tvashtarkatena

You'll note I gave Taco Bell a hall pass.... Listening to the soundtrack to Jodhaa Akbar. F'in great. Rock on, Bollywood.

Dood, better prepare for a Swiss crime wave, now that the cat's out of the bag LOL I love the picture I get in my head when the NRA trots out it's 'polite, armed society' argument: a meth head declining, at the last moment, to break into your house because he just read that gun ownership nationwide is up 4% that year.

If you want to understand JayB's philosophy, it's all in his language. Sectors, rather than communities. Consumers, basically eating an shitting machines, rather than people. Do any people actually inhabit his economic world? His long held contention is that any successful business model should be supported. OK, let's take a look at fast food franchising. Very successful business model. It's also one that has contributed more than just about any other 'sector' to the destruction of our urban landscape, our health, our living wage, and our environment. Oh, but what's the alternative, you say? Whatever are we to do? Dicks. 5 locations. Benefits and much higher salaries than the big boys. Real potato fries. Real ice cream. As cheap or cheaper. Local inputs. Red Mill. 2 locations. More expensive...and there's a line out the door all the time. They take cash only. Fuck you credit card companies, and fuck you 'consumer' if you don't like it. Ditto on the wages. The reality is, of course, that there are lots of alternatives, and that competing economies of scale at smaller, local scales are not only apparently possible; they out-compete the big boys. So what's the difference? Let the best business win, right? The difference is, of course, that McDonalds doesn't give one flying fuck about your community, and never will. To the McDonalds corporation, your community is a quarterly number, nothing more. Dicks and Red Mill do...they live there. The real story, of course, is that fast food industry has long been heavily subsidized in a number of ways, agricultural subsidies, minimum wage laws, lax zoning, tax breaks, non-existent environmental regulation (feed lots, anyone?), and FDA that looks the other way...precisely as a result of 'pro business', ie, 'conservative' or, my personal favorite 'hands off' policies. Ask JayB if he supports the fast food industry, and you'll get an enthusiastic YES! Jobs...success...let the chips fall where they may in the 'free market', buyer beware! Then ask JayB if he'd live between a McDonalds and a Burger King, want his kids (hypothetically) to work or eat there, and check for consistency.

A disorganized professor? Impossible.

If that family had had some guns around the house they would have been able to defend themselves.

As I recall, he loves to laugh.

It's not hard to imagine that the country would separate vertically, in a moral and intellectual sense, into those who are either stupid and/or lie a lot, and those who are not and/or don't. The two groups never really had much use for each other anyway. Stupid, which tends to get one into shitty situations, and lying; the go to extraction strategy for such people. Like toast and butter. Republican party = stupid liars. It's pretty much as simple as that as far as I'm concerned at this point. Those few R congressmen who kick off a campaign intending to tell the truth are quickly re-educated by the party. Pretty near 100% of them come out of it as full blown shitbags.

You mean the upcoming show he's broadcasting live from the University of East Anglia?

That's when the rail road car pry bars get broken out....

Hmmm...re-opening Gitmo for Cheney and Company. Moral quandary or wet dream for the civil libertarian?

Hint: Gitmo's dismantling seems to be really dragging on....

There's a re-education camp in the near future with your family's name on it, comrade.

Well, I don't disagree. It's just that, even if the story were true, the misdeeds of three members of a large activist organization doesn't define the organization itself or negate it's past accomplishments. Admittedly, I don't deal too much in the area that ACORN was involved in, and I'm not very familiar with the organization itself. The Rfucks do try to pull a few shenanigans regarding keeping voters from the booth locally...I was personally involved in one incident (it was very satisfying to watch one of our legal observers shut the dumbfuck up right quick by informing he that he was rather blatantly violating the law...almost always the case when the Right actually has to go mano a mano in any legal sense), but they focus most of their stupid pet tricks in FL, OH, and other more pivotal states. It's interesting to mention that the Rfucks have a well oiled national machine for voting obstruction, because they know they're in a permanent minority, and they know that minorities have long been on to their racist (war on drugs, anyone?) and economically marginalizing agenda. The Dems, of course, don't need to play that game...and they don't.

The only thing the Republican party understands is a leather boot heel in the face. Let's finally speak their language and give it to them. They've been begging for it for quite a few years now. America's well being and survival requires that the Republican party, in its current incarnation, go away. Let's not pretend any longer that this isn't an all out ideological war for the future well being of this country. They would, and have, done the same to us...in spades.

Unfortunately, it was just another helping of BS by the entire corporate "press", NYT included: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7701 In addition to smelling a little off, the story was also irrelevant to any issues or organizations that I think matter at all.

You play goalie in an adult diaper and bare feet and see how long you last. Sponsorship by Timmy Horton, though...that would be awesome.

