‘All Cretans are Liars,’ Said the Cretin

Chia-headed Wingnutien Mark Steyn chatted yesterday with Hugh “Bodacious Ta-tas” Hewitt, and, as is their wont, after they decided that any stick would do, they picked up a boomerang. The stick was the death of Sir Edmund Hillary, their target was Hillary Clinton:

[Sir Edmund] was a great man. He, just a few months ago, I think it was last year sometime, he was back in the Antarctic. He went on and he had a great career as a diplomat. He was New Zealand’s high commissioner in India. And of course, he famously encountered Hillary Rodham Clinton a few years ago, and she told him that her parents had named her Hillary, H-I-double L-A-R-Y after him, which of course caused great amusement to those of us who looked into it and discovered that Hillary had been born, I think it was six years before he conquered Everest, when he wasn’t the conqueror of Everest, but he was an obscure New Zealand beekeeper, and an unlikely source of inspiration for the parents of a newborn in the Chicago suburbs. But far be it for me to question Hillary Rodham Clinton.

HH: Maybe they were into bees.

steynhewitt.jpg
Above: Where Sir Ed only climbed with Sherpas, Steyn treks with teh Yeti.

Ahahaha. Hitlery’s claim was so unlikely given the chronology.. see.. her bluff was called and… FRAUD!!! HilLIARy!!! Neener neener!!! So guess what happens next:

People forget what it was like when [Everest] was just this amazing, awesome height, ceiling of the world, and [Sir Edmund] climbed up there with Sherpa Tenzing. My generation will never forget that.

HH: Mark Steyn, just pausing on that for a moment, because it was such a magnificent moment, mid-Century as well, the Cold War has begun, he represents a lot of different…did the media cover it? How could they cover it? I really don’t know, because he wasn’t in constant communication. What was the atmosphere of the press surrounding that climb?

MS: Well, it was, he wasn’t in constant, live conversation. In other words, he didn’t get to the top and then use his satellite phone to dial it in to New Zealand broadcasting. But I well remember that the news that he had conquered it got down to John Hunt, who was the leader of that expedition, and John Hunt managed to get someone to go down to the foothills, and get a telegram out

Uh-huh. Hillary reached the summit of Everest on May 29th, 1953. News of his feat reached England on June 2nd of the same year. Mark Steyn, who ‘remembers’ this, was born in 1959.

I think Steyn might have been dully aware of the boomerang’s return. Later in the conversation, HH teases Steyn about the plaid lumberjack coat he was photographed wearing on Laura Ingraham’s radio show. Steyn starts to speak in what he thinks is ruralese, declaring that it’s a fine coat which keeps him “toasty in the woods.” But then he abruptly shifts tone: oh, he has an axe to go with it, sure, but since he’s not a huge fraud who “pull[s a] phony rustic routine” like Al Gore, well ummm.. can’t we talk about something else, Hugh? He just remembered to duck after tossing that one. While it’s true that Steyn keeps a home in rural Lyme, New Hampshire (where the locals no doubt refer to him as Lyme’s Disease), here, in brief, is the career arc of Mr. Rugged Outdoorsman: Steyn was brought up in urban England, and as a teenager quit school to become a disc jockey. Not long after, he took up journalism, and Steyn quickly learned that wingnut-welfare courtesy of Conrad Black paid better than being a critic of musical theater — he’s been at it ever since. Not exactly the resume of someone who can reassemble a Husqvarna blindfolded. Compared to Steyn, even Al Gore is Jeremiah fucking Johnson.

 

Comments: 93

 
 
 

My generation will never forget that.

P-p-people try to put us down (talking ’bout Mark’s generation)

Just because we act like clowns (talking ’bout Mark’s generation)

My credibility should be t-t-torn (talking ’bout Mark’s generation)
Cause that shit happened before I was born (talking bout Mark’s generation)

 
 

Fucking classic…

 
 

Bravo, Cangrejero.

