Mt. Whitney Update

Follow up to Thursday's post:

LATimes

So far this year, five people have died on Mt. Whitney, and an untold number of hikers have suffered minor injuries, U.S. Forest Service officials said. Earlier this week, more than 75 searchers combed the mountain area for separate groups of climbers marooned for several days after day trips under clear blue skies turned into howling, snowy ordeals.

Three of those climbers — Phillip Michael Abraham, 34; Stevan James Filips, 43; and Dale Clymens, 45; all of Omaha — were plucked off the mountain by helicopter Thursday. The group had taken refuge in a rock hut for three days. Only one of them carried a sleeping bag, according to hikers who crossed their paths during the week.

During the transition from fall to winter, storms frequently gather on the western side of the mountain's crest, then roar over the top with biting 60 mph winds, whiteout conditions and sub-zero temperatures, Thompson said. It is not uncommon for even experienced hikers to slip on rocks frozen over with ice as clear as glass, or to get lost in heavy snowfall, or have a heart attack on the trail with a vertical ascent of more than one mile.

"I was in the back of the store grilling hamburgers when I overheard them talking about going up the mountain" he recalled. "I walked out of the kitchen and said, 'Hey, we've got some snow up there and more storms on the way.' … I even showed them a map on my computer screen showing a bunch of storms heading this way at more than 40 mph," he said.

"One of them said, 'That's impossible.' Another walked outside, looked up at the mountain and said, 'I'm going up anyway.' So off they went with light gear and the assumption that they could get to the summit in one day. You give folks information, but what they do with it is their business."

Yes, always trust your city-slicker instincts over the info you get from the guy who runs the store AT THE TRAILHEAD before you do the 22-mile round trip to the summit of the highest mountain in the lower 48 in the month of its iffiest weather! Yeesh.

I'm glad all the dumbass hikers are OK, and may I suggest to them that Death Valley, only a little over 100 miles from Whitney (you don't even have to change motels), is very nice this time of year.

Safest bet in the area, of course, is the cowboy movie museum. On display now is the Nudie Mobile. Heh.

Update:

Here's a nice video of the Mt. Whitney summit hike. Take note of the amount of snow up there on the date, and that these are young folks in pretty good physical condition.

This is a video of me and a group of friends hiking up Mt. Whitney on July 1, 2006. We made it up and down the Mt. Whitney summit in 12 hours.

Thanks to joen1369.

Heh. If anybody doesn't know what '1369' stands for, here's a hint: '13' stands for 'unlucky'...

Quote of the Day

Yikes McGee's blog

It's true that the Democrats are total chickens, but they're our chickens for the most part, and if we abandon them to the wolves they'll get eaten and then we are all screwed.

Then They Came for Me

Bob Koehler

Speaking out a year ago against the idea of holding civilian trials for terrorism suspects, Liz Cheney captured the paranoid arrogance of the past decade with stunning efficiency:

"This demonstrates conclusively that we are going back to a pre-9/11 mentality," she said.

Oh the horror! Fair trials, rule of law, habeas corpus, Miranda rights, blah, blah, blah - remember what a nuisance our justice system used to be before Liz's father and the rest of the neocon High Nooniacs made us safe by hustling us off to a police state and perpetual war?

I can't help but think about the younger Cheney's comment - and the fear it implies, not of terrorists but of liberals -
...

And when I do, the first words that come to my mind are those that Martin Niemoller, a conservative German Lutheran minister, famously uttered at the end of World War II [...]

A fear- and vengeance-driven post-9/11 mentality could yet become the done deal it is in Liz Cheney's mind. She and other war-on-terror promoters still have enormous political and financial power. They also have an outsize media forum from which to bloviate and intimidate, despite all the harm they have wrought this past decade, not just to millions of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and to the American troops who served their ends, but to the financial and moral integrity of their own country.

