San Francisco Shows Heart

Next time you're in San Francisco and are looking to eat Italian food in North Beach, I have a recommendation: The Mona Lisa on Columbus Street.

Last night, there were a couple of Marines walking the strip getting a few catcalls (which I noticed always came from the other side of the street), when they walked up to the Mona Lisa. The owner was standing outside and, naturally, saw their uniforms; his eyes got all big and in classic Italian fashion started hugging them and told them, "Hey boys, you eat here on the house tonight." The eight Marines that were walking together got a $25 meal on the house.

So, this is what is meant by "salt of the earth."

Bush's Speech

The President gave a very good speech tonight, but I do think he could gain a lot more from the wisdom in this post by Ian Wood:

It is not in our national self-interest to allow the Arab Muslim countries to remain the oppressed, impoverished dictatorships which they have been since their former European colonial masters drew their borders on a map. At the same time, neither is it in our interest to pretend that we are eagles of freedom, fighting to establish democracy out of grand altruism...this is simply not so. We must undertake risky ventures in that region, and not in other, equally poor or oppressed areas of the world, for the simple reason that that's where our enemies are. That's where they're bred, trained, and supported.

It is where the relief of oppression intersects with our own interests that we act, and serving those interests does not invalidate the relief, or render continued oppression preferable to action.

This is what the Bush administration knows, but because of the uncertainty/vulnerability equation, they are compelled to publicly ignore the glaring intelligence failures. The Vulcan mindset of Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney and others regards outright admission of error as an unnecessary demonstration of uncertainty and, hence, a vulnerability. To those outside the White House bubble, this looks like simple prevarication. It causes doubt in Bush's supporters and reinforces the beliefs of his detractors.

This attitude is a mistake, and is, unfortunately, endemic among that peculiar breed of human known as the Politician. The Politician fears the judgement of the People, and cannot bring itself to be completely forthright. This is what crippled the Clinton presidency. The Politician tends to believe that leadership requires the appearance of inerrancy in all things, and consistently regards silence in the face of error as a sort of magical rite that will cause the People to be blinded to its existence.

But what the People need to hear is not inerrancy, but firm and reasonable commitment to the valid principles of national self-interest. Not absolutist declarations of perfect American righteousness, but sensible presentations of risks and rewards.

It's OK to be mistaken, Mr. President...but tell us why it was still worth it.

I hope this speech was the start of something more; the beginning of a deliberate campaign to constantly remind people why we are fighting in Iraq. I know why we are there, however Bush needs to communicate, and lead, more directly. Roosevelt's fireside chats did wonders for a reason, not in terms of providing much that people did not know, but they were reminders that the guy in charge had his hands around the issue. Call it psy-ops, or hand-holding, whatever. It needs to be done.

BTW, make sure to read Ian's post all the way through. It is still one of the best posts I have read on the why's and how's of going into Iraq.

Good Ole Boys

Actually, I think this is very smart and important:

Bill Clinton joined his one-time political foe, former President George H.W. Bush, for a boat ride on the Atlantic Ocean after attending a book-signing Monday.

I know that some of this is just show in front of the cameras, however I think there has been a genuine hatchet burial here somewhere. Politics is a dirty, dirty game, but both of these men have more in common than they don't, and its good to see them setting a much-needed example today.

For pure comedic reasons, I want to watch everyone go nuts in 2009 when George W. and Bill are riding horses on W's ranch, while Hillary sits in the Oval Office.

If you want to watch every single pundit's head (on the left and right) explode, this is the way to do it.

The Washington Post is Hereby on the Record

Note to the editors of the Washington Post--I have put you on my watchlist to see if you really mean what you are saying about Iran:

The Bush administration and other Western governments will want to watch carefully for such a negative shift in Iranian foreign policy in the coming months. But Mr. Ahmadinejad's election also means that real power in Iran will lie more than ever in the hands of its Shiite clergy and the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Mr. Khamenei could still decide to pursue a deal with European governments that would curtail the Iranian nuclear program: That, anyway, is the hope those governments will cling to. The Bush administration has wisely backed European diplomacy in recent months while reserving the right to insist that Iran be referred to the U.N. Security Council for violating the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Though there is no reason to welcome the new Iranian government by offering fresh concessions, neither is there an immediate cause to abandon the current approach, unless Iran breaks its moratorium on fuel processing that could produce bomb materials.

Both the Bush administration and European governments need to begin working, however, on a better Plan B. As it stands, a referral to the Security Council appears unlikely, on its own, to achieve much, since both China and Russia could block any imposition of U.N. sanctions. The administration reportedly is working on new ways to stop Iranian proliferation from the outside, such as by penalizing companies that provide key supplies. Though better than nothing, such measures won't be effective unless they are broadly supported by the Europeans, with or without U.N. resolutions. Even better would be a credible European threat of curtailing most investment and commerce.

Perhaps most important, the elimination of political liberals from Iranian government should make it easier for Western governments to explicitly side with Iran's demoralized but still substantial pro-democracy movement, even if that offends Mr. Ahmadinejad. The new president, after all, is not worth much attention. He offers no real solutions to his country's problems; his populist policies are doomed to failure. For better or worse, his election has merely made the twin threats facing the Iranian regime -- domestic revolution or international isolation -- more acute.

Ok, dear editors, let's perform a thought experiment. You are advising the Bush Administration and you claim that the UN Security Council is flacid and that economic sanctions are probably going to be ineffective; the theocratic, terrorist-sponsoring, Iranian government is getting closer to developing very dangerous weapons. So, you call for a plan B beyond merely hoping.

What would you do if Europe continues to stand still?

Remember, you can wish in one hand and crap in the other--see which gets filled first.

Talk amongst yourselves.

Big Project

Currently I'm working on a big project for the blog. I'm transcribing an article written by Robert Elegant called, "How to Lose a War," that ran in the August 1981 edition of Encounter. Elegant was a war correspondent who describes not the effects, but the causes of media disinformation during the war. Its effects were noticable, however insights into the causes that go beyond mere hyperbole are rare in this instance. America pulled out of Vietnam, and the media played a large roll in that; but, how and why?

