New and experienced climbers over 50 #37

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

Interesting you want us to be like south America.  I suspect the masking has more to do with the fact that they know they are doing illegal and immoral shit.

that's huge illogical leap but whatever I except nothing less.  All I said was it's a similar practice for the same reason.  I supported all the SF/SOF comms in CA and SA for 10yrs before retiring from Army.  Spent a whole bunch of time working with national police and partner mil forces in southcom AOR, but you clearly know more.

and no not a robot, but I know that's just a emotional response to not wanting to acknowledge painful facts.  you know like that men can't get pregnant, or transwomen are just dudes with autogynephilia - circling back to the original comment about Obama telling you all to "toughen up"  and maybe realign away from some of these 80-20 subjects... but it'll never happen

Jim Uwrote:

that's huge illogical leap but whatever I except nothing less.  All I said was it's a similar practice for the same reason.  I supported all the SF/SOF comms in CA and SA for 10yrs before retiring from Army.  Spent a whole bunch of time working with national police and partner mil forces in southcom AOR, but you clearly know more.

and no not a robot, but I know that's just a emotional response to not wanting to acknowledge painful facts.  you know like that men can't get pregnant, or transwomen are just dudes with autogynephilia - circling back to the original comment about Obama telling you all to "toughen up"  and maybe realign away from some of these 80-20 subjects... but it'll never happen

Jim, Without being able to interpret all of the abbreviations and jargon, I still suggest that "a whole bunch of time working with national police and partner mil forces..." in far from democratic places, might just have given you a bit of a distorted perspective.

As for your post yesterday, it would take me multiple pages to factually respond to that avalanche of misinformation and pure nonsense, in what is meant to be a climbing forum--and would have no chance of changing your mind anyway.

As for climbing, here in NE it is so miserably hot and humid, that I even had to cut short my gym session yesterday, despite air-conditioning and fans!!!!

More bike riding than climbing for me, but I have been bouldering and slab climbing outside a few times.  I did manage to complete v5 in the gym for the first time in months and hurt my finger doing it. The fact that any American thinks it's ok that warrantless, badgeless and masked up soldiers snatch people off the street (including some US citizens ) and deport them to concentration camps here and abroad without due process is shocking to me.

I don't want to trigger another pointless argument, but there's one question that's been bugging me for the last few days, so here goes:

Does anyone on this thread believe that there's a list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients who are Democrat pedophiles and child sex traffickers who murdered Epstein to conceal their involvement? (Okay, I realize that's an inartfully phrased compound question. Feel free to answer in parts if necessary.) 

It’s been great reading everybody’s posts the last few weeks. I really want to write something about the Epstein situation, but maybe not today.

I was on the road this morning at 4:30 to make the 10 hour drive home. This trip was brief, but well worth it. Getting on the 99 freeway gave me a warm feeling – – seven lanes of traffic, heading south, bumper-to-bumper, everybody coffeed up and heading to work. One lane of traffic closed, several accidents ahead. I thought wow… This is what my mornings used to be like and it wasn’t half bad. Being an early riser I used to get to my office sometimes by 5 AM and take over the place alone, turn on good music and get to work. Sometimes my head was still buried in work at 5 o’clock.

I once had a closet full of business suits. Today I have four pairs of climbing shoes and two pairs of approach shoes, and one pair of thongs.  I felt like my brain was sharp and that I was on my game, but I also felt that I was losing time. I was losing the opportunity to do anything else. And after that first fateful trip to Joshua Tree with that first fateful climb up WAC I found myself browsing mountain project more and more when I should be working.  

Early one January I was back in Joshua Tree for a week climbing and I got a phone call from my office saying all the computers had been hacked and were being held for ransom.  They weren’t kidding about that and I suppose I should’ve returned immediately to my business but instead, I told them I would deal with it that evening.  I did not cut my climbing trip short by even one minute. I left my staff there to deal with this catastrophe because I had rocks to climb. When I got home and realized the enormity, I felt pretty bad. It took a team of professional negotiators to try and get our data back, but we never got a shred. All of our redundant backups had been hacked as well but we had one thumb drive that somehow carried our most critical data. And I just wasn’t fazed by any of it.

That’s when I realized my wheeling and dealing days were over and that I probably needed to move along and somehow consider what my Third Act would look like. It looked a lot like Joshua Tree to me.