And a wishy-washy Obama administration, unable to break publicly from the worst policies of its predecessor, mostly serves the agenda it was elected to stop. In this political void, lawsuits such as the one brought by Abdul Razak al Janko are our stand-in for the truth commission, or the war crimes investigation, that should be convened to begin reversing the Bush era.

Amen.

Flying ...

So, about 10 days ago, our older (20 month) dog Chooch went under the knife. As responsible dog owners, spaying/neutering is de rigeur.

Da Chooch

I dropped Chooch off with Dr. Grove on my way to work and the procedure was done. No complications. I picked her up on the way home and Dr. Grove gave me strict instructions to keep her calm for a few days, no running or jumping for 7-10 days, let alone doing steps. Fine. She also sent Chooch home with a "Cone of Humiliation" around her head so she wouldn't pick at the incision (the cone lasted about 20 minutes before she got it off).

A little background on Chooch: She's fast, unbelievably so, and she's a jumper. She takes four or five steps at a time going up and just jumps both flights on the way down (we call it flying). She also has a 3 month old little sister (Ziva) to roughhouse with (which they do constantly). So keeping her calm, off the steps, and not jumping for a week has been an interesting exercise. Mentioning of course that Australian Cattle Dogs are stubborn and determined, in addition to being extremely intelligent.

Well, Thursday she was given the okay to resume her normal activity and everybody's happy again. Chooch, who was going stir crazy, Ziva, who has her playmate back, and me and the Mrs., thankful that the ordeal is over.

Now Chooch can fly again and she's doing it with relish.

Sugar Ray - Fly

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

A very nice clip of Emmylou harries. Unfortunately a WMG Chappel. si expect it to go off and me with it.

Thanks to fairopinion, UK.

Win-win ...

Heh ... Breitbatshit refuses to go on NPR until they rehire Juan Williams*. I'd say that's a win-win for NPR.

*And just to make clear, I don't think Williams should have been fired for his "scary Muslims on an airplane" comment, I'm glad he's out because he's an idiot.

Before I go totally fucking crazy...

The run-up to election day - this way madness lies. I'm so disgusted by all the crap the Repugs are pulling, you know, tons of money to spread lies (thank you, Roberts court), voter suppression, making the firing of an asshole by NPR into a phony 'free speech' issue, hatred, racism, ignorance as a virtue, and on and on, I needed some spiritual uplift before I nut up and strangle the first car bumper I see with a teabagger sticker on it.

This song works, and serendipitously me 'n Fixer have a spiritual connection with Knoxville and East Tennessee.

Will Kimbrough performing "Wings" at WDVX's Blue Plate Special.

Thanks to kmoxnews.

Headline of the Day

Witness: I quit al Qaeda over lack of health benefits

Not much of a burial program either. Nothing left to bury.

The Pulpit Of Bullies

Michael Winship

Here in New York State, of course, we have Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, who combines the boyish charm of J. Edgar Hoover with the sunny quirkiness of Pol Pot. So extreme are Paladino's views, so volatile his temper, that even Rupert Murdoch's right-wing New York Post has endorsed Democrat Andrew Cuomo, which is a bit like the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano dissing the Pope and singing the praises of Lutherans.

Heh.

Which brings us to Joe Miller, [...]
...

The plainclothes rent-a-cops, complete with Secret Service-type earpieces and Men in Black-style neckties and business suits, come from an Anchorage-based outfit called DropZone Security, which also runs a bail bond service and an Army-Navy surplus store - with one of those anti-Obama "Joker" posters pasted to its window. One-stop shopping for the vigilante militiaman in your life - kind of like that joke about the combination veterinarian-taxidermist: either way you get your dog back.

All of this would be funnier if not for the fact that this kind of hooliganism and casual trampling of First Amendment rights from people who claim to embrace the Constitution as holy writ is symptomatic of a deeper problem.

The only way to fight back against bullies and thugs is to stand up and tell them to go to hell. To do otherwise is to give an inch and prepare to be taken for the proverbial mile. That way lies madness. And worse.

