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David

Trad climber
San Rafael, CA
Jun 27, 2005 - 12:50pm PT
re"ALL of them vaporized? Impossible. Watch your CSI, lady. "

I have no doubt that if you're forming your view of the world based on corny TV shows that you would develop some strong opinions. However, how could we every hope to have an intelligent converstation about your fantasy world? Next you'll tell us that bigfoot was flying the planes on 9/11.
Degaine

climber
Jun 27, 2005 - 01:00pm PT
Nice post – honest, forthright, and frankly the least partisan post I have read on this forum. I certainly respect your point of view, even if I disagree with you on certain points of your domestic outlook.

Your political philosophy on current affairs proves very coherent right up to the last paragraph regarding Iraq, Kerry, etc.

First, regarding the “sensitive” comment, Cheney used the word “sensitive” in a speech regarding Iraq and the war on terror the very same week. Kerry received a lot of flak for it, Cheney did not. Interpret that how you wish.

The hawkish, pro-Iraqi invasion crowd has done a very good job at labeling those against the invasion as being against any action at all on either the war on terror or attacks against this country.

Most (but not all including myself) people I know who sit on the left side of the political spectrum agreed with our decision to enter Afghanistan; if you recall, that military intervention received overwhelming support in Congress on both sides of the aisle, and had the majority of the American public’s support (and the western world for that matter).

The debate surrounding Iraq is not one of whether or not to take action, but one regarding the appropriateness of taking action in that particular country.

You post:

“These bastards attacked us, knocked down our buildings and killed our people. Why shouldn’t we squash the SOBs with whatever it takes to do it.”

Yes, a group made up primarily of Saudis – with a few Egyptians in the mix – led by a man living on or near the Pakastani/Afghani border flew planes into the World Trade towers of NYC. So we invade Iraq 1.5 years later?

But I digress, as this “invade Iraq/shouldn’t have invaded Iraq” debate has been played out ad nauseum.
dirtineye

Trad climber
the south
Jun 27, 2005 - 02:00pm PT
OMG, Waterchossguy, HELP!!!!!!!
Khun Duen Baad

climber
Retirement
Jun 27, 2005 - 04:44pm PT
Rokjox,

I want to believe that idiocy that I see spouted here is the result of a few morons who are just trying to get a rise out of people like you and maybe some of them even want to promote healthy debate, but sadly this is not the case. LEB is a good indicator; well-spoken, able to connect thoughts within a certain framework, and probably even a very nice and well-meaning person if you passed them on the trail. But unfortunately the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I think a large part of the problem is that society has created such a degree of specialization that people have become "departmentalized" is the same sense that intelligence agencies isolate and compartmentalize such that nobody knows their place in the big picture. It's how the Manhattan Project and the Stealth bomber were kept secrte. An analogy would be how there are no general practitioners anymore, you're either a kidney specialst, or a dermatologist or whatever; highly knowledgable is one area, useless in another. I would even speculate that LEB works for the governement, or has.

The two fundamental problems with our civilization are our work ethic and the idea that exponential growth is a natural and inexhaustable state. I ask you, how can infinite growth contiue in a finite world? They will all tell you technology will save us and they've entered circular thought without even knowing it. Nobody wants to hear about the difference between energy and technology either. Technology is the cruelest fantasy ever created when enrgy becomes scarce and America's largest export is now "intellectual property".

They want to continue with their Jiminy Cricket fantasy of "if we wish for it it will come true" that an entire generation had been raised with. I would also gamble that LEB was born right around the time Dinseyland opened, right around the time that 90% of Disney's studio output was for the US government. Economists don't make any connection between resources and markets. From an economist's point of view oil can never run out, and in the Machivellian sense they are dead right, pun intended. Really though, I hear "No blood for oil" and I have one question; how the fvck else did you think they were going to go get it for you, because you're using it right? LEB's thought process is too specialized and world view too lacking to truly appreciate the connection between an SUV, motorhome, or anything else in American life and not just oil, reletively abundant and tremendously undervalued oil. "The American way of life is not negotiable". We are entering an age where oil was a resource and now is becoming a commodity, the true ramifications of that are lost on people here. It took a pretty fvcked up situation to make me take a good hard look at our lifestyle as Americans and the economic results of that around the world, take cotton subsidies for one and corn for another, but nobody does.

Americans think they pay too much for oil already and they resent the growing cost as it becomes more obviously scarce. What if oil sat in pools above ground and we could see it such that the Hollywood generation could visually appreciate it. What if it looked like this?

http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a002100/a002105/

What if people like LEB could make the connections between those images, farmers in Georgia, Nigeria, Uzbekistan (and the violence there recently) and the cotton all of us are wearing now?

What if?

"But there is a deeper part of human nature which covers the planet in a
sickly, light-sweet-crude blanket of denial. It is best exemplified from the
closing lines of Sidney Pollack's 1975 Three Days of the Condor, perhaps the
best spy movie ever made. As FTW has shown in recent stories - using
declassified CIA documents - the CIA was well aware of Peak Oil in the mid
1970s. Three Days of the Condor took that awful truth and said then, what
few in the post-9/11 world have had the courage to say. I can guarantee you
that it is the overriding rationale in Dick Cheney's mind, in the mind of
every senior member of the Bush administration, and in the mind of whomever
it is that will be chosen as the 2004 Democratic Party nominee. Getting rid
of Bush will not address the underlying causative factors of energy and
money and any solution that does not address those issues will prove futile.
Turner (Robert Redford): "Do we have plans to invade the Middle East ?"

Higgins (Cliff Robertson): " Are you crazy?"

Turner: " Am I?"

Higgins: "Look, Turner... "

Turner: "Do we have plans?"

Higgins: "No. Absolutely not. We have games. That's all. We play games. What
if? How many men? What would it take? Is there a cheaper way to destabilize
a régime? That's what we're paid to do."

Turner: "Go on. So Atwood just took the game too seriously. He was really
going to do it, wasn't he?"

Higgins: "It was a renegade operation. Atwood knew 54-12 would never
authorize it. There was no way, not with the heat on the Company."

Turner: "What if there hadn't been any heat? Supposing I hadn't stumbled on
a plan? Say nobody had?"

Higgins: "Different ball game. The fact is there was nothing wrong with the
plan. Oh, the plan was alright. The plan would have worked."

Turner: "Boy, what is it with you people? You think not getting caught in a
lie is the same thing as telling the truth?"

Higgins: "No. It's simple economics. Today it's oil, right? In 10 or 15
years - food, Plutonium. And maybe even sooner. Now what do you think the
people are gonna want us to do then?

Turner : " Ask them."

Higgins: "Not now - then. Ask them when they're running out. Ask them when
there's no heat in their homes and they're cold. Ask them when their engines
stop. Ask them when people who've never known hunger start going hungry. Do
you want to know something? They won't want us to ask them. They'll just
want us to get it for them."

I've posted this elsewhere before but it is worth noting again here. It's written by a 25 year old girl in Baghdad.

American Media...
"Two years ago, the major part of the war in Iraq was all about bombarding us with smart bombs and high-tech missiles. Now there’s a different sort of war- or perhaps it’s just another phase of the same war. Now we’re being assailed with American media. It’s everywhere all at once.

"It began with radio stations like Voice of America which we could access even before the war. After the war, there were other radio stations- ones with mechanical voices that told us to put down our weapons and remain inside our homes, ones that fed us American news in an Iraqi dialect and ones that just played music. With satellite access we are constantly listening to American music and watching American sitcoms and movies. To be fair- it’s not just Iraq that is being targeted- it’s the whole region and it’s all being done very cleverly.

"Al-Hurra, the purported channel of freedom, is the American gift to the Arab world. What they do is show us translated documentaries about certain historical events (American documentaries) or about movie stars (American stars) or vacation spots. Throughout this, there are Arab anchors giving us the news (which is like watching Fox in Arabic). It’s news about the Arab world with the American twist.

"Our new “national” channels are a joke. One of the most amusing, in a gruesome sort of way, is Al-Iraqiya. It’s said to be American sponsored but the attitude is decidedly pro-Iran, anti-Sunni. There’s a program where they parade ‘terrorists’ on screen for us to see in an attempt to show us that our National Guard are not only good at raiding homes and harassing people in the streets. The funny thing about the terrorists is that the majority of them have “Sunni” names like Omar and Othman, etc. They admit to doing things such as having sexual intercourse in mosques and raping women and the whole show is disgusting. Iraqis don’t believe it because it’s so obviously produced to support the American definition of the Iraqi, Sunni, Islamic fanatic that it is embarrassing. Couldn’t the PSYOPS people come up with anything more subtle?

"The first time I saw 60 Minutes on MBC 4, it didn’t occur to me that something was wrong. I can’t remember what the discussion was, but I remember being vaguely interested and somewhat mystified at why we were getting 60 Minutes. I soon found out that it wasn’t just 60 Minutes at night: It was Good Morning, America in the morning, 20/20 in the evening, 60 Minutes, 48-Hours, Inside Edition, The Early Show… it was a constant barrage of American media. The chipper voice in Arabic tells us, “So you can watch what *they* watch!” *They* apparently being millions of Americans.

The schedule on MBC’s Channel 4 goes something like this:

9 am – CBS Evening News
9:30 am – CBS The Early Show
10:45 am – The Days of Our Lives
11:20 am – Wheel of Fortune
11:45 am – Jeopardy
12:05 pm – A re-run of whatever was on the night before – 20/20, Inside Edition, etc.

And the programming continues…

"I’ve been enchanted with the shows these last few weeks. The thing that strikes me most is the fact that the news is so… clean. It’s like hospital food. It’s all organized and disinfected. Everything is partitioned and you can feel how it has been doled out carefully with extreme attention to the portions- 2 minutes on women’s rights in Afghanistan, 1 minute on training troops in Iraq and 20 minutes on Terri Schiavo! All the reportages are upbeat and somewhat cheerful, and the anchor person manages to look properly concerned and completely uncaring all at once.

"About a month ago, we were treated to an interview on 20/20 with Sabrina Harman- the witch in some of the Abu Ghraib pictures. You know- the one smiling over faceless, naked Iraqis piled up to make a human pyramid. Elizabeth Vargus was doing the interview and the whole show was revolting. They were trying to portray Sabrina as an innocent who was caught up in military orders and fear of higher ranking officers. The show went on and on about how American troops never really got seminars on Geneva Conventions (like one needs to be taught humanity) and how poor Sabrina was being made a scapegoat. They showed the restaurant where she worked before the war and how everyone thought she was “such a nice person” who couldn’t hurt a fly!

"We sat there watching like we were a part of another world, in another galaxy. I’ve always sensed from the various websites that American mainstream news is far-removed from reality- I just didn’t know how far. Everything is so tame and simplified. Everyone is so sincere.

"Furthermore, I don’t understand the worlds fascination with reality shows. Survivor, The Bachelor, Murder in Small Town X, Faking It, The Contender… it’s endless. Is life so boring that people need to watch the conjured up lives of others?

"I have a suggestion of my own for a reality show. Take 15 Bush supporters and throw them in a house in the suburbs of, say, Falloojeh for at least 14 days. We could watch them cope with the water problems, the lack of electricity, the check points, the raids, the Iraqi National Guard, the bombings, and- oh yeah- the ‘insurgents’. We could watch their house bombed to the ground and their few belongings crushed under the weight of cement and brick or simply burned or riddled with bullets. We could see them try to rebuild their life with their bare hands (and the equivalent of $150)…

"I’d not only watch *that* reality show, I’d tape every episode.
MikeL

Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
Jun 27, 2005 - 05:40pm PT
Hmmmmm. . . . (I’ll probably regret this effort.)

As Americans we are probably a little confused about the philosophical differences at the core of the arguments from our two political parties. We’re just not making keen distinctions or being clear. Ask any European, and he or she is liable to tell you that they don’t see much difference between America’s two political parties at all. (But then, Continental thinking has always been thought by intellectuals to be deeper: American views—left and right alike—have always been thought to be particularly, well . . . “bourgeois.”)

(Some parts pasted below stolen from other’s writings.)

Lois makes reference to conceptions of issues of human nature. Philosophers would frame that issue as various investigations about The Good, The True, and The Beautiful. In modern development, there are two classical and competing views about man’s relation to nature, both founded on distinctions about nature and society. In the first classical approach to the subject, nature is the raw material of man’s freedom that gave rise to harsh times and necessity. In a second classical approach, man is the polluter of nature. Nature in both cases is nature without man, and untouched by man: mountains, forests, lakes, and rivers.

The U.S. is a great stage for the confrontation for these two philosophical approaches. The two present a classical confrontation between a comfortable, calculating, progressive approach to nature fundamentally grounded in rational self-interest, against that of a more feeling-oriented, primitive expression of man and nature that is somehow distant, attractive, and romantic—a longing for a state of nature unsullied by society’s impossible demands, where true happiness has been replaced by the pursuit of safety and comfort of modern civilization. For example, on the one hand, you have the farmer who never looked at America’s trees, fields, and streams with a romantic eye. The trees are to be felled, to make clearings, build houses, and heat them; the fields are to be tilled to produce more food, or as sources of power. Then on the other hand there is the Sierra Club, which is dedicated to preventing such violations of nature from going any further, and certainly seems to regret what was already done.

Perhaps more interesting is the coexistence of these opposing sentiments in the most advanced political minds today that leads to our political confusion. Nature is raw material, worthless without the mixture of human labor; yet nature is also the highest and most sacred thing of all. The same people who struggle to save the snail-darter bless the pill, worry about hunting deer and defend abortion. In some people’s view (like mine), it is a reverence for nature or a reverence for mastery of nature—but whichever is most convenient for us. (Doesn’t this look like the principle of contradiction has been repealed?)

The first approach above is responsible for our institutions, justifies our absorption with private property and the free market, and gives us our sense of right. The second more romantic approach lies behind our most widespread views of what life is about and how to seek healing for our social and psychic wounds. The former teaches that adjustment to civil society is almost automatic in practice; the latter laments that such adjustments are very difficult indeed and require all kinds of intermediaries (government, institutional regulation) between it and nature lost. The crisp, positive, efficient, no-nonsense economist or technician might best represent the people who favor the first approach. The deep, brooding, somber psychoanalyst might best represent the people who favor the second approach. In principle these positions should be blatantly incompatible, but easygoing Americans (that we tend to be, philosophically) allow temporary agreements between them. As Allan Bloom has said, economists will tell us how to make the money, and psychiatrists will give us a place to spend it (to heal our wounds from our efforts of making it, I guess).

From my observations, most climbers seem to represent the second view of nature. Climbers seem to be philosophically romantic, and they seem to yearn for more primitive, soulful experiences of living in nature and even with other men. Here’s how Rousseau said it:

“Natural man [like climbers?] is entirely for himself. He is a numerical unity, the absolute whole which is relative only to itself or its kind. Civil man [the man with the second view of nature] is only a fractional unity dependent on the denominator; his value is determined by his relation to the whole, which is the social body . . . . He [of] the civil order who wants to preserve the primacy of the sentiments of nature does not know what he wants. Always in contradiction with himself, always floating between his inclinations and his duties, he will never be either man or citizen. He will be good neither for himself nor for others. He will be one of those men of [the] day: a Frenchman, an Englishman, a ‘bourgeois.’ He will be nothing.”

Oh, I think I understand why many Americans took “values” to heart in the last election. People are desperate for certainty, clarity, and principles they can rely upon in a world where openness-to-everything-and-to-every-viewpoint relativism means there-is-no-Good-True-or-Beautiful. Well . . . , nice sentiments, but unfortunately, “values” cannot be argued. They are insubstantial stuff, to be adjusted at will incrementally, and existing primarily in the imagination. (As climbers know, death is real.) Values are not discovered by reason, and it is fruitless to seek them to find the truth or the good life. But in today’s world, there is no Good or Evil—only values. (Nietzsche said this was the beginning of a free fall into nihilism.) Indeed, haven’t so many threads on this site been arguments about “values?” Do you think they can really be argued?

So, about political party viewpoints here in the U.S. . . . what a mess. I don’t see that the political parties today stand for clear philosophical views anymore (“let’s take a poll to see what we think”), and they seem to forget where and how these ideas initially developed or what they stood for. No one reads philosophy today, and of the few who do read it, they mainly read it only for an informational point of view. I’ve found in school people don’t read literature, study cultures or people or political theory to see if those approaches are right; people only read them (if at all) to see if they create a context for their own personal thinking. Almost nothing is taken seriously except for personal freedom and absolute equality. (“What! Othello killing for love? What could that mean?”) Today, everything is about ME. The self has become the substitute for the soul.