Too bad the Human Steyn didn’t die before he got old.

 
 

I really, really want that toy, and I’m closing in on 35.

I hereby pledge to lay the hell off that Shapiro guy.

 
 

Maybe Steyn remembered his father climbing up there with Edmund Hillary, just like Romney remembered seeing his father march with Martin Luther King.

 
 

Edmund is a great name.

Jus sayin’.

 
 

I like how they conspire to use the word “conquer” like 45,000 times in a five-minute conversation.

“Do you remember him conquering it?”
“Yes, I remember when he conquered it.”
“Where were you when he conquered it, and what was it like when he achieved that conquest?”
“Well, he truly conquered it like it was a dirty fucking raghead country…”

 
 

It’s totally like that time Al Gore claimed he invented the internet.

(Except that he didn’t say that. Which is central to my point.)

 
 

Or like that time that George W. Bush claimed to have quit drinking.

 
 

Or that time Bush claimed that we don’t torture.

 
 

Jake H. said,

January 11, 2008 at 16:10

I like how they conspire to use the word “conquer” like 45,000 times in a five-minute conversation.

“Do you remember him conquering it?”
“Yes, I remember when he conquered it.”
“Where were you when he conquered it, and what was it like when he achieved that conquest?”
“Well, he truly conquered it like it was a dirty fucking raghead country…”

HH: “Oh yeah, he conquered that baby, all right. He mounted the mountain and conquered himself all over it.”

MS: “I remember when he penetrated the apex of that mountain with his conquest. His conquering exploded in a climactic fury.”

HH: * starts rubbing his nipples *

 
 

I can understand how someone might “clearly remember” something that happened before his or her birth. Happens all the time. Memory is a tricky thing, you jumble stories from your parents with radio rebroadcasts and imaginative games. Hell, I distinctly remember my stuffed dog helping me clean my room when I was three.

What I don’t understand is how someone who claims to have just looked up the freakin date can do this.

 
 

John Hunt, who was the leader of that expedition, and John Hunt managed to get someone to go down to the foothills, and get a telegram out

Well, the reporter for The Times who was on the expedition did it:

James Morris accompanied the 1953 Everest Expedition as correspondent of The Times, making a dash from the mountain to wire the coded news of the success to London in time for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

But maybe Steyn and Hewitt would rather airbrush Morris out of history, not being their sort of person?

Twenty years later she completed a change of sexual role and, as Jan Morris, went on to write some 40 books of history, travel writing, fiction, and autobiography, including the Pax Britannica trilogy about the rise and fall of the Victorian Empire, six volumes of collected travel essays, major studies of Wales, Spain, Venice, Oxford, Manhattan, Sydney, Hong Kong, and Trieste, and a novel, Last Letters from Hav, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

 
 

They’ll be “remembering” their own heroics at Iwo Jima any minute now. Does this conversation count as a “square jerk”?

 
 

Ah, I remember it like it was yesterday, when Sir Edmund Hillary genocided Islamverest….

 
 

Or like how the big white man “conquering” “Mt. Everest” is a perfect example of colonialist imperialist jagoffery at its finest. Like, the Tibetans and Nepalese never ever thought of climbing Qomolangma (“Goddess Mother of the Earth”) ever in the thousands of years they inhabited Nepal and Tibet. Like Mr. Sir Himself could have done so without his sherpa “guides” in the goddam first place. Fucking wankers. And that goes for their latter-day simulacra, Chia-head and Man-boobs and the whole lot of ’em. Fuck ’em all sideways.

 
 

They’ll be “remembering” their own heroics at Iwo Jima any minute now.

I’m sure Steyn will also get a hard-on over some manufactured memory of slaughtering darkies in the Boer War (which, by the way, was teh greatest and smartest military conflict evarr in the wingnut imagination).

