Longer this time

The blog, not the running, biking, swimming or any other workout, like the stretching and core session that turned into fantasy part way through my evening. I wasn't feeling chatty yesterday.

Yesterday's run was fun because I just went out and ran. No idea how long for, since I didn't look at the clock on the way out, and wasn't wearing a watch. Not all that long in the great scheme of things, but it went fairly well, running at different paces as I felt like it. Mainly I wanted to get my blood moving around a bit, so I was thinking of it as the equivalent of an easy spin bike.

What was interesting was that it was as good as it was. (which I think sets a blog record for the number of times I used "was" in one sentence. Why? Because I wasn't committed mentally to the run. I was sort of wishy-washy about going out. I didn't really have a plan. In fact, I'm not even sure how I got out the door. Normally you'd expect a workout done like that to be crap, but it wasn't. At least I don't think so, but since I didn't have a plan I can compare it against, it's a bit of a moot point, I suppose. Still, I was outside. I ran. I had fun. (Why am I writing that again, plus all this other stuff?)

No idea if you are as sick about reading about 9/11 as I am, or not. The papers were full of it on the weekend. It was a horrible way for 3000 people to die, and it was a great and tragic event and all, but in the larger picture it was a few buildings and only 3000 people. It could have been much worse. Americans kill that many other Americans every month on the roads, and nobody blinks at it.

The amazing part of the whole thing is that in real terms the damage to America was trivial. What isn't trivial is the damage America has done to itself in response. It's sent the military-industrial complex into paroxysms of paranoia leading to two of the stupidest wars in the history of mankind. It created the TSA, one of the most fucked up organizations on the face of the earth, and that's saying something in a world that lets the Catholic Church stay in existence. The TSA has probably done more economic damage to America in terms of wasting people's time, draining productivity, and killing people by making them choose driving rather than flying, than the original attack did.

As I've said elsewhere, I like a good conspiracy theory, but the 9/11 "Truthers", are right up there with the "Birthers" for being nut jobs. It reminds me of the old joke, "How do we know the CIA didn't assassinate Kennedy? He died."No rational person could simultaneously believe that the US government is capable of planning and carrying out an inside job of bombing the towers in complete secrecy, AND putting on the gong show that is the House of Congress. As for some shadowy organization within the government doing it all, puh-leeze. An organization that competent would have long since BECOME the government.

I think what most clearly demonstrates the damage done to America, is that 10 years later they still haven't replaced the buildings. More than 10 years to design and put up a building. Astonishing. In less than 10 years they put men on the moon, starting from when nobody had anything more than the faintest of clues of how to do it. In much less than 10 years they tooled up and with allies defeated Nazi Germany, and alone beat the Japanese empire. Simultaneously. And now they can't even put up a building. I think it's safe to say the American Empire will go down in history as one of the shortest on record. RIP.

What pisses me off the most is the backwash into Canada. Some people in the US government still believe that the attackers transited Canada to get into the US. They have bullied our government and airlines into supplying passenger lists and other information which gets used to send innocent Canadians to horrible fates abroad. It's put Harper into a position where he thinks he can enact stronger anti-terrorism laws (read, violations of civil liberties) now that he doesn't have to worry about running a minority government. He chooses to overlook the fact that he's the one that killed the previous bills by proroguing parliament or calling elections. He chooses to overlook the fact that crime rates are dramatically down. He chooses to overlook the fact that existing anti-terrorism laws are working well, and that it's plain ordinary police work that is the best buffer. Not some Rambo-ized para-military police force beating peaceful demonstrators on the street and lying about it, or allowing the government to pull random people off the street and lock them up incommunicado for 3 days, for any or no reason at all. He chooses to overlook the fact that the biggest police state on earth, the USA, still has a crime problem, because it doesn't understand that the solution for crime isn't more punishment, it's fixing the economy so that crime isn't as attractive.