Herr Professor Nietzsche was right: the modern, contemporary man is just a plain, thin, egoist--not in any vicious way, mind you, not in the way of those who know the good, just, or noble, and selfishly reject them--but because contemporary man’s own point of view and ego are all he knows. Ego is really all that we have been taught today (watch any commercial), and ego is about the only thing that we’re willing to spend any time to seriously explore. Contemporary cultures are decomposing, and modern men have lost any significant aspirations that they might have enjoyed previously. (Socrates would surely be a homeless person today, for an examined life is not longer possible in our society.) Rationalism, values, and egalitarianism have become contrary to creativity, and any attempt to a philosophical way of life has become poisonous.

I’ll say it: democracy is due for meaningful criticism.

Tocqueville predicted it almost perfectly in 1830. Sadly, I’ve come to believe that there are real limits to the ethics, truth, and aesthetics of democracy. Think just about this: you cannot have perfect equality and freedom at the same time, yet as Americans we hold these “values” absolutely sacrosanct, without reservation. Look closely: almost every complaint today points to an American-styled nihilism, yea even here on this site. (But I do appreciate many sentiments, and for that I thank you all.)

(Much of the above based upon ideas by Christopher Lasch, Allan Bloom, Ken Wilbur, and others.)

Thanks for your attention, mates. I do so love climbing.

ml
TGT

Social climber
So Cal
Jun 27, 2005 - 11:43pm PT
ROKJOX
Spinmaster K-Rove

Trad climber
Stuck Under the Kor Roof
Jun 28, 2005 - 12:14am PT
There aren't nearly enough titties on this political thread to make it worth reading. At least on the other thread you get a little areola as a reward for getting through parts of it. This thread is a major gyp.
MikeL

Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
Jun 28, 2005 - 10:33am PT
Rokjox,

All of Shakespeare's best plays are about big ideas. Othello is a bona fide tragedy. Pride alone would not be enough.

First of all, in Othello Iago was a man who knew the good, and rejected it for selfish reasons. That's why Iago is a truly great villain. He's really evil. A tragedy must have a real monster in it.

Othello does not kill for a simple passion, for then the story would not rise to the level of a tragedy. There would have been no over-reaching of Othello's considerable capabilities. The story would have simply been a story about a murder.

Othello loved Desdemona, surely, but he also was in love with the the grandeur and ideal of love. Since he was in love with love, he killed for love.

My point in my post was that people do not take the story seriously and do not believe it could be true. The ideas are beyond most people's comprehension today. Here is a typical posting from a student in high school who had to study the play in the UK (http://www.online-literature.com/shakespeare/othello/);.

"Othello.....so dated
I'm sure i'm not the only one out there that thinks Othello is dated. I'm studying the play for A2 and just feel i would receive a much better grade in the summer if i could relate to the plot. Personally i feel that in todays society, there is no way a wife would be prepared to die and then cover for their husaband like Desdemona. It is much more likely that Desdemona would have her secret lover "deck" him and have him reported to the police. The whole play is so old and for students aged 16-18 there must be something we can relate to more easily which would allow us to score better results. Come one examiners, theres making it hard and theres taking the mick eh!"
Posted By Kayleigh at Tue 24 May 2005, 5:07 PM in Othello || 0 Replies

ml
MikeL

Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
Jun 28, 2005 - 12:30pm PT
yeah.
Bruce Morris

Social climber
Belmont, California
Jun 28, 2005 - 12:42pm PT
Republican: Little "rugged individualist" small government anti-taxer. Small business donut-shop mentality.
Democrat: "New Deal" big government pro-tax the rich. Union member, government employee.
So much for rhetorical stereotypes. I want to know who's ripping off whom? Where's the money and how can I steal some.
Spinmaster K-Rove

Trad climber
Stuck Under the Kor Roof
Jun 28, 2005 - 03:09pm PT
Nuf said :)
ChrisW

Trad climber
boulder, co
Jun 28, 2005 - 03:22pm PT
I thought at first on this tread..here we go again...gotta read a very frggin long thread and get useless ideas or opinions or info...But. Wow! Those where some good posts! Good READING. Keep it coming! I would join, but i gotta improve my thoughts and writing skills more.
Ouch!

climber
Jun 28, 2005 - 09:39pm PT
This thread reads like a dialogue between Socrates and Plato..er..Pluto and Snagglepuss.
Shack

Trad climber
So. Cal.
Jun 28, 2005 - 09:44pm PT
my fingers hurt just thinking about typing that much.
Karl Baba

Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
Jun 29, 2005 - 12:55am PT
Hi Lois

Can't say I'm impressed by your case. Historical concepts behind the parties are irrelevant. Modern reality is what we live with.

Modern Reality. Clinton had a balanced budget and a surplus. Bush is in the hole for over 400 billion a year with no end in sight ever.

And less government? I've never seen so many laws and proposed laws to restrict the freedom of the people and so many lies to manipulate them.

Both parties are spending money they don't have. I'd rather spend on social programs than national aggression. (Defense is a joke, what need of defense from Iraq?) Maybe "sensitive" means sensitive enough to attack who realy threatens us and develop a dialog, reform and understand with those who aren't our enemies yet.

The real sin though, which Singer addresses, is that we are running out of finite energy, and instead of massively ramping up to deal with it, with conservation and alternative energy, before it gets out of control, we are content to simply try to steal control of the oil with blood. Not even willing to increase the cafe standards 10 percent!

Very sad morally in my mind.

We'll all wake up soon. Having 400 billion federal deficits, and 600 billion trade deficits is totally unsustainable. Bush's private accounts for SS are the biggest pump and dump scheme in the history of the world. When the economy and environment come home to roost, both Republicans and Democrats are going to have to answer for their long periods of corruption under the employ of capitalist power that cares only for quarterly growth and not long term human viability.

Peace

Karl
Ouch!

climber
Jun 29, 2005 - 03:13am PT
Karl, everything you said is true and should be obvious to anyone. But you are pissing into the wind.

I sense the truth
in the things he said
and became unsettled
by his words I read
but I can't be bothered
just now, you see
cause I'm much too busy
watchin' Reality TV
Khun Duen Baad

climber
Retirement
Jun 29, 2005 - 03:54am PT
Lois,

It's a good thing nobody is grading English essays here because I wasn't cohesive at all and there's little chance I will be now. It's hard for me, I don't devote much of my life to communicating with people. Prepare for fragmented thought.

First, who is a conservationist? The person who says we need to use less water and preserve our formerly pristine rivers, or the one who says we need to dam it up so it doesn't all waste out to sea?

Karl's right in that the parties today bear little resemblence to those of 20 years ago, my opinion is that they largely just play good-cop bad-cop for each other. See Ron Reagan's article The Case Against GWB:

http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2004/040729_mfe_reagan_1.html

I also think it's ridiculous that they get away with calling this [two-party] system democracy, especially within the wealthiest, most influential, and far-reaching (and the most "free", we're led to believe) empire that has ever risen. How do you think it will all come to an end? Everybody agrees that oil is a finite resource, but have you ever stopped to investigate or really consider the ramifications of that? Do you just assume that our Fearless Leader would tell us that something was seriously wrong?

http://www.energybulletin.net/5395.html
http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6&Itemid=2
http://www.energybulletin.net/5944.html

You should see Jimmy Carter's speech about the energy crisis from way back in 1977:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_energy.html

Again, in the Machiavellian sense GWB Inc. are absolute fvcking visionaries. At least they know what they are doing, I'd have a lot more respect for them if they came right out and said it. Can you imagine Dear Leader putting on the cardigan sweater and sitting in front of the fireplace to deliver that speech? (by comparison, does anybody remember when they put George the First in that massive speedboat and sent him rocketing across the Gulf for the media at the end of Gulf War One? the message clearly being "put the pedal to the medal, we'll go get it for ya") He won't because look what happened to Jimmy. He learned the hard way that oil is the sole driver of economic growth and by extension, the American Dream. He saw the limits, but that isn't what the masses want to hear. Remember, Jimmy didn't just fry because of the Iran thing either, which we'll get to in a minute, he was taken down by water reform:

http://library.thinkquest.org/27419/read/5/1.html

Onto Iran.

"The February 1979 revolution was first and foremost the continuation of a bourgeois-democratic revolution that had been abruptly interrupted and discontinued on July 19, 1953. The direct intervention of the U.S. government played a big part in the 1953 events. At that time, Norman Schwarzkopf Sr.-- "Desert Storm" commander Norman Schwarzkopf Jr.'s father--was sent to Tehran with two suitcases full of U.S. dollar notes. CIA operative Kermit Roosevelt accompanied him. Their assignment, in coordination with sections of the Iranian military, was to carry out a coup against the democratically elected government of Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh--and to bring back the shah, who had been booted out by the Iranian masses. The U.S. succeeded. The shah was back on his throne. Mossadegh was put under house arrest. Iran became once again safe for U.S. companies to rob its oil and take advantage of its vast and untapped markets. Iranian oil had been nationalized under Mossadegh. Now, once again, it was for all practical purposes back under the giant U.S. oil companies' control. For 26 years after that, Iran was a virtual colony of U.S. corporations and the Pentagon. During these 26 years the process of Iran's integration into the global capitalist market dominated by the U.S. was consolidated. Iran's role in the capitalist food chain, along with many other countries in the region, was to deliver cheap oil and receive mostly finished consumer commodities. Iran became what Saudi Arabia is for U.S. capitalist monopolies today.

Interestingly enough the Iranian revolution roughly coincided with that country's oil production peak, historically worth noting as Ceasar Chavez has recently ordered petrochemical companies to meet domestic demand first. And let's not forgot about how Cuba got into the situation they're in.

United States — Cuban Relations
US relations already tense after the show trials and confiscation of large farms
Peaked in May 1960
Cuban government asked major oil refineries to process soviet crude oil.
Refineries owned by Texaco, Standard Oil and Royal Dutch Shell
Soviet oil was cheaper that theirs
The companies refused after urge from US government
Þ Castro nationalised the refineries in June 1960
Nationalisation of refineries sparked series of hostile actions by two governments
President Eisenhower withdrew Cuban sugar quota
Castro nationalised most American-owned properties
President Eisenhower banned all exports to Cuba in October 1960
Again, this sparked off another wave of nationalisation.
Þ Relations deteriorated and cut off by Eisenhower on Jan 3, 1961

CIA started to back exile groups for arms and training
Set up a training camp for invasion force in Guatemala, summer 1960
President Kennedy gave go-ahead for expeditionary force 3 month later
Bay of Pigs started on April 15th 1961
Poorly planned and executed
Based on idea that people would rise to revolt once exiles landed
The invasion failed
Þ Increased Castro’s prestige and sparked radical reforms in economy and politics

Castro proclaimed allegiance with socialism 1 month after Bay of Pigs

"Despite the fact that the US embargo prevents Cuba from obtaining critical medicines and medical supplies, Cuba's public health system is one of the most reputable in the world. Free, comprehensive health care is guaranteed to everyone in Cuba, as are education, food, and other resources necessary for good health. With roughly one doctor for every two hundred people (the highest number of doctors per-capita in the world, and twice that of the US), Cuban doctors promote a preventative health care model that includes regular home visits, alternative and conventional medicine, and popular education. As a result, Cuba's health indicators are higher than most Latin American countries and on par with those in the US.

On a similar note:

"Iraq is highly educated, highly sophisticated, highly urbanised. Along with the Palestinians, it has the highest number of PhDs per capita on the globe. When the British left only a little over 30 years ago, the average life expectancy in Iraq was 26 years and the literacy level was just a little over 10 percent. By the time of the Gulf War the life expectancy was 74 for women and a little less for men and literacy was around 90 percent. There was also 93 percent access to clean water and the same for access to very sophisticated modern health care. These are World Health Organisation figures.

Since Guatemala was mentioned in the Cuba timeline we should mention for those who don't know:

"In 1954, a CIA-orchestrated coup ended what Guatemalans call the "Ten Years of Spring," which began with the bloodless overthrow of military dictator Jorge Ubico in 1944. During this period, two democratically-elected civilian presidents governed Guatemala, trying to provide opportunities and raise the standard of living. Jacobo Arbenz, elected in 1950, began to push agrarian reforms more seriously than his predecessor. The United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) (UFCo) protested when unused portions of its vast holdings were expropriated and distributed to land-less peasants. The Guatemalan government paid the US company the tax-declared value of the land, but UFCo protested to the highest levels of the US government. Two UFCo stockholders at the time were the Dulles brothers, Secretary of State and head of the CIA in the Eisenhower administration. © 1998, Piet van Lear, A War Called Peace

"Following the coup, Colonel Castillo Armas became the new president. the U. S. Ambassador furnished Armas with lists of radical opponents to be eliminated, and the bloodletting promptly began. Under Armas, thousands were arrested and many were tortured and killed. A "killing field" in the Americas: U. S. policy in Guatemala
The coup unleashed one of the most brutal military regimes in the hemisphere. Some 140,000 people have been killed and another 45,000 disappeared in a U.S. backed scorched earth campaign to wipe out dissidents, rebels and activists for peace and social justice in Guatemala. The abuses by the Guatemalan military and its death squads were so horrific that even Amnesty International reported that they "strained credulity." But next week, the guerrillas of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity or UNRG, will sign a controversial peace accord with the government and formally end a generation of war.

Are you starting to see a common theme here? Your government will do whatever is needed to get you what you want when you vote for them to do it with every single item you consume, putting gas in your motorhome is the least of of it. In the immortal words of Ronny Reagan when he was shipping Rummy over to shake hands with Saddam and kick him some chemical weapons and CIA maps of Iranian troop positions instructing him to do whatever was "necessary and legal" to make sure he didn't lose the war to the evil Iranians.

On the same note as our involvement in the fruit industry and oil for transportation (of which 90% is used for) the average piece of produce you eat in America is transported somewhere between 1400 to 2500 miles on average, I see broad estimates for that but the fact that it is large distances is no question. Also every calorie of produce here requires 10 calories of hyrdocarbon energy just to produce! It takes 900 times the amount of energy to ship asparagus to Britain that it does to eat it where it's grown in California. I've bought bananas in Kazakhstan that came from Ecuador via China a Russia. Start doing the math on that. How about fleece jackets that are made from pertolchemicals on the East Coast before we ship them to China to be sewn then ship them back to a warehouse in the midwest before they are then shipped all over the world where you can get in your SUV and drive to the mountains, or maybe tow it behind your RV. So my question is this, if you don't think we are all incredibly selfish (not to mention fantastically affluent and wasteful) in our lifestlye then do you think the Chinese people sewing your jackets and stocking your Walmarts deserve to drive Audia and jet set all over the world too? I do, and so do they, obviously. Surely you noted their move to purchase Unical? Did you know that if the Chinese drove as many per capita resources as Americans it would exhaust all the world's known resources in 5 years? No war for oil? Somebody please tell me a better reason to go.

"Capitalism requires people to be quiet souls in the workplace and wild pagans at the cash register" - Ron Chernow, 1949, US Journalist

Speaking of civilizations, each and every one throughout history has eventually overshot and collapsed except for our, global, civilization. And I don't have to tell you that it generally isn't pretty. How do you think this one might go? I'm sure you would agree that this planet couldn't support 40 billion people but what are the limits? What happens when we get there? Earth's actual carrying capacity is between 1 and 2.2 billion; after that you are is irreverable resource decline, i.e. the clock is ticking.

"Of all races in an advanced stage of civilization, the American is the least accessible to long views. . . . Always and everywhere in a hurry to get rich, he does not give a thought to remote consequences; he sees only present advantages. . . . He does not remember, he does not feel, he lives in a materialist dream."
—Moiseide Ostrogorski (1902, 302-303)

And what are you going to feed all the people on this planet? The "Green" revolution was entirely petroleum fed. You should look into two interesting aspects of all this, ghost acreage and Jevons Paradox.

Most people have a hard time really grasping what the word energy means and it's real impact in our lives. Let me try a simple correlation: the US horse population peaked two years after the introduction of the Model T. It been so long since anybody carried water to their house everyday or lived without electricity that nobody really respects the Machine's power over our lives. But the machine needs to be fed and bio-diesel isn't going to do it. Find a graph somewhere of how muscle exertion for work has dramatically decreased in exact correlation to increased fossil fuel consumption.

Want to talk about "alternative" fuels and how they are all fantasy too? And even if we can find more more hydro carbon energy to burn, should we? Aren't the results of that already clear? Aren't the dramatic weather patterns, melting ice caps, and heat waves enough for people. Of course not, it's all too tempting. Should we in our "free" society be allowed to pollute as much as we want as long as we "pay" for it? That's how it works when you put gas in your car.

So accepting that society will eventually reach it's limits and need to power down, how do we do it. Who do you think will suffer more in an energy crisis the US or North Korea? Britain or Cuba? Those societies who powered down slowly and gradually are likely to be in a much better position than ours, which will implode.