 
 

Mark Steyn is a brilliant man and a Great Defender of Western Civilization, the international leftwing seeks to discredit him because they are in cahoots with the islamo-fascists and seek the destruction of Western Civilzation. My hope is that the left is exposed as the traitors that they are.

 
 

the international leftwing seeks to discredit him because they are in cahoots with the islamo-fascists and seek the destruction of Western Civilzation.

It’s true, a doofy-looking Englishman in a faggy lumberjack coat is the only thing propping up Western Civilization at this point. We better discredit him quickly, as our Islamofascist masters are getting impatient. My cell phone has like 4 missed calls from Osama just this morning and I’m not looking forward to checking my voice mail.

 
 

Best hope Steyn and Hewitt are NEVER “exposed”.

Once again: what kind of grown-up individual CHOOSES to be called “booger”?

 
 

Like Mr. Sir Himself could have done so without his sherpa “guides” in the goddam first place.

Just last year I was the first person to conquer the British Museum. Fortunately a native was on hand to direct me to the lavatory. He had been wandering around aimlessly, completely unaware of the historic import of the occasion.

 
 

lol lyme’s disease, that was awesome.

but on a more serious note…

is the human stein’s hair on purpose?

 
 

…slaughtering darkies in the Boer War (which, by the way, was teh greatest and smartest military conflict evarr in the wingnut imagination).

I think that is mostly because it was Winston Churchill’s first taste of blood. They also hate socialism to this day because of his loss to Clement Attlee, and expect Galipoli to have already been won any day now.

 
 

Or like how the big white man “conquering” “Mt. Everest” is a perfect example of colonialist imperialist jagoffery at its finest.

Hillary made a point of sharing credit with Tenzing Norgay, for a long refusing even to say which of them had been first to the top.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080110-AP-hillary.html

 
 

some manufactured memory of slaughtering darkies in the Boer War

The Boers weren’t black–they were of Dutch ancestry, and had a rather worse record for their treatment of blacks than did the British.

 
 

With the British did to the African rebels in the Boer war is what American troops should be doing in Iraq. For every one American soldier killed ten Iraqis should be dragged onto the streets and shot!

 
 

it [the Boer War] was Winston Churchill’s first taste of blood.

No. He came under fire as a war correspondent covering the Cuban Revolution in 1895. He subsequently was involved in fighting on the Northwest Frontier of what is now Pakistan (the Malakand Field Force) and in Kitchner’s campaign agains Islamic fundamentalists in Sudan, ending in the Battle of Omdurman, all before the Boer War

 
 

Hitlery Sodom Satan!

 
 

With the British did to the African [sic, Afrikaans?] rebels [sic, the Boers had two internationally recognized independent countries] in the Boer war is what American troops should be doing in Iraq. For every one American soldier killed ten Iraqis should be dragged onto the streets and shot!

The Britsh treated the Boers horribly, but they didn’t do that.

 
 

Re: Churchill

Yeah, I looked it up after I wrote it and realized my error. Oddly, I read that in a fundy textbook at the Christian elementary school that I went to. You would think that they would at least try to get somet things right.

 
 

Hillary made a point of sharing credit with Tenzing Norgay

Who?

 
 

It seems to me that one of the things Mark Steyn is trying to say with his “my generation of boys” being inspired by Sir Hillary’s Everest climb was that somehow Steyn was not part of the generation of un-manly, America-hating gender questionable traitorous drug-sucking dogs known as ‘anyone vaguely related in conservative minds with the 1960’s’.

Although yes, it is mildly interesting trivia to wonder why Hillary Clinton might have convinced herself that as a 6 year old girl that she had been named after something that had occured 6 years after her birth, I am not in the least curious as to why Mark Steyn is once again trying to justify his existence based on some glorious sentiments of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ generations.

 
 

Mark Steyn is a brilliant man and a Great Defender of Western Civilization, the international leftwing seeks to discredit him

So, what do you say, Bastion? Did Mark Steyn, embodied in the separated chromosomes of his parents until his gestation and birth in 1959, in fact actually experience hearing about Edmund Hillary reaching the summit in 1953?