I cannot find a transcribed version of this article anywhere on the net and hope that I can provide people with the single best article I have read on the negative effects the media has had on American efforts. However, this article is very long, and will take me a while to transcribe. I'll probably start posting it in pieces, then post it in total when I'm done.

Hopefully this will provide us with some descent fodder for a while.

Middle Palisade (14,012ft) – Successful Summit/1st Attempt (September 13, 2004)

*The pictures listed below are not of this trip. The actuals will be posted later.

Objective – From the South Fork Trail, climb the class 3 East Face to the summit and return the same route.

Itinerary:

Day 1 – After camping at Glacier Lodge, take the South Fork Trail to Willow Lake. Follow the trail to Brainard Lake, continue ascending to Finger Lake at 11,000 ft. Set camp for the night.

Day 2 – 5 am start, cross the river flowing from eastern tip of Finger Lake; approach the East Face of Middle Palisade between Norman Clyde and Middle Palisade Glaciers. Ascend the class 3 chute on the East Face to the summit before 1 pm. Descend the same route. Pick-up camp at 11,000 ft and take South Fork Trail back to Glacier Lodge.

Team:

• Bugle Bum
• The Engineer
• TF6S

Day 1

I drove from San Francisco Thursday night after work, while Bugle Bum and the Engineer took off from San Diego and rendezvoused at Glacier Lodge for a quiet night’s sleep. After getting up early in the morning, we drove 20 minutes back to Bishop to get our permit for the South Fork Trail since none of us were able to arrive early enough to meet the ranger station’s hours. I met the Engineer for the first time, and it would be his first attempt at climbing a 14er.

At the ranger station, we got an update of possible deteriorating weather conditions in the High Sierras. There was a large, early storm scheduled to hit us on Saturday night. We would have a cautious eye westward, as the possibility of the storm hitting us a half day earlier than scheduled was highly possible. In the meantime, the weather leaving camp was perfect at 73 degrees.

We did a last minute gear check at the car to make sure we were covered. Bugle Bum had begun is “ultralight” traveling philosophy, however I insisted he bring his camping stove and water filter, along with mine, in case we had an equipment failure with my equipment at our 11,000 ft camp. After a hard lesson learned in our 1st Mt. Sill attempt, I realized that it is essential to have back-up for essential equipment. Considering the stove is only ¼ of a pound, I didn’t think it would that much of a burden.

We started down the South Fork Trail, the route that we took to get to Mt. Sill. A year earlier we had some misfortune trying to cross the river, and realized that we were probably not the river’s only victims. This time there was a large tree, meticulously cut in half, forming a well-crafted bridge over the river. Bugle Bum and I crossed over this man-made wonder with shitty grins on our faces.

After reaching the top of the buttress that leads to Willow Lake, we stopped off for some lunch where Bugle Bum provided us with a bunch of tuna fish with crackers. Sitting their basking in the foothills of the ferocious and now-familiar Palisade ridge, a party on their way down from the Middle Palisade stopped by for a chat. They reiterated and reinforced what we knew about the class 3 route; it would be essential for us to stay to the left while climbing up the chutes on the East Face. The route to the right quickly turns to class 4, however it looks more inviting from the bottom. Earlier in the year, a climber made this mistake and fell about a thousand feet to his death.

I love meeting climbers on their way down and make a point to try to talk with them. Firs, they usually have the most current information about conditions on the mountain, and are usually more than willing to help out; second and most importantly, if you run into a party that has summitted, they radiate glee and a positive attitude that is incredibly motivating. There is an underlying commonality to all of us who seek the mountaintops: to experience the feeling of standing atop of earth’s greatest creatures.

Heading towards Brainard Lake, I would learn another lesson that I have since been very sensitive to: trusting your instincts. Mountaineering instincts combine rather practical and easily articulated particulars, along with a more mysterious and “sublime” aspect. A lot of learning in the hills is just preparation combined with common-sense application—check the weather, bring first aid, carry enough food & water, watch for rock fall, plan out your route and bring a good topo, don’t eat the yellow snow, etc. However, each time the mountaineer goes to the hills, there are many pieces of data that he picks up along the way that are absorbed sub-consciously. These pieces are stored away and only apply in the mountains, and when the time is right, these feelings are triggered to gut instincts that may not be supported, or even outright contradicted, by any logical explanations at the time.

My Zen moment came over a rather innocuous issue. As we continued on the path towards Brainard Lake, the map that we had clearly showed that we should get off the path and follow the creek to reach our destination--Finger Lake. Looking up at where we were headed, I saw a lot of brush, along with a steep incline that, even though I couldn’t see it, was probably filled with a lot of talus. Bugle Bum and I debated the route, and I just didn’t feel right about going off the trail. It was clearly longer to continue the trail towards Brainard Lake, but something felt “right” about it. Since I was unable to articulate and sense of why, my view lost out and we headed through the brush up the creek.

Sure enough, it was slow going. We were doing a lot of bush-whacking and creek crossing just to get to a sleep talus field. We followed a couple of cairns, however they were uselessly pointing in the wrong direction. We B-lined it up the talus slope and triumphantly landed at Finger Lake, but it had taken us almost 2 hours. No-harm, no foul. We set up camp for the night at Finger Lake.

Planning is everything in the Sierras, and when we were unsuccessful in firing up my mountaineering stove, I was relieved that I asked Bugle Bum to bring his as back-up. It was utterly shot and beyond even the Engineer’s ability to repair. Bugle Bum proceeded to laugh nervously, while breaking the news that he had decided to leave it in the car because, at 7 ounces, “it was too heavy;” apparently an executive decision taken without the board’s knowledge. Uncooked pasta was the only substantive food we had for the night, so it was necessary for us to have a fire to cook it over. Since there is a federal law that, under-no-circumstances allows for a fire in the Palisade Basin, I’ll just say that we were able to construct something rather hot and orange that was capable of boiling water. Our planned meal ended up rather smoky, but at least it was hot and edible.