So why does everybody think that GWB Inc. are inceasing military spending, slashing social programs and generally acting like it's the end of the world? Because to them, it is.

Oh, in regards to your whole "those bastards knocked down our buildings" boo hoo thing. People throughout Indochina (not to mention a good portion of the rest of the world) still don't understand what the big deal was about 9/11, it's entirely within their nature to sympathize because, unlike Americans, they seen a lot of people killed on their home turf, by Americans, but the genuinely don't understand how 2800 people was such a big deal; any comparisons to what we;ve done there put aside....

"Tell me, Singha, why you country bomb my country? Boom, boom, boom, I think no good. Me nice people, why?"

Then you have to tell them that most Americans have no idea that the American War (in Laos) ever happened. They they don't know that we dropped more bombs (anti-personnel ones) there than on Germany and Japan combined in WWII. That they don't really care.

Someone once asked Mahatma Gandhi what he thought of Western civilization.

“It would be nice,” he replied
Mountain Man

Trad climber
Outer space
Jun 29, 2005 - 09:11am PT
Neither
Karl Baba

Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
Jun 29, 2005 - 09:16am PT
If the surplus was a myth, it was one that GWB repeated to the public and used to justify his tax cuts.

Got a surplus, better cut taxes!

Opps, turned it into a huge deficit, better cut taxes!

Dang, now we have terrorism and war, hundreds of billions more in expenses, better cut taxes some more. Of course we have to sacrifice some poor folks kids, but why should the rich have to pitch in during a supposed national emergency, or was it just a media event?

Do the math, the government is spending money as if they will never never pay it back, and they never will be able to. The real question is HOW do they intend not to pay it back?

Are they counting on devaluing the dollar to reduce the real value of the debt?

Or is Jesus going to arrive and let me off the hook?

Or with our huge military are we just going to tell everybody we decided to keep the money and what are they going to do about it?

It's not just about oil as a resource. There is no gold standard for money any more. We just print that crap. The US economy is made possible by the recycling of petrodollars created by the fact that world oil sales are denominated in dollars. Central banks in other countries have to buy treasury bills to get dollars to buy oil. Every oil producing country that has threatened to accept euros for oil has been invaded, threatened with invasion, or faced a CIA supported coup. If the world wants to wage war on the US, nobody has to fire a shot, just don't buy the T bills, and get the oily guys to accept euros for the juice. Interest rates would skyrocket, the housing bubble would burst. The party would end early.
Ironically, the great rise in oil prices has actually given our economy a little extra time.

Some kind of epic is in the wings, just don't know how soon or how it will come down. All those terrorism laws have been engineered to suppress DOMESTIC dissent to keep the angry people in line when they figure out they've been had.

Peace

Karl
TGT

Social climber
So Cal
Jun 29, 2005 - 09:23am PT
Who's hotter

Ann

or
Molly
StevieOzark

Trad climber
Little Rock, Arkansas
Jun 29, 2005 - 10:18am PT



Pro-Life and Pro-War ????????
dirtbag

climber
Jun 29, 2005 - 10:53am PT
That is a flattering picture of Ann but when you see her up close--yack.
Bruce Morris

Social climber
Belmont, California
Jun 29, 2005 - 01:14pm PT
All politicians are crooks. Republicans represent one group of thieves; Democrats another. But it sounds as though this little happy time we've been having in the US since WWII (what Gore Vidal once called 'the Fun House') is going to come crashing down when the price of gas at the pumps hits $8 per gallon. Who's going to put a little bit more into R&D to resolve this fundamental issue before we consume our way back to the stone age? I don't hear anyone from any political party saying anything meanful about solving this problem. In fact, they all seem to be saying the same thing: "Elect me and I'll rip off your imaginary enemies and give the money back to you, John Q. Public. Then, you can really party and breed."

"No scientist, no engineer, get that BSer out of here!"
MikeL

Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
Jun 29, 2005 - 01:55pm PT
Lois, and friends:

Abraham Lincoln once began a letter with, “I’m sorry if this is a long letter, but I didn’t have time to write a short one.”

Looking back on my posting, it could have been shorter without the quips (me trying to be clever, but stupid). The redundancies and examples are needed though.

Some ideas or thoughts are complex and cannot be shortly or simply expressed: The Constitution, The Bible, Othello, quantum mechanics, Picasso’s “Guernica.” You have to study them to really “get” them. Other times you have to study and get one thing before you can get another: algebra before calculus, meditation and the dharma before Nirvana or Samadhi; a lot of practice before 5.11s; and so on. Sometimes you need to earn that entry ticket to get into the game.

DMT’s complaint is right . . . sort of. Rather than “too many words,” I think he meant too many thoughts / ideas, and that he shouldn’t / couldn’t / didn’t want to / didn’t need to keep up with them. (Don’t know which is the right interpretation, but I get the message: “Not here, pal.”)

It’s been said that some people like to talk about ideas, others about events, and the rest about people. I like ideas. Taken out of context and without the situational detail obscuring them, they can be seen clearly and argued for what they are. It can’t help but get a little abstract.

As for ideas, there is scarcely a truly new one on the planet today. Almost every idea has been considered at length and argued cogently and with heart by some old dead guy who lived a long time ago. For the most part, all those old dead guys talked about what they thought were the most important ideas in life: what is the good, the true, the beautiful, and the good life (and what do I / we have to do to get it)? I see those here in every posting. It’s possible to stand on those old guys' shoulders to see even farther or better than they did. This was really all I was really saying, Lois.

Sorry about all the words, again, DMT.

ml
Forest

Trad climber
Tucson, AZ
Jun 29, 2005 - 02:37pm PT
We will likely have to put a fixed dollar cap on medical spending after age 70, of course an inflation adjustment will be attached for future years.

Now who's being unrealistic! Unless you're also going to somehow revoke voting rights at 65, I would say this will happen when it's a cold day in hell.
Bruce Morris

Social climber
Belmont, California
Jun 29, 2005 - 03:04pm PT
"We will likely have to put a fixed dollar cap on medical spending after age 70, of course an inflation adjustment will be attached for future years." Quoth 'Fatrad'

Well, let me tell you, Fatty: Young people were put on earth by God to pay for my Social Security and Medicare & I pay off a lot of politicians to make sure it stays that way. (That's my personal version of Christianity.) Overweight accountants (& migrants) are going to have to pay a lot more taxes to maintain my standard of living during the fast approaching twilight years. They better not mess with Prop. 13 either. You pay big taxes - I don't (& won't).
Forest

Trad climber
Tucson, AZ
Jun 29, 2005 - 03:10pm PT
Past success does not guarantee future returns. Lois, you cannot have an entire market of winners. It's great that your dad was able to be successful in his investments, but jsut because he was does not mean that the average wage earner will be able to be so skillful in his or herown investments. Indeed, the average investor is far less sucessful than the "return" on an individual's "investment" in social security. At least according to the political propaganda.

Personally, I think this is just GWB's way of tearing down the entitlement of social security. Social Security is currently so extremely popular because it applies to everyone. But if you go about separating it out like this. Then the next thing you know, somewhow wall st brokers have eaten up all the little folks' growth with nickel and dime fees. And only the rich folks end up coming out with a profit.
Forest

Trad climber
Tucson, AZ
Jun 29, 2005 - 05:20pm PT
you are confusing short term trading with a diversified investment portfolio.

And just what makes you think that Joe Blow Investor is going to intelligently diversify their portfolio?
Bruce Morris

Social climber
Belmont, California
Jun 29, 2005 - 05:35pm PT
Gee whiz, I'm sure glad my mom and dad ran a gambling establishment in SF during WWII where they used loaded dice and fixed slot machines. That way, they took it off the top, cheated the little sailors who went out and got their heads blown off at Guadalcanal, and turned it all into gold. My uncle Stanley (the war hero - Silver Star, Purple Hearts, etc.) worked for the mafia, too. All my dad's old pals from the South of Market formed a union and ripped off the fiduciary fund and built themselves big houses with huge redwood decks and swimming pools. Drunk on Sunday morning, lots of hookers. They didn't care if the widows and orphans howled. Stay away from fat accountants - in America you want to stick with organized crime. At least, they're more honest than the pols with their privatized accounts.
TGT

Social climber
So Cal
Jun 29, 2005 - 08:23pm PT
And just what makes you think that Joe Blow Investor is going to intelligently diversify their portfolio?

An other example of the leftist mind set that the great unwashed need the anointed, (themselves of course) to control their lives for them.
Gary

climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
Jun 29, 2005 - 09:09pm PT
What you guys do not get is that Social Security is not a retirement plan. It is insurance. It is a guaranteed return. Can Wall Street offer that? The stock market may not go broke over a forty year period, but it might 2 years before you retire.

There is no law against investing money. You can put as much as you want into stocks,

I have a question for you fellows who are so eager to turn my money over to Wall Street. Remember the Savings and Loan crisis? Another Republican gift to the U.S. economy. Oh, and the Republican deregulation of California utilities? If those Texas energy companies hadn't stolen those billions, California would have no budget crisis today. A conveniently forgotten fact. Oh yeah, the Republican bankruptcy of Orange County. So much fiscal responsibility in the GOP.
TGT

Social climber
So Cal
Jun 29, 2005 - 09:28pm PT
What you convinently ignore is that the proposed system mirrors the one that "the anointed" politicians and buearocrats have set up for themselves.

Social Security isn't good enough for them,

But!

You aren't smart enough to be trusted with the same system they've set up for themselves.
Karl Baba

Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
Jun 29, 2005 - 10:10pm PT
Fatty the insider is even willing to admit peak oil but then says it won't be a problem because smart people will think us out of it.

Problem is, smart people have thought about it and there's no solution that lets us preserve our lifestyle and capitalistic growth. Their solution, invade Iraq to keep the party oiled as long as possible.

But it's still going to run short and sink our ship. The guys at the top know this and are just trying keep the boat sailing as long as possible. One way, get every American invested in the stock market through Social Security private accounts. That way the richest guys can liquidate their positions without sinking the boat. That way, the market doesn't telegraph the sad state of affairs to anybody until it's too late. Hey, things haven't even got that bad yet but Kmart, Enron and WorldCom went bust along with some big, big airlines, and GM bonds acheive junk status. Ford isn't far behind.

Everything changes and the high become low. Greece, Rome, England, Russia, who's next? We love to be in denial of it because we believe what we want to believe, and want life to flower the way we expect. The real flowering of our life will be when the crap hits the fan and we reembrace our family and community and work together to get through it.

Standard disclaimer, I've been wrong plenty of times and there is always somebody prepared to tell you the world is coming to an end. What's new, it's possible to do the research, crunch the numbers, think it out, and come to your own conclusion. Don't just read "Karl admits he might be wrong" and use that as an excuse to go back to sleep.

Or sleep! Reality rears it's head sooner or later. I want folks to come climb with me and buy pictures and go on as if nothing will happen.

Peace

Karl

PS Ann reminds me of some sorority-pledging, future trophy wife that was smart enough to want a seat at the table instead of mooching along. Unfortunately, she didn't have a broad enough view from her limited experience to see real people and real problems and real lives, just ideas based on conservative culture.
TGT

Social climber
So Cal
Jun 29, 2005 - 10:49pm PT
PS Ann reminds me of some sorority-pledging, future trophy wife that was smart enough to want a seat at the table instead of mooching along. Unfortunately, she didn't have a broad enough view from her limited experience to see real people and real problems and real lives, just ideas based on conservative culture.

"Coulter clerked for the Honorable Pasco Bowman II of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and was an attorney in the Department of Justice Honors Program for outstanding law school graduates.

After practicing law in private practice in New York City, Coulter worked for the Senate Judiciary Committee, where she handled crime and immigration issues for Senator Spencer Abraham of Michigan. From there, she became a litigator with the Center For Individual Rights in Washington, DC, a public interest law firm dedicated to the defense of individual rights with particular emphasis on freedom of speech, civil rights, and the free exercise of religion.

A Connecticut native, Coulter graduated with honors from Cornell University School of Arts & Sciences, and received her J.D. from University of Michigan Law School, where she was an editor of The Michigan Law Review."

Does the difference between your prejuduce and reality produce enough cognitive dissonance for ya?

I'm always amazed by the lefts' propensity to trash erudite authors who they haven't ever read. Her books are frankly, boring lawyerly treatises that are about one third footnotes and citations by volume. A far cry from the undocumented shrillness of a Molly Ivins et al.

PS
The sky is not falling Karl.
Karl Baba

Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
Jun 29, 2005 - 11:00pm PT
Hi TGT

I never said she wasn't smart, just saying what she reminded me of. Nothing in that bio told me she grew up poor, or interacted with grassroots America in any way. Just like Bush himself, it's easy to talk about personal responsibility when you've never been down and out.

PS. maybe the sky will fall, Sell sky!!! Maybe it won't, hedge with some options and straddles. In any case, you saying so won't make it true for false. I made a case, refute it or make yours.

Peace

karl
TGT

Social climber
So Cal
Jun 29, 2005 - 11:08pm PT
I'm one of howlin mad Dean's Republicans who has to get up at 5am tomorow because he, "hasn't worked a day in his life" so no more polemics.

You might try here for some enlightenment though.

[url]http://www.victorhanson.com/[/url]

A good bunch of writers with a clasical bent.
Karl Baba

Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
Jun 29, 2005 - 11:29pm PT
The cherry picking of right wing and left wing "Babes" is but a slight exaggeration of the way we cherry pick ideas to support our views.

Goes both ways but something to keep in mind. I have hope that beautiful liberal gals exist.

Peace

karl
Ouch!

climber
Jun 29, 2005 - 11:56pm PT
The ten gallon tyrant couldn't wait to finish the job in Afghanistan before making his blunder into Iraq. Now, his blunders are starting to hurt badly. Time to impeach the scoundrel. Hard to believe people are so willing to give up their sons and daughters to such a corrupt enterprise.
Ouch!

climber
Jun 30, 2005 - 12:13am PT
The truth hurts, doesn't it, Mr. Weird. That's the way it is when your path is based on lies. You just have to live with it and keep expanding the lies. Such is the lot of Repugnicants who
follow the two bit tyrant who has sold their lives and country. Hallelujah! Praise be to Virgin Mary on a cheese sandwich!
Karl Baba

Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
Jun 30, 2005 - 12:21am PT
TGT wrote: "You might try here for some enlightenment though.

[url]http://www.victorhanson.com[/url]

A good bunch of writers with a clasical bent."

I checked it out a bit and bookmarked it. I was pleased that they have a space for letters from critics, and that they chose one that wasn't over-the-top idiotic. I've made that suggestion to right and left wing sites ,that they discuss opposing ideas.

Anyway, unfortunately, I have to wake up even earlier than you do tomorrow, so I'm outta here.

Peace

Karl
Gary

climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
Jun 30, 2005 - 12:31am PT
http://www.fvckthesouth.com/

You'll have to make the obvious edit to the above URL.
Gary

climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
Jun 30, 2005 - 01:51am PT
At least the liberals go home to women. Here's your neocon dreamboat, Howard.

Jeff Gannon
Khun Duen Baad

climber
Retirement
Jun 30, 2005 - 03:09am PT
Fatty, actually wheather or not oil is going to reach "some magical inflection point" is becoming more hotly debated everyday. And I'm not sure "theory" is the word to describe it. Then you jump back into good old American circular thought and "if we wish it, technology will provide"

So far technology has proven to be the problem, not the solution.

Solar and nuclear? That's cute; what exactly did you think you were going to put in your car? C'mon, tell me hydrogen, I dare you. And did you realize that nuke plants take at least a decade (not to mention $3-5 billion) to get online, burning fossil fuels every step of the way? One enrichment plant in Kentucky sucks the juice of two 1,000 megawatt coal-fired plants. If the US were to pursue a large-scale nuclear program uranium would likely peak within two decades. Don't forget we would need 10,000 of the largest reactors to reproduce our current fossil fuel supply.

Solar is so laughable I can't even go there.

In Saudi Arabia there is a saying, "My father road a camel, I drive a car, my son flies a jet plane, his son will ride a camel".

Karl is also right about the gold thing, but that's a separate issue altogether. I'd love to hear you explain to me how it was a stroke of brilliance when Nixon closed the gold window.

The difference between Greece, Rome, Egypt, Babylon, England, Spain, et al is that there was always somebody else to fill the power void. When the global civilization enters terminal decline who will fill the void?

And you also seem to know a lot about the evil terrorists, who they are, how they think, and what they want. I'm curious to hear where within Islam you have visited, under what circumstances you were there, and what your experiences were. Somebody with your level of understanding of Islam must have spent a lot of time chatting with imams, muezzin, and I would imagine you've read at least part of the Qu'ran?
John F. Kerry

Social climber
Boston, MA
Jun 30, 2005 - 09:37am PT
...Nothing in that bio told me she grew up poor, or interacted with grassroots America in any way. Just like Bush himself, it's easy to talk about personal responsibility when you've never been down and out...