I now hold Guy completely responsible for the most irresponsible move of my lifetime.  He was the instigator and the encourager instead of telling me to do the responsible thing.   And I owe him big time.

I’d sure love to hear some other stories about that transition from being a working stiff to whatever it is you do today. The thing is I’m finding the need to knit together who I was and who I am today. I still have a good business head.  And it occurs to me this morning as I was driving out of town that one of the great gifts we now have is time. I could go wrestle up some trouble in my still existent tiny business. I can pay a lot of attention to politics and get involved. I can spend time counting grams of protein and learning the new rules of aging. I have also figured out how to FaceTime with my grandkids and be more present. I’m getting real good at distinguishing rattlesnakes from garter snakes.

Listening to a podcast this morning on the history of Google, one of their mantras was “we have a healthy disrespect for the impossible”. I immediately thought of climbing and how much of it is impossible today for me, but let’s just toss that aside and continue on.   The engineering that went into creating the biggest company in the world was really just a constant stream of analyzing the problems and creating solutions. Much like climbing. 

Stories?  

wendy weisswrote:

I don't want to trigger another pointless argument, but there's one question that's been bugging me for the last few days, so here goes:

Does anyone on this thread believe that there's a list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients who are Democrat pedophiles and child sex traffickers who murdered Epstein to conceal their involvement? (Okay, I realize that's an inartfully phrased compound question. Feel free to answer in parts if necessary.) 

No.

wendy weisswrote:

I don't want to trigger another pointless argument, but there's one question that's been bugging me for the last few days, so here goes:

Does anyone on this thread believe that there's a list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients who are Democrat pedophiles and child sex traffickers who murdered Epstein to conceal their involvement? (Okay, I realize that's an inartfully phrased compound question. Feel free to answer in parts if necessary.) 

Wendy, you are an instigator!

Wow, hanging out in a hotel room I re-watched all four episodes on Netflix about Epstein and then watched the documentary on Gislaine Maxwell, twice. Seeing how many times the trafficking of young girls took place at Mar-a-Lago, all the pictures of Donald Trump pawing girls no older than 12, the buddy buddy shenanigans with Epstein – – is anyone supposed to believe he was not personally one of the clients? More importantly, the number of lawsuits filed against Donald Trump by underage girls, but oh mysteriously dismissed.

I’m sure there were Democrats involved, including Clinton. I don’t personally care. I care that our president was very likely heavily involved. He has always been a wannabe with whoever he thinks of as rich and famous. Epstein bought and sold over 1000 girls.

What does strike me as odd is even if that were definitively proven I don’t think Trump’s base would care.

wendy weisswrote:

I don't want to trigger another pointless argument, but there's one question that's been bugging me for the last few days, so here goes:

Does anyone on this thread believe that there's a list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients who are Democrat pedophiles and child sex traffickers who murdered Epstein to conceal their involvement? (Okay, I realize that's an inartfully phrased compound question. Feel free to answer in parts if necessary.) 

I have no idea what the details might be, but I strongly suspect that there is some kind of information related to Epstein that is potentially damaging to numerous politicians. All of the evasive dodging that politicians have played with this suggests something is there.

On the other hand, Trump may simply have used it as a conspiracy theory to froth up his base (who just love that shit) fully knowing that there is nothing there, and now that he's in office he's trying to make it go away. That's entirely possible with this slimeball, too, in which case I actually have tiny amount of empathy for Bondi, who is the 'fall guy' for this strategy.

In any case, it's amusing to watch MAGA world melt down over this stooooopid issue, and watch Trump deal with it.

wendy weisswrote:

I don't want to trigger another pointless argument, but there's one question that's been bugging me for the last few days, so here goes:

Does anyone on this thread believe that there's a list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients who are Democrat pedophiles and child sex traffickers who murdered Epstein to conceal their involvement? (Okay, I realize that's an inartfully phrased compound question. Feel free to answer in parts if necessary.) 

Simple answer: no.

More complicated one: very likely some Democrats, some Republicans, some 'others' (UK Royalty, for example) are implicated. It is also very likely ( and increasingly likely the more he 'ducks, dodges, and distracts') that Trump is among those implicated. If there was solid 'dirt' involving any prominent Dems ( or other Trump enemies) I have no doubt that such information would already have been made public--any confidentiality protections notwithstanding.