C’mon, do tell us how otherwise to read this? I want to see the steam coming out of your ears.

 
Johnny Coelacanth
 

“Hillary made a point of sharing credit with Tenzing Norgay”

For God’s sake, why did she do that? The dude has “gay” right in his name! Or is it Hillary’s lesbian campaign manager? Boy, Hitlery’s just so politically tone deaf, always making herself an easy target.
~
Could I pass the fake troll application test or what?

 
 

Hillary made a point of sharing credit with Tenzing Norgay

Who?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenzing_Norgay

 
 

Although yes, it is mildly interesting trivia to wonder why Hillary Clinton might have convinced herself that as a 6 year old girl that she had been named after something that had occured 6 years after her birth,

speculating here, knowing the nature of families – probably some relative made a joke about it when she was at a young enough age to take it seriously.

And, FWIW – I grew up in a Chicago suburb not far from where she did, although over ten years later. My family was from the South, and my siblings and I had first names that were unusual at the time, following the Southern tradition of using surnames. My elementary school class was populated almost completely by kids named Johnny, Sue, Mary, Beth, Tom, Cathy, Billly, Karen, and Bob. My brothers and I were teased a lot about our unusual names.

Some of it was mean-spirited, but some of it was just enough to make you stand out and feel uncomfortable – you always had to spell your name for people.

I would imagine a girl named Hillary would have gotten the same kind of teasing and distinction. In fact – if Sir Edmund summitted when Hillary Clinton was 6 years old, then she was right at the beginning of grades school, when this kind of teasing would have taken place.

It would be totally natural for her as a child to fix on some “explanation” for her name.

With the variety of names we call our kids today, and our multicultural, global world, this seems ridiculous. But I remember very clearly what it was like in my all-white Illinois western suburb of Chicago in the early ’60’s, and I’m sure it wasn’t that different from Park Ridge in the ’50’s.

Anyway, that’s my guess.

 
 

With the British did to the African rebels in the Boer war

Bastion is under the mistaken impression that the Afrikaaners were black.

 
 

Hillary deserved whatever teasing she got!

She is evil!

 
 

Speaking of “snow” and “things wingnuts got laughably wrong.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080111/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_first_snow_in_memory

Snow in Baghdad.

 
 

Yeah, I looked it up after I wrote it and realized my error. Oddly, I read that in a fundy textbook at the Christian elementary school that I went to. You would think that they would at least try to get somet things right.

It surprises me, too, because you would think that Chruchill’s fighting against darkies on the Northwest Frontier and in Sudan would better fit their narrative than his role in fighting the Christian fundamentalist, ethnic European Boers.

Thank goodness they didn’t get it right; otherwise we’d be using horse cavalry armed with lances in Iraq:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1898churchill-omdurman.html

(Although Churchill’s old regiment captured Basra in 2003, it had left its horses and lances behind)

 
 

My cell phone has like 4 missed calls from Osama just this morning and I’m not looking forward to checking my voice mail.

Bravo!

Can we, like, hire a decent troll? One that actually reads the post before spouting off some teenage bullshit?

Even the excreble Kevin was better than this sad sack.

 
 

Yes, the “Hillary named after Hillary” story certainly does prove that she is unfit to be President. Pure evil. No other explanation. Oh, wait…

http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/hillary.asp

 
 

These guys probably think that all liars are Cretans.

 
 

I’ve become so inured to the stupidity of our political discourse that I was actually surprised not to find this well worn right wing attack on Hillary Clinton embedded in the NYT and Boston Globe obits for Sir Edmund this morning. Actually. Surprised. that they they didn’t put in a coda

“Sir Edmund Hillary was famously lied about by meretricious bitch goddess Hillary “two L’s” Clinton in her manic quest to dominate the future New Zealand Beekeeper vote in the 2008 elections.”

aimai

 
 

Bastion Booger said,

Mark Steyn is a brilliant man and a Great Defender of Western Civilization, the international leftwing seeks to discredit him because they are in cahoots with the islamo-fascists and seek the destruction of Western Civilzation. My hope is that the left is exposed as the traitors that they are.