It bears repeating: The only way to fight back against bullies and thugs is to stand up and tell them to go to hell.

Somehow ...

I don't think this was the doing of the evil Muslims:

LATEST: The package that was sent to [Rep. Raul] Grijalva’s office today was covered with swastikas and the white powder has been CONFIRMED to be a toxic substance!

This should now be classified as an official TERRORIST attack, just like these types of events immediately after 9/11 were.

...

I wonder if the media will call it a "prank"?

Regular folks and small businesses ...

As we all know, the definition of "small business" in the United States is a very wide, gray area. The other day, Idiot Glenn Beck implored his listeners to contribute to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Beck expressed solidarity with Chamber of Commerce: "They are us." As Media Matters noted, on October 14, Glenn Beck launched a donation drive for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, saying on his radio show, "I would like to make this the biggest fundraising day in the Chamber's history." He also said, "I don't know why we're not" a member of the Chamber and asked, "Can't we join the Chamber of Commerce in New York?" Beck's websites, GlennBeck.com and TheBlaze.com, also encouraged visitors to make donations to the chamber:

...

Yeah, just a bunch of regular folks. Small businesspeople just like "us"*:

Prudential Financial sent in a $2 million donation last year as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce kicked off a national advertising campaign to weaken the historic rewrite of the nation’s financial regulations.

Dow Chemical delivered $1.7 million to the chamber last year as the group took a leading role in aggressively fighting proposed rules that would impose tighter security requirements on chemical facilities.

...

I wonder when the rank and file of the Angry White Person Party will figure out they're supporting the people who are trying like hell to separate them from whatever little they have left. I can't believe, still, in my seventh year of blogging, that Americans can be so delusional to willfully blind themselves to their own best interest.

I know a guy who's a full-on teabagger, (he's preparing to take his country back, armed to the teeth, and it's all the immigrants' fault). He gets Social Security, Medicare, State Disability, and a pension from the union job he worked at since he got out of the Navy. What does he bitch about most? The government getting too big and too many people get entitlements. The unions ruining the economy. I just don't get it ...

TGIF!

*Thanks to Chris for the NYT link.

A Defense of Juan Williams and Other Media Idiots

The Rude One follows up on Fixer's post:

One part of the picture that's missing here is that the journalistic landscape has changed. Now, news anchors on all three of the news networks regularly offer commentary on the stories that they're reading off the teleprompter. You can't watch CNN without John Roberts or Tony Harris scoffing at something. And while Fox may have started the smearing of the line between news and punditry, CNN and MSNBC just as surely have stuck their fingers on the painting. That distinction is so blurred now that Wolf Blitzer seems quaint in his attempts to keep objectivity against a full-blown Cafferty assault.

If you're gonna blur that line, if you're gonna encourage your news people to mouth off, if you're gonna tell your commentators to push the boundaries, then don't be surprised if they say something offensive. It's like if you have a lover who wants you to do all kinds of crazy, kinky stuff to him: shoving huge dildos in his ass, stomping his balls, making him wear nipple clamps and a cock ring, jacking him off while he hangs by hooks through his skin, shitting on his chest. But then you punch him in the face and he says, "Whoa, whoa, too far" and breaks it off. How the hell were you to know what was too far at that point? Rick Sanchez's show was essentially about what giant self-righteous douchebag Rick Sanchez was. And they were surprised when he acted like a giant self-righteous douchebag elsewhere? And Williams has said tons of backwards ass shit on Fox over the years, most recently about the Park 51 community center, which he emphatically opposes.

Free speech ain't pretty. It's not supposed to be. But as long as it doesn't get in the way of you doing the job that you have been hired to do, the only combat for it ought to be more speech. And, sure, in the abstract, NPR has a right to fire someone they find offensive, but you know what else it could have done? A story about how a pretty smart guy (even if you disagree with him) can have the kinds of fears and prejudices that Williams talked about. But that would have been more about exploring an issue than having a knee-jerk reaction to anything that might piss off people. NPR was looking for a way to get rid of Williams. Mara Liasson better watch her ass.

