New and experienced climbers over 50 #36

Ward Smithwrote:

They did  NOT convict him of rape.  They found him liable - in a civilian court- of “sexual abuse.”  Not a good look, but definitely not “convicted of rape,” which was the quote I was responding to. Facts matter, at least to me.  The last thing that I am doing is “defending” Trump. I am defending the truth.  The conversation I am having (or trying to have) is that you guys are literally making shit up instead of calling him out on all the legitimately bad things that he has done. It does not serve your purpose well.

I agree with Ward that it is critical that the left not follow the right's almost endless mendacity. We should be careful what we say and should check our sources.  The truth, to the extent that it is knowable, is under what seems to me to be an unprecedented assault from the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, and absolutely no good can come from trading falsehoods, and the left is guilty of some of the same behavior.  

That said, this particular situation is not the best place to take a stand. Yes, Trump is not a "convicted rapist." But that isn't quite the final word. New York penal law is a penile law, which is to say that there is a very restricted definition of rape that requires penile penetration. Forcible digital penetration, which is what Trump was accused and convicted of, is not rape in NY. It is rape according to the NY Psychological Association and the Justice Department (according to a definition from 2012--I wouldn't be surprised if the current administrtion arranges to nullify that definition). It is also rape as understood by most people (including, I would guess, all women), and "most people" includes the presiding judge in the case, who said the jury found that Trump had “ raped her in the sense of that term broader than the New York Penal Law definition.”

So the fact that Trump is not a "convicted rapist" is due to a legal nicety, and even the judge in the case believes that the term "rapist," as commonly understood, applies. Referring to Trump as a convicted rapist is a technical error with quite a bit of truth behind it, not the kind of contrafactual claim regularly served up by the MAGA propaganda machine. The left didn't lose the election over subtle errors like this.

In the interest of the literal truth, I suggest Trump be referred to as a "convicted forcible digital penetrator," leaving it to the listener whether or not to bestow the title of "rapist" on him. 

EDIT: Per Alan's correction about the incorrect use of "convicted" in civil cases, Trump was "found liable for forcible digital penetration." The distinction is significant, since quite different standards of proof are required in civil and criminal proceedings. Perhaps we should add the corresponding acronym as a title, eg  Donald Trump, FLFDP.

11:45 pm sky tonight. Time to make hay.

Thank you rgold.  A minor point but is “convicted” the right word in a civil case?  Alan?  

Lori Milaswrote:

Thank you rgold.  A minor point but is “convicted” the right word in a civil case?  Alan?  

Lori, as I wrote yesterday, ' convicted' is not a correct word to use to describe the result of any civil case. The specific type of civil case that we are discussing ( there are several categories of civil cases) is called a 'tort' action. A 'tort' is a 'wrong' causing some sort of injury or loss, physical or economic. So in a civil tort case one is found to be 'liable' for causing that harm,  as Trump was in this case.

Trump was, however, convicted of various forms of fraud in his NY state criminal case, though that conviction is not 'final' as it is still on appeal.

Unfortunately, he won't ever be convicted of any of the offenses that he is currently committing, since in addition to the virtual immunity the Supreme Court has granted to him, he will also undoubtedly pardon himself prior to leaving office.

This is not intended to undercut the comments regarding the need for better accuracy and less hyperbole in political discourse (which I wholeheartedly agree with), but I have exactly zero confidence that the majority of the voting populace on either side of the political fence has the capability to interpret information/events or communicate about them with a higher level of precision. Politics and media communicate in hyperbole because people will read and react to it. Until individuals gain a higher level of intelligence and self discipline to discriminate this information (ain't gonna happen), this dysfunctional process will continue.

I don’t want to ruin a perfectly wonderful Sunday and Mother’s Day discussing this despicable man. But as the general topic of accuracy it certainly is something I care deeply about because we look like idiots when we share untruths.

I see it all the time when family and friends pass along memes, articles and quotes that smell of falsehood. A simple Google search inevitably proves that. While we’re at it pictures of Trump that have been Photoshopped to make him look well over 300 pounds just discredits whatever is being said about him. It appears we have no more interest in truth and accuracy than the Maga folks do.  