Yeah! Good leaders need to come up poor and have been down & out, just like Ted Kennedy, Al Gore, and... John F. Kerry.

Wait a minute...

Funny how Karl doesn't mind silver spoons for his political idols, but let a Republican come from a wealthy background and suddenly its a frickin' crime.
Forest

Trad climber
Tucson, AZ
Jun 30, 2005 - 01:45pm PT
Solar is so laughable I can't even go there

Why, because you say it is?

I'm happy to say that I'm been able to put my money where my mouth is and I've invested in a system to power my whole house. And overall, I'm going to end up with a significant positive return on the investment, even if I turn around and sell the house within a year.

I lived in solar powered houses until I was 22 years old. Our neighbors on the grid would lose their power in nasty storms and the like. Not us. They also saw their power bills grow over the years, occasionalyl spiking to absurd levels. Not us.

A significant amount of the power in Tucson comes from a power plant that, among other things, burns coal. I really like the idea that that pollution will no longer be powering house.

I realize that a significant amount of energy was expended in creating the panels that will be powering my house. But that should be made up many times over, over the 20+ year lifetime of that equipment.
Forest

Trad climber
Tucson, AZ
Jun 30, 2005 - 05:57pm PT
I'm certainly not suggesting that solar be our only power source, merely that it's viable as one of a multitude of clean renewable power sources. Yes, soalr is well-suited to the west (and even moreso the southwest.) The midwest, not so muchm but the wind potential out that way is amazing.

My house has a standard 120V electrical system. The output from the panels is immediately converted to AC. No DC wiring here. This is true of almost all modern solar installations. Once it's AC, it's transmitted the same way as any other power. Yeah, you get line loss, but AC is much much better about that than DC.

Oh, and no nasty batteries for me (yeah, I know this means I lose the whole power-outage invinvibility thing. I'll live.) I'm hooked up for net metering, so the electric utility pays me for the power I generate at the same rate they charge me.

Even better, my generation happens during the peak hours of the day when AC usage is heaviest, so I'm actually helping (in a very small way, personally speaking) to alleviate the peak usage crunch. If more people did the same, it would help more. Cool stuff.

So, no, I'm not "scarp everything else. Just got solar", but I also think that to claim that solar is a joke is absolutely wrong. It can be an effective part of a comprehensive energy plan for a metropolitan area.
Khun Duen Baad

climber
Retirement
Jun 30, 2005 - 09:10pm PT
Were you on the tour to Petra, fatty? That's always sounded like so much fun.

Forest, solar isn't a joke cuz I say it is, why don't you take out a calculator and do the math. Even if it wasn't, and even if we were pursuning a large-scale solar project, where exactly do you think all of those already expensive components are going to come from with out a petroleum economy to build it? Maybe you were hoping we'd still be using that 12,000 mile supply line from China. I think it's absolutely precious and charming how the American people have come to think it's all about keeping the lights on and keeping petrol cheap at the pump. And Forest, you were able to put your money where your mouth is because you're a rich person in a rich country. Period. The whole solar thing is Jevons paradox and the beauty of free markets all wrapped into one cozy package. I love it!

I still haven't heard from anyone you are going to put in your cars. I haven't heard anyone address whether or not the Earth can even tolerate our current carbon output for much longer, much less start finding new hydrocarbons to burn.

"Solar and wind power suffer from four fundamental physical shortcomings that prevent them from ever being able to replace more than a tiny fraction of the energy we get from oil: lack of energy density, inappropriateness as transportation fuels, energy intermittency, and inability to scale.

I. Lack of Energy Density:

"Few people realize how much energy is concentrated in even a small amount of oil or gas. A barrel of oil contains the energy-equivalent of almost 25,000 hours of human labor. A single gallon of gasoline contains the energy-equivalent of 500 hours of human labor. Most people are stunned to find this out, even after confirming the accuracy of the numbers for themselves, but it makes sense when you think about it. It only takes one gallon of gasoline to propel a three ton SUV 10 miles in 10 minutes. How long would it take you to push a three ton SUV 10 miles?

"While the energy-density of oil and gas give them rates of return comparable to a lottery ticket or marriage to a ketchup fortune heiress, the energy-density of solar and wind give them returns comparable to minimum wage jobs. A few examples should help illustrate this point more vividly:

1. It would take all of California's 13,000 wind turbines to
generate as much electricity as a single 555-megawatt
natural gas fired power plant.

2. On page 191 of his book The End of Oil: On the Edge of a
Perilous New World, author Paul Roberts tells us that:

" . . . if you add up all the solar photovoltaic cells now
running worldwide (2004), the combined output -
around 2,000 megawatts - barely rivals the output of
two coal-fired power plants."

3. It would take 4 Manhattan size city blocks of solar
equipment to produce the amount of energy distributed
by a single gas station in one day. With 17,000 gas
stations just in the United States, you don't need to be a
mathematician to realize that solar power is incapable of
meeting our urgent need for a new energy source that -
like oil - is dense, affordable, and transportable.

4. It would take close to 220,000 square kilometers of solar
panels to power the global economy via solar power.
This may sound like a marginally manageable number
until you realize that the total acreage covered by solar
panels in the entire world right now is a paltry 10 square
miles (about 17 kilometers).

5. To replace the amount of energy produced by a single
offshore drilling platform that pumps only 12,000 barrels
of oil per day, you would need either a 36 square mile
solar panel or 10,000 wind turbines.

6. According a recent MSNBC article entitled, "Solar Power
City Offers 20 Years of Lessons:"

"By industry estimates, up to 20,000 solar electricity
units and 100,000 heaters have been installed in the
United States — diminutive numbers compared to the
country’s 70 million single-family houses.

"This means that even if the number of American households equipped with solar electricity is increased by a factor of 100, less than two million American households will be equipped with solar electric systems. Assuming we are even capable of scaling the use of household solar electric systems by that huge a factor, we must ask ourselves two questions:

1. What do the other 68 million households do?

2. Since it is oil, not electricity, that is our primary
transportation fuel (providing the base for over 90%
of all transportation fuel) what good will this do us
when it comes to keeping our global network of cars,
trucks, airplanes, and boats going?

II. Inappropriateness as Transportation Fuels:

"Approximately 2/3 of our oil supply is used for transportation. Over ninety percent of our transportation fuel comes from petroleum fuels (gasoline, diesel, jet-fuel).

"Unfortunately, solar and wind cannot be used as industrial-scale transportation fuels unless they are used to crack hydrogen from water via electrolysis. The electrolysis process is a simple one, but unfortunately it consumes 1.3 units of energy for every 1 unit of energy it produces. In other words, it results in a net loss of energy. You can't replace oil - which has a positive EROEI of about 30/1 - with an energy source that actually carries a negative EROEI.

"Assuming away this not-so-minor problem, where are we going to get the energy, capital, and time necessary to replace a significant portion of the following:

1. 700 million oil-powered cars traversing the world's roads;

2. Millions of oil-powered airplanes crisscrossing the world's
skies;

3. Millions of oil-powered boats circumnavigating the world's
oceans?

"On top of that, we need to completely overhaul/retrofit the multi-trillion dollar infrastructure responsible for the fueling and maintenance of numbers one through three.

III. Energy Intermittency:

"In addition to suffering from poor energy-density and being largely inappropriate for transportation, solar and wind also suffer from energy intermittency. Unlike oil and gas, which can be used at anytime of the day or night, solar and wind are dependent on weather conditions. This may not be that big of a deal if you simply want to power your household appliances or a small scale, decentralized economy, but if you want to run an industrial economy that relies on airports, airplanes, 18-wheel trucks, millions of miles of highways, huge skyscrapers, 24/7 availability of fuel, etc., an intermittent source of energy will not suffice.

"The energy produced from solar, wind, and other green alternatives can be stored in batteries, but battery technology is woefully inadequate for the scale of our problem.

IV. Percentage of Total Energy Supply:

"Finally, most people new to this issue drastically overestimate the amount of energy we will be able to realistically derive from these sources inside of the next 5-25 years.

"In 2003, the US consumed 98 quadrillion BTU's of energy. A whopping .171 quadrillion came from solar and wind combined. Do the math (.171/98) and you will see that a total of less then one-sixth of one percent of our energy appetite was satisfied with solar and wind combined. Thus, just to derive a paltry 2-3 percent of our current energy needs from solar and wind, we would need to double the percentage of our energy supply derived from solar/wind, then double it again, then double it again, and then double it yet again.

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
Forest

Trad climber
Tucson, AZ
Jun 30, 2005 - 09:53pm PT
No kidding. I'll be happy to answer that with following one liner.

We all need to be using a lot less power. No kidding....
Forest

Trad climber
Tucson, AZ
Jun 30, 2005 - 10:17pm PT
"la la la! nothing's wrong. I can't hear you over the sound of my hummer's engine. Huh? what poor people? What environment? La la la!"
Karl Baba

Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
Jul 1, 2005 - 12:28am PT
It's too bad we just didn't start a thread on Peak Oil. It's an important subject all on it's own.

I want to say that there is a conservatism that I could totally embrace and respect. Living within our means, using money and resources efficiently and effectively, and taking responsibility for our own actions. Those are all wise things.

I just don't see them happening with our current administration. How are we going to take responsibility for a war based on lies that kills so many?

When it comes to Liberalism, I embrace tolerance, sharing, and diversity. Democrats don't live up to these ideals either but I think they come a bit closer enough that I'm siding with them, since it seems with our current system you have to take a side.

I'd rather us waste our money on social programs than on war. I'd rather not benefit by the exploitation of others.

But, to answer whoever flamed me above (can't remember now) Kerry and Kennedy and those guys are far from my heros. They are the lesser of the evils in a system that reflects the sum total of the human flaws that I have plenty of myself.

If we were all 30 percent better people, 30 percent more loving and intelligent, it wouldn't matter if we were capitalist, communist, right or left wing. It would all work out. Our denials are manifest in our system.

Peace

Karl
Gary

climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
Jul 1, 2005 - 01:05am PT
"Without war to keep us free..."

Wow. Orwell would be proud of you, Howard.
Khun Duen Baad

climber
Retirement
Jul 1, 2005 - 01:07am PT
Karl,

One of the problems, as I heard the Fool of El Cap and Elsewhere put it, is that "Statistically speaking, half of all the people you meet are of below-average intelligence; take half of them and they are even dumber."

Kids, the solar message was largely cut-and-paste, I've gone back and edited it as such. I generally place quotes when necessary but was in a hurry. However, I have spent the four years since 9/11 traveling around the world with an eye and an ear toward agriculture, sustainability, economics and international trade, history, warfare, and Buddhist and Islamic societies. I spent two years trying to buy a farm in Laos, and am silently invested in a project there, but ended up going to Kashmir instead on the land hunt. I own a cow there as Ghulam wouldn't take it as a gift and insisted on giving us his old house instead. The point being that I have had the time to sit on my ass in a hammock, do my research, and put together some sort of different worldview that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to. Whether you agree with it or not is up to you, but I'm interested in healthy debate.

I take deep offense at "raghead" posts and those that pigeonhole "terrorists" and middle eastern people. I've been a lot more up close and personal with Islam than a lot of people (around 10 different muslim societies) and interact with Arabs on a daily basis pretty much everywhere I go except for America. My girlfriend and I have never experienced such kindness, intelligence, cleanliness, and hospitality anywhere, not even close. I go to the market and load my arms with vegetables and they won't take my money. Our Baba in Kurdistan had a hard time talking to us for two days because we walked rather then let him drive us up the hill. We end up spending weeks playing dominoes for tea; the final losers pay for all the tea rounds but as long as we are losing they will play until they do.

Incidentally, for those who are interested, here is Riverbend's recent blog post about Bushie's speech. It relates to the original topic of this posting, the view from the other side.

_
“Not only can they not find WMD in Iraq,” I commented to E. as we listened to the Bush speech, “But they have disappeared from his speeches too!” I was listening to the voiceover on Arabiya, translating his speech to Arabic. He was recycling bits and pieces of various speeches he used over two years.

E., a younger cousin, and I were sitting around in the living room, sprawled on the relatively cool tiled floor. The electricity had been out for 3 hours and we couldn’t turn on the air conditioner with the generator electricity we were getting. E. and I had made a bet earlier about what the theme of tonight’s speech would be. E. guessed Bush would dig up the tired, old WMD theme from somewhere under the debris of idiocy and lies coming out of the White House. I told him he’d dredge up 9/11 yet again… tens of thousands of lives later, we would have to bear the burden of 9/11… again.

I won the bet. The theme was, naturally, terrorism- the only mention of ‘weapon’ or ‘weapons’ was in reference to Libya. He actually used the word ‘terrorist’ in the speech 23 times.

He was trying, throughout the speech, to paint a rosy picture of the situation. According to him, Iraq was flourishing under the occupation. In Bush’s Iraq, there is reconstruction, there is freedom (in spite of an occupation) and there is democracy.

“He’s describing a different country…” I commented to E. and the cousin.

“Yes,” E. replied. “He’s talking about the *other* Iraq… the one with the WMD.”

“So what’s the occasion? Why’s the idiot giving a speech anyway?” The cousin asked, staring at the ceiling fan clicking away above. I reminded him it was the year anniversary marking the mythical handover of power to Allawi’s Vichy government.

“Oh- Allawi… Is he still alive?” Came the indolent reply from the cousin. “I’ve lost track… was he before Al Yawir or after Al Yawir? Was he Prime Minister or did they make him president at some point?”

9/11 and the dubious connection with Iraq came up within less than a minute of the beginning of the speech. The cousin wondered whether anyone in America still believed Iraq had anything to do with September 11.

Bush said:
“The troops here and across the world are fighting a global war on terror. The war reached our shores on September 11, 2001.”

Do people really still believe this? In spite of that fact that no WMD were found in Iraq, in spite of the fact that prior to the war, no American was ever killed in Iraq and now almost 2000 are dead on Iraqi soil? It’s difficult to comprehend that rational people, after all of this, still actually accept the claims of a link between 9/11 and Iraq. Or that they could actually believe Iraq is less of a threat today than it was in 2003.

We did not have Al-Qaeda in Iraq prior to the war. We didn’t know that sort of extremism. We didn’t have beheadings or the abduction of foreigners or religious intolerance. We actually pitied America and Americans when the Twin Towers went down and when news began leaking out about it being Muslim fundamentalists- possibly Arabs- we were outraged.

Now 9/11 is getting old. Now, 100,000+ Iraqi lives and 1700+ American lives later, it’s becoming difficult to summon up the same sort of sympathy as before. How does the death of 3,000 Americans and the fall of two towers somehow justify the horrors in Iraq when not one of the people involved with the attack was Iraqi?

Bush said:
“Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war. … The commander in charge of coalition operations in Iraq, who is also senior commander at this base, General John Vines, put it well the other day. He said, "We either deal with terrorism and this extremism abroad, or we deal with it when it comes to us."

He speaks of ‘abroad’ as if it is a vague desert-land filled with heavily-bearded men and possibly camels. ‘Abroad’ in his speech seems to indicate a land of inferior people- less deserving of peace, prosperity and even life.

Don’t Americans know that this vast wasteland of terror and terrorists otherwise known as ‘Abroad’ was home to the first civilizations and is home now to some of the most sophisticated, educated people in the region?

Don’t Americans realize that ‘abroad’ is a country full of people- men, women and children who are dying hourly? ‘Abroad’ is home for millions of us. It’s the place we were raised and the place we hope to raise our children- your field of war and terror.

The war was brought to us here, and now we have to watch the country disintegrate before our very eyes. We watch as towns are bombed and gunned down and evacuated of their people. We watch as friends and loved ones are detained, or killed or pressured out of the country with fear and intimidation.

Bush said:
“We see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who exploded car bombs along a busy shopping street in Baghdad, including one outside a mosque. We see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who sent a suicide bomber to a teaching hospital in Mosul…”

Yes. And Bush is extremely concerned with the mosques. He might ask the occupation forces in Iraq to quit attacking mosques and detaining the worshipers inside- to stop raiding them and bombing them and using them as shelters for American snipers in places like Falluja and Samarra. And the terrorists who sent a suicide bomber to a teaching hospital in Mosul? Maybe they got their cue from the American troops who attacked the only functioning hospital in Falluja.

“We continued our efforts to help them rebuild their country. Rebuilding a country after three decades of tyranny is hard and rebuilding while a country is at war is even harder."

Three decades of tyranny isn’t what bombed and burned buildings to the ground. It isn’t three decades of tyranny that destroyed the infrastructure with such things as “Shock and Awe” and various other tactics. Though he fails to mention it, prior to the war, we didn’t have sewage overflowing in the streets like we do now, and water cut off for days and days at a time. We certainly had more than the 8 hours of electricity daily. In several areas they aren’t even getting that much.