As we wound down for the evening, we were treated with a spectacular sunset that pointed to a sign of some tough weather ahead. The sky was filled with orange as the dusk sun reflected off the incoming cirrus clouds onto the ridgeline containing Disappointment Peak, Middle Palisade and Norman Clyde Peak. We crawled into the tent and would have to endure the infamous fumes emitted by Bugle Bum.

The night was spectacularly horrifying and frighteningly amazing. The winds increased steadily over the next few hours, cutting with amazing speed through the ridges that we camped between. A slow murmur would develop into a raging howl followed, about 3 seconds later, by a direct impact to our tent, causing it to shake violently. After the shaking, all would stand still in angst for the next blow. Usually Bugle Bum would be the first to interrupt this peace.

Day Two

Sleeping rather fitfully, it was easy for us to make a move at 5 am. We got dressed and poked our head out of the tent to see that Middle Palisade was almost completely covered in thick, soupy clouds. They didn’t look particularly dangerous, so we left camp to head to the summit, albeit was a cautious eye.

The clouds shot passed part of the ridge that bends and runs perpendicular to Middle Palisade. We were treated with an awesome site as the sun, not yet over the ridge, shot beams of light between the low-flying clouds and the ominously, silhouetted ridge.

Pushing along the approach, we’d made it to Norman Clyde Glacier. We’d have to hike just below it to reach the surprisingly sharp-angled saddle leading to the entry of the east face. Moving across this glacier was some of the easiest hiking we did, as the glacier froze the scree and talus to the ground. A group of more hard-core climbers passed us with ropes, and had told us that, due to their fear of the deteriorating weather, they were not going to ascend the 5.8 multi-pitch route--they would join us on the class 3 east face. This was a good decision, as when once a climbing team is roped up and on the face; they are completely committed and the only way down is via the summit. The class 3 route affords flexibility to turn around whenever conditions get too dangerous.

To get on the face, we walked for about 30 feet across the Middle Palisade Glacier to get to a 12-foot high ledge that had lots of hand and footholds (follow the green Secor route). It was pretty sketchy though, as a fall at twelve feet would not just put you on the ground, but possibly down into the small crevasse between the ledge and the edge of the glacier.

Reaching the East Face of Middle Palisade was a spectacle; I was unable to fathom how we were going to get up this chute that seemingly looked like a vertical wall. However, the proceeding scrambling I did was some of the most fun I’ve had in the mountains. Unfortunately, Bugle Bum started to get a pretty bad case of altitude sickness; his head was pounding, and his movement was slow and deliberate. The vertical climb was so steep, that each incremental step he took increased his pain exponentially.

Feeling my heart beating, I reached the top of the ledge and came around a narrow ledge to a prominent gendarme. Cutting immediately left, we were face with another 20-foot ledge that almost looked unclimbable without ropes.

A fall from this 20-foot ledge would most likely resulting in a continuation right off the face down a 100-foot drop-off. Getting closer, it was apparent there were some really good climbing holds running along the right side of the chute. I reached the top and stopped after I continued another couple of feet to wait for Bugle Bum and the Engineer. The both cautiously reached the top, where I saw Bugle Bum in horrible shape. He was hardly able sit-up straight, and smartly decided that he had gone high enough.

We continued to slowly scramble to the top. It was imperative that we observe three-points of contract on the face at all time, while keeping light hands and feet to avoid causing any rock falls. There were still several climbers below us.

This is where I reach a deeply meditative state. Step by step I moved with a clarity and soundness of mind that has been really hard for me to duplicate anywhere else. Michael Jordan or Barry Bonds talk about being in a zone, where you are so completely aware that everything slows down to a crawl and you are able to perform your objectives so naturally. Now, scrambling up a class 3 route and hitting a 95-mph fastball aren’t even in the same class, however I do understand what the abstract idea of “the zone” felt like. To prove this, after about 20 minutes, I had gained over a thousand feet, just below the summit, while the Engineer was only about 1/3 of the distance between the point we were together and where I was standing. I looked up and knew I would be standing on the summit in minutes.

As I got closer to the summit, pieces of snow started to fall on me. I could hear that there was something of a storm on the other side, but the east face remained rather calm. I reached the foot of the jagged summit and met with the more hardcore party from earlier. They had all stood on the summit and were eating lunch just below. They said conditions were pretty bad on top, however, it was safe to proceed.

I continued up to the last boulder, that was a sold piece of rock about 6 ft high and 10 ft long. This slab contained no adequate footholds, yet I knew this was the way to the top. I reached up for a handhold towards the rear and the next thing I knew, I was rapidly sliding down the slab. Within a split second, both of my boots caught a ledge about 6 inches wide. My heart was pounding out of my chest and I was panting; my body started sweating profusely and I caught myself unconsciously praying. It was quite a scare, but I also realized that I could reach the summit by wedging my foot in a crack and standing up.

I was now standing on top of the summit. Once I was on the ledge, I was blasted by a snow filled 70-mph wind. The snow felt like little needles hitting my face. Visibility was reduced to a few feet and I saw the summit register on the next ledge covered by more clouds. I decided that I needed to get down right away, so I skipped the customary signing of the summit log (provided by our well intentioned friends at the Sierra Club) and carefully started back down. The Engineer made his way to the top and I congratulated him on summitting his first 14er. It was really exciting seeing someone summit for the first time.

As I’ve said before, the summit is only half-way home. This truism was never more apparent than on this trip.

First, the vertical wall face that we climbed up needed to be descended. One false step, and you’d be taking a tumble that would leave you with a few lumps on your head, plus you had to make sure you didn’t kick any rocks down this 2,000 ft bowling alley onto the climbers below. Each step was methodical, and I would constantly remind myself, out loud even, to keep focused. We descended quite rapidly for being so deliberate; we met up with Bugle Bum on the glacier after about an hour and a half.

Bugle Bum was a great sport. I know how frustrating it is to be turned away from the summit, and he knew that he couldn’t continue in his condition. When we met up with him, he was all smiles, joyously patting us on the back for making it to the top. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to swap too many stories as the storm was growing. We needed to get off the mountain.