I would vote for absolute meticulous, accuracy each and every time.  Go to primary sources, double check and verify.  It’s already bad enough – – there’s no need to lie about it.

On a much more cheerful note: Randy Leavitt and Tony Yaniro having a conversation on The Nugget. Getting to know these guys through social media has been great.

This stemming thing… my my.    

Buck Rogerswrote:

Yes but I'm still with Ward on this, and I am as liberal and left leaning as is possible and still allowed to be in the Army:  He never says bleach.

It only makes our (the) Leftist cause worse when we say things that are not true.

Yes he did say injection but you know what, we inject gamma globulins all the time in medicine so as much as we hate to say it, what he said is not without possible merit.

There have been studies completed, though to my knowledge they did not yield statistically significant results, on using IV IG for RSV and COPD exacerbations.

Let's be objective and try to leave the hyperbole and emotions out of it, if you have to discuss politics.

I’m beginning to warm up to Trump at this point with Tariff talks beginning and already cut nearly in half by him as a starting point, but the truth is the truth.

I agree he did not say within a single sentence “ingest/Inject bleach to kill Covid”, but nevertheless, he did. It doesn’t matter how many partial sentences it takes to complete a thought,,once it’s out there, it’s out.

It was particularly funny that it was making all of the top scientists of this topic sitting behind him look very uncomfortable. Okay, I admit that I have a pretty sick sense of humour…but, to be fair, I don’t take medical nor investment advice from Trump. The latter I regret, cause he was manipulating the market and I missed out on a 20% single day gain.  

On climbing, after 4 days with no climbing, nor Yoga, I’m free of muscle cramps and finally “feel” strong again. Can’t wait to start my workout week tomorrow.

I’m in SoCal with my family, and it was super hot. 106F. Luckily, dropping now.

I got my new Laptop to replace the one that burnt up. Lenovo Legion! Pretty excited. Ran a few benchmarks, and trained a YoloV5 model in less than the time it took to install the CUDA tools from NVidia.

The current US administration states “We want to see, for the good of both China and the US, an opening up of China to American business.”

Start with removing restrictions on what we sell to China, like graphics cards, simple  

Ultimately, we need to tone down Pompeo’s rhetoric started in 2016. If it weren’t for that asshole, Chinese would have bought many more things from USA. They were already doing so until the West decided to start the first trade war with China and continued on with Biden.

Free markets are better for the world, and with an unemployment figure of 4.5%, USA doesn’t have people to fill factories anyway.

Unfortunately, due to trade wars the past 8 years with China, Robotics technologies in the west have lost their edge relative to China. Though neither can replace human manual dexterity nor intelligence to build things like iPhones and camera modules. That’s not too far in the future, but not at the moment.

“The US team went into the first day of talks somewhat hemmed in by their boss. Trump posted on Truth Social before the meetings even started: “80% Tariff on China seems right!” He added that it was “up to” his Treasury chief, without elaborating.”

If I were Scott Bessent, I’d say, “up to me?”, 20% tariffs and 0 on technology. Remove all trade restrictions.   

Li, I hate to say it, but I fear that economics and trade may become the least of your immediate concerns. 

Li, maybe China's ridiculous, illegal "9 dash line" and stated goal to take Taiwan under it's unwanted control, militarily if need be (lots of preparation and intimidation), when Taiwan has lots of history of not being under the dominion of mainland China, support for murderous regimes like Kim and Putin and blatant disregard for human rights and intellectual property have something to do with tensions between the west and China.

The Orange Buffoon has added support for what aboutism arguments, but these conditions remain and just get more and more blatant and adversarial.

M Spraguewrote:

Li, maybe China's ridiculous, illegal "9 dash line" and stated goal to take Taiwan under it's unwanted control, militarily if need be (lots of preparation and intimidation), when Taiwan has lots of history of not being under the dominion of mainland China, support for murderous regimes like Kim and Putin and blatant disregard for human rights and intellectual property have something to do with tensions between the west and China.

The Orange Buffoon has added support for what aboutism arguments, but these conditions remain and just get more and more blatant and adversarial.

I’m half Taiwanese, and more legitimately Taiwanese than the assholes running MY country.

