Bosterson

I understand the references you made about Bush. Again, however, my question is whether there is definitive evidence that Zelaya's proposed referendum was actually about changing term limits. It seems like one side says it was, and the other says it wasn't, and since the referendum was about convening an assembly, it's not like it actually happened yet for us to find out. In response to your snipe, I certainly supported Bush's arrest and removal because I was personally offended that in all of his faith-based bully-pulpit-ing he marginalized my one true god, the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I will think about your hypothetical about Bush, though; I'm not sure what my answer is. In the meantime, I am actually genuinely interested in the answer to the question I posed above.

That Ralph Nader was an evil, evil man.

Sorry, that was totally a joke. Something about "suckers" falling for "trolling"? (@ KK-whatever his name is, not you.) Also sort of a play on what you said about Chavez = "the tyranny of the majority." I am not totally up on my current Venezuelan politics so feel free to correct me on this if I'm interpreting wrong, but it seems like what you were implying is that if you allow the majority to vote, being collectively stupid they will vote to perpetuate someone who will then do things no one else likes. So my comparison was with Bush, who we stupidly reelected and who then went on to continue doing things no one liked. I don't really think that's what Tocqueville meant by "tyranny of the majority" though.

LOL!!!!!!!!!! Out of curiosity, where does everyone think the government gets its money from? The great piggybank in the sky? I assume the use of "socialism" is a vague (and poorly understood) allusion to communism. If taxes are the problem, maybe we should embrace anarchy? (It has to be cheaper than government... right?) Besides, everyone loves to trot out the above quote, but we could easily rewrite it as:

The irreversible tyranny of the majority.

Did I miss something? I don't recall anyone mentioning Castro (Raul, I assume?). Chavez has publicly accused the US of collusion in the coup. Clinton is Obama's Secretary of State, ie, his foreign policy mouthpiece, so why mention them separately? And as for the "rest of the world," a partial list of who else condemns the Honduran coup: the UN the OAS the EU the Association of Caribbean States Paraguay Argentina Bolivia Brazil Colombia Costa Rica Guatemala France Germany Blah blah blah. Seriously, it is the rest of South America, and a lot of the rest of the world. I'm sure this means that they are all commies. It's cause we've all been watching Fox News.

Is the evidence conclusive that extending/abolishing term limits was going to be Zelaya's goal with the referendum? His supporters seem to indicate otherwise; I'm just curious if this whole thing was based on consensus or speculation. Regardless, considering that yesterday would simply going to be a vote on whether to gather an assembly later, this military coup still seems way out of line. Did the Supreme Court think it was out of options or something? I mean, military rule, even briefly, should be considered the last resort, and I don't think they were there yet...

Depends. Will you be my neighbor (in the comradely, Mr. Rogers sense)?

i thought we were in full agreement about you being an overly wordy pedant and nincompoop? i suppose it's easy to miss during these highly technical and sophisticated musings at cc.com. Awwww. I don't hate you either.

WTF - Kimmo, do I agree with you about something? This is unprecedented!

Also: his term is not yet up. (It ends January, 2010.) People have suggested that his proposed referendum was to change the term limits, but all Zelaya has done so far is propose that there be a referendum on the constitution. (Others have suggested that the referendum would have been about the power and status of foreign corporations in Honduras.) Now we could argue about whether the Honduran Supreme Court was correct to declare the proposal of a referendum unconstitutional, and whether it was illegal for Zelaya to sack General Velasquez, but surely you cannot actually be in favor of a military coup d'etat in Latin America? How well did that work for Latin America (including the previous Honduran coup) all the other times it happened in the past fifty years? (And note that the role and influence of foreign corporations in Latin America, and the United States' hegemony about that issue, have been the driving factors in those coups.) Furthermore, your implication that our president should be in favor of the removal of a foreign leader simply because that person endorses policies you consider "communist" is same kind of outrageous thinking that led our government to cause the aforementioned fifty years of military coups in Latin America. You know, for all your whining about how liberals are all cookie cutter automatons who will think the same way as some arbitrary "left-wing" figurehead, your views and comments are the perfect prototype of the kind of conservative nonsense that our government has been propagating for a hundred years. I value that you do not agree with everyone else politically (diversity keeps things interesting), but seriously, commie-bashing? Which decade do you think this is?

Oh, I'm sorry, is this still the Cold War? Who knew!

America never loses. Just asking that makes you an unpatriotic commie leftwinger who hates America. Don't you know anything?