Read your wingnut troll style sheet, Booger. Your statement should read…

The fact is, Mark Steyn is a brilliant man, etc, etc.

That one’s free. Further technical support is billable.

 
 

The Boers weren’t black–they were of Dutch ancestry, and had a rather worse record for their treatment of blacks than did the British.

I do not deny this–indeed, it is central to my point.

I mixed it up with the Anglo-Zulu war, evidently. This is what happens when you learn all about British history from Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life.

 
 

Ohmygod, I never thought of a Yeti in connection with Hugetits!

 
 

rea: I know who Tenzin Norgay is. I was, like, trying to make a point.

 
 

Jake H. said,

January 11, 2008 at 18:07

I mixed it up with the Anglo-Zulu war, evidently. This is what happens when you learn all about British history from Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life.

A tiger? In Africa?

Well, it must’ve escaped from the zoo.

 
 

wholy crap look at the first stoy on salon.com!!

http://www.salon.com/index.html

LIBERALS!!!!!

 
 

Actually the fuck-up in mess-o-potamia does has some parallels with the Boer War, mighty empire (US & UK) invades smaller nation (Iraq and the Boer Republic) under false pretences (Freedom & Freedom) while the more honest reason is that it was for resources (Oil & Gold)

The initial military invasion does not take that long (3 weeks & 1 year) but the armed citizens of the invaded country do not just sit back and say, “jolly well done”. They resist (IED & Kommando’s) This goes on for some time (4 years & 2 years).

Only thing is the British in the 20th century could be greater pricks than the US in the 21st (because humanity has strangely enough matured a little). What essentially broke the Boer resistance was the fact that the entire country was burned down & destroyed, that fully half the possible military active population was sitting in prisoner of war camps outside the country, that non-combatant civilian deaths under the control of the occupier was 5 times higher than that of the military combatants the occupying power was supposed to be fighting. And an entire generation was wiped out, +70% of the 30,000 Boer deaths in the concentration camps were below the age of 18.

After the conclusion of the war, the English decided to make a spirited attempt to destroy the language and culture of the Boers. Then the UK government changes, the Southern African colonies are united in 1910 and then for the next 84 years the dominant political power in Southern Africa were the Afrikaners (the ideological descendents of the Boers). Blowback is a bitch.

The British politician who denounced the war as “methods of barbarism” was assuredly correct.

The Iraq war is already a travesty (incidentally, many more Iraqis have died & fled from Iraq than Black South Africans during apartheid and apartheid was justifiably called a crime against humanity) using the “methods of barbarism” would bring the US down to the level of the nazi’s.

/rant

 
 

Some Guy said,

January 11, 2008 at 17:45

Speaking of “snow” and “things wingnuts got laughably wrong.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080111/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_first_snow_in_memory

Snow in Baghdad.

See? Violence was abated when it snowed. Therefore, what Iraq needs is more snow. No-bid contracts worth billions need to be awarded to Haliburton and KBR to provide enough snow making equipment to blanket Iraq’s major cities. Only then will the sectarian violence stop.

Surge on.

 
 

Blue Buddha has come up with a brilliant plan to get the neo-Khans to fight and reverse global warming.

If we devote all our energies to fighting, even reversing global warming, maybe we can make it cold enough to snow over the whole Middle East, completely disabling the Arabo-Perso-Afgho-Paki-Oil People menace.

 
 

But then Iran will smuggle in ISD’s with ice in them and stuff. then buzz our tanks with snowmobiles. “You will freeze…in minutes!”
(improvised snowball device)

 
 

As a Chicagoan, us just wouldn’t know nothin’ about no explorer type guy and no mountain, der.