The true problem is that the entire world depends upon chips and they don’t trust somehow that China wouldn’t freely allow technology to go to the USA.

That pretty much goes against everything China has done in the past with every nation they trade with. They don’t even put “conditions” on arms sales like the USA does. If it makes money, they sell. If India wanted to purchase weapons, maybe? But the border dispute may prevent that?

If for whatever stupid reason other than Taiwan, the USA decides to declare war on China, then, well, they would stop shipping USA chips.

The best thing for the USA is simply to stop trying to police the world. Continue to build great products other people want or need and fuck the war Hawks. Dump them all on an island with other countries’ hawks and let them fight to the death, but televise it of course. It would make good money.  

Marc

Edit ran out of posts for the day.

Ward, be careful on those sideways dynos. Not worth it.

I was hoping to get into a hard core training cycle right now, but I got sucked into a sideways bouldering dyno on a V7 in the gym climbing with the kids. A catch with one hand and everything else was off and swinging sideways.  Anyway, I hurt my shoulder, though it does not seem  too bad.  I took three days off. then did volume on ropes yesterday and it was fine but I was favoring my right shoulder.  Sideways dynos have absolutely no relevance for the outdoor projects that I want to do.  No reason to do it other than I was being competitive with the kids and was actually doing better than they were.  I thought that I knew better, but obviously not. 

Ward Smithwrote:

I was hoping to get into a hard core training cycle right now, but I got sucked into a sideways bouldering dyno on a V7 in the gym climbing with the kids. A catch with one hand and everything else was off and swinging sideways.  Anyway, I hurt my shoulder, though it does not seem  too bad.  I took three days off. then did volume on ropes yesterday and it was fine but I was favoring my right shoulder.  Sideways dynos have absolutely no relevance for the outdoor projects that I want to do.  No reason to do it other than I was being competitive with the kids and was actually doing better than they were.  I thought that I knew better, but obviously not. 

The local gym has gotten into moves like this, great fun for the 30 and under crowd it looks like! I always think moves like this have almost no relevance to actual rock, it's this parkour trend fueled by social media.

So, Marc, as someone from Taiwan, are you advocating the US and the rest of the world be more short term mercenary and meekly acquiesce to Chinas geographical and political power grabs that weaken the international rule of law and democracy? It seems like a similar attitude to what Putin advocates the rest of the world does in response to his invasion of Ukraine. I don't buy it. I also don't buy that China under it's current cuddly Poo Bear is a benign peace loving country just interested in free mercantile exchange.

Until recently, I think a good argument can be made, that under United States 'policemanship' influence, even with all the bad things, the world had been more peaceful and prosperous than under any other superpower. 

I always find it quite funny that we here write paragraphs and paragraphs about anything from growing tomatoes to world politics to gout and then say 'on a climbing note I did a V3 yesterday...

A bit like being found by your mother in your room with a Playboy magazine and saying 'I was studying biology'...

Carl, that reminds me of when in elementary school I got a hold of a few Playboy magazines and cut the individual pictures out to sell to my friends at school. I was successful enough to figure the next step was to get a subscription. Unfortunately the post office lady knew everybody in the village and bagged me and told my mom, putting a stop to my business venture.

M Spraguewrote:

Carl, that reminds me of when in elementary school I got a hold of a few Playboy magazines and cut the individual pictures out to sell to my friends at school. I was successful enough to figure the next step was to get a subscription. Unfortunately the post office lady knew everybody in the village and bagged me and told my mom, putting a stop to my business venture.

Ha ha! Very entrepreneurial, good way to make money! Talking about making money, I access some of my superannuation soon and also get about 6 grand back in tax (without claiming for anything because I don’t claim the tax free threshold). I have a list of climbing gear I want to get, three ropes (one a 70m) plus I also want to get a new motorcycle base layer, some camping gear (fridge, solar panel and battery) and assorted bits and pieces. I just WISH it was all more expensive so I wouldn’t lose money buying stuff I want! 