We have a winter squash growing that's like a foot and a half wide right now. Pumpkins are growing. Zucchini and one ball squash. Green beans, tomatoes are a forest and have set fruit (still green), garlic and shallots will be ready soon, chards and kale are tasty, snap peas, berries. A couple of peppers that could be edible (non-ripe) but the plants are still pretty small. Potatoes are doing well. Corn is maybe 6-9" tall. I need to get pictures of all this...

Addendum to the other response you got: after you stop watering them, wait until like 1/2 - 2/3 of the leaves are brown and they should be ready.

People keep telling me that. Give us the cliffnotes. Just got around to Wikipedia-ing this. Apparently Zeitgeist claims that 9/11 was an "inside job" (the terrorist pilots are actually still alive and in hiding!), that income tax is illegal, and also describes the aforementioned plot to create a North American Union. So Pete - are we supposed to watch it as evidence that yes, far too many stupid wackjobs have access to the media, or that yes, those wackjobs are all correct?

I don't know which state you're in, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out here in Oregon now that naturopaths are allowed to prescribe a broader spectrum of drugs even though the training required by law is significantly shorter for naturopaths than for doctors. Dude, watch out for that shit. I read Stranger With My Face as a kid and when you mess around with the astral plane, your secret twin sister will try to steal your body!

Hoping to hit Adams for a non-technical route later this summer. What kind of gear is needed? Specifically, what kind of boots? (I figure something decently waterproof for the snow, and then gaiters? Or could you walk up the thing wearing tennis shoes with crampons?)

Also, lest any of you decline to actually read the article, you might be amused by the part where the NYT writer compares the intelligence of John Birch Society members to that of grilled meat:

Is that the sequel to Red Dawn?

NYT article on the John Birch Society WTF? How do people like that still exist?

Eww - you have whooping cough? Good thing you weren't immunized. Quarantine thyself in Cafe Sensitivo!

Wow. I'm not sure I've ever seen someone make such a blatant connection between alternative medicine and faith healing...

I think there's pretty much zero chance of being able to place gear on an indoor crack, disregarding the durability of the wall surface, just simply based on liability. It's not like they have you place your draws on lead, you know? And placing gear is to placing draws the way clipping bolts is to toproping... or something. Indoor cracks will either be bolted or toprope. I should think that current wall technology should be able to produce pretty decent indoor cracks nowadays though. Much better than the shit parallel ones in gyms of yore.

Like malnutrition in Africa, this is not some sort of inherent problem but rather a problem of policy. The problem of what you are referring to as "western medicine" (should we say "the medical institution?") is that it de-prioritizes the patient. I have no beef with this issue - improved doctor-patient relationships is one of the goals of holistic medicine, and is something that the medical institution is slowly picking up on. If doctors weren't always running out the door and would actually talk to us, we might all feel better after having seen them. Certainly, HMOs included, the whole process could be done better. However, being that this is a policy problem - a problem of how medicine is being carried out - I do not agree that there is some sort of inherent advantage to what "alternative" medicine would have us do - in fact, I think the opposite. Mundane things like diet, exercise, blah blah are not where this is important: no one with, say, a cerebral hemorrhage goes to an herbalist or a naturopath. No amount of acupuncture will fix a deflated lung or a broken bone. In other words, no one with serious medical problems is seeking alternative therapies. It's like certain unnamed people who profess problems with the "scientific method" still going on airplanes: it's hypocrisy. If you have complaints about mainstream medicine's failure to investigate the holistic component of our lives, including everyday health (diet, exercise, general well being and happiness, etc.), blame it on the institution. Doctors used to make house calls; you used to have a family doctor who you saw from when you were born until you were old. Nowadays you get a different doctor each time you go to the office. You only talk to that person for ten minutes. This is a problem of practice. Furthermore, people generally eat worse, sleep less, exercise less, are more stressed, work jobs they hate, etc. etc. Modern life is not all it cracked up to be. It is also nonsense to argue that Chinese medicine is better because it is older. Do you know what passed for "medicine" a couple thousand years ago? The Four Humours? Trephining? A theory of mental illness that explained psychosis in terms of being possessed by demons? Please. It's one thing to have a problem with the way medicine is practiced (eg, insurance companies, drug company sponsorships, and no real personal interaction with doctors), but it is another matter entirely to call into question the scientific basis that underlies our theory of medicine. (Feel free to do so - I'm just saying they're different issues, one of which I will definitely not agree with you on.) I'm not saying contemporary medicine is practiced in the best way possible, but I don't think naturopathy (and all of the made up gluten allergies that seem to come with it) is the answer.