SOL birthday

And it's one, two, three...

What are we fighting for in Afghanistan? Does anyone even ask? Does anyone even give a damn?

The U.S. has reportedly launched an invasion of Afghanistan's Helmand Province. Helmand Province is roughly the size of West Virginia and home to 740,000 people, almost all of whom hate us. Why are we doing that?

The first major operation launched with the additional troops ordered to Afghanistan by President Obama is devised to clear Taliban havens across a strategic southern province — and then, in a marked departure from past practice, to leave clusters of Marines in small bases close to the villagers they were sent to guard and aid, according to senior military officers.

Why? Why do we want a presence in every little village in a dusty province half a world away? Isn't there some better way we could spend our money and energy?

“Essentially what they are trying to do is create and sustain a productive presence in Helmand Province, including both combat power and civil-engagement capabilities,” a senior military officer said.

Again, why? Even if 4000 troops can conquer and hold this province, why is it worth such a massive expenditure in lives and fortune?

The silence is deafening. Let's try Google. It has an answer for everything.


OMG. The all-knowing internet doesn't even know why we are fighting in Afghanistan. It's a mystery of our times.

Yea, I know, it supposedly has something to do with 9/11, but whatever the poor villagers of Helmand Province might have had to do with hijacking those airplanes has been lost to the mists of time. At this late date, we seem to be engaging in military operations just for the sake of engaging in military operations. Once a military operation starts, it has to continue until total victory has been achieved. Otherwise we've lost. What have we lost? That's not exactly clear.

Oh well, in these troubled times maybe it's best to have the military occupied in some hellhole half a world away. By all reports, the military is a very conservative institution and right wing Christianist extremists have been successfully infiltrating it. Maybe it's best they expend their energy trying to conquer and convert Afghanistan to right wing Christianity. With too much time on their hands they might try to conquer and convert us.

Picture of the day

Juneteenth 09

Picture of yesterday

Another self portrait (and apple stills sucks)

I finally got around to replacing my piece of shit computer. As mentioned previously, Apple is an evil monopoly and I once again call on President Obama to sic the trustbusters on them. Apple refuses to offer a simple inexpensive box that you can pop open and add hard drives and RAM. You either have to buy the highest of the high end Macs which adds up to $3000 minimum, or go with an underpowered little thing that requires the skills of a brain surgeon and a lot of research to upgrade.

Anyway, I eventually settled for cheapest Mac Mini with additional RAM and a firewire 800 hard drive to run the OS. It's OK, a bit zippier than the piece of shit G5 tower that died, but as you can see, it requires a lot of external crap and wiring. And being no brain surgeon, of course I fucked up the audio when installing the RAM, which voids the warranty. Fortunately, I've got a lot of computer crap laying around and that included an MBox that I can use for audio.

So it all ends well, for the time being, but my hatred of Apple is reaching pathological proportions. It's just not right that only one company manufactures personal computers. I'm not exactly what you'd call a rabid free marketer, but this is one area where government should get involved to ensure healthy competition.