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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Nov 15, 2008 - 04:31pm PT
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Looks 5.56 to me,..
6.5???
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Nov 15, 2008 - 04:48pm PT
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As for collateral damage, and Obama criticizing airstrikes, Petraeus essentially said the same thing. While it is occasionally unavoidable, it is something you want to reduce if you want to win a counter-insurgency type conflict.
Things got better in Iraq cause of more boots on the ground and working with the populace, not because we increased the number of air raids.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Nov 15, 2008 - 05:06pm PT
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Things got better in Iraq cause of more boots on the ground and working with the populace, not because we increased the number of air raids.
Gaaaahhh@@!11!! The surge worked!!!!
Now, if we can just get the Euro chaps to contribute more in the allied Nato response in Asscrapistan, we may be done in that perimeter for a while.
Of course, they won't and we'll be sending Marines from Iraq to ACS (AssCrapiStan) to finally end the sh#t there.
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abo
Boulder climber
rural
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Nov 15, 2008 - 05:15pm PT
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Obama thinks that the Constitution is flawed because it's a charter of "negative rights". (Limits the government, empowers the people.) The second ammendment certainly fits that definition. I wonder if his Civilian National Security Force will be armed- and what function it will perform.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Nov 15, 2008 - 08:40pm PT
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Bluey, I don't know that I'd say so much that the surge worked, but that things are better in Iraq. The "surge" as defined by more troops, was only one of a number of pieces that helped, and I'm not sure if it was even the biggest. Keys:
1. More troops
2. Changes in tactics, most importantly soldiers out among the populace
3. Sunni Awakening - the tribes are fighting Al Qaeda not us
4. Shiites, particulary Medhi Army, decide to take a break, and try a bit of politics
Some of these things will work in Afghanistan, some not. It will be a much harder country to make progress in. Tribalism is an even bigger deal there. Foreign powers have been going in to Afghanistan to die for at least 500 years.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Nov 15, 2008 - 08:43pm PT
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As for questionnaires/litmus tests. Questionnaires are going to be a fact of life. It's so easy these days to dig up dirt, that everyone is just going to get more and more careful. And litmus tests are nothing new. Bet a six-pack of SNP that everyone on Cheney's staff is an NRA member.
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johnboy
Trad climber
Can't get here from there
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Nov 15, 2008 - 09:33pm PT
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"High,
Can you please be more specific about which "entire families" Amercians killed in the MiddleEast. I am assuming you must be referring collateral damage because as far as I know there is no such direct action. "
LEB, you ask right a way for someone else to offer up validation to their claim. But when someone asks you for substance on your sixth sense of Obama's agenda, you can only offer up your uncanny ability to read between the lines.
"Already, he is considering (we think) Hilary for the role of Secretary of State. Not much "change" in that is there although I think Senator Clinton just might do a good job there.
Seriously, you don't think Hillary is a change, seriously
So, she's just the new white Rice??
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Nov 15, 2008 - 11:29pm PT
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Surge was mostly lucky timing. With many thousands of deaths already and with million having already fled their homes, the tension for sectarian violence had to diminish.
If those millions of people returned home, there would be a fresh round of killing.
Peace
karl
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Nov 16, 2008 - 10:57am PT
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interesting perspective from mark steyn:
"Before we close the book on this election season, let me quote one of the most dispiriting asides on the subject. Daniel Craig, the star of the new James Bond movie The Audacity Of Solace – no, wait, A Quantum Of Hope - was being interviewed by Kevin Sessums for Parade (that supplement thingie that’s free in all the local newspapers), and as a final question was asked which of the two candidates would make the better 007:
Craig doesn’t hesitate. ‘Obama would be the better Bond because—if he’s true to his word—he’d be willing to quite literally look the enemy in the eye and go toe-to-toe with them. McCain, because of his long service and experience, would probably be a better M,’ he adds, mentioning Bond’s boss, played by Dame Judi Dench. ‘There is, come to think of it, a kind of Judi Dench quality to McCain.’
Oh, great. John McCain has survived plane crashes, just like Roger Moore in Octopussy. He has escaped death in shipboard infernos, just like Sean Connery in Thunderball. He has endured torture day after day, month after month, without end, just like Pierce Brosnan in the title sequence of Die Another Day. He has done everything 007 has done except get lowered into a shark tank and (as far as we know) bed Britt Ekland and Jill St John.
And yet Daniel Craig gives him the desk job.
On the other hand, Barack Obama has spent his entire adult life chit-chatting with “community organizers” and campus lefties – and he’s the last action hero? It’s true he’s offered “to quite literally look the enemy in the eye” without preconditions. But, given that he looked the Reverend Jeremiah Wright in the eye for 20 years and failed to notice he was an ugly neo-segregationist race-baiter peddling insane conspiracy theories, and that he looked William Ayers in the eye for almost as long and failed to notice he was an unrepentant terrorist, and that he looked Tony Rezko in the eye for an extremely beneficial real estate deal and failed to notice he was already being mentioned in the Chicago papers for various unsavory activities, I’m not sure Senator Obama is the go-to guy for in-the-field intelligence work.