By the time we reached the Norman Clyde Glacier, Bugle Bum and the Engineer were getting tired and wanted to stop to eat a snack. I was concerned that we were running out of time. I told them that I would head down by myself, and pack up our camp at 11,000 ft. By the time they arrived, camp would be packed and we could immediately start down the South Fork Trail to the car.

The stroll back to camp was quite nice. I was singing some lovely mountain songs, like Panama and Hot For Teacher, admiring all the wonders that my Creator had crafted. I was careful to keep focused, but I was so pumped that we had summitted this beast; in my mind I was thinking about what a “worthy opponent” this mountain had been. Just a word of warning, patronizing the mountain is a bad idea. I know that its an inanimate object, but something tells me there is something there, and that I should avoid pissing it off with any of my hubris in the future.

My karma confronted me as I strolled down to Finger Lake and walked up to the 8-foot ledge I need to climb to get to my campsite. I ascended the ledge in exhaustion only to find a 700-pound bear ravaging through our campsite. It is rare to find bears in this area of the Sierras, nonetheless at 11,000 feet, and my guard was down. Before I had a chance to react, or even give a single thought to the matter, the bear bounded off down the mountain. I'd spend the next 20 minutes cleaning up the mess at camp and in my shorts.

My two companions strolled into camp with good spirits; everything was packed up and we were ready to go home.

The trip down was mostly uneventful. We ran into a few climbers on the way up and told them that the weather was looking pretty bad high on the mountain. They didn't seem to very experienced, however they looked to have a warm tent. I silently prayed that they would make it down ok.

We reached the buttress above Willow lake as night descended on us; our headlamps taking us down the rest of the way. As we continued, it began to snow lightly, growing in strength as our back were to the mountain and it was hard not to think about the climbers we passed on the way.

We made it safely and continued to Bishop where we were able to secure the last available hotel room (with the bad weather chasing everyone to town). Waking up early the next morning, we found the Sierras completely white, with more storms on the way. This was the weekend the national news reported a bunch of climbers missing down the way at Mt. Whitney; a few Japanese climbers died when they were stuck on the face of El Capitan. Mother nature would strike early and ferociously this year.

A great climb and a great mountain. I would drive back to San Francisco through 6 inches of fresh snow in Yosemite, only to get home to 60 degrees and a little fog.

Just another weekend in California.

List of Things I Never Want to Hear Repeated Against

Coming in at #4, Gerard Vanderleun illustrates a hypothetical scenario where Air America and The O'Reilly Factor join forces:

They could put everyone on one gigantic sound stage with adequate drainage, lay down a lot of plastic tarps, and wheel on some trays with about 1,500 cream pies. Bill and Al could suit up in fright wigs and penis gourds and just let it rip.

I just hope someone would have the decency to shave them down beforehand.

"I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think It Means"

For the life of me, I cannot understand why the Democrats have the collective, political intelligence of a demented jellyfish.

House Republicans served up a softball by deciding that, crucial to our national security, we must protect our flag from fire. Now, if you subscribe to Eddie Izzard's view of history, where the British Empire was secured by the "cunning use of flags," you'd have a point:

We stole countries! That's how you build an empire. We stole countries with the cunning use of flags! Sail halfway around the world, stick a flag in.

"I claim India for Britain."

And they're going, "You can't claim us. We live here! There's five hundred million of us."

"Do you have a flag?"

"We don't need a flag, this is our country you bastard!"

"No flag, no country."

However sound this theory is, I think the flag doesn't need to be protected from people with pyromania tendancies. This "Flag Burning Amendment" is almost demented jellyfish material and I hoped that the Democrats would finally have an issue on which they could take a principled stand.

Then, (via the Belmont Club) the Senate Armed Services Committee meets and Ted Kennedy and Carl Levin make an intractable blunder that is only slightly better than getting into a land war in Asia or going in against a Sicilian with death on the line--namely, opening their mouths and talking:

TED KENNEDY: Secretary Rumsfeld, as you know, we are in serious trouble in Iraq, and this war has been consistently and grossly mismanaged, and we are now in a seemingly intractable quagmire. Our troops are dying, and there really is no end in sight.

DONALD RUMSFELD: Well, that is quite a statement. First, let me say that there isn't a person at this table who agrees with you that we're in a quagmire, and that there's no end in sight. The suggestion by you that people – me or others – are painting a rosy picture is false. I think that the comments you made are certainly yours to make, and I don't agree with them.

TED KENNEDY: Well, my time has just expired, but Mr Secretary, I'm talking about the misjudgements and the mistakes that have been made, the series which I've mentioned. Those are on your watch. Isn't it time for you to resign?

DONALD RUMSFELD: Senator, I have offered my resignation to the President twice, and he's decided that he would prefer that he not accept it. And that's his call.

Carl Levin and John Abizaid had exchanges of their own. From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation again.

CARL LEVIN: General Abizaid, can you give us your assessment of the strength of the insurgency. Is it less strong, more strong, about the same strength as it was six months ago?

JOHN ABIZAID: Senator, I'd say…

CARL LEVIN: Could you put the mic right in front of you?

JOHN ABIZAID: In terms of comparison from six months ago, in terms of foreign fighters, I believe there are more foreign fighters coming into Iraq than there were six months ago. In terms of the overall strength of the insurgency, I'd say it's about the same as it was.

CARL LEVIN: So you wouldn't agree with the statement that it's 'in its last throes'?

JOHN ABIZAID: I don't know that I would make any comment about that, other than to say there's a lot of work to be done against the insurgency.

CARL LEVIN: Well, the Vice-President has said it's in its last throes. That's the statement that the Vice President. Doesn't sound to me from your testimony, or any other testimony here this morning, that it is in its last throes.

JOHN ABIZAID: I'm sure you'll forgive me from criticising the Vice-President.

CARL LEVIN: I just want an honest assessment from you as to whether you agree with a particular statement of his, it's not personal. I just want to know whether you agree with that assessment. It's not a personal attack on him, any more than if he says that something is a fact and you disagree with it, we would expect you to say you disagree with it.

