...chronic weak governance, worsening security, and a resurgent Taliban...Afghanistan to collapse...into a "failed state."

By Scott Peterson Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

KABUL – Few ever dared dream that Afghanistan, five years after US forces toppled the Taliban, would be Utopia.

But few, also, would have predicted that chronic weak governance, worsening security, and a resurgent Taliban would prompt senior US officials to warn against allowing Afghanistan to collapse again into a “failed state.”

Wait a sec...
Wasn't Afghanistan the Great success story? The one Bright Spot in our war against terror? Proof that Shrub and Stutter were geniuses on foreign policy, military strategy, exporting democracy, watermelon seed spitting, and general BSing?
Well, no wonder – those damn Senate retards refused, I mean fa-lat Rrre-fe-used to support Bush’s WAR ON TERRA. What were they thinking?

Go figure.

Hiking Wimps

I know that not everyone who's reached that late middle age range of 60+ yearns to hoist a pack to their back and set out for a nice two week jaunt into the so-called wilderness. (So-called because there are too few real wildernesses in the world. I'll settle for a nice remote trail at least three miles from anything else man made.)

Where was I? (Digression would be my middle name if it wasn't so long and ugly.) Anyway best wife and I will escape most of the insanity that accompanies so-called civilization. (S0 called because... all right, all right, I'll let it go!) No traffic, no boss, no TV, no Internet, no Blogs, no radio, and hopefull no cell-phones. I'll have to narrowly define traffic to SUVs, autos, and such because I expect there to be some significant foot traffic. So wilderness, even near wilderness, it ain't.

I'll admit that it would take me a couple of months to plan, equip, and get in shape for a 2 week backpacking trip. It's been more than 5 years since the last time I did one. So this three day scheduled hike in New Hampshire's White Mountains is a simple thing. No sleeping bag on a hard tent floor - we'll sleep in comfort in a cabin on the mountain. No tastless one-pot meals - at the AMC Zeeland Falls Hut, meals are brought to our table.

Resident Hummer & His Friend Biggy Worm

We interrupt with a special news bulletin:
Biggy Worm, our future Monarch, has gone missing! Hummer is distraught.
When we asked Missy, our resident sleuth, for a comment she insisted, "I didn't do it".
Anyone with information is urged to come forward.