Caption Competition

I was just looking at the photo of Tony Snow in the last post from earlier in the week - that's a caption competition just waiting to happen isn't it?


On the basis of the recent "no brainer" comment from Vice President Cheney on whether torturing people is a good thing or not (a comment he is now trying to weasel out of) I think perhaps Mr Snow is saying "the President is only going to put him this far under just to remind him not to do it again before the elections..."

Alternative suggestions are most welcome in the comments.

"Stay the Course" leaves the field

Sorry for mixing the sporting metaphors in the title but: thank the lord! I've just heard on the radio Tony Snow (photo left), the Whitehouse press secretary, say that President Bush is no longer going to use the phrase "stay the course". Regardless of the politics, this cringe-inducing cliché should have died a natural death long ago. It is my second most hated cliché in international politics after "boots on the ground", a horrible phrase that the BBC doesn't seem to be able to fully rid itself of although you don't hear it quite so much as over the last couple of years.

The presenters on "Today" on Radio 4 were amongst the worst abusers of "boots on the ground" - it got to the point where I actually imagined that John Humphrys might really believe that the way to stabilise Southern Iraq was to turf a load of boots out of the back of a C-130. I never really got their fondness for it - "boots on the ground" is four syllables, "soldiers" is two: life is complicated enough already.

On Cosmetic Surgery and Veils

We have a great 'magazine wall' at work - like in many libraries the most recent magazines and papers are held in holders, with the back issues stored in a cupboard behind. One magazine that my institute has started subscribing to more recently is New Scientist, and whilst microwaving some cold coffee hot (taste issues aside, is this the green thing to do as opposed to making a fresh pot?) one of the titles on the front cover caught my eye: "Nip & Tuck: Cosmetic Surgery's link to Suicide". According to the article, medical interest in this subject was sparked two big studies in Canada and the US that looked at large numbers of women who had had breast implants. The idea was to see if the persistent rumours that implants can cause cancer or other diseases were true or not. They seemed not to be, but both studies showed that women with implants are more likely to kill themselves. There are many possibilities as to why this is so, and the article suggests that no one really understands why yet, but further studies in Sweden, Finland, and Denmark suggest similar. Basically a woman with implants is 2 to 3 times more likely to kill herself.

The hundreds, perhaps thousands, of fellow climbers who hang out on UKclimbing.com arguing with each other over just about everything remains my way of gauging the British zeitgeist whilst up here in more northern climes. Of course over the last few weeks, of the non-climbing matters discussed, since Jack Straw's now (in)famous comments the veil or niqab has been about the most popular topic for debate (well, "battle" more like). The issue of breast implants had, somewhat oddly, come up (thanks to Jenn for starting the ball rolling with her "research" of reading Cosmo and Marie Claire whilst ill in bed!). It might have even been me who brought up the connection between the two things first, arguing that I wish women didn't feel the need to veil themselves, but if it is their choice and not imposed it seems illiberal to me to tell them they can't - at least when it doesn't impinge on others (which is what makes the case of the teaching assistant more difficult). In the same way I also wish that women didn't feel the need to pay surgeons, and take the risks that come with surgery, to change their body shape (and lets just stick with cosmetic surgery as opposed to those who need similar procedures for reconstructive purposes), but again it seems illiberal to say that they can't.

Considering that the niqab is about taking modesty to what many see as ridiculous lengths whilst a boob-job is basically the opposite, it might seem an odd comparison. But I think it is worth considering beyond the obvious parallel that central to both issues is how women are seen by men. Much of the UK debate over veils has revolved around whether it is divisive (for what it's worth, it is in my opinion) and hampers the forming of an inclusive society (again probably yes); in other words does it have a social cost? But what the New Scientist article suggest is cosmetic surgery has social costs as well - and as anyone who has lost a friend or someone close to them by suicide knows - it could be quite a high cost in a way few had considered before this research.

Central to classical liberal thinking is the position of the individual's rights vis-a-vis the good, however measured, of the greater community. I'm not fully convinced either way on either issue, but for non-Muslims who oppose a Muslim woman's right to wear a veil, they better have their arguments in coherent logical order when it comes to the position of women in western society as well.

Keeping strong for the post-apocalyptic world

An ordinary climbing wall?

So what's with all the ventilation and water pipes then?

And my! Those are some rather thick doors! What could they be to keep out?

Access to the climbing wall - via a 500 mtr long tunnel into the bedrock.

