Apparently my elected officials are bored

I've never been elected to serve in congress. I've never been an intern or employee at our legislative branch. Heck, I've only *been* to washington DC three or four times. But I don't need to be a veteran of the Beltway to feel like congress is twiddling their thumbs.

But you know what? There are lots of things I would rather my elected officials be doing than voting on whether or not to congratulate Spelman College on the occasion of its 125th anniversary or whether or not to ship horses to places that people might eat them.

I'm serious, aren't there issues going on that need to be addressed? Horses are very nice, yes, but so are cows I suppose, so fuck them. Why are our elected representatives wasting my time and money trying to make sure that people don't eat horse meat?

/rant

No troops for you!

So the other day was the 5th anniversary of 9/11.

I observed it by going to work, watching an episode of COPS, and playing computer games.

I'm not sure that I can clearly state my thoughts on the anniversary. I didnt lose anyone that I knew in the attacks. That's not to say I'm untouched by them, but to me the anniversary is more a time that I look back and see how badly our government has fucked this whole thing up. I see that, sadly, more than I see the loss of all of those people in the attacks.

But now, the point of my post today. No Troops For You! (or, how we're still fucking up this supposed "war on terror")

Remember back almost 5 years ago, how after the attacks everyone around the world was horrified. We had the world behind us. We all looked to bushie to lead us.. and he sure has led us. Right into a bog. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The world mourned with us. We looked for the perpetrators of the terrible attacks and we were told that Osama bin Ladin was behind them. He was in Afghanistan, being sheltered by the Taliban. The Taliban were not a nice bunch of folks. Now, that's sorta easy for me to say perhaps.. they were hardcore islamic fundamentalists. I'm not. They were harboring bin Ladin and hosting training camps apparently for terrorists. Bad stuff. But I feel compelled to mention that in the greater scheme of things, they were no worse than at least a half a dozen governments that I can think of. But.. they were providing a home for bin Ladin, and that's who we were after. We asked them to give him up, they refused, and we went in. It was good stuff! We were fighting the good fight.

Now fast forward. About four and a half years.

Remember how during that time we kicked the Taliban out, chased bin Ladin into hiding, and then moved on to Iraq? I'll skip all of the pages and pages of discussion on Iraq for now, because I'm still talking about Afghanistan, I'm afraid. Within the last few months, the reigns were handed over from the US to NATO in Afghanistan. Guess what they're doing over there. Any guesses? That's right. They're fighting the Taliban. The Taliban were the guys who were harboring... oh wait, I just talked about this.. Where we kicked them out of Afghanistan and then moved on to Iraq. Well, it seems that we forgot to mention to the Taliban that they were defeated. Cause they're back, and back with a vengeance it seems. Suicide bombings have been rare or non-existent in Afghanistan. Until recently. Earlier this very month a suicide bomber in southern Afghanistan killed a provincial governor. And then another suicide bomber attacked the funeral of said governor. And... the commander of NATO forces on the ground in Afghanistan has called for member nations to send more troops to help out with the fight on the ground. He's calling for reinforcements, people. But uh, he's getting no help. Wait, Canada is sending in another 120 troops I think, to compliment their 2,300 on the ground.

Now, here's what I'm driving at. We did the right thing by going into Afghanistan and chasing bin Ladin and ousting the Taliban. Then *before the smoke had even cleared* we went charging off into Iraq. And now guess what? Apparently we didn't do the job right the first time. So now, not only are we (well, NATO) still fighting over there, but we're also not willing/able to give the commanders on the ground what they need to be able to fight this thing! Which, you know, is the same problem our commanders faced going into Iraq.. Some people think it is part of the reason we're having so much trouble over there now.

So there you go. That's what I did with my September 11th.


P.S.
Linkage! Because I don't want you to just take my word for it.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/09/10/afghanistan.fighting/

http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=us/1-1-0&fp=4508a21cd856d030&ei=BXwIRe-4GNDyaM2erOYN&url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/68f79698-41ed-11db-b4ab-0000779e2340.html&cid=1109486822

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5341654.stm

Crikey!

Sadly, I dont have anything especially profound or insightful to say.

I wasnt a huge Steve Irwin fan. I've seen him on TV more than a few times, I guess it was probably on Crocodile Hunter. But I didnt follow him or the show. I didnt tape them. I didnt make a point to watch them. Heck, I might not have been able to immediately give you his name if you asked me who the Croc Hunter guy was.

But despite this, I am deeply saddened by his death. I feel a strange sense of loss. It feels like someone that I knew, or was close to, has died. I dont know why his death makes such a strong impression on me. I can only imagine that perhaps it was his obvious joy for life. His constant exuberance and energy and excitement was contagious. I feel like we have lost someone really important.

I'm sad that you've left us, Steve. It was before your time.

running, Jewel, Ok Go, stuff.

Ok so, part of not posting lately has been that I've been between running and games. And since that's kinda what I talk about here, I havent had much to say.

But I am pleased to say that I managed 9 miles last week, up from like maybe 5 over the last two weeks or so put together.

It's been hot as hell the last few weeks. And its just hard to motivate myself when its so damn hot.

September is Krissi's birthday, and to celebrate we went and saw Jewel at the Horseshoe casino in Tunica. I've got some mp3s by Jewel, and I like her music, but have never called myself a big fan of hers. Well the show was excellent. She put on a wonderful performance, and her banter with the small crowd was funny and enjoyable. She's got an *amazing* voice. So the show was excellent. The Horseshoe casino on the other hand... I'm not a big fan of casinos. I can count on two hands the number of times I've been to a casino. They're okay enough to go spend a quick $50 on Blackjack or something, but they're just not a place that I'm fond of hanging out at. Well this casino merits even lower than a "meh" rating. Nearly all of the bars on the floor took only cash. And the ATM wanted like $6 just to let you get cash. It was highly annoying. Both because we almost never have cash on us, and it seems really easy for the bars to have credit card machines. Also because the ridiculous ATM fees really cheesed me off (we did not end up taking cash out, thank you very much). They wanted to charge me $6 for the opportunity to take cash out and spend it in their casino? Well no thank you.

In other news, its Labor Day Weekend! Hope you are/did enjoy yourself. We're having a few people over and making some food and entertaining people.

In other other news, I picked up Ok Go's newest album and its alot of fun. I recommend it.

*Mourn* Steve Irwin.