mind that should not otherwise be considered illegal. But that's beside the point. The lack of politically-motivated charges seems to suggest that for the moment at least, we are not descending the slippery slope as quickly as one would have expected given the political climate of the past 6+ years. (Then again, things might have been different had this occurred in a very 'red' state.)

Ah, ze old media bait-and-switch! http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/365995_jewishfed06.html And then there's this...

Point: it's all the juror's fault. Counterpoint: no it's not. I'm not claiming a dissertation here. I just responded in kind. ps. I agree, the papers also dwell on the jurors. Reporting: it's just that easy.

Do you know anything about what you are talking about here? That was just my attempt at 'counterpoint,' oh wise one. Or do you just want to have a circle-jerk in here? Just blame it on the jury. Classic. Forgive me, but isn't that about as simple-minded as it gets?

Talk about a dipshit. The jurors were just trying to do their job. It's not their fault if the court didn't have the competence/balls to tell them, factually, what does or does not qualify as 'not guilty by reason of insanity.'

I know, right! It's like they'll do anything it takes for me to convince myself that everything is about oil! Yeah WOOOO! We got number 3, bitches! And now we can just walk into any of the other top 5! Yeeehaaaaw!

Please, it is not even possible to call the enlisted men and women sleeping in body armor (or not...) cowards. They didn't ship themselves to oilistan, our country's most powerful cowards did. And they can't ship themselves out either--it will take more powerful cowards to do that too. "Perhaps when the next great war comes, we may see that sight unprecedented in all history: a jingo with a bullet hole in him."

Why do oil prices always seem to start rising soon before an election? Maybe if we could replace the fear of terrorists with the fear of $10/gal gasoline, then the voting public will remain scared enough to elect another arabophobic warlord!

One need not be empty to win a beauty contest. Once in a while they'll even ask really hard questions about politics, foreign policy, the economy, and social issues. Once in a while.

A white Obama would still be one pretty-looking, pretty-sounding m'fcker. Either way he'd have this beauty pageant in the bag.