The entrance: yes, it's a climbing wall in your friendly, neighbourhood, nuclear fallout shelter! Surely one of the odder places to have a wall? The climbers of Finland are keen, not even nuclear holocaust isn't going stop them from sending their projects.

More leaves

It bothered me that despite posting a picture of leaves in my post from the weekend, I didn't actually know what type of leaves they were. I grew up in the country and should know these things; I would know them in a British wood I think. After some discussion about this with the good folks on UKclimbing, which only got slightly side-tracked by too-subtle Monty Python references, I'm pretty certain that Mark is correct and it's Aspen. Thanks Mark.

"If you've got a website, I wanna be on it..."

My pleasure Billy. Here you go:



As the show host says, a national treasure.

I always feel a bit bad about seeing something interesting or fun on another blog, and then pinching it and putting it on mine. But that's the blogosphere and I guess if you, dear readers, haven't happened to have visited the original blog you wouldn't have seen it anyway so I'm sort of helping out. Therefore credit for this goes to Harry's Place who had a Billy Bragg themed post. The other YouTube clip on that post, of Billy doing "Unisex Chip Shop" with Bill Bailey at Glastonbury, is also well worth two minutes of most peoples time.

Authentic Desire?

leaves

What could possess three otherwise pretty normal English blokes to spend their day at the bottom of various slightly damp, slightly mossy, Southern Finnish cliffs on a cold autumn day...

gear/cliff

...wrapped up in duvet jackets, fleeces and woolly hats, to keep out the dank, cold, autumnal air?

Some fat bloke on a rock

We didn't even get to climb that much (although Dave put in a fine lead on a 7a) as good sections of both of the cliffs we visited were seeping after last week's heavy rains. Many holds were covered in soggy leaf-mulch and sopping moss - far from ideal conditions - and fingers quickly numbed pulling on cold holds.

Tony belays as Dave cruises to victory above

I suppose it's because we love it, and even though the seasons are turning against us, we're not quite ready to stop rock climbing yet. And its not even the climbing itself, at least not for me, because otherwise today would have been a total write-off. It's having coffee and donuts with your friends in countryside petrol-station cafés; its watching the yellow leaves swirl down after a gust shakes the trees; it the silent crags looking slightly abandoned after the fine-weather-climbers of summer have retreated back to working out on indoor walls. There's a phrase in climbing literature: "authentic desire" - I'm sure it was either Jim Perrin or John Redhead who used it first (although knowing those two there's a good chance that they had lifted it from Heidegger or Nietzsche) - to describe the urge that creates a climb of beauty at great personal risk. I'm never going to be that strong, or that brave, to do "that" sort of route, and I don't know if standing around on a slick carpet of fallen leaves on a chilly, damp, October sunday to get a few more routes in before winter, really counts as "authentic desire"; but at least for me it will do.

Iraq Confidential

The following is is from Time Magazine, but I saw it on (so basically nicked it from) Akinoluna's blog. So thanks to her. Time dug around to check that an email that escaped into the wilds of the internet was genuine. It was and the Marine officer in Iraq who wrote it agreed to let them publish it.

These are my three favourite bits:

Most Profound Man in Iraq — an unidentified farmer in a fairly remote area who, after being asked by Reconnaissance Marines if he had seen any foreign fighters in the area replied "Yes, you."

Coolest Insurgent Act — Stealing almost $7 million from the main bank in Ramadi in broad daylight, then, upon exiting, waving to the Marines in the combat outpost right next to the bank, who had no clue of what was going on. The Marines waved back. Too cool.

Best Chuck Norris Moment — 13 May. Bad Guys arrived at the government center in a small town to kidnap the mayor, since they have a problem with any form of government that does not include regular beheadings and women wearing burqahs. There were seven of them. As they brought the mayor out to put him in a pick-up truck to take him off to be beheaded (on video, as usual), one of the Bad Guys put down his machine gun so that he could tie the mayor's hands. The mayor took the opportunity to pick up the machine gun and drill five of the Bad Guys. The other two ran away. One of the dead Bad Guys was on our top twenty wanted list. Like they say, you can't fight City Hall.

But all of it is worth a read.

Over the last couple of years I've read quite a bit of stuff like this by smart, decent-sounding, level headed-seeming American officers and soldiers in Iraq. I've also met some (both US and other coalition) soldiers who had been in Iraq who would match the same discription. I've also met a couple of ultra-smart and very nice US State Dept. officials who were part of the first group to go in after the war. With all the talent and decency in the middle ranks you wonder why Iraq is now the total desperate fuck-up that it is.