Like the Rodhams, weez ain’t too sophisticated much.

 
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWsZetP2PhQ

Tools of the modern Terrorist.

 
 

Oh, crap a duck in a flood truck.

http://www.amazon.com/Flexible-Flyer-603-Snowball-Maker/dp/B000FJ4AD4

That’s the right URL.

 
 

is the human stein’s hair on purpose?

Pubic hair around a dickhead is pretty common.

 
 

Or like how the big white man “conquering” “Mt. Everest” is a perfect example of colonialist imperialist jagoffery at its finest.

Not really. I was brought up in the British school system, and it was always taught as Hillary and Tensing. Though admittedly the white man was usually listed first.

The Nepalese and the Gurkha Regiment in particular are regarded with some affection in this country to this day. Right wingers in particular hold the Gurkhas in some awe.

With the British did to the African rebels in the Boer war

Ha ha! The corpses of tens of thousands of white but very dead Afrikaners just started revolving at speed.

The Britsh treated the Boers horribly, but they didn’t do that.

Though to be fair, we British did put the Boers in concentration camps.

Thank goodness they didn’t get it right; otherwise we’d be using horse cavalry armed with lances in Iraq

My father was in a Dragoon regiment in the 1950s (3rd Carbiners, Prince of Wales Dragoon Guards — and yes, that is the correct spelling of Carbiners) and was taught to ride and use a lance. He is a fund of useful information on the use of the weapon.

Horse cavalry still has a role to play in modern counterinsurgency. The experiences of the Portugese dragoons in Angola in the 1960s is well worth studying. Horses are all-terrain vehicles, can operate off roads where mines and IEDs can be placed, and put the troops in contact with the local population where they can gather humint. (Something more difficult to do in a helicopter.) The mounted cavalryman is less vulnerable to fire than many people expect, particularly in a charge. The infrastructure required to support cavalry is not great (on the Angolan savannah they could operate unshod), though remounts are an issue.

 
 

The Nepalese and the Gurkha Regiment in particular are regarded with some affection in this country to this day. Right wingers in particular hold the Gurkhas in some awe.

Naturally Gurkhas have to sue to receive their just compensation in addition to that valuable awe.

 
 

Go find another child who is “fair game”, Mark Steyn, you pile of s**t.

 
 

Naturally Gurkhas have to sue to receive their just compensation in addition to that valuable awe.

I said that they held them in awe. Not that they were willing to part with their tax moneys to compensate them.

But that is, in my experience, true of British right-wingers in general. They like to praise the troops and pat them on the head, but turn parsimonious when it comes to paying and equipping them.

 
 

and that’s different from American rightwingers how, exactly?

 
 

By the way, the Portugese experience of cavalry in modern warfare is well documented in John P. Cann’s ‘Counterinsurgency in Africa: The Portugese Way of War 1961-1974’ (Hailer Publishing 1997, 2005). With scant resources (they were one of the poorest members of NATO), the Portugese managed to do what the French had failed to do in Algeria, or the French and Americans in SEA–to pacify (or at least control at a low level of violence) three theatres of war simultaneously at great distance from the home country. Their wars are well worth studying.

The book has an excellent section on the Portugese attitudes towards torture. Though some inevitably happened, it was frowned upon as a technique, in the main because it was regarded as ‘unreliable’, but also because the blowback was not worth it.

 
 

and that’s different from American rightwingers how, exactly?

American rightwingers like to blow the budget on enormously expensive weapon systems. Our pols are usually too cheap for that.

 
 

that is, in my experience, true of British right-wingers in general. They like to praise the troops and pat them on the head, but turn parsimonious when it comes to paying and equipping them

True of the American right as well–perhaps more so.

 
 

I was brought up in the British school system, and it was always taught as Hillary and Tensing. Though admittedly the white man was usually listed first.

This is central to my point. Really, it is. That’s all I’m sayin’.