“They are doing that by building the institutions of a free society, a society based on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and equal justice under law.”

We’re so free, we often find ourselves prisoners of our homes, with roads cut off indefinitely and complete areas made inaccessible. We are so free to assemble that people now fear having gatherings because a large number of friends or family members may attract too much attention and provoke a raid by American or Iraqi forces.

As to Iraqi forces…There was too much to quote on the new Iraqi forces. He failed to mention that many of their members were formerly part of militias, and that many of them contributed to the looting and burning that swept over Iraq after the war and continued for weeks.

“The new Iraqi security forces are proving their courage every day.”

Indeed they are. The forte of the new Iraqi National Guard? Raids and mass detentions. They have been learning well from the coalition. They sweep into areas, kick down doors, steal money, valuables, harass the females in the household and detain the men. The Iraqi security forces are so effective that a few weeks ago, they managed to kill a high-ranking police major in Falluja when he ran a red light, shooting him in the head as his car drove away.

He kept babbling about a “free Iraq” but he mentioned nothing about when the American forces might actually depart and the occupation would end, leaving a “free Iraq”.

Why aren’t the Americans setting a timetable for withdrawal? Iraqis are constantly wondering why nothing is being done to accelerate the end of the occupation.

Do the Americans continue to believe such speeches? I couldn’t help but wonder.

“They’ll believe anything.” E. sighed. “No matter what sort of absurdity they are fed, they’ll believe it. Think up the most outrageous lie… They have people who’ll believe it.”

The cousin sat up at this, his interest piqued. “The most outrageous lie? How about that Iraq was amassing aliens from Mareekh [Mars] and training them in the battle art of kung-fu to attack America in 2010!”

“They’d believe it.” E. nodded in the affirmative. “Or that Iraq was developing a mutant breed of rabid, man-eating bunnies to unleash upon the Western world. They’d believe that too.”
Ouch!

climber
Jul 1, 2005 - 01:18am PT
"Without war to keep us free there won't be any society to have programs for"

Yeah Right! You gotta be kiddin'! We stand to lose more freedoms under the cretin Bush than anything Saddam Hussein could have done in a century. Your Patriot Act is nothing but tyranny wrapped in a soiled flag.
dirtbag

climber
Jul 1, 2005 - 01:27am PT
"Spoken like a true raghead."

Spoken like a true dumbass, Jody.
dirtbag

climber
Jul 1, 2005 - 01:36am PT
Oh yeah...

Katherine Harris, ReNazican


Khun Duen Baad

climber
Retirement
Jul 1, 2005 - 01:47am PT
HowwierdDean,

You're one of the children in this forum and I can only hope you are in the literal sense as well because then I could pray society will collaspe before you get a chance to spread your seed, if you frightfully haven't done so already. I've never acknowledged your presence, nor will I ever aside from this.
Karl Baba

Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
Jul 1, 2005 - 02:13am PT
Come on Jodster! Fes up with your new handle. You do such a piss poor job of reinventing yourself with a new handle and yet posting in exactly the same manner and the old Jody.

Why not stand by yourself and what you've written and said in the past? Or if you've changed in any way, tell us about it?

Good thing you're a cop cause you'd make a crappy robber.

Throwing in those lies about knowing Lynn and Katie and your trip up the Nose was a nice touch though. That made me doubt my suspicions.

And maybe I'm still wrong about Dr. Dean. If you're not Jody, email me and I'll hook you up with your soon-to-be best buddy with whom you'll agree about everything always

Peace

karl
Khun Duen Baad

climber
Retirement
Jul 1, 2005 - 02:36am PT
A COP!!!! HAHAHAHAHAAHH!!!!! OF COURSE!!!!!! AHAHAHHAHHAAAAAA!!

That would make perfect sense....
Gary

climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
Jul 1, 2005 - 11:35am PT
The down-side is that this is just more smoke and mirrors to hide the real solution to the illegal immigration policy. A solution that Republicans are eager to hide.

Send Federal marshals to the HQ of Iowa Beef Processors, Tyson Chicken and Gallasso Bakery. Haul the CEOs off to Leavenworth for hiring illegal workers. End of illegal immigration.

Republicans do not want this, however. They want cheap labor to replace well paid Americans. At the same time, they can use illegals as a wedge issue in elections. You keep hearing folks complaining about Mexicans taking American jobs. They are not. American companies are giving Mexicans these jobs.

fattrad and Howard's buddies are destroying the American way of life in order to enrich a few. Wrapping themselves in the flag while they do it.
Minerals

Social climber
The Deli
Jul 1, 2005 - 11:44am PT
VISUALIZE ARMAGEDDON!
the Fet

Trad climber
Loomis, CA
Jul 1, 2005 - 12:50pm PT
It's revealing that the Bushies will always resort to labeling those against their views (or O.peration I.raqi L.iberation) as far-left liberals. It's so easy to pigeonhole other people rather than actually examine reality with an open mind. Insult liberals, Ted Kennedy, etc. all you want. It doesn't bother me because I'm a Radical Centrist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_middle No that's not an oxymoron but a political viewpoint of someone who can actually look at both sides of the spectrum and make their minds up based on what is good and just, instead of buying into the bull (pretty much anything on AM radio) that reinforces your brainwashed/selfish views no matter what side of the isle you are on.

I'm an independent who wishes there were more than two poltical parties in our country. It always comes down to the lesser of two evils. Some people do seem like they are into politics to make things better (IMO McCain, Arnold, Jimmy Carter, not neccasarily the correct policies) and some are into it for power and control and selfish ambition (Bush, and I got to give credit to Rove for fooling millions of people into believing otherwise).

LEB back to your post:

Republicans giving people the most possible control over their affairs: Bush republicans want to impose their religious views on other people. Keep your theocracy out of my democracy. The supreme court's eminent domain decision shows the liberal side also has control problems. Freedom ends when your actions effect me and not before.

As far as the entitlement boogeyman the Republicans are always going off about, didn't Newt fix welfare? I guess he didn't do the job right then. What percentage of the budget actually goes to entitlement programs and what percentage of that isn't actually needed (by disabled, old, and sick people) I'm guessing a tiny portion. It's not right if it's not really needed, but it's not the big deal they make it out to be and it's much smaller than the pork barrel projects that are kick backs for political donations.

I agree with you that when someone attacks me I will crush them. I've studied 3 forms of Martial Arts and they all teach violence is a last resort but when it comes down to self defense don't hesitate to do whatever it takes to protect yourself. This WAS the case with Afghanistan (but unfortuneatly we diverted resources to Iraq and let Bin Laden get away). Was this the case with Iraq? Did they attack us or even plan to?

Once again Rove has done a magnificant job into fooling millions of people that Iraq was a threat to the US, it wasn't, but many people still believe this and that 9/11 was linked to Iraq, it wasn't. So the rational was changed to let's setup a democracy in the middle east to serve as a good example and then the terrorists won't hate us. Maybe a noble cause, but is it really our responsiblity and is it worth the lives of 1700+ American soldiers who signed up to DEFEND out country (we are about 2/3 of the way to having as many Americans die for W's war as were killed on 9/11) and 10s of thousands of Iraqis.

But why do the terrorists hate us? For interfering with their lives and having our military there (claiming they hate our freedom on the other side of the globe is a transparent lie). So although the average person in Iraq might some day have a more favorable view of the US for establishing a democracy there, the current and future terrosists will view it as attacking another country (or religion/race) without provocation and helping elect leaders (money talks) who are ex-oil company bigwigs in cohoots with the oil company executives / American politicians and it will fuel their hatred for the US. I'm not saying we should alter our actions to appease the terrorists but to ignore why they are motivated and then do exactly what they are pissed off about on a bigger scale (without justification) is just asking for more hatred and terrorism. It doesn't matter how many you kill because our actions are creating more of them. Are we taking the fight to them? For the present yes, but we know the terrorists have long range plans and you simply can't stop random terrorism. I believe Bush is making our country less safe in the long run.

As far as the environment it's really about being selfish. The world isn't going to come crashing down around us in our lifetimes (althought there may be some expensive challenges coming up such as saving coastal areas from flooding, health problems, etc.) but future generations will have to deal with the results of our actions. There was a recent report that we are using our resources 20% faster than the Earth can replenish them. Would it really be that hard to reduce our impact 20%? I got rid of the SUV and got an AWD minivan that get's 20%+ better mileage/less emissions. I recyle and reduce my trash by over 50%. My philosophy is I don't let my environmentalism get in the way of what I want to do, I just try to minimize my impacts, all it takes is a little effort. The real reason Bush won't sign Kyoto is he is an oil man and it will hurt their profits, boohoo. These giant oil companies each do around 2% of the GDP of the US, they have tons of money and influence. Bush hires an oil company insider as an Environmental consultant, give me a break, what do you think he cares about? What they don't realize is that quality of life is more important than standard of living. I bet I get more enjoyment out of climbing in the Valley for free, than they do cruising around in their giant gas guzzling yachts. And it's not really about the environment or tree hugging. The Earth will be here no matter what we do. It's about keeping the Earth good for people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism

Bush's budget is horrible. People think because they are paying less taxes he's doing a good job. But he's spending more than any Democrat ever did, and worse yet he's borrowing so it will have to be paid back with interest. What percentage of the total budget is interest? 10%, 15%? If we didn't have to spend that there would be no deficit (we have to pay for past borrowing now, but Bush is making sure those interest payments will continue for quite some time). I don't spend more than I make and I have a great net worth as a result, can't we find a president smart enough to do that? It's no wonder Bush ran his businesses into the ground. Bush the borrow and spend Republican.

The terrorist want to terrorize. If you actually worry about terrorism they are getting what they want. You are so much more at risk from auto accidents, etc. I feel it's been blown way out of proportion and Bush has used it as an excuse (helping the terrorists terrorize the American public) to erode our privacy and civil liberties and start an unjust war. How many people died on 9/11,
the Fet

Trad climber
Loomis, CA
Jul 1, 2005 - 12:56pm PT
I guess I ranted so long Supertaco cut me off lol.

Suffice it to say: worst president ever.
NeverSurfaced

Trad climber
Someplace F*#ked!
Jul 1, 2005 - 01:50pm PT
“The point being that I have had the time to sit on my ass in a hammock, do my research, and put together some sort of different worldview that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to. Whether you agree with it or not is up to you, but I'm interested in healthy debate.”

That’s fine and good for those of us corresponding from the land of “retirement” who have the time to sit around and do nothing but ponder the deeper meaning of life and how phucked up we really are, but what about the rest of us?

I’ve come to the realization that I’m part of the majority of Americans who don’t know what the phuck is going on. It’s only recently that I know what I don’t know, which is a lot; whereas most I believe still “don’t know what [they] don’t know” to quote some political spokes-hole.

I have painfully come to the realization that I’ve been lied into backing a war, which I’m not too particularly happy about. As it turns out I tend to adhere to the ideology of burn me once, shame one you, burn me twice… So needless to say I’m pretty much done with the whole thing. It’s pretty hard for me to take anything that comes out of, well, anyone’s mouth at this point at face value.

So what do those of us that have steady jobs, families, hamburgers to cook and phucked-up selfish conquests to pursue do? I don’t have time to sit on my ass in a hammock and do my research. Where do I go?

Even on this forum it boils down to what side of the fence you’re on. Everyone’s a liar according to everyone else, so who’s telling the truth.

Oh well, phuck it…I’ll just go back to cooking my hamburgers and hope someone else figures it all out. I sure as hell don’t know what’s going on.
Gary

climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
Jul 1, 2005 - 02:03pm PT
fet said:
"But why do the terrorists hate us? For interfering with their lives and having our military there..."

fattrad said that was wrong and that:
"A majortiy of the muslim world that dislikes the US is because of our support for Israel..."

fattrad, I do not understand where your statement contradicts what fet said. It seems to support it.
the Fet

Trad climber
Loomis, CA
Jul 1, 2005 - 02:06pm PT
fattrad your are wrong, again.

"A majortiy of the muslim world that dislikes the US is because of our support for Israel"

Do you have anything to back up that claim? Why does Bush tell us the majority of people would welcome us a liberators and are supportive of us?

Why talk about the majority of the muslim world instead of Al Queda, they are the ones who attacked us. They stated why they attacked us. Yes Israel was one of the reasons, but if it was the sole reason they'd just attack Israel. People have been fighting over that region for thousands of years. Unfortuneatly whenever it looks like a good compromise can come about extremists on both sides blow it.

I think the US govt. should say to Israel - build your wall near the 1967 borders, take the key defensive positions you need in the West Bank and give the Palestinians an equal amount of land in return (a walled road from West Bank to Gaza), and get the settlements and security forces out of Palentinian areas in the next 3 years or we will start withdrawing our support. But there is too much Israeli influence in our govt. for that to happen. Yes they won that land in a war, but it would be nice if they took the high road, gave the palenstinians a state, and said we are compromising and being as fair as possible, it would take the wind out of the (Palestinian) terrorists sails.
the Fet

Trad climber
Loomis, CA
Jul 1, 2005 - 02:48pm PT
LEB thanks for reading my thoughts with an open mind. Kerry does come across as wishy washy, I wish we had had a third choice.

It sounds like you are saying the benefit of Bush as a strong military leader outweighs the possibilities of the religious right changing our laws. But that is already happening. Look at the people Bush appoints. Drapes on naked statues? Figuring out ways to erode civil liberties. Most of the things they would enact won't effect me, but I can still see they are wrong according to the ideals of America.

The "I know what's best for you" mentality is a part of the right as much as it's a part of the left. That's my whole issue with the religious influence. I don't want either side telling me what to do.

I hate the idea of my tax dollars going to people who don't deserve them, but I also think any person who's not totally selfish is willing to have their government devote part of the budget to helping people who really need it. Maybe 5%? I also believe an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure (e.g. after school programs for innercity youth who would otherwise end up in jail at our expense) and investing in our future pays off (e.g. helping people afford college so they make our economy more productive and competetive). I really would like to see some figures about how much of the budget goes to entitlement programs for people who don't deserve it and what we can do to eliminate it.

Poor Arnold, he tried to get rid of pension plans like so many employers have had to do, but didn't realize the political crap storm that would involve. If Arnie was smart he'd dump the Republican party and become an independent, cut every department's budget by 5% across the board and make them figure out how to deal with it, and if someone complained he could say "everyone else is cutting back, why can't you?"


NeverSurfaced: glad to see you're coming around :-)
Khun Duen Baad

climber
Retirement
Jul 1, 2005 - 02:52pm PT
Fatty, that's what I wanted to know; how many rural villages you passed through and the kind of peoples homes that you stayed, had tea in, or did some work in the fields. On a "political mission" you would have most likely been traveling as a fabulously weathly person, meeting wealthy people, in a wealthy, highly industrialized (ie. westernized) nation. I can respect your opinion as a Republican (and probably as an accountant) because you know where you stand and are able to express it, but your thoughts on Islam mean little to me personally; and it's strictly a personal thing, I'm sure plenty of people take a lot of useful info from you there.

Oh, and the majority of the world hates us for our support of Israel.

Fet, what do you think Berliners would have said in 1938 if you had told them that Dredsen would be ashes and coals in less than a decade and that they would clear cut the Tiergarten just to keep warm at night? What would the 1 million citizens of Rome have said at their peak if you told them they would number just 15,000 in a few hundred years? What about if you had gone to the bank on October 27th, 1929 and told them "Give me my money, in gold, right now. This is all going nowhere good". they would have laughed and laughed. Incidentally, speculative buying (with borrewed/imagined/Ponzi scheme money) is what linked Black Tuesday to Liebig's Law, which we'll touch on shortly.

"Abstract: Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), introduced to St. Matthew Island in 1944, increased from 29 animals at that time to 6,000 in the summer of 1963 and underwent a crash die-off the following winter to less than 50 animals. In 1957, the body weight of the reindeer was found to exceed that of reindeer in domestic herds by 24 53 percent among females and 46 61 percent among males. The population also responded to the high quality and quantity of the forage on the island by increasing rapidly due to a high birth rate and low mortality. By 1963, the density of the reindeer on the island had reached 46.9 per square mile and ratios of fawns and yearlings to adult cows had dropped from 75 and 45 percent respectively, in 1957 to 60 and 26 percent in 1963. Average body weights had decreased from 1957 by 38 percent for adult females and 43 percent for adult males and were comparable to weights of reindeer in domestic herds. Lichens had been completely eliminated as a significant component of the winter diet. Sedges and grasses were expanding into sites previously occupied by lichens. In the late winter of 196364, in association with extreme snow accumulation, virtually the entire population of 6,000 reindeer died of starvation. With one known exception, all of the surviving reindeer (42 in 1966) were females. The pattern of reindeer population growth and die-off on St. Matthew Island has been observed on other island situations with introduced animals and is believed to be a product of the limited development of ecosystems and the associated deficiency of potential population-regulating factors on islands. Food supply, through its interaction with climatic factors, was the dominant population regulating mechanism for reindeer on St. Matthew Island.
__
"Circumstance: The Age of Exuberance is over, population has already overshot carrying capacity, and prodigal Homo sapiens has drawn down the world's savings deposits.