I also doubt that many of the top MAGA 'Epstein files pushers' , despite their loudly stated condemnations, are really that bothered by the actual nature of his crimes ( though unquestionably many of their followers are). A prime example of this ( and one of the most striking of the many ironies in this debacle),  is that at a conference of the ultra-MAGA Turning Point USA a few days ago, one of the main speakers, I think it was Steve Brannon, demanded that a Special Counsel be appointed to investigate and proposed, to great audience enthusiasm, that Matt Gaetz be the one so appointed---the same Matt Gaetz who prematurely resigned Congress facing censure for the exact offenses for which Epstein was awaiting trial!!!!

I also think we need to be aware, even though Epstein did do wrong---and in a big way, of the very real anti-Semitic undertones ( and not at all 'deeply under') of the MAGA obsession with this issue.

Silence in the face of bigotry and oppression is not a virtue. 

wendy weisswrote:

Does anyone on this thread believe that there's a list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients who are Democrat ... 

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Do you really believe that Clinton etc. paid for sex with these girls?
Do you have any proof of this? Do you have any link to an article supporting this claim?

Yurywrote:

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Do you really believe that Clinton etc. paid for sex with these girls?
Do you have any proof of this? Do you have any link to an article supporting this claim?

Yuri, the cognitive dissonance is deafening. It was your side that partially ran their political campaign on releasing the “client list.“ Pam Bondi herself, stated that she had the “client list“ sitting on her desk.  But now, that the administration has changed their course and staked their flag on that there is no “list,” somehow you shifted this onto the Libs.

I also think we need to be aware, even though Epstein did do wrong---and in a big way, of the very real anti-Semitic undertones ( and not at all 'deeply under') of the MAGA obsession with this issue

Many people in MAGA nation use the term Judeo-Christian principles, but I'm sure they'd love to drop the Judeo part. And the concept? Check out "The Myth of the Judeo-Christian Tradition," Arthur Cohen, 1970. 

 

Guy Keeseewrote:

I went Rockclimbing at Suicide with a little help from my friends.
It’s been a long, long time for me.
Later all 

Wow - Suicide afternoon with Levy and EE I'm sure fun was had!  

I just went to that Fish Creek and Levy's routes were the among the standouts.

Frank Steinwrote:

Yuri, the cognitive dissonance is deafening. It was your side that partially ran their political campaign on releasing the “client list.“ ... you shifted this onto the Libs.

You are delusional. I am not aware that my common sense side was promoting this "client list".
In addition to ad-hominem attack, do you have anything else to respond to my question?

Whatever the truth is in this matter, it sure is a ‘shiny thing’ that has a lot of people’s attention while gawd-knows-whut continues to go on in the WH these days…

Yurywrote:

You are delusional. I am not aware that my common sense side was promoting this "client list".
In addition to ad-hominem attack, do you have anything else to respond to my question?

So you are categorically denying that both Trump and Vance explicitly stated that they would release it while they were on the campaign trail, or that Bondi stated in a press conference that it was sitting on her desk? If that is so, I have nothing else to say.

To be clear, I do not believe that there is a client list, but it is a clear fact that the Trump campaign beat the drum on this issue.

Yurywrote:

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Do you really believe that Clinton etc. paid for sex with these girls?
Do you have any proof of this? Do you have any link to an article supporting this claim?

Whoever went there paid one way or the other and if the magic kingdom's real they'll pay with an eternity in hell.

I was in the library today when I received an emergency alert on my phone. I could hear everyone else received it as well. Can you imagine a country where the NWS is privatized and only paying subscribers receive tsunami alerts? Unfortunately, I can…

Alan Rubinwrote:

Jim, Without being able to interpret all of the abbreviations and jargon, I still suggest that "a whole bunch of time working with national police and partner mil forces..." in far from democratic places, might just have given you a bit of a distorted perspective.

As for your post yesterday, it would take me multiple pages to factually respond to that avalanche of misinformation and pure nonsense, in what is meant to be a climbing forum--and would have no chance of changing your mind anyway.

As for climbing, here in NE it is so miserably hot and humid, that I even had to cut short my gym session yesterday, despite air-conditioning and fans!!!!

Al,

I beseech you, take the advise of a true American, Homer Simpson...

ed "Trump is the best, worse used car salesman you ever met..." e