 
 

This is central to my point. Really, it is. That’s all I’m sayin’.

So you are uninclined to accept the notion that it might be alphabetical order?

 
 

“Alphabetical order”?!
Quit fuckin’ around with me, Percy.

 
 

Only fascists obey alphabetical orders!

 
 

Heh.

 
 

Adventuring, including mountain climbing, was followed by millions worldwide in the 1940’s and 1950’s in magazines like National Geographic. Imagine a world without TV and the internets and you can imagine the popularity of National Geographic. Edmund Hillary (EH) had climbed 11 different peaks of over 20,000 feet by the time he got around to climbing Everest in 1953. He was a world class climber before the popular fame that came with Everest (see below). If one or both of Hillary’s parents knew of EH’s feats before Everest and found him to be an inspirational figure then they certainly could have named Hillary Rodham after him. I wouldn’t be surprised at all. As would be expected, Mark Steyn makes a half-assed historical research effort to bolster a preconceived notion and falls flat. Steyn is a moron.

Wiki – Hillary was part of a British reconnaissance expedition to Everest in 1951 led by Eric Shipton* before joining the successful British attempt of 1953.

Sir Edmund Hillary was born in 1919 and grew up in Auckland, New Zealand. It was in New Zealand that he became interested in mountain climbing. Although he made his living as a beekeeper, he climbed mountains in New Zealand, then in the Alps, and finally in the Himalayas, where he climbed 11 different peaks of over 20,000 feet. By this time, Hillary was ready to confront the world’s highest mountain.
Mt. Everest lies between Tibet and Nepal. Between 1920 and 1952, seven major expeditions had failed to reach the summit. In 1924, the famous mountaineer George Leigh-Mallory had perished in the attempt. In 1952, a team of Swiss climbers had been forced to turn back after reaching the south peak, only 1000 feet from the summit.

 
 

continued from previous posted comment

* Born in 1907, by age 22 Shipton had logged the first ascent of Nelion, one of Mount Kenya’s twin summits. In 1931 he and five companions were the first to summit 25,447-foot (7.756-meter) Mount Kamet in northern India, at that time the highest peak ever climbed. In 1933 he climbed within a thousand feet of the top of Mount Everest and later pioneered the route that Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay used to reach the summit in 1953. He didn’t make a big fuss—he just climbed and explored everything in sight. Before he died in 1977, he set standards and laid out dreams for others to pursue.

 
 

Not to say that Edmund Hillary and Shipton weren’t Liberal Fascist stooges. /rolling eyes

 
 

This may be the best use of pictures on Sadly No! I’ve seen yet.

 
 

So you are uninclined to accept the notion that it might be alphabetical order?

More likely to simply be listing the local first. I know here when NASA launches a mission and a Canadaian astronaut is involved, that’s who we hear about first. Could be the frikkin’ ISS janitor, but their family is gonna hear their name on the CBC!

That said, Sir Edmund was always a perfect gentleman when discussing his ascent, and NO interview went by without his giving credit to Tenzing Norgay.

Besides: if it came down to a foot race, I sure wouldn’t bet on the white guy.

 
 

Adventuring, including mountain climbing, was followed by millions worldwide in the 1940’s and 1950’s in magazines like National Geographic.

You know, I wondered about this myself, having come from a family where old volumes of National Geographic filled scores of moving boxes and were carted around from home to home by my parents. I was too lazy to research whether an article on Hillary appeared about the time Dorothy Rodham was pregnant, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

 
 

Holy crap, Doughy P. tells the truth right out of the gate in his Salon interview:

What’s the book about?

It’s a revisionist history.

 
 

I frankly don’t believe that Hillary/Hillary encounter. They make suit up too often. If fact, making shit up is their default position.

