gotterdamerung

mountain biking

I thought the underlying issue had more to do with insurance companies having to pay out benefits to someone who decides to cap themselves rather than someone simply just doing it.

Good point.

Boot camp was kindergarten.

What time is this meeting? I will come and intimidate Toby. Be sure to remind the forest service about their complicity in allowing a crystal mine in the middle fork and the impact that is having as compared to an obscure bolt up climb on Garfield. Be sure to mention the evidence of deforestation and road grading as well as wanton garbage dumping throughout the middle fork. Tell them their enforcement efforts are a joke and remind them that they do not have a fulltime or even a part time FS LE officer in the immediate area and haven't for several years since John left.

While extradition may not be a worry by fleeing YOUR countries call to Mexico, detention and prosecution upon attempting to return will be. I say STAY gone if that's your attitude. You won't be missed or needed any longer.

Exactly what I said. It's "in" one way or another.

I have an idea that it might be. Go for it.

R.I.P. Bob

I've had several dealings with the Kurds and I have been in Kurdistan twice. Travelling in a blackhawk as you head north there is an imaginary line that is crossed between the hell down south into a land puncuated by deep green rolling hills, jagged mountains, and clear blue rivers. Medieval villages lie in fertile river valleys, and sheep herders scramble to contain their flocks when rotors tear into their peaceful somnolence. Thunderclouds loom overhead and striking architecture suddenly looms on the highest hilltops. Solitary mosques lie as sentinels along the frontiers and you are graced with a sense of peace and order. The air tastes clean and cool, the wind blows among trees, and like you would at home you stare off a distant mountains, and wonder what it would be like to climb them. The people are generous and you sense that they are your friends. The raw nerves and restless agitation of life in the south fades away quickly, and it is difficult to keep your 'game face' on. Men bring platters of sweets to pass around, and Rani is handed out as well as cokes with Arabic writings for labels. There is nothing western here, but it holds the same sense of familiarity that you would find in Estes Park or Winthrop. Steep mountain roads wind around and each new turn has a subtlety that cannot be ignored. Beautiful stallions running on one switchback, and the next one a park for picnics and gazing across the valley. Huge wooden doors lead into marble rooms graced by persian rugs. You stare into them and feel awkward standing on them when a Kurd tells you they are 1000 years old. Food of every variety is taken once business is finished and sweet chai is distributed in tiny cups with silver rims. Everyone smiles and greets one another with respect and awe. Always evident is the lack of any woman in sight, but once when returning to CPA north, school was just letting out and we got our first glimpses of Kurdish women and children. Striking women and beautiful children are the true riches of Kurdistan. Exotic and distant, a pipe dream for those starved for beauty. Always a sense of fatalism to return to the south, those last few glimpses of Kurdistan painful, as we return to a country that bears little resemblance to this place that has been cruelly associated with Iraq. Wishing that we would put all of our resources into this land in the north and simply withdraw from the south once and for all. Leaving the Sunnis and Shias to their politics and timeless hatreds. In Kurdistan I would gratefully give my life for their freedom if they asked me to.

Will, I think you really hit the proverbial nail on the head with that one. We can't condone our own abuses, but we can't turn a blind eye to the abuses that we have suffered either. The United States has done far more good than bad for the people's of this world, and I believe that we have the chance to do good in Iraq. Like you, I don't neccessarily believe all the hype the Bush administration has thrust down the throats of the American public, and I wish there were some better candidates in the pipes right now to choose from other than Bush and Kerry. We were robbed of a chance of a decisive victory when some pencil pushing desk geeks pulled a random force level number out of a hat and ordered the charge of the light brigade into Iraq. We were enlightened when our double dealing European "allies" showed their true colors and put their own national monetary interests above ousting a dictator and assisting us in our efforts to achieve a stronger signature in the middle east. Our misgivings about the UN were solidified when they showed what a useless tin-pan organization they really are. We are a better people now to see just how inept some elements of our government are in dealing with realities in the world, and we are chargrained to realize that despite all of our technologies on the battlefield that all of our smart bombs and missiles, night vision, high tech rifles are virtually useless when confronted by an enemy that has little to lose and everything to gain. We are engaged in one of the lowest levels of technological combat since Beirut and lost in a sense of our own arrogant greatness. When we bomb people to the stone age as we did in Bosnia/Kosovo and we take no casualties the people of the US turn to reality TV and game shows scarcely taking notice. When one American is killed many suddenly proclaim themselves indignant that the US would engage in efforts like this. There is only one way out, and that is through complete victory through ruthless combat action, resolve in the face of adversity, and a sense of national unity. If we lose this misguided adventure we will be engaged in war on a scale that will affect more than the economy and a few hundred thousand Americans immersed in a culture old as time itself. When I return home I am deeply unimpressed by what I find here. Not from the perspective that we are not an advanced culture, but by just how arrogant the average American is. How disconnected, how priveledged, how blind they are. The amount of human rights we are afforded and take for granted, always screaming out for more, or promoting self interests above the interests of others. How easily we could finish this thing if we were to simply act as one for a change, do the job right, and leverage the good that we can out of the bad. Our priorities seem misplaced in this country. I fear that we have become everything the rest of the world says we are, and maybe we need to take a good hard look at all of ourselves for a change before it's too late.

