I was reading Lady Sun’s blog entry with some of her views on Bush. In it was this link showing the “freedom” that Operation Iraqi Freedom brought to Iraqi civilians, including infants liberated from their arms.

As an American, I am ashamed of these pictures. As a father, I am absolutely sickened. I cannot help but look into the faces of these innocent children and see the face of my daughter. They are children, for God’s sake!! Children just like my daughter. Children my daughter would be proud to call friends.

And we killed those kids. The lucky ones were only scarred for life.

How do I explain to my daughter why those innocent kids were bombed? How can anybody explain this? Why, after centuries plagued by the horrors of war, do we continue this madness?

Update at 2214:

Here are a few more galleries to shock and awe you:
March For Justice – Shock & Awe
Wade Hudson – Baghdad Journal
Iraq Peace Team

I was browsing the site of my favorite sound editing software, Cool Edit Pro when I saw news that Adobe purchased Cool Edit’s parent company, Syntrillium.

Cool Edit has always been the best damn shareware sound-editing software out there. In fact, I consider it among the best shareware ever! I certainly hope that Adobe treats it with respect and doesn’t mess with a good thing.

While all the attention is focused on Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle, Adobe quietly snaps up the coolest companies. You gotta hand it to them for having good taste, eh?

I’m in Durham this evening on my way to a last-minute talk given at the Rhine Research Center by the guy who ran the CIA’s remote viewing program. This is the program which attempted (with mixed results) to use psychics to locate military booty.

I don’t have an opinion on the program, one way or another, but since it touches on spook stuff (both in the military as well as the psychic use of the word), naturally I’m interested. I probably wouldn’t have made the trek out here, though, if it wasn’t for that unusual experience I had in Asheville a few weeks back. I’d like to find out more about what that was.

I’ve long been interested in the Rhine Institute, it being “ground zero” for serious scientific study of as-yet-unexplained phenomena. I get spammed by their mailing list about once a week, so I figure it’s “put up or shut up” time for them, too!

I’ll write a report after the talk ends tonight.

Once again, my brother Jeff alerts me to the latest Internet celebrity, Bubb Rubb.

You’ve got to check out the original news video which started it all.

Bubb Rubb is da bomb. Google for more.

(Weird as they are, these things are a welcome respite from the usual stream of depressing news.)

Last week I was on the road in Atlanta and needed to surf the web. The chief propellerhead happened to be there and apparently liked what he saw, because when I got back to the office I got hounded by coworkers asking me how I did it. After I demo’d how a simple cable turned my PCS phone into a modem, at least four coworkers (10% of the company) purchased the cable to do the same. Those who didn’t use Sprint were grumbling about being stuck in their current contract.

I didn’t know I was such a trendsetter. (Thanks, Jeff!)

Proving once again how it doesn’t take a brain to be a United States Senator, Orrin Hatch told a hearing on copyright issues how he favors destroying the computers of filetraders.

“I’m interested,” Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone’s computer “may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights.”

The senator acknowledged Congress would have to enact an exemption for copyright owners from liability for damaging computers. He endorsed technology that would twice warn a computer user about illegal online behavior, “then destroy their computer.”

Some clue is desperately needed in Washington, or the terrorists have already won.

The neighborhood got a little lonelier this week when our good friends Scott and Dawn Greenough packed up and moved from Garner to north Raleigh. It was about a week ago that Dawn called me while I was putting Hallie to bed and asked if I had a key to her house as she had locked herself out. I didn’t find her key, but after a minute of magic I was able to open the door.

We’ll miss that neighborliness that comes from being nearby. Whenever we’d go out of town, the Greenoughs were happy to look after our cat, Smitty. We would return the favor by caring for their cats when they left town. It’s just what neighbors do.

During the god-knows-how-many storms that have struck this area in the four years we’ve lived here, we could always count on the Greenoughs to come by and check on us – and for us to check on them. I’ll never forget the fun we would have on those days so icy and snowy that the two blocks between our houses was the farthest distance worth traveling.

I’ll miss the surprise encounters we’d have with them on the rare occasions when we would actually get out and exercise. We would frequently see them out walking their dog. And even when we didn’t see them drive by, Scott or Dawn would honk their horn as they passed our house, a friendly reminder that they were around.

While they didn’t fall off the face of the earth, they aren’t just “around the way” anymore, a fact that will take some getting used to. We’ll still see get to see them but our neighborhood won’t be the same.

We’re happy for our friends. Their new house is fantastic and we look forward to many fun-filled visits there. Back in our neighborhood, however, its the end of an era. Their old house now sits empty, its new owners never being able to fill it up quite like its last ones.

I had another long lucid dream this morning. It always trips me out when this happens. It’s like an instant vacation to anywhere in the universe – no travel required!

The dream involved crawling around a Navy ship, a common dream scene. Funny how even though I consider war to be a colossal waste of money and human life, I have consistently dreamed of ships since I left the military. It has become a dream sign, as I instantly recognize I am no longer in the military and thus become lucid.

Another common dream sign I frequently see is one of tornadoes. About a week ago, I watched a huge storm spawn frequent, beautiful tornadoes. My perch was a nonexistent hill around the Crabtree Valley Mall. (Or it could’ve been at the Marriott across the street.) Anyway, I find the tornadoes fascinating and not the least bit frightening. I get so caught up in watching them that I don’t notice how unusual it is to see five tornadoes at once (and thus wake up).

I must be sleeping better to be having such vivid dreams. If I could, I’d lucid dream every night!

This webpage about simulating life in the Navy had me cracking up. If you don’t get them, don’t worry: it’s 54 inside jokes.

Some samples:

5. Perform a weekly disassembly and inspection of your lawnmower.
6. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays turn your water temperature up to 190 degrees, then on Tuesday and Thursday, turn it down to 50 degrees. On Saturdays and Sundays, declare to your entire family that they used too much water during the week, so all showering is “secured”.
7. Raise your bed to within 6 inches of the ceiling.

Ah, I miss those days (not).