NPR and F**Noise are incompatible, to say the least. F** no doubt pays better and I'm sure the gasbags would rather get fired from NPR.

If they bunch up in one place, we can get 'em all with one round.

Snowstorm hampers search for 3 Mt. Whitney hikers

EssEffChron

Snowstorms are hampering the search for three missing hikers on California's Mt. Whitney.

Park spokeswoman Dana Dierkes says the three men from the Omaha, Neb.-area went missing on a hike Monday evening on the 14,494-foot Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the continental United States.

The Fresno Bee says about 45 people are assigned to the search but snowstorms are making it difficult. A command post dispatcher says Thursday that there's snow above 8,000 feet.

Welcome to California, gents, and I hope you're OK. Notice any differences from Nebraska yet?

GOP candidates' problem in California? Their party

And yer point is...?

Last coupla ¶ of an op-ed by George Skelton, LATimes:

A blogger who calls himself the Cowboy Libertarian, Dorinson added: "There's an old saying that when you're riding out ahead of the herd, you might want to look back now and then to make sure the herd is following you. The herd hasn't been following the Republican Party for some time."

Whitman has been trying, but she's saddled with a bad brand.

Whitman with a saddle? Ride 'em, cowboy?! Make the visuals stop!

Also, I assume her brand is a wingnut lying on its side under a dollar sign (the Lazy gRafter Whackjob?), but I do not care to see it or contemplate where it might be. I know where they put them on bovine cows. Make the visuals stop, please! Maybe a notch in her ear would be OK...

Emaciated Corpses and Zyklon B

Der Spiegel, a 'recommended read'.

US Tea Party Should Keep Its Hands Off Hitler

For most Germans, though, the Hitler comparisons are vastly more offensive. It is almost impossible to finish high school in Germany without going on a class visit to a former concentration camp. They are not pleasant places to be. While the sites themselves might now be little more than windswept rows of foundations where hopelessly overcrowded, disease-ridden barracks once stood, the museum exhibits tend to be much more disturbing. Images of trucks full of emaciated corpses, ovens where tens of thousands of bodies were burned, photos of SS commandos on the Eastern Front shooting row upon row of Jews, a canister of the poison gas Zyklon B -- all are likely to be on display.

During his show on Oct. 5, Glenn Beck said that Obama's science adviser John Holdren's concern about the global population and White House health policy adviser Ezekiel Emanuel's warnings about global warming are "the kind of thinking that led to … the extermination program that eventually led to the Holocaust."

It would be hard to find someone on this side of the Atlantic who wouldn't cringe at the ignorance of that statement. Leaving aside the question as to whether or not one should be concerned about climate change and an overcrowded planet, the kind of thinking that led to the Holocaust was a different one. Hitler wanted a racially pure Germany. People with handicaps didn't fit. Neither did Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, blacks, Asians, Arabs or homosexuals.

Let's just say that diversity was not part of Hitler's program. How'd that work out for ya, Adolf?

Us lefties made the same kind of comments about the Bush maladministration of course, but I didn't see a Spiegel article decrying it. That's because we were right.

And as far as the 'racially pure' country the teabaggers wish for, I suggest they wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which hand fills up first.

Word ...

Fez:

No intelligent statement has ever followed, "I'm not a bigot, but..."

Understanding ...

Most of the time, when Long Island makes news lately, it's because some redneck, cracker assholes (and boy do we have our share) decided to beat an immigrant half to death (or actually kill the poor bastid) or some stupid shit like that.

This, however, is one of the reasons I love living here. As I've said many times, I live in one of the most ethnically diverse places in the country and we generally get along*. In an attempt to further that understanding, our local Mosque invited all the non-Muslims around here to afternoon prayers the other day and many of my neighbors attended.

At 75, Jan Sepulveda, a Roman Catholic, stepped foot in a mosque for the first time in her life Wednesday.