JOHN ABIZAID: I gave you my opinion of where we are.

I won't argue the merits of why I think the quagmire analogies are ridiculous (a quick search of this site will give you copious arguments as to why I think this is not so), but as the Iraqi government is gaining strength and support, I would think the Democrats would be jumping on the bandwagon. The insurgency is fighting itself, with American and Iraqi forces engaging in battalion sized operations at will. Even if I was a detractor to this war, I would consider it wise to keep my mouth shut for a while.

Just when I think the Republicans do something so dumb, the Democrats chime in and do one better.

Man, these guys should go to the horse track, as that is the only race they are going to have a shot a winning for a while.

UPDATE:

The Nation's John Nicols also recognizes the Democrats' more forceful criticsms over the war:

The intensity of Kennedy's questioning illustrated a shift that has begun to take place in Congress in recent weeks, as more and more Democrats, and a growing number of Republicans, have begun to bluntly challenge the administration's inflated claims about the "success" of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

However, Nicols already drank the punch. He supports the quagmire canard, obviously making no reference to the rather inconvenient facts about the formation of a democratically elected Iraqi government and the creation of a 160,000 person security force, and goes right for the jugular:

Perhaps Kennedy should have asked Rumsfeld if Cheney ought to resign.

Alternatively, the Wisconsin Democratic Party, at its state's convention earlier this month, passed a resolution that would seem to cover all the bases.

The delegates called for immediate steps to be taken to impeach Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush.

The Democrats and the war opponents are digging a deep hole even deeper. I'm sure if Mr. Bush had heard of this, he would have responded with "Bring 'em on!"

How to Handle Dirtbags

In case you needed further information as to the kind of people we are sending to Gitmo, this is what the ones who got away are doing with their spare time:

Zahidabad, Afghanistan -- It was little more than a shed, with no chairs or desks. But for the 50 girls who had studied there since April, the two-room school in this pastoral pocket of Logar province was all that stood between a lifetime of ignorance and a glimmer of knowledge.

Now, the doors have been padlocked, the teacher says he is too scared to return, and the former students are back to their customary chores -- pumping water at the village well, weeding onion fields and carrying loads of animal fodder on their heads.

That may be exactly what the unknown assailants had in mind when they broke into the shed late at night 10 days ago, doused the classrooms with fuel and set them afire, leaving behind leaflets in the Dari language warning that girls should not go to school and that teachers should not teach them.

"When I was walking home today, the little girls followed me and asked when they could go back to school, but I am not ready to teach them again because I am afraid for my own safety," confided Fazel Ahmed, 39, the school's only teacher. "I'm very upset. These students will make the future of our community and our country."

Just for the record, someone tell Andrew Sullivan that, if caught, I strongly condone the severe beatings of the non-Americans, not under the protection of the U.S. Constitution, who did this.

Remember the school held hostage in Belsan? If there were any cowards alive afterwards, you know, the ones that shot children in the back after they ran---beatings...beatings...then throw them into the ham room.

Gitmo is Chucky Cheese compared to what I'd do with it.

Saddam Hussein eats fruit loops as the Iraq people continue to be blown apart on the streets. His reign of terror continues--maybe not in his name, but it continues.

I say we just drop him off in downtown Basra and drive away.

But then again, I'm kind of a bastard that way.

More Gitmo

Why aren't there any strong denials from the Bush Administration about abuses at Gitmo?

Penraker takes a stab, to which I reply:

Yep.

I Made It

Holy crap, Winnipeg has lots of mosquitoes.

Anyway, in between mosquitoes feasting on my fresh American blood, I was able to catch-up with some incredibly wonderful people that I've been out of touch with for far too long. Now I supposed you guys expect me to come visit during winter? Ha!

To quote my good friend Kyle in my comments section:

"To borrow from Robin Williams, "Isn't Canada like a loft apartment over a really great party?"

"KEEP IT DOWN, EH!"

Yeah, I heard a lot of Eh's up there, however my family threw a pretty rockin' party on Saturday night. It was pretty much the pinnicle of insanity when all the generations were up and shaking their booty to "Play That Funky Music White Boy." I don't think I can ever forgive myself for teaching my mom how dance ghetto style with a 40 draped beneath her chin.

My faithful readers, don't fret, I haven't suddenly developed a taste for high taxes and long winters; but let's say that the party was rockin'.

My little cuz (if you are reading this), you were the life of the party--good to know you again.

Ok everyone! I'm back! With a new theme...courtesy of From the Still.

More details later, but it involves Whiskey and Women.

Take Off, You Hoser

Tomorrow, early in the morning, I am going to Canada for my little cousin's wedding.

That's right, this loud-mouthed, American a-hole IS GOING TO CANADA!!!

WOOOHOOOO!

Ok, I'm going to Winnepeg.

I think I spelled it right.

It's a very flat place.

Full of people that look like my family.

I won't be heavily jogging/lightly sprinting any hills there.

...so no vomitting.

Peace.

This is the part where I am supposed to say, "Posting will be sporadic to light," like I am Glenn Reynolds or someone with people that actually reads their site (except Rick, who's my long lost bud).

Me, I'm going on "vacation."

Watch my traffic increase.

Van Halen rules.

Perspective on Guantanamo

A year ago, I spoke with a friend of our family, Luther Smith about his experiences in World War II. Luther was a proud member of the Tuskegee Airmen, the all-black fighter regiment. He was captured by Germans in Yugoslavia in 1944 after his plane became crippled on a strafing mission. To this day, Luther walks with a permanent limp from the broken hip his suffered in that accident (For more on Luther Smith, who is a truly amazing man, read the whole article from the link).

Luther brought up an interesting truism about war and rules that transcend the paper that politicians write on: ways that one engages an honorable enemy, versus a dishonorable one.

