I did a 33 km run, my longest thus far.

Two km more and I would have dropped

@Mitch Based on the same charts, it's mixed. There was a sharp rise in refugee numbers after the invasion (~2 million), but not as sharp as that after the USSR's. Primary school enrollment and wheat production appears to have enhanced over time. You could assess all that on a point-by-point and region-by-region basis to arrive at a more accurate judgement.

But they couldn't get rid of the Taliban, which was the objective, so they failed in that regard, and the future of Afghanistan is still hanging in the balance.

That's looking at Afghanistan in isolation. If you consider it as part of the War on Terror project, I think altogether it was, and continues to be, a devastating fiasco.

Except for those who line their pockets from warmongering.

the sunshine is so ardent that I can feel its radiation even indoors.

what does "phoney feedback" in "phoney feedback can even cause us to shed body fat" mean?

@Færd It was a big mistake to invade Afghanistan, and the plan was to merely prop up some useful fugure and then withdraw the forces.

Prior to the invasion, the major opinion was that it was not a good idea. But in a space of several months it seems that the officers who were against the invasion were 'ousted' from the circle of officials who made the decision.

Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet leader, was sliding into senility from 1975 onwards, and in part this mistake could be explained by his personal deranged emotions.

The opinion was that Afghanistan's society was too backward to attempt a transformation towards Soviet-style socialism.

Discussions about possible withdrawal of forces started now and then throughout the early 1980s.

One could give credit the USSR for attempting to improve, for instance, housing in Kabul. They built the Microraion district with affordable standardized apartment blocks. Built schools and hospitals. But an invader is always an invader, and in the compex mixture of forces that Afghanistan is, with its mountanous terrain, it was impossible to achieve full control over the whole territory.

One huge issue prior to 1979 was that Afghanistan had become dependent on foreign aid. This makes a country highly precarious.

@Færd To be fair, I think terrorist attacks organised from Afghanistan declined after the American invasion?

Osama Bin Laden was forced to move to Pakistan.

Terrorists can always move from place to place.

War on Terror is like War on Drugs: using a 16-inch cannon to fire at birds.

Yeah.

Still, perhaps some disruption in the activities of Al Qaeda did ensue.

Which doesn't mean it was worth it, of course...

If you invade Afghanistan and know that it will cause chaos.. okay, then do it franlky. Announce a 50-year occupation of Afghanistan with full responsibility for the welfare of its citizens. Pour funds into infrastructure, pay salaries to police and healthcare workers and so on. Install an occupation administration with full control over funds.

I was just commenting on your war on terror thing.

@CowperKettle That's a familiar argument, applicable to early-20th-century Russia too, perhaps?

@CowperKettle Yeah I inferred from what Cerb had said that some larger cities did benefit from the invasion. I was talking about the big picture there.

@Cerberus IS was not entirely an offshoot of Al-Qaeda, but there are clear influences from the latter and the American crackdown.

And in addition to Cowper's point, I think the US's operation in Afghanistan was part of a bigger plan, so assessing it based only on what ensued in Afghanistan doesn't give the full picture.

Word of the evening: mopery

@CowperKettle Pfffthahahahahaha

Tall stories mean fanciful stories！

While short stories are just short stories.

@CowperKettle I dunno what the context of this message is but you'd be surprised

@Robusto Oh and BTW. There was that one piece.

We talked about it for a bit while I was still writing it. But we never discussed the finished thing, and I don't know if you even saw it.

It's for the flute, with nine other instruments.

The longest piece that I've published, and maybe the most intricately crafted. Even if I say so myself.

It's also the most downvoted and (worse) plain ignored piece I've ever written.

So yeah I never even bothered talking to you about it in the end. I just went MIA and moved on to other things.

Maybe you saw it, maybe not. Maybe indeed you were one of the people who did see it but hated it. Or maybe you'll hate it now that I show it to you.

All fine by me. Not the point.

It's just that I remembered it last night, and listened to it a couple times.

And I was quite surprised just how much flute there was in it. I didn't even remember it that way. It's like someone else wrote it.

But yeah whatever.

I have for you a link to YouTube and a link to MuseScore. Your pick.

One is the naked score you can follow while listening with nothing to distract you.

The other is just some Ken Burnsed imagery off Wikipedia with no score at all, so you can never look ahead and know what to expect from the music.

The shitty MIDI is exactly the same in both cases.

Pick your poison.

As mentioned, you'll need some proper room in your calendar for this shit. 6+ minutes runtime.

I'm drinking anyway. So you can tear it to pieces and it won't hurt.

Kthxbai.

Sunrise today.

At about 4:40 am

A sign on the shore of lake Shartash saying "we don't need a reset Putin", implying the recent resetting of presidential terms count by Putin which allows him to remain in power until 2036

A rose in a settlement on the shore of Shartash

By the way, the lake is 1 million years old

@RegDwigнt I'm in the hospital right now (bike accident) but I will try to play along with it when I'm back home.

@M.A.R. It's an easy inference to make, "America is in it for the resources/money". I mean the American neocons explicitly said this for oil for Iraq. I think it is very sincere that they went into A because of 9/11 and not because of money/opium/stick it to Iran. But I really can't tell why they are still there.

@Robusto Get well soon!

@Cerberus: The helmet saved my life.