She took off her shoes, wrapped a black scarf around her head, and entered the Masjid Darul Qur'an mosque in Bay Shore while an imam prayed in Arabic.

"I hate bigotry," Sepulveda said in an interview. "I want to know more about people who are different from me."

...

Makes me proud to be an Islander.

...

Wednesday, the entrance at the mosque in Bay Shore was decorated with red, white and blue balloons, as if to underscore the congregation's allegiance to the United States. The sanctuary was visited by politicians, ministers, community leaders and ordinary citizens.

[Imam] Rehman explained some of the basic practices of the faith, such as the removal of shoes in the sanctuary, the separation of males and females into different areas during prayer, and the five times a day that observant Muslims pray.

...

That, my friends, is what America is all about.

Update:

*Come to think about it, I did yell at the Afghani next door to keep his chickens in his own damn yard so my dogs wouldn't pick up any parasites. Heh ...

Heh ...

Being I'm doing the puppy thing right now, this little vid gave me a laugh:

Thanks to Watertiger.

I ♥ New York!

It ain't just Fixer any more! Nuevo York's gubernatorial debate was a heartwarming demonstration of democracy in all its glorious unmitigated silliness.

The Daily Voice, with video.

This week's New York governor's debate was supposed to be a clash between Democrat Andrew Cuomo and Republican Carl Paladino. Instead, by some accounts, it turned into a "farce" in which independent candidates stole the show.

Among the highlights: Kristin Davis, a former prostitution madam, told jokes about brothels and gay bars. And Republican Paladino surprised the audience by actually walking off stage in the middle of the debate to use the bathroom. "When you gotta go, you gotta go," his campaign manager told the New York Times.

But the real show stealer was Jimmy McMillan of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party, who spoke repeatedly about the high cost of rent, which had made it difficult for families to pay their bills, put food on the table, and take care of themselves.

Note to Mr. McMillan: You are one colorful dude! The whiskers are magnificent! Your "The Rent's Too Damn High" philosophy is closer to the truth than most would like to admit if you'd drop that "the Jews" shit, and of course you're as crazy as a loon to most people. Kudos also for collecting the 15,000 signatures necessary to get on the ballot by yourself.

You ain't got a chance and I hope you win. The Jews'll wise ya up as soon as you're in.

Mr. McMillan has been endorsed by the AMI.

Reuters

NY state a brothel in need of a madame – governor candidate

At their first debate on Monday, candidates for New York governor made the usual use of metaphor and cliche about the state’s economic woes.

But candidate Kristin Davis (go look at her logo! Whee!) took it a step further when she compared the state bureaucracy to a badly run brothel, and New York politicians to whores.

And she would know.

She sure would! From the look of this lady, she earned every dime she ever made the hard way. One NY politician at a time.

She hasn't got a chance either, of course, and I hope she wins too.

Most gubernatorial and other political 'debates' wouldn't have let these candidates participate because they're a distraction from the corporate message. I am so glad New York did. We all needed it.

If I were not already blessed by being a Californio, I'd wanta be a Noo Yawkah! They're just as crazy as we are.

Three Things to Do When Clarence Thomas’s Wife Calls You

Andy Borowitz

I know what you're saying: "It'll never happen to me. Virginia Thomas doesn't even have my phone number!" Well, that's what I thought, and several years of trauma counseling later, I've come to realize (the hard way) what a fool's paradise I was living in. Consider this: according to a recent study, the odds of Virginia Thomas leaving a threatening voicemail for you are higher than those of Christine O'Donnell correctly identifying the First Amendment. With those grim statistics in mind, here are three simple steps you can take if and when Mrs. Clarence Thomas calls.

3. Get in the habit of answering your phone, "Long Dong Silver residence."

One final note: if you get a call in the middle of the night and there is silence on the other end, that is not Virginia Thomas. That is Clarence Thomas.

Now that's creepier still.