Late in the war, Luther's 332nd Fighter Group were escourting their bombers when German fighers would try and intercept them. The Luftwaffe had been utterly decimated by the Allies and their talent pool dwindled to pilots who could barely keep the plane in the air, much less successfully engage superior pilots flying one of the most lethal figher planes of the day. Luther and his fellow pilots recognized that if they got behind their German prey without shooting, the German pilot would often times bail out of the aircraft, thus ending the dogfight. Luther said (paraphrase), "as long as they jumped, we didn't shoot."

They knew that the German was only following orders and would no longer be a threat once he bailed out. Luther even mentioned that at times they would get close enough to see the faces of the German pilots to notice that some of them were no older than 15 - 16 years old!

The truism works as such: in battle there are unwritten rules that soldiers engage in based on their views of the enemy. In Luther's case, the enemy gives up the fight, the attacker relents and let the man live knowing that he was no longer a threat to him and the overall war effort. Conversely, if German pilots pretended to "surrender" only to shoot once the Allied pilot disengaged, Allied pilots would cease to allow the Germans to "escape" through this option; they would immediately shoot them down. Compare Luther's example with a pilot, or a marine, in the Pacific fighting the Japanese who would fight by any means to the death.

Steven Den Beste described this in his post on the Prisoner's Dilemna:

There's been a lot of analysis of this, and it turns out that honesty isn't the best policy. One guy decided to run a computer tournament; people were permitted to create algorithms in a synthetic language which would have the ability to keep track of previous exchanges and make a decision on each new exchange whether to be honest or to cheat. He challenged them to see who could come up with the one which did the best in a long series of matches against various opponents. It turned out that the best anyone could find, and the best anyone has ever found, was known as "Tit-for-tat".

On the first round, it plays fair. On each successive round, it does to the other guy what he did the last time.

When Tit-for-tat plays against itself, it plays fair for the entire game and maximizes output. When it plays against anyone who tosses in some cheating, it punishes it by cheating back and reduces the other guys unfair winnings.

No-one has ever found a way of defeating it.

He then delivers this thought experiment and puts it into context with true meaning of the Geneva Convention:

Now let's analyze two different and even more simplistic approaches; we'll call them "saint" and "sinner". The saint plays fair every single round, irrespective of what the other guy does. The sinner always cheats.

When a saint plays against another saint, or against tit-for-tat, the result is optimum but more important is that everyone gets the same result. When a sinner plays against another sinner, or against tit-for-tat, everyone cheats and the result is still even, though less than optimal.

But when a sinner plays against a saint, the sinner wins and the saint loses.

Which brings me back to the point of all this: Is there anything I would rule out in war? Nothing I'd care to admit to my enemies, because ruling out anything is a "saint" tactic. The Tit-for-tat tactic is to be prepared to do anything, but not to do so spontaneously. In other words, if the other guy threatens to use poison gas, you make sure you have some of your own and let him know that you'll retaliate with it. That means that he has nothing to win by using it, and he won't. (A war is a sequence game and not a single transaction because each day is a new exchange. If you gassed my guys yesterday, I can gas yours today.)

...And so it is here. No, I cannot promise ahead of time that my nation will not bomb innocents, or use terrorism, or torture, or poison gas, or bio weapons, or nuke, nor in fact can I exclude anything. If I do, then I am adopting a "saint" strategy and leave myself wide open for the use of such tactics against my own side by an opposing sinner. Only by being willing to do those kinds of things myself can I deter their use against me.

I believe that my nation must adopt tit-for-tat instead of using saint tactics, because it is much better. But for that to work, I have to be willing to be as dirty as he is, if he forces me to be.

This is the theoretical basis for such aphorisms as "To get peace, you must prepare for war." That means that your nation is prepared to use tit-for-tat. The pacifist idea of publicly pledging to never go to war, or to never use a particular tactic in that war, is instead a saint strategy, and it results in disaster.

The Geneva Convention is deliberately constructed to be tit-for-tat. It says explicitly that a nation is obligated to follow the convention only if the other nation is also a signatory and is also following it. If the Geneva Convention was binding on signatory nations even against non-signatory nations, it would be a "saint" tactic. But since you follow the convention with others who also do, and don't against those who don't, that makes it "tit for tat".

Tit-for-tat says that you're civilized to those who are civilized to you, and you're a vile son-of-a-bitch to those who want to be that way.

By the way, the nuclear deterrent was another example of tit-for-tat. "Bomb me, and I'll bomb you back. Leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone."

Today's fight against Islamic Radicals is precisely of this nature. They are using sinner tactics in hopes that we'll be forced to the high ground to protect our saint-hood. However, does engaging in sinner tactics make one a sinner? If it is clear that we are only willing to use sinner tactics against those that insist on "cheating" in battle and not against other "saints," then the answer is "no."

In the history of warfare, there has rarely been a more undignified and dishonorable enemy than the Islamic fundamentalists and despotic fascists we fight today. When they attack, they mainly attack civilians--men, women and children. When they defend against attacks, they hide in hospitals, mosques and schools wearing clothes that won't distinguish them from other civilians. Coalition soldiers cannot tell "insurgent" from "civilian" as they are rounding up those who have the potential to kill.

Now, some of these captured insurgents wind up in Guantanamo. On the battlefield, it is understandable that soldiers err on the side of caution, but should our government be setting up official policies that sanction "sinner" tactics?

I say yes. The Islamofascists must know that the United States will not allow them to successfully engage us through the use of "sinner" tactics. They pin their hopes on being granted the same consideration as American citizens in hopes that they can cause enough reasonable doubt to walk free. Conviction in court is much harder than simply being caught hanging out with a bunch of Talibanis. A guilty man who walks free means one that has a high probability of attempting another attack that, mostly likely, will be aimed at civilians. Are we willing to take this risk?

There are those that are worried that the adoption of these tactics is a slippery slope that will lead to America losing it's soul. Kind of like the theory of pot being the "gateway drug"; one that is more harmful to the potential it unlocks versus its actual danger. I agree that the debate should be held about how we should conduct ourselves, however I specifically disagree that in disallowing the Geneva Convention standards to prisoners held in Guantanamo will cause us lose our soul. Quite the contrary; I think it preserves it. The Geneva Convention was designed to acknowledge the standards that all parties must demonstrate in armed conflict if they are to be applicable.