"Consequence: All forms of human organization and behavior that are based on the assumption of limitlessness must change to forms that accord with finite limits.


Everybody agrees there is a limit to how many people this world can sustain, but nobody wants to talk about when we will get there, or what happen when we do. American's themselves have experienced 50 years of unrivaled properity and relative peace which was, cruelly, just enough time to eliminate any knowledge we might have gained in the Wars. Don't worry folks, we got another one for you. Japan's ghost acreage is 67% and the UK is about half. That means that 2/3 of Japan would starve and die without petroleum fed food. Ghost acreage is the additional land a nation needs in order to supply the net amount of food and fuel, from sources outside the nation (ie. the net imports of agricultural products, oceanic fisheries and fossil fuels). Onto Liebig's Law:

"Justus von Liebig, generally credited as the "father of the fertilizer industry", formulated the law of the minimum: if one crop nutrient is missing or deficient, plant growth will be poor, even if the other elements are abundant.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html

So tell us what the situation is likely to look like when you remove petroluem from the equation? This society is based on ONE thing, growth (and I think at this point we all agree on what is fueling that growth). Not a plateau, not rolling hills, and sure as fvck not a down-slope, cliff, of any other serious decline. After capitalism stops growing all bets are off. America won the cold war for simple reasons, it is tailored for exuberant consumption and by extension fueling a massive war machine. Communism was not designed to support a war machine (and as a consequence was never truly achieved) but after August 1945 (when we nuked the Japanese not once, but twice; after they had been actively trying to surrender for 6 months and they couldn't even get planes off the ground!!!) they had no choice. Which brings me to another point. In 1989 the Soviets were the only challenge for global power, they were the first nation to put a man in space, they were pumping. Then one day the world woke up and said, "Holy sh#t, this is a third world country". You think Muskovites thought it was all a dream before it wasn't?

___
"When the earth's deposits of fossil fuels and mineral resources were being laid down, Homo sapiens had not yet been prepared by evolution to take advantage of them. As soon as technology made it possible for mankind to do so, people eagerly (and without foreseeing the ultimate consequences) shifted to a high-energy way of life. Man became, in effect, a detritovore, Homo colossus. Our species bloomed, and now we must expect crash (of some sort) as the natural sequel. What form our crash may take remains to be considered in the concluding section.

"Moreover, habits of thought persist. As we shall see in Chapter 11, people continue to advocate further technological breakthroughs as the supposedly sure cure for carrying capacity deficits. The very idea that technology caused overshoot, and that it made us too colossal to endure, remains alien to too many minds for"de-colossalization" to be a really feasible alternative to literal die-off. There is a persistent drive to apply remedies that aggravate the problem. [That's Jevons Paradox again folks]

"In a world that will not accommodate four billion of us if we all become colossal, it is both futile and dangerous to indulge in resentment, as we shall be sorely tempted to do, blaming some person or group whom we suppose must have intended whatever is happening to happen. If we find ourselves beset with circumstances we wish were vastly different, we need to keep in mind that to a very large extent they have come about because of things that were hopefully and innocently done in the past by almost everyone in general, and not just by anyone in particular. If we single out supposed perpetrators of our predicament, resort to anger, and attempt to retaliate, the unforeseen outcomes of our indignant acts will compound fate.

"If any substantial fraction of the more colossal segments of humanity did conscientiously give up part of their resource-devouring extensions out of humane concern for their less colossal brethren, there is no guarantee that this would avert die-off. It might only postpone it, permitting human numbers to continue increasing a bit longer, or less colossal peoples to become a bit more colossal, before we crash all the more resoundingly. All this tends to be disregarded by advocates of a "return to the simple life" as a gentle way out of the human predicament. Blessed are the less prosthetic, for they shall inherit the ravaged earth.

William Catton: Excerpt from Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change (University of Illinois Press)


And more from Fidel today:

_begin article
Havana, June 30 (AIN) Cuban President Fidel Castro warned Caribbean heads of state about an upcoming energy crisis and environmental problems caused by uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources and the "crazy waste" of oil-derived energy, according to the press of the Venezuelan Presidency.

"The crisis is more serious and deeper than imagined", said the Cuban President during his speech at the inaugural session of the First PetroCaribe Energy Summit of Caribbean Heads of State and Government, which held sessions Wednesday in the Venezuelan locality of Puerto La Cruz, in the state of Anzoástegui, with the attendance of 15 Caribbean nations.

Fidel Castro said that political and economic problems facing the governments of the western continent add to the situation that stems from the energy crisis. "Fuel begins to be scarce, that has been proved by irrefutable studies", said Fidel Castro.

President Castro said that the crisis is just around the corner, "it will take place during the current decade", he said. Reserves are no longer enough and the current offer can not meet the demand due to the crazy waste of oil, stemming from extreme consumption.

No Caribbean country will be able to purchase oil once its price reach 100 dollars a barrel, said Fidel Castro.

"The US administration knows this problem very well, or there would be no explanation to such a crazy and brutal war, which Washington has waged in that part of the world (meaning Iraq) with no cause at all and by deceiving the whole world and the US people. They (The US) do know more than all of us about the
existence of oil reserves; they know that the largest oil wells were already found and there are few left, said Fidel Castro.

In his speech, President Castro said that it will be difficult to find a more generous man than President Hugo Chavez. "He has been accused of giving away Venezuela's oil, those are intrigues, lies, campaigns, which can not mirror his greatness, his sense of responsibility with this hemisphere" said the Cuban
President.

I have known President Chavez for 10 years, I´m aware of his sensitiveness, his generosity and his sense of duty. I wish that there were some leaders like him in the world", said the Cuban Revolution leader.

Fidel Castro said that the survival of our countries will not be possible without the unity or relationship, which is being promoted by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
end article


"In a way, the world-view of the party imposed itself most successfully on the people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding, they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just like a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird. - George Orwell, 1984
Khun Duen Baad

climber
Retirement
Jul 1, 2005 - 03:29pm PT
This might be what you call "pretty close" to the '67 borders:

http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/maps/351.shtml

But it's interesting to note that note a single square inch of Israel's wall happens to sit within Israel. What if America decided to build a wall on the other side of Vancouver, Tijuana, and Toronto? And what if we wanted to keep tanks rolling through the streets for a few decades?

Let's hope the UN would send troops with no bullets to DC.
Degaine

climber
Jul 1, 2005 - 03:32pm PT
KDB,

Our support of Israel is the excuse and not the reason that countries such as Saudi Arabia or Syria balk at instituting internal reforms. How many times have I read quotes (and I paraphrase) “We would gladly implement a democracy if only the U.S. stopped supporting Israel.”

I must admit, given your recent posts, I am quite surprised that you continue to buy the “support of Israel” propaganda B.S.

In addition, you paint such a doomsday picture of the world yet offer no clear strategies or solutions other than perhaps the offhanded “we need to reduce world population growth.”

It is easier to destroy than to create – why not throw out some ideas instead of simply breaking down others? Although perhaps the explanation from one of your posts:

“I'll mail you privately. I'm don't explain myself to anybody I don't respect, so the public is out on that one.”

We are apparently not worthy.

I could be wrong, but from the tone of your posts you seem very proud of yourself for your supposed “enlightenment.”

As for me, the only thing I know is that I know nothing. Yes, I quote Socrates, because I do not claim to be smart enough or “enlightened” enough to do anything different.

---------------------------------------------------
For people like Fattrad who make outlandish statements such as this one:

“This is a clash of religions and civilizations, not much different than the crusades, I know this is a difficult concept to accept, that someone would dilike you just because of your beliefs, but this is the reality.”

Here is a quick FYI:

There are 6.2 billion people on this planet, of which an estimated 1.5 billion are Muslim. Of those 1.5 billion, 62% or approximately 935 million live in the following countries:


Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Burkina-Faso, Burma, Cameroon, China, Congo, Dem. Rep. of the,Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Kazakstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, , Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Tanzania, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, United States, Uzbekistan, Yemen.

Add to it Afghanistan and Pakistan and the number jumps to 1.1 billion or 73% of all Muslims.

Take the largest countries: India, Bangladesh, China and Indonesia and you have a total of approximately 530 million Muslims or 35% of all Muslims.

Take the countries proclaimed or assumed to be our enemies in this B.S. “fight of civilizations”: Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria,

and you have approximately 222 million people or 15% of Muslims worldwide. Hardly representative of all Muslims, hardly a clash of civilizations.

Canadians make sure we all know there is a difference between Canada and the United States, and Texans make sure EVERYONE knows where they come from, yet, fattrad you lump all the countries above together into the same boat.

India, Indonesia, China, Iran, and Egypt are very, very different from each other. As is Ethopia, as are the “black” Muslims in Southern Sudan from the Arab Muslims in Northern Sudan, and so on, and so on.
Bruce Morris

Social climber
Belmont, California
Jul 1, 2005 - 04:20pm PT
There's a strong hatred of Israel everywhere in the world.
Khun Duen Baad

climber
Retirement
Jul 1, 2005 - 04:51pm PT
Degaine,

You're right, it sure is an excuse just like a lot of their other hipocracy. But I don't consider the Saudi royal family (nor certain facets of the culture of that country )of to be true to Islam. For example, the Qu'ran forbids making money on money. This is why for a long time you couldn't make reservations at Muslim owed hotels in Thailand (I know, probably elsewhere as well) because that would require a credit card. Similarly, Sharia law doesn't say that you cut a thief's hand off for stealing; "cut the hand" means that you would get a little nick between you thumb and forefinger that would leave a visible scar whenever you exchanged money thereafter. I don't pretend to believe that is the sole reason for strife, there are plenty of other reasons. But really, Israel seizes all the best farmland (a real commodity there) and water rights not to mention that their nuke arsenal is pretty shocking. I have lots of friends in IsraHell, as they call it, and my lord have I heard some shocking tales.

As far as hatred the world over for our policy, what I meant that before the current Iraq war it was the most common question you would get from most people when chatting politics whilst traveling. It's in the minds of the masses, not necessarily the governements.

"The gathering was an organizational meeting for Brad Blanton’s independent run for the Virginia Seventh District U.S. House of Representatives. Blanton’s working slogan is “America needs a good psychiatrist.” And we got a lot accomplished in that direction, despite my intellectual flatulence and Brad’s orneriness. Any psychotherapist who actually gets people to pay for advice such as “F*#k’em if they can’t take a joke” must be called ornery at the very least. And any politician who thinks he can get elected on the basis of extreme honesty, well…

"Anyway, I came away from the meeting deeply struck by one thing. Every person there seemed to understand and acknowledge the coming global human “die-off.” The one that has already begun in places like Africa and will grow into a global event sometime within our lifetimes and/or those of our children. The one that will kill millions of white people. That’s right, clean pink little Western World white people like you and me. Nobody in the U.S. seems to be able to deal with or even think about this near certainty, and the few who do are written off as nutcases by the media and the public. Mostly though, it goes unacknowledged. All of which drives me nuts because the now nearly visible end of civilization strikes me as worthy of at least modest discussion. You’d think so. But the mention of it causes my wife to go into, “Oh Joe, can’t we talk about something more pleasant?” And talk about causing weird stares and dropped jaws at the office water cooler.

http://www.hubbertpeak.com/duncan/Olduvai.htm
http://www.mnforsustain.org/duncan_r_olduvai_theory.htm

Degaine, the reason I am offering what you interpret to be a negative view is because most people haven't haven't come to really appreciate how far past true sustainability we might actually be and I'm trying to really drive that home for people who care, those who don't I could give a shlt less about, because inmy belief it is the most serious issue that has ever faced mankind. The hydrocarbon twins, energy decent and planetary warming (whether it is made-made or not), are going to be exciting years indeed. I've been to the Arcitc four times and it was the first thing that really woke me up to how serious an age we are living in. Warming is at least 50% greater at the poles and the effects are absolutely astounding. The Inuit talk about global warming like we talk about the war or what's on television. I can't drive home this point enough. 20 years ago they would get a 70 degree day maybe once or twice a summer if everything lined up. Now they get 3+ months of baking heat, and I mean baker. Cedar and I watched the hottest day on record in the ARctic from the glacier below Mt. Asgard as rock rained around us. The mozzies have gotten out of control, you can't really go anymore without a bug net. It's maddening. The massive meltoff is silting up tributaries and creating the weird quicksand sh#t that wasn't around before. The ice in the winter looks the same but used to be 5 feet thinck and now hunter's are falling through regularly. you should look into Inuit history and how when the scottish whalers killed all the whales and left after the inuit had spent 60 years forgeting trad techniques by hunting with the guns whitey gave them and becoming dependent on food from the Hudson compnay. The Co. booked with the whalers (who were there for oil, you think they wanted the meat?) and they left the inuit to starve. So they did. after massive famine the Governemtn stepped in and killed everybodies sled dogs and stuck them in permanent settlements, many much farther north than they traditionally lived such that Canda could claim the land under international law. To make a long story short they feel like they live in Purgatory that is quickly becoming Hell. they used to look forward to winter because they could leave town on skidoo when the ocean froze. The big event in town every year is when the one shipment shows up with all of their food and gas for the year.

Anyway, I've put quite a bit of scientific evidence out there and I haven't heard anything positive come back other than rhetoric or "technology will save us". I want to hear it, that why I'm putting ideas out there for public debate.

Here's a good commentary about that:

___
I've been on a long book publicity road trip around California, with a side trip to Seattle on Thursday, and it's hard not to feel hopeless about this country after being here. It probably doesn't help that my 10:30 red-eye flight has been delayed ("aircraft availability," the sign says) and I don't know whether I will make my morning connection in Washington for the final flight to upstate New York. My experience with United Airlines is that they (that is, the remaining skeleton crew) are a gang of lying f*#ks who will make up any excuse to disguise the fact that their company is a barely-functioning shell. As a matter of fact, there was not a single United employee in the entire P-7 terminal when I got here at 8:00 pm and I had to walk a half mile over to terminal P-8 to find a live gate agent. What you see in this miserable airport is simply the death of the airline industry. The airlines are the giant "canaries in the coal mine" of our imploding economy. They can't make any money, even running fully-loaded flights, with the price of jet fuel (which is little more than kerosene) not even very high yet. But I stray from my point.
Which is that what you see in California is a society with a tragic destiny. I was all over the Bay Area earlier in the week, from San Francisco to Silicon Valley to Berkeley and even down to Santa Cruz, and that was bad enough, But then I got down to Los Angeles on Friday and have been in a state of pathological reflex nausea ever since. Despite their lame attempts to rebuild a few pieces of the 2000-mile-long streetcar system that they gleefully destroyed in the 1950s, life here is all about cars and it will never not be about cars -- until the reality of our oil predicament falls on the hapless public like a hammer of God and the people of California die for their f*#king cars in their f*#king cars and over their f*#king cars. I understand that the scene here is not qualitatively different from Dallas, Orlando, Atlanta, Northern Virginia, Miami, New Jersey and other cloacal hot-spots of the world's highest standard of living. But I digress again, sitting, as I am, on the floor of terminal P-7 because I cannot find a single electric outlet anywhere near a chair, and being fifty-six years old, with an artificial hip, this is not the most felicitous scheme for composing one's thoughts.
I was invited to give a talk at Google headquarters down in Mountain View last Tuesday. They sent somebody to fetch me (in a hybrid car, zowee!) from my hotel in San Francisco -- as if I had any choice about catching a train down, right? Google HQ was a glass office park pod tucked into an inscrutable tangle of off-ramps, berms, manzanita clumps, and curb-cuts. But inside, it was all tricked out like a kindergarten. They had pool tables, and inflatable yoga balls, and $6000 electronic vibrating massage lounge chairs, and snack stations deployed at twenty-five step intervals, with lucite bins filled with chocolate raisins and granola. The employees dressed like children. There were two motifs: "skateboard rat" and "10th grade nerd." I suppose quite a few of them were millionaires. Many of the work cubicles were literally modular children's playhouses. I gave my spiel about the global oil problem and the unlikelihood that "alternative energy" would even fractionally replace it, and quite a few of the Googlers became incensed.
"Yo, Dude, you're so, like, wrong! We've got, like, technology!"
Yeah, well, they weren't interested in making a distinction between energy and technology (or, more precisely where Google is concerned, a massive web-based advertising scheme -- because it is finally clear that all this talk about "connectivity" just leads to more commercial shilling, shucking, jiving, and generally f*#king with your headspace in the interstices of whatever purposeful activity one may be struggling to enact on the internet).
The taxi-cab ride to Berkeley (on Google's tab) ran over $160 on the meter. In Berkeley a radical leftist grandmotherly lady interviewed me for a radio show and once that was over she began to tell me about the chemical contrails that Dick Cheney was cross-hatching across the Berkeley skies for the purpose of controlling the masses of earnest, whole-foods-loving, undyed-wool-wearing devotees of diversity and turning them into whorish Stepford sex robots. Everybody knew it was a cover-up, she said.
_

Maybe you think I offer a negative view, but what if there is no solution? Certainly not one anybody is going to like or voluntarily pursue. Don't forget that from an economist's point of view oil can never "run out", there will always be some in the ground for some price. There will haves, and have-nots. There will be herders, and there will be sheep. All estimtes I've read are that we have a future to look forward to that closely resembles Somalia today. I have a buddy who was a BBC war camera man for many years, no freelance, and he lived in Somalia for ten. So I know something about society there. JonO, in fact, was the mythic 5th journalist with the 4 who "lost their faces into the sand in front of them" after they were plucked off a tank at the beginning of the Afghan war. He had a picture in his Somalia diplomatic passport smoking a doob with General Aideed's arm around him and he skated. He was in Bangkok in March, 2002 desperately trying to get an Iraqi visa and simultaneously allegedly chasing OSB. These two American (John's a Brit) spook-looking thugs showed up at our guesthouse acting weird and with wierd questions, VanDerKlooster was sitting right there and will confirm this, and the next day JohnO has a bloody mark across his forehead where an American pistol hit him in the face as he was told he "better stop what he's doing.