 
 

Well,I remember after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the American public was wondering where their Navy was. It appeared to them that the Navy had gone into hiding and was actually afraid to face the Japanese fleet. “Carrier X” was dispatched to lull the Japanese into thinking that the American fleet was scattered all over the Pacific ocean, when in reality, we were positioned off of Midway, ready to intercept the Japanese fleet which was intent on invading Hawaii.
I remeber the day Lt. Cmdr. Dana Andrews and his squadron of TBF torpedo bomber pilots landed on the carrier, and Flight Cmdr. Don Ameche took command of the squadron. Because he was inflexible and strictly by-the-book, many men in the squadron soon took a disliking to Ameche.

During their voyage, the men were told to refrain from engaging enemy pilots, being told to return to their carrier rather than shoot it out with the Japanese. Their activities were limited to recon flights and target bombing practice. The men became more and more frustrated with the non-combat strategy. Finally, the Captain told the crew that they were about to sail to Midway to join in battle against the Japanese fleet. Relieved, the crew can now focus on fighting the Japanese.

One day Ensign William Eythe brought his plane in all shot up from a strafing run and an arial battle on the way home that took out his instruments including compass and radio. His fuselage was virtually cut in half and one wing was hanging and he ran out of fuel as he finally sighted the carrier. He clipped the tower (made the XO jump to the water) losing the back half of the fuselage and the wing and landed where we draged his unconscious body from the wreckage.
And I never forget when Ensign Henry Morgan refused to bail out because of two or three injured crew members, and they all went down to their deaths. I’ll always remember their last words over the radio transmitter. “Go ahead, make my day!”

 
 

OK, I’m biased here because that was the GI Joe I had as a kid, but I do have to object to the equation of Mark Steyn with the post-Vietnam “Adventure Team” era Joe. The whole reason Joe grew a beard, after all, was that in the early 1970s militarism suddenly and inexplicably became uncool.

 
 

I wonder if we could use that brillo on his head to get rid of old skid-Mark Stain?

 
 

I see others found the Snopes item on this. When you consider all the real crap Bush has done and said, you’d think Steyn would pick on him.

 
 

With the Germansdid to the Greek partisans in WWIIis what American troops should be doing in Iraq. For every one American soldier killed ten Iraqis should be dragged onto the streets and shot!
Fixed.

 
 

Wait…raised in England?
Lumberjack coat?
Musical theater fan?

 
 

I like how they conspire to use the word “conquer” like 45,000 times in a five-minute conversation.

In fact, Hillary said he didn’t feel they conquered Everest, but that Everest relented. They can’t even get that right.

MzNicky, I really feel like saying something terribly impolite to you. Just because Seaman Steyn and Huge Halfwitt bandy his name around, you feel you have to tear into Ed? This Kiwi suggests you learn a bit more about his life and his work first, instead of letting those wastes of skin shape your narrative for you.

 
 

Just an extra word from commenter Wombat over at Balloon Juice:

Bit of respect please. I have met the man: a nicer, more accomplished and humble hero you could not find. He died at 88, having broken his leg in Nepal in April. He is one of the few people who was regarded as enlightened (in the Buddhist sense) by several independent cultures. We will not see his like again.

 
 

We tell our daughter that we named her after Sonja Davies. When she relates this story during her political career, it will cause no end of damage to her credibility, since the truth is that she’s really named after Red Sonja.

 
 

“…after they decided that any stick would do, they picked up a boomerang. “

Oh my god, I’m dying. Tears, tears are coming down my face. Such an image of that surprised “Duuurrrrr???” look seconds before the boomerang comes back in the face.

 
 

[…] You Owe Me a Quad Ice Mocha The other day I was just skimming though the leftist “comedy” site Sadly No and inexplicably spurted out a quad ice mocha onto my monitor.  It seems they have found a Mark Steyn/Hugh Hewitt action set. […]

 
 

You bring up a very thought provoking point. I appreciate how you explained this.

 
 

Marvelous Mark once went camping, but hasn’t ever since someone told him that in summer the air is FULL of MOOSLIMS who will bite him and give hime dhimmi-AIDS.

 
 

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