Here we go again...

Our country is rating other countries on the amount of religious freedom that exists in them. First, it's not our job. We can hope that other countries will espouse tolerance, but we should never make any attempt to enforce tolerance. Using a carrot and stick in the effort to coerce other countries to take on our rather liberal view of tolerance is just plain silly and likely to reinforce already widespread resentment of the United States. Your tax money, hard at work....

What do you get when you remove a tyrannical leader (who was supported by the US for years) who maintained an iron grip on his country in the Middle East? Let's hope the CIA's worst predictions don't come true. That article is at the New York Times. You can either register for free or go here for logins from people who have registered bypass accounts. If the first one doesn't work, click the "This login didn't work" button for a different login.

I guess that one of our reasons for going in is scheduled for termination. The Iraq Survey Group is about to release a report saying that we have found no WMD (excluding a decades old sarin shell). I still wonder why we had bio-weapons related material going to Hussein AFTER the first Gulf War...

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Lest I forget....

Go wish Jim and company the best of luck. This bastard Ivan looks like he wants to take a drive right up I-65.

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I've never been much of one for signs or omens or the like (and I'm still not)...

However, it's totally unusual (I've never seen this) to see an immense rainbow (while I was on the way home from work this morning) that looked as if it spanned the width of the Mississippi River and then see another full and colorful arch right before sunset this evening. Perhaps the Norse gods are coming back via Bifrost.

This morning I noticed that Achim's blog had been updated recently. While looking around his links page, I noticed that he had links to a couple of Wikimedia sites. I had no idea that there was so much info available via Wikis. I didn't say much about 9/11/01 on 9/11/04 because I wanted to contemplate in silence and refrain from tarnishing a day of remembrance with my abhorrence for the fact that our ELECTED leaders still believe that we need to spread democracy (or any of our other ideals) throughout the world or create peace in areas of the world that have seen strife since before our country came into being. However, I noticed a wiki project that has great potential for the fourth and/or fifth anniversary of 9/11. It would be amazing to see the 9/11 Memorial section of Wikipedia grow by leaps and bounds as a tribute to what was lost on that day. Anybody can contribute to the wiki. If you have something to say, go say it. It would probably be best to familiarize yourself with how to do so first.

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As we are often prone to do, we were having a discussion at work the other night...

We were discussing the merits (or the lack thereof) of sites like rotten.com and other sites that show images of dead people or other similarly grotesque material. I don't feel that the individuals who maintain sites along these lines are showing proper respect for the people who have been killed (or their families) but I am supremely hesitant to believe that they should be censored. One individual I was talking with brought up how people become desensitized to death/killing. Yep, that's an absolute possibility. However, there is plenty of other material on the internet that also does the same thing that people would cheer about (don't go to this link if you are squeamish). I would also posit that the ability to kill many people without looking into the whites of their eyes and then have the pictures (or video) distributed worldwide in near real-time also desensitizes people to death/killing. Our country will show such material when we deem it pragmatic but condemn AlJazeera and other media outlets for showing some of the costs of war. Very interesting...

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First and foremost, there's an amber alert that doesn't appear to be showing up on the ticker yet...

This amber alert is from Silvis, IL. See here for details. Maybe it will show up a little later. Update: This appears as if it has been canceled.

I think I've recovered from the twelve-hour nights. You can ask Suzanne. I was 100% WAXED. It's better now...

The bunnies have left the yard.

I have three gmail invites. Leave a comment with an email address and I'll speed an invitation on its way.

Zeitgeist anyone?

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