No, what you interpret as "elightenment" is extreme apathy and a complete abandon of hope as well as being confident in my position, and nobody here is doing anything to curb that which really bothers me because it's forcing me to say a lot more about myself than I would like it. I WANT TO HEAR SOME SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE. I want somebody to tell me how you are going to convert $4 trillion in petroleum infrastructure to hydrogen; diffusion problems and where the hydrogen is going to come from aside. I want somebody to show me the numbers on tidal energy or how we are going to magically pull methane hydrates out of the Gulf without releasing massive amounts in the the atmosphere befor we can burn it and do the same. I want someone to tell me how the dollar is going to be just fine,(http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=10323); (http://www.safehaven.com/article-3134.htm); gold markets aside (rememebr the early 80's silver crash??? I know a guy who was on a plane from Nepal to Hawaii with 8 friends humping 30 pounds each when the market when from $40's to $3, it's a great story of getting screwed) Okay, I'm a short guy and I don't like to take shlt from anybody. When trouble comes my way I step up and head it off at the pass, you can't imagine what it's like to be snatched out of the darkness and have your face pressed into the dirt by an AK. It changes they way you look at some things and the way you act about others. In my opinion, being a "liberal" is just having the ability to question your own opinion and I have spent years doing that. It took a few mortar rounds coming in an somebody getting executed for me to start really doing it, but it was right about that time I realized that I don't ever have to "do" or "be" anything in life. I don't have to "produce" anything (something like 90%? of American exports are currently intellectual property, and that isn't producing anything physical). And right about when I was being called a liar broadly and public I stopped giving a flying fvck about what the public thought about me. I became disgusted by commercializtion of the outdoors and my role in it, so I dropped it all in an instance. You all can climb and treat the rock however you want, I don't have to participate in it. What's wrong with that? If you really care to know more about what I think or why I am the way I am I'll ask Werner to fwd you the message I sent him, he seemed to think I have good intention regarding those who I care about. I entirely recognize how little I know, which is why I went far and wide asking people questions to get different answers rather than seek them from inside my own framework. It shattered my whole world.

Anyway, the only strategy is an immediate and gradual power down. the sooner it happens, the better it will be in the long run. Period. But c'mon, do you really think that's going to happen? Let me repeat again for Dick and George "the American way of life is not negotiable". Yesterday GWB told the danes that Kyoto would have "wrecked" the economy. He's right, growth is the only way forward in the capitalist book. The ONLY way. you'll note I'm not telling anybod how to live, them driving their Hummers eagerly with help precipitate the crash and we'll be better off in the end. I'm not bitching about the war, gosh, I'd sure hate to think my taxes were fueling the world's most expensive,powereful, and military force to sit on it's ass in Ft. Bragg. Really, who wants those tanks over here blasting depleted uranium all over the place? Do you think people are going to get POWERDOWN through there heads without people like me willing to raise their voice and play the as#@&%e?

Jim Kunstler does a good job, see his website http://www.kunstler.com/index.html or his book The Long Emergency.

I would suggest to everybody to read Matthew Simmons new book, Twilight in the Desert, it's a very important work and he is a firm Bush supporter and close energy advisor for those to whom it matters.

http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/research.aspx?Type=msspeeches
Degaine

climber
Jul 1, 2005 - 05:10pm PT
Thanks for the response, KDB. Nice post.
Khun Duen Baad

climber
Retirement
Jul 1, 2005 - 09:51pm PT
Degaine,

I think you might find this a relative commentary.

An exert:

Americans are at various stages of awareness and acceptance of our addiction. Viewed from afar, the range of public attitudes seems remarkably similar to the five stages of grief famously described by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, or acceptance.

http://peakoil.blogspot.com/2005/04/confronting-americas-addiction-to-oil.html
Karl Baba

Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
Jul 2, 2005 - 02:46am PT
The past few years have motivated me to do a lot of that "Hammock Research" that Singha mentioned. Politics had only been a peripheral bit of knowledge in my life before that. I don't have kids or a relentless job so I've had time to dig deep. I tried to keep an open mind and consider all the possibilities.

I'm sorry to say that, even as a positive person who is optimistic about almost everything, my investigations have led me to nearly conclude that civilization is at the brink of SERIOUS change due to oil depletion. The real question is the timing. Will it become critical in your lifetime or will it be the central issue in your kids lives when they are your age?

I say "nearly" conclude since we never have all the data and can never anticipate every turn of events. Jesus could save us, Aliens could land, Science might invent something new and save the day. Any of those three things might be equally likely or unlikely. Yabo fell free-soloing, he should have died, a tree caught him.

The fact that a miracle might occur is no reason to count on one, or justification to endulge in denial, but I've found that is exactly what folks are dying to do.

I've tried to have dialogs with many of my friends and partners about the ramifications of oil depletion. It has struck me how anxious folks are to skirt the issue, shoot the messenger, change the subject, anything but do their own research and become more educated about what will be a gigantic issue for humans sooner, or not much later.

It's natural. We have a lot to lose, and we don't want our kids to sacrifice either. We can't even face the certainty of our own death (whether there is an oil crisis or not, we're all toast before we live to be 120) and we don't want to face that our dreams might not come true the way we've planned. There is a lot of anger, resentment and denial on the subject of what we do about oil depletion.

As long as this is the case, humans will refuse to face the problem and the problem will be very much worse when it comes home to roost because of that denial. You might call me a doomsayer or conspiracy theorist, but until you've run the numbers and analysed the situation, you're just trying to make yourself feel better without knowing corresponding evidence to the contrary. I'd love to hear it. I have no investment in things going poorly. I love my life more than anyone I know and I'll hate to see things change.

The problem is, there are no good forseeable solutions to this problem that allow civilization to grow and consume as it has. Society will run short on energy and the consequences will become extreme over an unknown period of time. Solutions come in bits and pieces. A little biodiesel, a little solar, a little wind, a lot of powerdown, and unfortunately, a probably resurgence of drilling everywhere (offshore, in Yellowstone and the Artic, no holds barred) and nuclear.

There will be positive aspects as we forget petty concerns like Brittany Spears and fashion, quit seeking senseless luxuries and fads, and come together as community members and families. Compassion and spirituality may be easier to come by as the veneer of our vanity is stripped away. I've hung out with people living in mud huts eating rice that are as happy as millionaires or maybe more happy than most. Maybe some of that wisdom will come with hard times. Some folks will be angry and go wild. Much of current "anti-terrorism" posturing has the ulterior motivation of being set to control an angry domestic population.

Nothing can change until we acknowledge the problem. Unfortunately, acknowledging the problem on a large enough scale would crash financial markets and create a serious immediate economic problem that might make solutions even more difficult to finance. I suggest that you find out for yourself if this oil depletion issue is real, and if you find it to be true, try to inform your immediate community so they can make choices that make life more sustainable when energy gets pinched, rather than harder. Don't replace your fireplace with a gas insert.

If we don't gradually (although quickly would be better) develop grassroots awareness of the problem, and begin stitching together piecemeal local solutions, it won't matter if you made your own personal preparations for adversity. Would you really sit there and get fat while the neighbors went hungry? Don't lose your soul trying to save your life.

Anyway, there's no magic wand to make our problem go away. You can add oil depIetion to death and taxes as unavoidable and unwelcome events. Let's say I told you that we're all going to die sooner or later. Awareness of our inevitable death might help us frame our priorities when we face our mortality. You could say "Why aren't you giving me solutions!!??" I don't have them and nobody ever has had them (if you think the only solution that's valid would be a way to avoid death.) I could only suggest ways to make the best out of life.

So try to fight the urge to write off the warning about this danger with some kind of anger or denial. I know you're all busy, but take a look at this issue and decide if it's going to touch you or not. Then at least, we can search for solutions together and try to help each other if times get hard.

Peace

Karl
Khun Duen Baad

climber
Retirement
Jul 2, 2005 - 03:26pm PT
This thread is starting to give me headache, but I couldn't resist this one.

DETROIT - General Motors Corp.'s sales soared 41 percent in June to their highest monthly total in nearly 19 years thanks to a heavily promoted discount that allowed customers to buy cars and trucks at the employee rate, new sales figures showed Friday.

In response, DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group said it will match GM starting July 6 with an employee discount program of its own. Despite falling sales, Ford Motor Co. declined to match GM on Friday.

Asian brands also continued their surge last month. Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. all posted their best June sales periods ever in the United States, while South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co. said June was its best single month on record.


Hmmmmm, so I wonder what they are going to do when they run into a major cash crunch next year??? Golly, Beaver, what do you think would happen to the economy if American auto-makers starting going down like dominoes?

Karma's a bitch.
___
In 1922, most Americans relied on the efficient trolley networks that crisscrossed the cities. Only one in 10 Americans owned an automobile. General Motors (GM) president Alfred Sloan recognized a huge marketing opportunity in the remaining nine. Under his auspices GM spearheaded a plan to systematically eviscerate the nation's street car companies, replacing them with bus lines that would eventually make way for the ever growing number of private cars. Over the next 30 years, thanks to the automotive industry's energetic public relations campaign, motorization became synonymous with modernization. The great American love affair with the automobile was off and running. GM's infamous slogan: "What's good for General Motors is good for America."

Starting in the 1920's, General Motors executives-- placing their profit motives ahead of the public interest --masterminded the purchase and destruction of the nation's trolley companies [over 200 of them]. Tracks were taken up, destroying a mass transit infrastructure that would cost billions to replace. Trolley cars were torched and replaced with GM-manufactured diesel-fueled buses. Some citizens fought to keep their streetcar systems, but to no avail. The citizens of Los Angeles, for example, wanted to keep their beloved yellowcar trolleys, but before long the GM-controlled trolley company had switched to buses, dramatically increasing pollution in Los Angeles. By 1946, National City Lines, a bus company funded andcontrolled by GM, Standard Oil, and the Firestone tire company,operated public transit in over 80 cities. The ascendancy of thecar was soon to follow. "This is the American dream of freedom on wheels!" crows a GM pitchman in a post-war automobile film showing masses of cars streaming through a Byzantine cloverleaf intersecion. "An automotive age, traveling on time-saving superhighways."

In the 1950's, with a virtually unlimited war chest, the U.S. highway lobby was by far the most influential pressure group in Washington D.C. In 1953, GM president Charles Wilson became Secretaryof Defense, and used his position to push for interstate highwaysas a vital part of national security. That same year, Francis DuPont, whose familywas the largest GM shareholder, was appointed Federal Highway Administrator. At DuPont's urging, President Eisenhower began construction on the then $50 billion Interstate Highway system. The proposed highways, opponents argued, would bisect existing communities, slicing them to shreds. Pollution caused by the influx of cars would wreak havoc on the air quality in the surrounding neighborhoods. All over the country, people fought back against the interstates. They stopped 17 urban freeways across the nation, but most were built as planned. "It's not our government," one activist said sadly. "It doesn't belong to us because we haven't paid enough for it. The people who own the government have bought and paid for it." Today, more people drive cars in Los Angeles than anywhere else in the United States. The streetcar system that once operated so efficiently there has been reduced to a painfully inadequate bus service used mostly by the working poor. Across the country, the death of effective mass transit has drained the life out o furban centers as downtowns have become modern ghost towns.
_
Karl Baba

Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
Jul 2, 2005 - 05:19pm PT
Matt is resting up to take over in Round 2 when Singer and I get tired to replying to your long winded conservative diatribes.

Fatty and Dr. Dean = bandwidth hogs







Ok, maybe not.
Ouch!

climber
Jul 2, 2005 - 06:52pm PT
You can't deal with these neocon wackos. When cornered, they invariably resort to their fallback position...Jaaysus.

They have a mandate from Jaysus to whup up on all them p'nogafers, aborshunists, pointyhead intelleckchewals, seckuler hoomanusts, and city slickers who don't copulate with mules.

They are waiting on the rapture. In many cases, the rapture is their sister or first cousin, when she buds out. If'n it ain't the rapture, it's the rupture...when the dang mule kicks.
Ouch!

climber
Jul 2, 2005 - 07:21pm PT
These neocons that flock to the Holy Land imagine themselves as Jews with a special dispensation to consume great quantities of chitlins, hog jowls, and Kosher hams.
Turbin Durbin

Social climber
A better place than Gitmo
Jul 2, 2005 - 09:54pm PT
How about posting some of your own thoughts instead of just rehashing all that jibberish?
Ouch!

climber
Jul 2, 2005 - 10:17pm PT
I prefer facts to thoughts. Thoughts can be the product of the diseased neocon mind. Facts speak for themselves. You a rapture man?
WBraun

climber
Jul 2, 2005 - 11:22pm PT
Keep em coming Khun, I've learned a lot from your posts and they are very interesting. That last one about GM and the trolleys I've never ever heard about.

Thanks ......
TGT

Social climber
So Cal
Jul 2, 2005 - 11:42pm PT
Here's an easily reproducible experiment.

Pick up a copy of the Koran, (about $3.50 in paperback)

Randomly open it and read three pages.

Do that six times.

If you still believe that Islam is the "religion of peace" then you are justified in believing anyting else Khun what's his face claims.
Matt

Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
Jul 3, 2005 - 12:24am PT
'sup kids

been out in the gunks all week (fatty, that's where some people actually climb, not that you will know what i am talking about)...

just buggy and muggy, that's the whole TR.