I think you have misintepreted what I wrote. I am not defending their acts. I am simply stating that I think they were blown out of proportion to the actual damage they caused those individuals. My original proposition was that they were being punished for RAPING another inmate in a systematic manner. For that one individual it was probably more torturous than the punishment the perpetrators had to endure.

Your temerity emboldens your enemy. The moral high road is a bunch of words that you speak 10,000 miles from the events at hand. There is no moral high ground in war. Only strength and savagery. You need to think hard about that. If you want this thing to end you will campaign to crush your enemies with might and resolve.

If you spent some time in Najaf I think you would have a different perspective my friend. The only thing we should be ashamed of is not doing enough to try to finish this thing quicker. WE should have come harder, more violently and with more troops. Closed this thing down once and for all, but instead we came with arrogance. Ski on.

From the perspective that I hold it's almost laughable that we have to even answer to the Arabs for those photos. They are fine ones to be talking. Saudi is one of the most systematic torturers in the world, and we're not talking about some assinine kids taking some dumbass photos and pointing at some guys genitalia. We're talking about bone breaking pros. Not to mention their well documented kidnapping of westerners as sex slaves who are never heard or seen from again. Abu Ghraib in Saddam's day was a virtual hell on earth. NOW the Iraqi's are outraged? BLOW ME IRAQ. We shouldn't be apologizing for shit. We should punish dumb soldiers who do dumb shit, but we shouldn't have to take any Arab shit about it.

No actually I was inquiring if you were going to be there to discuss politics. You are below my physical prowess to be honest with you.

I think the events at Abu Ghraib were sensationalized by the media and blown out of proportion overall. There are better things to focus on and the 'warmongers' did not bring this topic up in this thread. J_B you going to snugclub? I am just now back in town and looking to displace some of my post traumatic stress syndrome. To get back on topic, I would say the UN would botch the effort in Iraq much as they have botched every other peacekeeping effort they have participated in. They are also a major target of the Islamic fundamentalists who view the UN as a tool of the Zionists (wow big surprise). Maybe I should post some pictures of Sergio's funeral last August since I was there. He was a respected member of the UN and his death by car bombing was the reason the UN pulled out like a bunch of scared rabbits. They will fail.

Warfare requires a pagan ethic. Something most don't have a stomach for, but I do. Death would have been my directive.

Those prisoners were being punished for gang raping a fellow inmate. Just so you understand this photograph clearly from now on.

Dead Man on Campus Get Crazy

I can't quite recall where in the constitution there is a article that allows you to choose where and when YOU'LL decide you should serve. Maybe you can enlighten me? Here's some wisdom for you dad, since you're so worried about your own life and that of your kids. Clearly you think you are above every other person who serves, served, or will serve in the future. You shit on every other American who has a child serving when you tell your kids to run away from mandatory service and you shit on every other American that answered the call when it came for them whether they agreed or disagreed with the conflict at hand. You place your own morals and values above all else and assume that you are right. You talk about indignation about the fact that there may be a draft in the future. I say you'll find yourself on the losing end of the stick this time old man. There won't be any amnesty this time around. We better start building some more prisons and recruiting more knuckle draggers to cart your ilk off to where they belong.

I'm sure because of all the bleeding heart shit recently they will be treated with the utmost caring and consideration for their feelings. Custom made hoods and plenty of sleep.