Also, on a practical level, if we were to close Guantanamo and allow these men POW status, we would lose valuable intellegence gained from interregation (banned under the Geneva Conventions). Remember, these radicals are not plotting attacks against the United States military, they are planning attacks against civilians.

Those calling for the close of Guantanamo must acknowledge that they are willing to give up intellegence gained through interrogation in order to act "in the spirit of human rights." We will be forced to use less reliable and more specious methods to gather intellegence and this gap will cause us to be more vulnerable to attack. Are we willing to accept an increased risk of another 9-11 to "play by the rules" that our enemies refuse to even acknowledge, much less play by?

So, I don't know what types of methods are being used in Guantanamo, nor do I care. I hope they are ringing every piece of intellegence they can out of them, while also sending a message to their faithful back at home that we are not going to allow them to continue to use their dubious and dishonorable tactics without paying for it.

Training

Sorry for the lame posting for the last two weeks, I've just been a little dispassionate lately. It's hard to write about stuff when your whole point is, "I don't really care about that."

However, I have been getting more excited about the upcoming mountain climbing season. With our first 14er coming up in about a month, I started training hard on Saturday.

Here is the worst part of the training:

This is Taylor Street, where I live. You might recognize it as the street that Steve McQueen turned into a mole hill in Bullit:

I start at the bottom with my mountaineering pack filled with finance textbooks. Then, I take off in a hard-jog/light sprint to the top. Quantitative Statistical Methods and Investment Analysis & Portfolio Management bring the pain again and again.

Hopefully in a few weeks, I'll be able to do the hill five times in a row, however on Saturday I did it once and went upstairs to puke--twice.

...and I thought it was my lack of magic skills that kept Claudia from going out with me.

Mets in Town

Ok, I'm going to watch the Mets POUND, I said, POUND the A's Tuesday. If the A's are couragous enough to come back for more, I will see them POUND, yeah that's right, POUND the A's again on Wednesday.

Can't wait, I haven't seen my beloved Mets in over a year.

I'll bring the bombast.

(This post was written with minor, albeit insignificant sympathy to Jeff).

Yummy...

I remember going to Manitoba during the summers (which I am about to do for the first time since 1999 in a few days) to visit my mom's family where my grandmother and mom used to love to go strawberry picking. Since I was a lanky, energetic kid with no sense of fear, they would give me a few empty buckets, feed me a couple of snickers bars and let me pick until dusk. Out of every ten strawberries, I would eat one (or five), while making sure that my shirt was permanently stained red.

Ah, Strawberries...one of the many signs of glorious summer...

Scenes from San Francisco

So, walking into work this morning, I said to myself, "What's a handsome guy like me doing in a place like this?"

I pondered the question for about 20-minutes between meeting with the various suits I work with trying to pull-off some super-sweet business deal and my daily pilgrimage to Starbucks. Usually caffeine is a requirement before these meetings (you always need enough artificial "energy" to shout over the office loud mouth), however running late required me to go in dry. As a result of not having my caffeine fix, the subsequent meeting battered my brain around, damaging that region that manages "reason" with "fear of rejection." After the meeting was over I thought I would take my new set of imaginary cajones to hit on some women.

Eventually I found myself in the Red-Room (the bar in the Clift Hotel), staring at Claudia Schiffer with a few of her model friends. Without hesitation, I swept right up next to her.

"Hi, how are you? Would you like to partake in a cocktail and....?"

"I don't know, do you know any magic tricks?"

I walked home kicking every homeless guy's cart I saw.

Stop the IFC

Count me in under the multitude who finds this utterly offensive. In my life I have never written a letter to any polititians stating my displeasure over any political matters, but I just started. Yesterday I mailed my letters to Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg to express my disgust over the wonderful people at International Freedom Center who are planning to turn Ground Zero into a political statement:

The World Trade Center Memorial Cultural Complex will be an imposing edifice wedged in the place where the Twin Towers once stood. It will serve as the primary "gateway" to the underground area where the names of the lost are chiseled into concrete. The organizers of its principal tenant, the International Freedom Center (IFC), have stated that they intend to take us on "a journey through the history of freedom"--but do not be fooled into thinking that their idea of freedom is the same as that of those Marines. To the IFC's organizers, it is not only history's triumphs that illuminate, but also its failures. The public will have come to see 9/11 but will be given a high-tech, multimedia tutorial about man's inhumanity to man, from Native American genocide to the lynchings and cross-burnings of the Jim Crow South, from the Third Reich's Final Solution to the Soviet gulags and beyond. This is a history all should know and learn, but dispensing it over the ashes of Ground Zero is like creating a Museum of Tolerance over the sunken graves of the USS Arizona.

The public will be confused at first, and then feel hoodwinked and betrayed. Where, they will ask, do we go to see the September 11 Memorial? The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation will have erected a building whose only connection to September 11 is a strained, intellectual one. While the IFC is getting 300,000 square feet of space to teach us how to think about liberty, the actual Memorial Center on the opposite corner of the site will get a meager 50,000 square feet to exhibit its 9/11 artifacts, all out of sight and underground. Most of the cherished objects which were salvaged from Ground Zero in those first traumatic months will never return to the site. There is simply no room. But the International Freedom Center will have ample space to present us with exhibits about Chinese dissidents and Chilean refugees. These are important subjects, but for somewhere--anywhere--else, not the site of the worst attack on American soil in the history of the republic.

More disturbing, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. is handing over millions of federal dollars and the keys to that building to some of the very same people who consider the post-9/11 provisions of the Patriot Act more dangerous than the terrorists that they were enacted to apprehend--people whose inflammatory claims of a deliberate torture policy at Guantanamo Bay are undermining this country's efforts to foster freedom elsewhere in the world.