KDB-
lemme let you in on something pal, yer not gonna get a reasonable answer around here. the closest it comes is a well spoken but misguided diatribe like the one that started this thread off. more often than not, you can simply expect regurgitated rhetoric and unexplored, unexpanded, undefendable statements and claims, often delivered w/ an all too familiar dismissive conviction (one that i personally think is fostered by the MSM, and which conditions its patrons to proclaim and repeat, rather than discuss and consider, but that is another subject).

lois-
the one thing i get from you in that 1st post is that you "feel safer" w/ gW than you would have w/ mr. sensitive" in charge.

here's the thing baby, no iraqis have ever attacked you, but OSB and his one good kidney are running around free, and he's still playing his own dominos and sitting in his own hammock, and it's likely that he's discussing and considering (rather than proclaiming and repeating) new ways to change the globe toward one of his own liking. as far as him being tough, squashing the enemy, and making you "safe", OBLs probably not short on recruits these days neither. think your guy's little experiment in iraqi democracy is gonna make you safe? what a lark! they went in on the cheap and (just like fatty) had no idea what they were getting into.

say, as an aside, and speaking of OBL, maybe the US army ought to bring him in as a consultant? sems he knows how to fire up the nobodies and the po'folk when it's time to die for the cause? (73 virgins waiting in heaven? why didn't we think of that 1st? that's just pure genious! how about just 45 virgins or so, plus an infinate supply of viagra? all for just one weekend a month and 2 weeks a year...)

back to that war stuff, whatever it was that we started in afganistan is still largely undone, incomplete, and unsustainable politically w/out our continued military presence, and if the last 100 years(+/-) of our country's history in the affairs of foregin countries is any indicator, the local folks there can expect to continue to be put through the ringer on behalf of our major industries and their economic priorities.

further, despite whatever you think can be gleaned from your quaint summary of the various historical trends and leanings of the 2 major poitical parties, your government is not getting any smaller, my friend, and it ain't bill clinton's fault neither, so if people like you were actually paying any attention to the state of things in this country (rather than what you repeatedly hear your favorite tv commentators repeating about the state of things in this country), it seems like ya'll'd be gettin kinda peev'd too.

curious, that.



additionally, lost in the fairly rational discusion above (if a ST thread can ever be described as such, and largely cause the new guy is less jaded than the rest of us and has mad pasting skills) is the disturbing fact that the fairly small but remarkably well organized evangelical-christian right-wingers currently hold a tremendous amount of sway in the republican party. these people seriously believe that the world is coming to an end, and sometime soon, so there is no point in protecting anything. they see the war in iraq as a religious crusade, an ultimate clash of good vs. evil, one of holy warriors vs. infidels (which does not exactly mesh w/ joy over purple pinkies).

before you move on and forget about that little group and their priorities, make a conceptual salad of the peak oil scenarios, including the pending collapse of the global economy, and the ever accelerating transfer of wealth in this country to the top 1% of americans. sweet. if you were filthy rich and were afraid everything was going to go to hell, what would you want to do? get as filthy rich as you could as fast as you could and aboliish the inheritance tax? that'd be a start.

and judy wrote-
"You are wrong again. A majortiy of the muslim world that dislikes the US is because of our support for Israel, check their maps and discover that Israel does not exsist. This is a clash of religions and civilizations, not much different than the crusades, I know this is a difficult concept to accept, that someone would dilike you just because of your beliefs, but this is the reality."

regurgitation of the original claim that "they attacked us because they hate fredom, they hate our way of life".

seriously?
please, can't you se osama, sittin there in his hammock, playing his dominos, saying, "those damn americans are just way too damn free! i really hate their way of life, i've just about had it, listen, i have this idea..."

in case you weren't paying too close attention above, you were just exposed as having no clue what the funck you are talking about WRT anything outside your own walnut creek neighborhood, your luxory automobile(s), and your office park, 'cause you have never ever seriously considered anything that you were not forced to consider, and you have rarely (if ever) been forced to consider any situation where you were not fundamentally in charge or in some way morally superior to whomever it was that you were interacting with.

(KDB- fattyguy is/was a cop too)



as for the israel question, perhaps that was always the lynchpin for hatred of the US among the arabs or the muslims (or whomever it's popular to feel threatened by these days), but the abu grhaib(sp?) photos (the worst of which are yet to come) and the wreckless disregard for the sanctity of human (non-american) life that we have both demonstrated and allowed the world to exagerate will long be remembered and refrenced by those who seek to harm us in the future.

(and lois- this goes back to your misguided sense of security) we are playing army in the sandbox in a place where grudges are held for generations, for centuries upon centuries, and where bloody religious conflicts have persisted for eons. you want your revenge for 9/11 and then you want to go watch a nascar race or shop jcrew online, but you don't have the stomach for the fight unless it's fought in someone else's backyard! you simply cannot conceive of a full scale millitary conflict in your own neighborhood, none of us can, and that is primarily because it hasn't happened here since the civil war.

speaking of civil war, back to israel- bill clinton put an intense amount of energy toward seeking a resolution to those issues, and gW, almost as if he wanted to prevent that from being a clinton legacy, ignored the conflict and was basicly forced into this "roadmap" approach by his own persuit of the war in iraq ("they" said he'd better play ball if he was going to pretend to have an interest in the well being of anyone in the arab world, i still recall the day he 1st announcd it as some sort of an aside after more pre-war rhetoric spew about those mythical WMDs and whatnot).




here's one for judy herself (no doubt lurking?)

jesus was a liberal, and you could tell because he was interested in helping people, providing for them all, and making their lives better. any christian who cares less about people, all people, than he did, is an insult to his memory and his legacy.

don't you agree?
Khun Duen Baad

climber
Retirement
Jul 3, 2005 - 12:46am PT
[2.11] And when it is said to them, Do not make mischief in the land, they say: We are but peace-makers.
[2.12] Now surely they themselves are the mischief makers, but they do not perceive.
[2.13] And when it is said to them: Believe as the people believe they say: Shall we believe as the fools believe? Now surely they themselves are the fools, but they do not know.
[2.14] And when they meet those who believe, they say: We believe; and when they are alone with their Shaitans, they say: Surely we are with you, we were only mocking.
[2.15] Allah shall pay them back their mockery, and He leaves them alone in their inordinacy, blindly wandering on.
[2.16] These are they who buy error for the right direction, so their bargain shall bring no gain, nor are they the followers of the right direction.
[2.17] Their parable is like the parable of one who kindled a fire but when it had illumined all around him, Allah took away their light, and left them in utter darkness-- they do not see.
[2.18] Deaf, dumb (and) blind, so they will not turn back.
[2.19] Or like abundant rain from the cloud in which is utter darkness and thunder and lightning; they put their fingers into their ears because of the thunder peal, for fear of death, and Allah encompasses the unbelievers.

Here's the first page I opened to. I won't bother quoting some of the Beowulf-like passages from the Bible because we all know they are there and I'm entirely uninterested in religious debate; I don't condone any organized religion. Having been raised athiest I can't wrap my head around the idea of a God. My point was simply that I've never been treated as consistently well in any culture anywhere.

Degaine, here is a Dutch report outling 4 scenarios for the future, some of them positive, and you can decide for yourself which ones are plausible.

http://www.ecn.nl/docs/library/report/2005/c05057.pdf

Similarly:
Former Officials Fail to Prevent Recession in Mock Energy Crisis
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/23/AR2005062301896.html

Jesus was a dirty hippie and probably a closet homosexual.
Karl Baba

Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
Jul 3, 2005 - 11:13am PT
Khun Baad wrote "Jesus was a dirty hippie and probably a closet homosexual."

Hippie...Hard to deny that

Dirty...Unlikely, Jews bathed before worship

Gay...This kind of speculation does more harm than good (shock value) in my opinion

The art of communicating depends on keeping everybody's ears open and taking them from what they know to what they need to know. Why toss out something inflamatory about Jesus that's bound to alienate both followers of Christianity and Islam? (where Jesus is also a key prophet destined to save the world in the end)

We'd be better off encouraging more fundamentalist Christians to follow Jesus' teachings of love, tolerance, and embracing enemies, than we would be by throwing troll genades at him. Too bad because I appreciate your contributions very much.

I think we ought to start a separate thread on Peak Oil. This one kills me to load on dial-up because of all the "Babe" that folks are using to prove their political philosophy

Peace

Karl
Khun Duen Baad

climber
Retirement
Jul 3, 2005 - 01:14pm PT
I was being entirely facetious and inciteful, Karl. They're all just stories to me and I've never read most of them. One of the reasons I do it is because I believe that for one to be offended by another's comment you have to choose to take offense (Itry not to myself but sometimes it happens). I was trolling for some defensive Christians (and people who don't realize how deeply the Christian thing is bred into them-same as nationalism), for you I promise not to do it anymore.

Oh, and if you didn't realize, I'm not trying to make any friends in America for two reasons: guns and Jesus. They are just not people I want to deal with in the kinds of scenarios we are talking about.
TGT

Social climber
So Cal
Jul 4, 2005 - 12:56am PT
I worked for the company that employed all of the building engineers, electricians, elevator mechanics, and janitors that worked and died in the WTC in a high level management position and left only months before 9/11. If it was an inside job and a controlled demolition the number of people involved could not have been kept secret from us. And there's no way in that companies culture it could have been kept a secret.

The crackpot theories on the Pentagon and Pensylvania crashes are easily disproven with only a modicum of knowledge of high school physics.

You should ask yourself, what drives you to have such a desire to believe that your own nation, (and by extension yourself) are so evil that you have to stand physics and common sense on its head to entertain such theories.

Ouch!

climber
Jul 4, 2005 - 01:04am PT
TGT, they know their dimwitted leader does not believe in science and probably vacillates between the Bible and a Ouija board. They are just following his example and lost in the bush.
Turbin Durbin

Social climber
A better place than Gitmo
Jul 4, 2005 - 07:46pm PT
Dude, you give liberals a bad name.
How embarrased they must be!
Ouch!

climber
Jul 4, 2005 - 08:02pm PT
Yo Weird! If you are so gungho, how come you aren't in Iraq, leading your chickenhawk buddies on a charge thru the camel dung and sand fleas? Waving Confederate flags and shouting, "Hallelujah! Hold that Dromedary. It's my turn!"

BTW, Cool picture of you that RokJox posted in that other thread. How does it feel to pee by braille?
Ouch!

climber
Jul 4, 2005 - 09:03pm PT
Hit a nerve, eh weird. You can always tell when you cut thru the facade of chickenhawk bravado. It gets pissed off and loses it's cool.

Answer the question. Why are you not in Iraq, putting your ass where your mouth is?
WBraun

climber
Jul 4, 2005 - 09:11pm PT
Ha ha ha ha ha ha LoL old Ouch! got your ass Howweird ….and in real life Howey, ... he’d also kick your ass.
WBraun

climber
Jul 4, 2005 - 09:28pm PT
Yep, he's tough as nails ......
WBraun

climber
Jul 4, 2005 - 10:08pm PT
Now Howey, there are some people who’ve worked the land with their hands and feet. They’ll get right down and do what it takes to get their job done. They’ve put their whole life, body and soul into it, blood sweat and tears.

Then there are the so called intellectual wizards who spout all kinds of so called learned knowledge, and can’t even drive a simple nail straight. They’re the real worthless fu-ckers in my book!

Try real hard not to become one of those “so called intellectual wizards”.
Ouch!

climber
Jul 4, 2005 - 10:08pm PT
"Because I am not in the military, moron."

Lame excuse. Bush is always looking for a few good men. Lately,
it seems, he is so desperate, he might even take you. Now boy, you just get off your couch and get down to the recruiting office. Make your fearless leader proud. You surely have some usable skills besides putting your foot in your mouth.

Funny how those who crow loudest are those furthest from the fray. Chickenhawks? Naw. Tweetiebirds.
Minerals

Social climber
The Deli
Jul 4, 2005 - 10:16pm PT
Why go to Iraq when you can push a button?
Ouch!

climber
Jul 4, 2005 - 10:27pm PT
If you ask me, a patriot is someone who loves his country and shows it in the way he lives in his community. Not by braying like a jackass and letting his alligator mouth overload his hummingbird committment. He is also not averse to speaking out when he sees his beloved country leaping headlong toward the abyss.

Yep, Weird. Go join up. Get that haircut. Learn to clean latrines and shoot guns. Maybe you can learn to love the warrior and hate the war your fearless chickenhawk leaders have blundered us into.
Khun Duen Baad

climber
Retirement
Jul 4, 2005 - 10:33pm PT
"And do not turn your face away from people in contempt, nor go about in the land exulting overmuch; surely Allah does not love any self-conceited boaster;

"And be moderate in thy pace, and lower thy voice; for the harshest of sounds without doubt is the braying of the ass."
MikeL

Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
Jul 5, 2005 - 12:25pm PT
People have been throwing around the terms “liberal” and “conservative” freely (and hard) around here. Here’s what a little research on liberalism and conservatism told me.

A liberal is a man who believes in liberty. Initially for the English, liberty meant freedom from constraints of the state, especially from executive government. A new school of liberalism, utilitarianism, came along that meant the state would free men from misery and ignorance. This, however, created a paradox: liberalism (i) urged freedom from constraints of the state, and it (ii) urged an enlargement of the state’s power to liberate the poor from poverty. The French had the right (royalism and conservatism), the left (socialism, anarchism, communism), and the center (liberalism). In our country, American liberalism—at first a moniker for socialism--came to stand for an idea of human perfectibility, one that looks forward to an egalitarian democracy, where the state functions as a servant to the common well-being. German liberalism, well it was . . . different: it stood for a nationalistic idea that true freedom was to be found in obedience to a morally perfected state (see, Bismark and Hitler).

A conservative, on the other hand, has a love of the familiar. He exhibits a preference for what has grown up over a long time rather than what is created deliberately or quickly. Reacting to a rationalist notion that man can control human life, conservatives are hostile to strong social change by the state to achieve rights or utopias. They believe in the wisdom of humanity slowly changing to fit shifting situations, rather than the brilliance of a few men to engineer effective change. Why? Conservatives think human affairs are very complicated and unpredictable. Conservatives doubt that science or government has the ability to solve man’s problems (which lie in his very nature). If improvements in men’s ways are to be realized at all, they will come from elevating man’s moral behaviors (hence, the religion connection). Conservatives can exhibit great love for individual men yet detest man.

As for political postings . . . , I ask you to think for a moment what you’re writing. Are you referring to these meanings above, or are you expressing yourself about a particular politician or two?

If it’s the former, then your statements concern broad political ideologies. Try not to include specific individuals in your writing. Why? Because no single person or instance constitutes a category or a label. Instead, talk about what’s right or wrong with the political ideology.

On the other hand, if you are expressing yourself about a particular politician or two, then your statements are actually personal. Try not to throw the labels “liberal” or “conservative” around indiscriminately. Talk about the individual without casting a net over everyone else who might consider him or herself a liberal or conservative—people you’ve not even met or mentioned (like maybe the rest of us).

Last, if you mean neither and you’re just talking about specific individuals and labels in the same breadth, then you’re confused. When you’re confused and you express yourself, you cause confusion in other people.

It gets to be a vicious cycle after a few postings. It breeds insanity and chaos.

ml
Matt

Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
Jul 6, 2005 - 12:59pm PT
judy-
judy, fatty, fratguy, doesn't much matter what i call you now, does it? you oughta have known i was talking to you, ya fat bi-atch...


hey judy, when you slouch in your EZ chair, can you place a beer on top of that belly and let it sit? thought so.
dirtbag

climber
Jul 6, 2005 - 02:37pm PT

Matt

Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
Jul 6, 2005 - 02:53pm PT
a preview of things to come for the fatguy(?):

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2101713
dirtbag

climber
Jul 6, 2005 - 06:39pm PT
Pounds, or tons?
Matt

Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
Jul 7, 2005 - 01:15am PT
truth of the matter is that you phat phukers just can't keep the phounds off, so keep on yer crash course atkins/zone diet and fool yerself into thinking that you'll be a brand new you, but the same things that got you to 315 will just take yer soulless, heartless, greedy, right wing, kentucky fried chicken eating republican arse right back to 320 before you can say "on belay"...
Matt

Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
Jul 7, 2005 - 01:47pm PT
at 270 you won't be able to approach anything worth climbing (Xept maybe something at mission cliffs?)


pretty funny to consider just how much of the toyal mass of your physical person is just simply FAT!

you are probably carrying around something like 100 lbs. of that stuff! EWWW...

when someone of your *size* looses a few dozen pounds, does your skin get all loose and hang in big gooey folds?

are you gonna have to see a plastic surgeon to get that stuff hanging off of the back of your triceps cut off? (if you hold your arm straight out in front of you, relaxed, and push on that flab, how long does it swing back and forth?)

btw- did you already have a gastric bypass?
Matt

Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
Jul 7, 2005 - 01:49pm PT
at 270 you won't be able to approach anything worth climbing (Xept maybe something at mission cliffs?)


pretty funny to consider just how much of the total mass of your physical person is just simply FAT!

you are probably carrying around something like 100 lbs. of that stuff! EWWW...

when someone of your *size* looses a few dozen pounds, does your skin get all loose and hang in big gooey folds? (and on a warm day, do you get all sweaty inside thode folds? to how many places on your body do you apply anti-perspirant?)

are you gonna have to see a plastic surgeon to get that stuff hanging off of the back of your triceps cut off? (if you hold your arm straight out in front of you, relaxed, and push on that flab, how long does it swing back and forth?)

btw- did you already have a gastric bypass?
Khun Duen Baad

climber
Retirement
Jul 7, 2005 - 01:52pm PT
My dad could beat up your dad.
Degaine

climber
Jul 7, 2005 - 02:16pm PT
fattrad, at that weight, I think Matt has you beat on any route even slightly overhangning.

However, beware Matt, I have seen more than one fellow with a beer belly large enough to hide his feet walk up hard slab like it was a staircase.
Matt

Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
Jul 7, 2005 - 04:43pm PT
let's go pal



just the EBs and a chalk bag, that's all you'll need to bring
Matt

Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
Jul 7, 2005 - 05:10pm PT
the sound of silence
Ouch!

climber
Jul 7, 2005 - 05:13pm PT
"the sound of silence"

That would be Bush's brain.
Matt

Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
Jul 7, 2005 - 07:49pm PT
bump




big talk?




from a chickenhawk?




who-da thunk it.










one thing is for sure, bet the guy could keep up w/ me at the pizza deck!
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