Ward Smithwrote:

I was hoping to get into a hard core training cycle right now, but I got sucked into a sideways bouldering dyno on a V7 in the gym climbing with the kids. A catch with one hand and everything else was off and swinging sideways.  Anyway, I hurt my shoulder, though it does not seem  too bad.  I took three days off. then did volume on ropes yesterday and it was fine but I was favoring my right shoulder.  Sideways dynos have absolutely no relevance for the outdoor projects that I want to do.  No reason to do it other than I was being competitive with the kids and was actually doing better than they were.  I thought that I knew better, but obviously not. 

Ward:  I immediately thought of the amazing short story by Jack London, "A Piece of Steak" when I read your anecdote!

I have to be so careful in the gym these days not to try the dynos (which so many routes seem to have in the gym), esp the sideways ones, as they just kill my shoulders!

And it is so hard to hold back as I want to try the routes that my older teenager and young 20's kiddos and friends are doing but I know that they will bounce back in a heartbeat but I'll be nursing a sore shoulder for a week or two if I do!

On a side note (not a side dyno!):  Looking forward to finally climbing at Rumney in less than two weeks!  I've got my young 20's, 5.12+ climber partner who is a good friend of a friend who has never climbed there before, either.  We're heading up for the weekend with an old edition of your guidebook and going to get in line to do some of the "easy" classics 5.10 and down and I'll belay him on the harder stuff!

Praying for good weather!  Our last trip was cancelled when it rained the whole weekend!

Climb On!!!

M Spraguewrote:

So, Marc, as someone from Taiwan, are you advocating the US and the rest of the world be more short term mercenary and meekly acquiesce to Chinas geographical and political power grabs that weaken the international rule of law and democracy? 

It’s a geological quirk, but the international rules we had largely created keep them bound inside those waters. Of course, when they are capable they would try to break out of that prison.

Effectively, our rule of law that effectively blockades China from access to the Pacific created during an era when the West controlled the world.

We should learn to share power rather than attempt to enforce laws that make absolutely no sense and are unfair. Every move we make to attempt to contain China is met with a reaction from a country that was fully satisfied with being “number 2” on the world stage.

First trade war with China resulted in an aggressive “Belt and Road” Why? So they can enrich future customers for goods.

CHIPS act culminated in their AI, 5nm (albeit low yield), EUV, Quantum computing on par with Google/IBM

Hypersonic missiles, Stealth technology (no longer stealing the technology, but advancing it).

Indo-Pacific treaties that blockade China, they built a huge Navy with two ships nearing completion to compete with Ford class carriers.

We locked them out of ISS, now they’ve built their own space stations and are looking to colonise the moon.

Everything the USA does is to weaponise things that don’t make any sense.

We’re not going to stop them from advancing, the question is this, do we want to be allies or enemies (as another old politician coined it “competitor”)?

It seems like a similar attitude to what Putin advocates the rest of the world does in response to his invasion of Ukraine. I don't buy it. I also don't buy that China under it's current cuddly Poo Bear is a benign peace loving country just interested in free mercantile exchange.

Honestly, I don’t think Xi actually gives a shit with name calling, but again, do you want to be friends or a foe with the leader of a rapidly emerging nation?

Keep in mind, they consider themselves to be emerging. Chinese people do take pride in it, but they still consider themselves as “emerging”, that is, they’re not yet at their potential. Many feel they are not even “halfway” there.

Until recently, I think a good argument can be made, that under United States 'policemanship' influence, even with all the bad things, the world would have  been more peaceful and prosperous than under any other superpower. 

Fixed that for you, cause until all this war mongering, we all were in a better place.

Had it not been for Pompeo and continued on through Biden and all the rest of the war hawks in the USA asserting their dominance, we’d all be in a happier place.

USA “policemanship” in and outside its borders led to some pretty horrific crimes and war crimes against people of colour. A very small percentage of the criminals were punished.

Chinese were treated as sub-humans along with all other Asians and people of colour by western “police-ing” otherwise known as imperialism.

M Spraguewrote:

Carl, that reminds me of when in elementary school I got a hold of a few Playboy magazines and cut the individual pictures out to sell to my friends at school. I was successful enough to figure the next step was to get a subscription. Unfortunately the post office lady knew everybody in the village and bagged me and told my mom, putting a stop to my business venture.

Definitely a good way to mix business and pleasure!  

Too bad the “police” put a stop to it…