The Last Bass Outpost

I have never seen a fiver in white. That's pretty rare. They almost always turn up in black (5 strings), except for Uwe's stunning amber one.

The amber one with the tiger stripes is a DeLuxe with Bart pups, not the Special with the TB Plus.

Even the original LP Special 5 string pic on the Gibson site showed a white specimen. I agree that it looks better than black though which is kind of non-descript on a flat top bass. A black Standard would be something though!

Uwe

All I see is the red x - but then the history of Dutch sabotage to our war efforts is well-documented ...

I find that "G-3 humbucker" captures the overdriven tone of the sixties TB pups quite well. Those were never that bass heavy to begin with, a modern TB Plus has more fundamental (but sounds also more dense), the charm of the sixties sound is that hoarseness and how some frequencies stand out more prominently.

People are dying in Iraq every day - Americans and Iraqis. If that is not a valid subject to have extreme disagreements on what is? eb2 has strong views on Iraq (and not just on Gibson bar bridges  ), he's allowed to have them, but I don't see his post as uncivil and he has argued his case, not just screamed insults and allegations at everyone. No reason to pounce upon him
for what is meanwhile a bravely unpopular opinion and let's not forget that both Ms Clinton and Herr McCain essentially share his view, neither of them a radical devoid of sensibilities.

I agree that Democrats are not automatically foreign policy saints (neither Kennedy nor Johnson were, Carte's reaction to Russia's Afghanistan invasion was naive - and in a cruel twist of fate a contributory factor to 9/11 - as was his treatment of Iran in the hostage crisis) and Republicans warmongers (neither Nixon nor Ford would have made Carter's mistakes when Russia invaded Afghanistan, they were too much "Realpolitik" for that and missed his evangelist zeal).

Iraq was a rogue state, yes. A vile dictatorship, yes. An enemy of the US, yes (but as long as it went against Iran you had little issue supporting and arming it). And Saddam many times over a murderer. But if that is supposed to automatically trigger a US intervention, the US still has quite of an agenda before it on the world map ... Do you really want to conquer them all?

What I missed in the descision of "invading" or "liberating" Iraq was any kind of weighing of the cons and the "what if ..." scenarios. No one seems to have given a thought about how Iraq held Iran in check and vice versa, no one seemed to realize that Iran is a product of arbitrary colonial borders with three large ethnicities and how a sepearate Kurdish state (with oil control) would have huge implications for close US ally and soon to be EU member Turkey with its huge kurdish territories and minorities. No one saw (or seemed to admit to seeing) that the evil in Iraq was inherently different to the evil of Osama, that Iraq was basically the military rule of a clan, but of a non-fundamentalist, even atheist clan. Iraq wanted to be a culturally largely westernized modern (police) state with enough military might to bully everyone in the region around, but they did not want to return to a muslim stone age nor was ever their support of the mujadin in Afghanistan reported - a civilized western democracy did that. Saddam and Osama couldn't have been farther apart, the only unifying aspect was fear and loathing of the US and Israel, a sentiment shared by many in the region but never quite enough to unify the Arab states as Nasser found out long ago.

But it is what it is now. Though it pains me to see the daily mounting US casualites and Iraqi terrorist bombing victims, a sudden withdrawal would be an even worse option - just look at what happened to Afghanistan after the Russians left as a stabilizing force and where it got us.

Uwe

PS: May I add a cynical thought? For all the money and resources spent in the Iraq war you could have easily bribed Saddam out of the country and gotten him a nice, well-guarded Swiss castle with golden bathrooms and a fleet of Ferraris for his two sons. You could have basically bought the country and bribed every inhabitant into voting to be the 51st State of the US. 

PPS: I didn't see until after my posting that this thread was locked (but that I could still actually add a post). Otherwise I would have stuck to that decision.

That hippo clip is amazing!

And you can go swimming in the most crocodile infested rivers with it - it will protect you!

Brilliant. It sounds like a film score out of a Jap WW II propaganda movie. Love the vocals and the percussion work, have always had a weak spot for Jap instrumentation and melodies (isn't it so that their scales miss a note or two compared to Western ones, making their melodies sound more folksy and naive?).

Amazing how they all sit there kneeling/cross-legged, even their singers. They would have to carry me out after an hour or so in that position.

That three string fretless banjo-like instrument, what is it called and how is it tuned? Looks like us bassists could have a bit of fun with it. Gibson are you listening?!

Uwe

Not quite compareable as I read in a Newsweek article just a few weeks ago:

"US elections must rank as the most undemocratic ones: Only Americans get to vote, but the effect is subsequently felt by the whole world!"

 

But of course your Queen is still important too.