tvashtarkatena

I think this thread has already scene at least one person blow themselves up already. They never got inside the green zone, though.

A little dose of 'think locally, act locally' might come in handy here.

You're amazing in your ability to predict the outcome of a revolution that came as a surprise to the Egyptians themselves LOL. Perhaps in another 30 years you'll learn the concept of sarcasm.

i had to look that one up, hell i have to look most words up. that's a perfect name for it though Wait. That's a real word? Sheeit , I just kinda made it up...

'Somnambulus'

I think the takeaway here is that no amount of whining from innernutz takes away from the joy of good friends embarked on an excellent adventure in a beautiful place. Kinda what it's all about, no?

Sweeeeet. Like wiping something off my shoe.

Imperial Life in the Emerald City - Rajiv Chandrasekaran The Forever War - Dexter Filkins. These quick reads are recommended for anyone who seeks to understand our involvement over there.

Hey I'm not the guy firing off the pompous PMs, am I? Then again, you won't be making that mistake again. From what I've observed, swaggering blowhards tend to get paid in the currency of disappointment. Best of luck telling us Washington boys how we should climb in our own state parks!

Middle aged and typos still get him excited. Ouch. Oh well, it's something, I guess.

That's precisely and exactly what I'm saying at Beacon. Beacon is an oasis of trad surrounded by a sea of sport climbing venues - there is ZERO reason for sport climbing at Beacon - go elsewhere if that's what you want. Don't like that? Piss off. It's not that I don't like it. It's that I don't care. I'm not the one who's whining here. I had a great time on the route when I was awake. Sometimes you just gotta deal with stuff you don't like. I'm not sure where you got the idea that you can swagger around calling the shots, but it's embarrassing to watch. In any case, you'll live.

Good catch!

Oh, yeah, 'multiculturism'. You know someone lacks an argument when they resort to the world of 'isms', where theories can go at each other mano a mano in the rarified, emotion stirred ether, far, far above the messiness of basic human nature. Frankly, I have have no idea what Jay's trying to go with that or why. Liberals believe in the universal rights of man entitled to everyone, everywhere as defined during the age of reason and as embodied, if imperfectly, in our Bill of Rights.

Yup. That's what I've noticed from the Right. A lot of opinions, a lot of whining, but no...constructive action. Ignorant of the problem their dealing with. Poor planning. Disastrous results. Oh, I knew my query would draw the oft repeated attention whore personal attack - that was a given. In contrast, most of the Lefties I know are extremely active in a variety of effective causes to try to reduce human misery. We push self determination, which does not include the kind of invasions you supported, or the humiliation the Right so enjoys to inflict. We realize that the U.S. most powerful weapon is to lead by example, and, due to the Right Wing policies of torture, detention, occupation, assassination, and support of tyranny, we've set a rather poor one. Many of us actively fight to keep religious zealotry and favoritism out of our government here, which allows the U.S. to credibly support attempts to do the same elsewhere.

DID I FKN CALL THIS ONE? HUH?

This revolution has given me a feeling of joy and hope I haven't felt since the wall came down. It's funny...silence from the Righty Tighties. I wonder what their feeling? When will the Islamicist henchmen come out of the wood work to take over, because Muslims - with their animal-like propensity for violence and freakish religious zeal, couldn't possibly put a functioning secular democracy together. No, Muslims respond only to force. Force without any resentment or consequences, because no one fucks with De Uncle.

If, for example, you look at efforts to reform human rights around the world and here at home, you find a deep gap between the Left, who support and actively fight for such reform, and the Right, who either do nothing or actively oppose it. I would argue that most Americans would like to see stoning and the like ended. The Right supports violent force - invasion and drone strikes, ostensibly to make this happen. The result has been a society completely destroyed and ongoing human disaster at a national scale. The Right has also consistently supported authoritarian regimes, like Mubaraks, of sociopathic thugs who have wrought misery on both their people and their countries' economies. In addition, the Right has consistently worked to bring down emerging regimes chosen by the people to be governed by them. In stark contrast, the Left has worked to end the U.S. long standing policies of supporting civil rights abusers and military force, which has proven to compound a societies miseries many times over, support education and understanding around the cultures we're dealing with so that we can deal with them in a constructive, rather than destructive, manner. Jay's assumption is that muslims are incapable of governing themselves in a civilized manner, and must be reformed by force...despite present horrific evidence to the contrary. To support this, he probably bought all the fudged graphs showing 'progress in Iraq', crafted for the boyz who only took good news for an answer even while the country into pre-Babylonian chaos. Some of us view the Muslim world as equals, with an equal claim to the right to a secular, democratic government. Some of us believe that we all share a basic human nature that values self determination, stability, the laws and institutions that provide them, and freedom of secular or religious expression. Some of believe that no people deserve or will put up with humiliation. We have destroyed Iraq forever by not allowing them their own revolution. In our paternal/imperial zeal, we've taken that self generated rebirth, which provides a foundation of strength, shared values, and unity for any society, away from them forever. They will always be a colonial frankenstein, repeatedly beaten down by people far, far away with other things on their minds. And there in lies the difference between Right and Left. How each views the human spirit. The Right sees different species, us and them, the Left sees a common species with common desires. The Right sees force as its primary too, the Left sees reciprocity and example as being the way forward to a better world.

Your response typifies your style of "debate". As usual JayB posts a long argument, which you simply dismiss, along with some vapid insults. And you actually expect people to engage you seriously in discussion - there's nothing serious yet alone substantive that you have to offer. And your meme twin is not different. While 'long' may equate to 'good' when measuring some things, I've never heard it being called a success criteria for an argument. Jay has, in his typically verbose manner, outlined a fantasy - basically a parroting of Right Wing blog messaging ala Beck ,etc. 'Apologism = support for clitoral trimming and all that" MattP simply observed how ridiculous Jays statement is. When someone comes up with something this stupid and outrageous, few words are required to call it what it is.

The administration supported Mubarak stepping down and a transition to democracy, not Suleiman as a choice for president.

Military officers own a lot of businesses in Egypt, particularly in the tourism industry, so they have a deep, vested interest in restoring stability and thus, the economy. In my view that's probably a very good thing for the secular democratic movement - it shows in their restrained behavior so far.

What I find a wee bit humorous is this: It's perfectly fine to bolt the shit out of an area like Darrington (where there would be, um...let's see...ZERO free routes without them, leaving a spectacular local group of wonderful granite domes completely fallow for climbers - BTW, MANY THANKS to those who've worked hard over the decades to develop that treasure), but putting up a new aid route on an unclimbed portion of Beacon, a route that has far fewer bolts than the average climb at Darrington, is not OK? OK. Unless you guys are arguing that if its not a trad route, it's not a route and shouldn't be climbed. Those of us up here who love Darrington might beg to differ on that.

No one claims you're lying. You are being a petty tool about all this, however. So you climbed a couple of pitches on the sly a long, long time ago? OK. Thanks for the update.

Less popular but still happening. It's a vital skill for a lot of spectacular routes. Well done local routes are a good thing.

So you guys are for a ban on new aid lines. Thank you for playing.

I believe the head of the army will be in charge, not Su-su-suli!