I gifted two helmets over the last 12 months.

@CowperKettle Thanks! I should be fine.

People are too ensuiciant about helmets. I mean carefree

@M.A.R. ?? Really? shouldn't whatever the US does there impact Iran with all the refugees coming across the border?

@M.A.R. WHAT? Afghan i_? I thought the appropriate way in English to say it was 'Afghan', because 'Afghani' sounds like the money.

@M.A.R. But drones? It sounds too much like the Breonna Taylor thing, the pure terrorism of police killing you in your own bed.

@Mitch I used it as an adjective

@Færd What about outside of the charts? USSR vs Taliban vs US? what is the general impression from Afghans? (also from Iran).

Not to refer to the nationality or the people

@Mitch Guess they don't care because Tehran is too far away?

I'd think the immigrants remain in poor condition, although perhaps not poorer than a fair percentage of native population

They probably take some labor jobs at Eastern cities like Mashad

Mashhad? Mash'had?

@Robusto la la la "Oh BTW I'm not dead"

Cheese and rice...

@Robusto Don't get bored to death!

Maybe use the hospital time to kind of relax?

Take a break from jumping off mountains?

Relaxing is boring

@M.A.R. You should write an answer then to the Afghan question. Nobody said that.

Deep yawn

I have this gargantuan physiology test in a week man.

@M.A.R. Don't the refugees/feared drug addicts drift more towards Tehran?

A final exam

@M.A.R. Mashhad is the standard in English.

@Mitch I honestly dunno. I wouldn't at all be surprised about such issues being brushed under the rug. Or Persian carpet.

dragged under the rug? My English shows how much sleep I've had

@M.A.R. haha that's funny because you're in Persia.

"swept under the rug" is the saying.

They've stopped caring about poverty long ago. In fact, the stats look so dreary right now they don't even make any electoral promises or whatever.

@Mitch Dangit! Right

@M.A.R. repeating it over and over in my head I'm not sure but google NGrams confirms

Campaign promises are mostly just "justice", for this embezzler and that

@Mitch I'm sure, you don't need Ngram

They've conveniently blamed all their ineptitude on a few criminals. If it was the US, it would have been immigrants

Yet the plothole in their theatrical play is whenever they're trying to bring one into justice for destabilizing gold prices or what-not, there were unquestionably connections to higher authorities. These authorities are never mentioned, never arrested, never questioned.

What's its name . . . GoT aptly calls it "mummer's farce".

It just makes people believe less.

Some sort of a blend of wishful thinking and sense of duty might still bring folks to the vote ballots, like my folks. They have no idea who they'll be voting for though

In Vietnam, reality fell away and dissonance between claim and fact filled the void" (Michael Janeway).

Filled the void sounds contradictory.

Is this an example of oxymoron?

@CaptainBohemian no. there was a void, then something came to fill it and there's no longer any void.

similar to power vacuum, some strong autocratic leader died, leaving a void or direction, with the expectation that a lot of lesser leaders will rush in, fighting each other to take over.

@Færd ...but only in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, right?

@Robusto Oh, no!

What happened??

@Robusto Jesus. To coin a phrase: the actual fuck.

We've been traveling twenty-two years to get here, and now we're here, and you have to call it?

Sport ist Mord, dude. Let's go bowling.

Speedy recovery.

I don't dedicate pieces to dead people, if that's of any encouragement.

@RegDwigнt Don't dedicate anything to the helmet

@RegDwigнt Haha.

@Cerberus That is a poor response to “The helmet saved my life.”

@RegDwigнt Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I’ll be fine. Just some road rash and a minor brain bleed. OK, a lotta road rash. And a busted helmet. I’m getting discharged in a couple hours.

Soon as I get a new MIPS helmet I’ll be riding again.

This is why we wear helmets, after all.

Of course, when the OxyContin wears off I may feel different.

@Mitch That would be horrible indeed. But fortunately my wife showed up today with a goody bag filled with Kindle, iPad and various tchotchkes to pass the time till my discharge goes through.

@Robusto Minor? Don't attempt to answer that. But yay for helmets.

@Robusto also, nowadays is not the most fun time to be in a hospital.

I mean usually it's not skittles and beer but nowadays you're sitting there wondering if you're the skittles.

I suppose it could be worse, like a battlefield triage area laid out in rows on the ground in the blazing sun, limbless soldiers screaming in pain until they stop, nurses walking by with a clipboard shaking their heads and marking an x, a doctor sitting on the ground sobbing.

So, the wifi is not so bad, huh?

thumby   moundy   mungy    munchy   skunky   lumpy    tumpy    blunty
numby    roundy   loungy   punchy   punky    clumpy   stumpy   runty
crumby   groundy  scrungy  crunchy  spunky   glumpy   sundry   scrunty
dauncy   woundy   grungy   grumphy  autumny  plumpy   hungry   strunty
ouncy    scungy   haunchy  unshy    bumpy    slumpy   clumsy   stunty
bouncy   dungy    paunchy  funky    dumpy    crumpy   jaunty   dumpty
flouncy  gungy    raunchy  hunky    humpy    frumpy   flaunty  humpty
undy     lungy    bunchy   chunky   chumpy   grumpy   vaunty   numpty

> The bigger they are, the harder they fall :: The X-ier they are, the F-ier they Y.