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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Feb 14, 2011 - 05:08pm PT
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Glad that's straightened out! Wait, what?
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BrianH
Trad climber
santa fe
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Feb 14, 2011 - 05:53pm PT
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Neither she nor I will ever buy into your dreams of a socialist world.
Too late!
Drank any tap water lately?
Used any electricity lately?
How about that telecom network, post anything lately?
[s]ocialism (small 's' socialism) already exists in America and it's made us all richer!
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Feb 14, 2011 - 06:00pm PT
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Brian,
Are you saying every country that has electricity, telephones, and running water ia a socialist country?
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Feb 14, 2011 - 06:07pm PT
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Erik, last night I talked to my brother and his 1d yr old daughter on the phone, she is not all that verbal, in english or in Chinese, but when I made the Roadrunner sound she immediatlly responded with "Meep Meep"!
is that a lot, Dr F?
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Feb 14, 2011 - 11:03pm PT
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Frirz saidL Fattrad: As a "liberal, treehugger, Pagan." I need to say! You are a lot of fun! Thank you for your good-natured humor!
You right-wing dog!
Substitute mostly libertarian in there with a hint of social liberal and fiscal conservative and I'm down with that sediment. Your consistant good humor and easy going manner, never seeming to get ruffled at the many insults tossed your way is nothing short of inspiring Jeff. Thank you!
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Feb 15, 2011 - 09:56am PT
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LEB would be downright beautiful if she'd lose a few pounds. she should consider the out-west climbing lifestyle. probably too late in life, however.
mister E, since you're a newcomer to the southern california scene, you can almost be forgiven that remark directed against dr. F.
almost.
i ran your trip report search for largo, coz and looking sketchy there, and i don't find them piling up move-by-move accounts of established routes on here either, which seems to be the bulk of trip reporting on ST. why is that so uninteresting?
i'm delighted to be able to post in discussions with dr. F daily. i owe him a huge load of gratitude from myself and a lot of friends for providing that key southern california bouldering guide at a time when that aspect of our sport first took off. it made horse flat regulars out of many of us.
i had the good fortune to run into jim bridwell and his friend phil burscheff (sp?) at the pit the other day. it proved to be a real generational connection, all three of us children of the 60s, and sort of a bird-meets-bird thing. jim spent a portion of the time holding forth to admiring young climbers around the campfire (40-below atop the moose's tooth and what not), but his real passion, as with so many of us, is philosophy, politics, religion. jim has an interesting take on this: the world will not be at peace until it hammers out one language and one religion. perhaps we have the beginnings of that here.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Feb 15, 2011 - 10:08am PT
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How was Phil doing?
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Feb 15, 2011 - 10:29am PT
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phil was in great form. we had an additional connection, since he studied stone work close to my mother's home town in italy. he showed me his portfolio, and i immediately recognized the dance floor at mill creek station--an imaginative and masterful use of scrap materials. phil also did the semper farcissimus sculpture at the warren harding monument there. and his ladies in marble are to fall in love with.
we really got going, however, talking about 60s musicians. like myself, phil is a particular fan of the music of richard and mimi fariņa, and we started scrounging our memory banks for the lyrics to "pack up your sorrows". then phil pulled out his appalachian dulcimer and started charming everyone with his particular style (he changes the tuning every once in awhile experimentally). jim said he's known phil since he was in high school, and it was the first time he encountered the musical side of him. here's to serendip.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Feb 15, 2011 - 11:10am PT
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Glad to hear it! saw some of the stone work he did at Em's last summer, wow!
Never had the "been down so long..." talk with him. I'll have to remember that.
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Brandon-
climber
Done With Tobacco
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Feb 15, 2011 - 11:42am PT
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Who's LEB?
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Feb 15, 2011 - 03:45pm PT
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nice of you to post that, gran. can we have one of yourself now, for comparison? that would be fair--oops, forgot, i'm dealing with graniteclimber.
i've never understood the LEB-bashing on here, but i've only been posting for about a year. my only gripe with her has been her very sudden debunking of her own ghost cat. kinda makes one question her judgment about it in the first place. as far as her presence on supertopo goes, it's the second time she's made a big deal about "leaving" within the past year. sheesh.
darwin had a bulldog named huxley, gran--is that your new job? i hope LEB pays you better than all the boys down at the bohemian club.
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Captain...or Skully
climber
The Seas of Stone.
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Feb 15, 2011 - 03:56pm PT
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Yeah, well I'll just keep my torch & pitchfork handy then.
;-)
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BrianH
Trad climber
santa fe
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Feb 15, 2011 - 04:42pm PT
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Are you saying every country that has electricity, telephones, and running water ia a socialist country?
No. I'm just saying that the way America, (and most other countries for that matter) managed to make a climate attractive to the huge amounts of capital necessary for the construction of these networks was to guarantee a certain rate of return on investment, to grant a monopoly territory and regulate the business in the public interest. That degree of state involvement in economic activity smacks to me of "socialism." (Now I'm a-skeered!).
It's a mixed bag though. Many cities own and operate their own water system, some municipalities own their own electricy generation and distribution, and it is rare for a municipality (but not unheard of) to own and operate a telecommunications network.
My main point was simply that socialistic approaches to certain problems, in this case the "natural monopoly that some capital intensive industries are prone to; is a viable approach for some problems.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Feb 15, 2011 - 05:00pm PT
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Brian, thank you for your excellent definition of government "granted" socialism.
Socialism is officially defined as state ownership of the means of production.
Socialism as a word has gotten a pretty bad rap lately.
Socialism as used negatively today in America conjures up fears of 1930s Europe Communism, with the analogy being we are all going to work on government owned farms.
In this country recently, our Federal government took a large ownership position in GM
when we loan GM some 60 billion dollars in a brave effort to save over one million
auto industry jobs, and of course also save from extinction our domestic auto production.
This "gamble" has paid off handsomely. The new GM emerged from bankruptcy strong and lightened of debt, and has had a very successful stock IPO, paying us taxpayers
back over 40 billion, with interest on our loan.
GM is doing great, highly profitable once again, and all those jobs were truly saved.
Is THIS an example of successful Federal government "socialism?
I believe so.
Other than the above example, I don't know of any other recent acts of socialism,
as defined by government seeking to own the means of production.
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BrianH
Trad climber
santa fe
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Feb 15, 2011 - 05:33pm PT
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I said "small s" socialism because technically, with most utilities, they are still privately owned. They are just heavily regulated by government.
But over all you're right, "socialism" has been turned into a scary label by our friends at Faux News. By imbuing the concept with so much negative emotion, they've made any sort of real debate virtually impossible.
"Render unto to Caesar.." as the Good Book says, but we might also productively ask what is properly in the domain of government and what is properly in the domain of the private sector? If we could answer that question pragmatically and without ideological blinders, Faux News would be a lot less entertaining.
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Feb 15, 2011 - 10:40pm PT
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
The Illuminati -- S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Division
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 22, 2011 - 04:13pm PT
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Rox, yes, there is a point.
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