As for his plan to fly to Tehran to “go toe-to-toe” with President Ahmadinejad, one can’t but feel that 007’s famous exchange with Goldfinger pretty much sums up the cross-purposes:
'Do you expect me to talk?'
'No, Mr Bond. I expect you to die.'
Barack Obama expects to talk and talk and talk, while our enemies expect the west to die. I’m not sure Chat Another Day is a recipe for a satisfying Bond movie.
Yet Mr Craig gets to the heart of the conservative crisis at the end of this dispiriting election season. I’m sure the Bond star disagrees with John McCain on a zillion things – although, come to think of it, he’d be hard put to disagree with him more than I do, on campaign finance reform, illegal immigration, government mortgage bailouts, etc. Still, political dispositions aside, it surely shouldn’t be so difficult to see in the old, cranky, physically awkward survivor an heroic narrative, a sense of honor and sacrifice and personal courage – the qualities that animate great storytelling across the ages.
But no: the passive campus yakker for Bond, the naval pilot POW for desk-jockey. That’s it in a nutshell: Culture-wise, conservatives are only up for the supporting role.
That’s the problem, and pulling the lever for a guy with an R after his name every other November isn’t going to fix it. If the default mode of a society’s institutions is liberal, electing GOP legislators eventually accomplishes little more than letting a Republican driver take a turn steering the liberal bus. If Hollywood’s liberal, if the newspapers are liberal, if the pop stars are liberal, if the grade schools are liberal, if the very language is liberal to the point where all the nice words have been co-opted as a painless liberal sedative, a Republican legislature isn’t going to be a shining city on a hill so much as one of those atolls in the Maldives being incrementally swallowed by Al Gore’s rising sea levels.
However the election had gone, conservatism’s fractious precriminations – David Frum vs Tony Blankley, Mark Levin vs Peggy Noonan – would be set to continue. But the lesson of the last grim year is that it’s not merely about candidates or policy or electoral strategy. We have to get back in the game in all the arenas we’ve ceded to liberalism – from kindergarten to blockbuster movies. Otherwise, as in Daniel Craig’s improvised casting call, we’ll be lucky to wind up with a cameo in the national narrative.
And yes, his answer was ridiculous. Who do you want on your side when you’re approaching Checkpoint Charlie and you’ve got to rescue the girl? The guy who flies to Germany and coos fatuous platitudes about there being “no challenge too great for a world that stands as one”? Or a crazy old coot who’ll get you over the wall and take a bullet for you? I know who Ian Fleming would have bet on."
from National Review
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Nov 16, 2008 - 11:22am PT
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Wow!
(and the 2nd amendment,..)
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Nov 16, 2008 - 07:20pm PT
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Its the fools that think they're going to change somebody's mind here that get me going.
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WandaFuca
Gym climber
San Fernando Lamas
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Nov 16, 2008 - 07:39pm PT
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Re the idiotic National Review piece:
Who do you want on your side when you’re approaching Checkpoint Charlie and you’ve got to rescue the girl?
If we had elected agent 0072, and he croaked, I guess we'd be stuck with Miss Sarah Moneypenny?
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Mimi
climber
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Nov 16, 2008 - 08:09pm PT
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Didn't read this whole thread so this may be redundant. As a shooting sports enthusiast, all these climbing 'bans' have achieved is to drive the cost of the firearm way up. You can buy just about anything available with the right background or money. This includes the Brady Bill.
As when Clinton was elected, run to the store before the inauguration and stock up. Black guns are again flying off the shelves.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Nov 16, 2008 - 09:45pm PT
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I didn't say it isn't going to happen, but I'm not holding my breath.
In the meantime, anybody want to buy a black rifle?
I have too many. LOL
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Nov 16, 2008 - 10:01pm PT
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"If we had elected agent 0072, and he croaked, I guess we'd be stuck with Miss Sarah Moneypenny?"
she's a better shot than barry
the constitution IS a living document; it's lifeline is called the amendment process, which, by the way, doesn't involve the supreme court
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Mimi
climber
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Nov 16, 2008 - 10:08pm PT
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Hahaha, I wrote 'climbing' bans. I meant firearm bans, particularly semiautomatics. I guess somehow, the two are connected.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Nov 16, 2008 - 10:26pm PT
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"the constitution IS a living document; it's lifeline is called the amendment process, which, by the way, doesn't involve the supreme court "
If the Constitution was written to be set in stone and only taken one way and to only be altered by the amendment process then why is there a Supreme Court at all?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Nov 18, 2008 - 06:16pm PT
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"http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/6117982.html"
Well, Scalia agrees too. Not subject to foreign laws and not necessarily a 'living' document.
Using foreign case-law to interpret our Constitution is going too far IMO.
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HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
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Nov 18, 2008 - 06:28pm PT
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Uh yeah...cause Scalia is a well known and extremely rigid constitutional fundamentalist. This is news to nobody. Last time I checked we had 8 other justices so that no one person's views would be the law.
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