I briefly worked in the 2 WTC, but was fortunate not to be in the building on September 11th. As the fires still burned under the rubble, I remember remarking, in a rather pissy tone, to a friend that I was afraid that this moment would become trivialized as time passed. How many that showed sympathy in the immediate aftermath that day would reveal their true colors; that 9-11 must be a statement on the sins of humanity and not the 19 cold-blooded murders who executed this plan? How loud would the chorus grow of people who, instead of the heroic efforts of the many that made it and those that didn't, drowned out by politics and "art?"

It must and WILL be stopped.

A Case of the Wednesdays

Work is keeping the man down and it's raining--in freakin' June. In case Mother Nature had a glitch in her Windows Operating System, let me remind here that we live in San Francisco, not Seattle.

Or maybe she's all pissy about the stream of obscenities that flowed from my mouth after last month's incident with the umbrella and the homeless guy's shopping cart. Like Johnny Cash, sometimes I can't help succumbing to evil every now and then. I must be just like them then, huh?

Al-Qaeda in Latin America

Even though al-Qaeda is on the run in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are down, but not out. Strategypage is reporting that Al-Qaeda is trying regain their advantage on this side of ocean through our soft-underbelly: Latin America.

The presence of Islamic radicals in some parts of Latin America is well known. With its vast wildernesses and weak governments, Latin America has been used for safe houses, transit routes for personnel, and even training bases. The focus of these activities has been on moving and training Islamic terrorists. Recently, however, a potentially disturbing trend has begun to develop, as intelligence suggests that the Islamic radicals are establishing ties with domestic radical and criminal groups in several countries.

Haiti - members of an Islamic group known to have ties with al Qaeda have apparently been providing training in weapons and explosives use to one of the pro-Aristide gangs, while also attempting to convert gang members to Islam.

Dominican Republic - two local radical groups seem to have been in contact with Islamic radicals, seeking financial and technical assistance.

Nicaragua – Al Qaeda, which is believed to have moved important operatives through the country from time to time, may be trying to reach out to dissatisfied fringe elements with the intention of helping them undertake terrorist attacks against the government.

Three Frontiers Region-- Hizbollah, and perhaps other Islamic groups, have been able to operate rather freely in the porous borderlands where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay come together, taking advantage of rampant corruption, to establish training camps, safe houses, and logistical bases.

Al-Qaeda's fantasy of restoring the Caliphate and seeing the West bow down to Mecca is just that, however they are still as hungry to give us another bloody lip as ever before. Time to rally and remember that this fight isn't over by any stretch. There is a lot more work left to do, and the only time these maniacs will relent is when they are buried 6-feet under the ground.

Oui

Posts like this remind me why I religiously read Ian Wood's site. Ok, my religion may be a little "different," or "zany" to you, but I find nothing wrong with rolling around in Crisco singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Leave me be--what kind of libertarianish person are you?

I digress.

Ian made one particular point that I find compelling and something I had felt rather "alone" in my thinking on:

And so, I don't read him (Sullivan) much anymore, which isn't so much an example of cocooning as it is of my general boredom with the whole Blogosphere Thing. Maybe I need to get out more. Virtually, that is. Sullivan isn't even telling me anything that I don't know or particularly disagree with. I'm just tired. Of. Hearing. It.

I'm also tired of wriggling on an epistemological spit turned by the billion handed beast of Information. Goddammit, I don't know what's going on in Guantanamo. And unless you're locked up there or guarding someone who is, neither do you. There's so much manure being flung in all directions, masquerading as news, that it's impossible to delve into that and many other issues without stinking. I'm tired of stinking. I want to ride my bike and eat Doritos.

When I first read this I shouted, "Yes!" and sprinted to the kitchen for that can of Crisco, but thankfully I hesitated, and became immersed in deep reflection on my intentions providing the basis of these thoughts.

Am I joyously enjoying the ripping of the establishment in the blogosphere because I get like 3 visitors a day to my site and I am filled with raging bile over it? No, I don't really care. I didn't start this site (thanks Kyle) for anything other than having an outlet to put my thoughts down. Writing in a journal takes too long, and I like quoting people because they're way smarter than I am.

So, I think have some actual legitimate gripes that Ian articulated above as a reader. I'm tired of reading how outraged and angry people are about what the New York Times said, or what Barbara Boxer did, or what a dunce Michael Moore is. I often agree with the gripes, but the volume is too loud and there aren't very many other conversations occurring that supplement the angry stuff. After the election, the number of blogs that I regularly read diminished by a factor of 10 due to my realization that after all the election mudslinging was done, there just wasn't that much substance and people were just as angry. People quote other people because they're just as angry about the latest knee-jerk topic and inter-blog warfare ensues. Comments pile up, people take sides, and the playground scenario manifests itself in our virtual world.

Not that I'm immune to this. I actually loved watching Glenn hammer away at Sullivan a few weeks back, and said so, but it's nothing of which I am proud. Anger is ok, but what are you actually saying?

I'm actually a pretty happy person, and try to retain some semblance of a positive attitude as I walk through this dark, morose, shit-stain of a existence called life. I'm pressing to make "The Power of Positive Thinking" work for me, man!

Anyway, the rub of it all is some great thinkers/writers have grown weary because of this catering to the lowest common denominator. Steven Den Beste hung it up, Ian posts less and Steven Green steps away for long periods of time. Unfortunately, these are the guys who best help me understand current events because instead of hysteria and raw emotion, they provide crucial historical perspective that is really difficult to find. Just like my underwear drawer, life is full of the good, the bad and the ugly and nothing will change that, but just as that is constant, the peanut gallery on the left and right will continue to yatter away with a bile that is just above the level of bumpersticker logic.

Great, now I writing a pissed off post criticizing people for being pissed off. And I wonder why no one reads this site.

So Ian, I'm with ya, but I'm begging you to keep writing. Write about beating your washing machine, or holding Zarqawi hostage, or riding your bike because that is far more interesting than 99.999% of the blog fodder out there. I'll be interested in seeing what you come up with in your journeys "out there," because I'm going to start getting "out there" too. Sorry for the suck up post, but I couldn't agree with you more.

In the meantime, has anyone seen the size of those Crisco containers at Costco? I mean, my God...