I looked at the source of the ACORN thing and decided on day 1 it was just another helping of talk radio bullshit.

No, they fit into about 3 molds: 1) Gun kooks. 2) Property rights kooks. 3) Just plain kooks. One mold they don't fit into is being grateful for and wanting to give back to the collective society largely responsible for the luxury of their indulgences. Oh, wait...they got where they are solely through their own blood, sweat and tears....yeah, I often forget that.

Here's something that really has nothing to do with climbing. Per capita gun ownership by country. Yeah, the USA is definitely number one...WAY out in front, as a matter of fact. Per capita gun ownership worldwide versus per capita gun homicides by country: Gun homicides per capita by country Comparing that aforementioned fortress of Armed Politeness Switzerland with the USA, for example, we find that Americans own 3 times more guns per capita than the Swiss, yet our crime rates are...wait, this can't be right...more than five times higher. By that posters logic, the solution to gun crime in gang areas, for example, would be to simply ARM THE GANGS...you know, to increase the politeness factor. IF those ganstas only knew that other ganstas were packin.... The gun lobby loves to sing its silver bullet song of an armed, polite society, but reality, of course, is quite a bit more complicated than that. But most of us already knew that. America's addiction to guns, and I'm not talking about yer over and under grouse gun, here...guns meant to kill people, should come as no surprise, given that we own 40% of the world's armaments...more than the next 10 countries combined. Every American man, woman, and child spends over $2300 a year on the military...nearly 60% of our national discretionary budget. In the aggregate, we are an extremely addictive, paranoid society. Gun fetishism, such as the need to carry a firearm into a National Park (???), is just one of many manifestations of that national weirdness.

thought the same thing before i even saw yer post It's not. It's Francis Dormand.

The U.S. is exactly like Mexico and Switzerland, except for the guns. Or we don't have as many guns. Or something like that.

The only sketchy encounter I've had in the wilderness involving another human in 40 years of backcountry travel was spotting a lost and obviously confused hunter in the Jefferson Peak area who appeared to be high as a kite on something aiming his .306 at my chest. Damn, I know I could have gotten a shot off first had I only had the means. The assumption posted here over and over again is "those who carry legally aren't the ones you need to worry about". Yeah, I don't buy that at all. Sure, there are plenty of responsible permit carriers out there, blah, blah, but let's face it; it's laughably easy for just about any bozo to get a permit to carry. Furthermore, screening for such permits has been watered down by the lobbying efforts of the very same folks who make this claim. Sorry, guys, basic conflict of interest = zero credibility. Furthermore, isn't just a little ironic that those who are paranoid enough to want to carry in a National Park also want to maximize the potential lethality of the other folks they claim to be so worried about? I'm with Ivan; the gun fetish indicates some inner wrongness that I don't pretend to understand but that I also certainly don't trust. Guns attract kooks like moths to a flame. Go to a gun show and, Woah Nelly, you'll see what I'm talking about. When I see someone packing in our PNW wilderness 'for personal safety' (hunting's a different story, of course), I interpret it as a either a) the aforementioned weirdness or b) a lack of experience...at least until interaction with the individual proves otherwise. Statistically, nearly everyone who owns non-hunting guns claim its for personal safety. And statistically, these are the very folks who do the lion's share of shooting family members, friends, and themselves, either violently or by accident. Statistically, you and those around you are far less safe if their's a handgun in the house. That's what the numbers say...your mileage my vary.

"Blood in the streets"? Yeah...own your own bullshit. As for bears, there was a fair bit of discussion here about them before you arrived on the scene to deliver a few misconceptions. Worried about your gun being stolen out of your car? Own that, too. In what whiny universe would that ever be the National Park Service's problem? Planning a trip that includes a National Park visit and worried about leaving your gun in your car? Here's some ideas: a) Keeping worrying. b) Leave the gun at home, or c) skip the National Park. It's just not that hard.

I would say that having the option to shoot yourself rather than die of exposure is might come in handy once you've broken your ankle trying to negotiate a mossy creek bed with your sixty pound pack complete with gun, ammo, bowie knife, snake bite kit, tre-bark jumpsuit, trip wires, night vision goggles....

Several gun proponents have posted things on this thread that are just plain wrong. That you couldn't carry a gun in your car into a national park prior to the rule change (you could). That hunting was and is allowed in National Parks (it isn't). That pistols are effective bear guns (they aren't). This this is a states rights issue (it's not). I realize that the gun lobby tends to play pretty fast and loose with the facts; that seems to be a cultural thing regarding that issue and those who make it a priority. If you care enough to defend your rights on a public forum that isn't hosted by the NRA with any credibility, however, then please care enough to do a little homework beforehand.