This is What Waterboarding Looks Like, courtesy of the Khymer Rouge at the Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. And now brought to you by the good ol’ U.S. of A.

They are cowards. Either the current administration is populated with cowards without even an iota of honor or they are subverting our Constitution and the honor of our country for purely political gains. The lesser of the two evils is that they are cowards in a crisis that is well beyond their capabilities to handle. They want us to believe that THIS crisis is the greatest threat our country has ever faced. Greater than the Revolution when our very existence was in question. Greater than the War of 1812 when our nation’s capital was burned and pillaged. Greater than the Civil War when our nation was torn asunder, brother fighting brother. Greater than World War 2 when we faced a world wide threat of totalitarianism. Greater than the Cold War when we faced global annihilation. If they truly believe this, then they must be cowards. Granted during some of these conflicts we did forget our principals at times and have later regretted the actions. Also granted that in any conflict there will be incidental examples of horror. More importantly some of these crises have given us shining examples of how Americans are supposed to act. How Americans stand on the moral high ground even during our darkest hours. George Washington refused to torture the Hessians. General Washington said we will not do this. He said these people will be treated with respect and dignity and they will suffer no abuse or torture, because to do otherwise would bring dishonor upon our sacred cause. Where is our honor now? During WW2, there were reports that American commanders released German POWs because they could not adequately protect them. Consider how we treated the Japanese POWs honorably even when we knew how they treated their prisoners. Where is our honor now? None of these conflicts caused us to abandon our founding principals as completely as the current Administration is asking us to do. They have replaced “Give me liberty or give me death” with the completely onerous “You have no liberties if you’re dead”. They have forgotten the words of our birth “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These rights are unalienable and they apply to ALL men. They want to engage in activities (torture) that the rest of the civilized world has abandoned. No one other than pundits and politicians has claimed torture works. The people directly affected by and implementing the policy of torture have stated that it DOES NOT WORK. Israel, which has been on the frontline of terrorism for decades, abandon the practice. When these same activities were perpetrated on members of our armed services, we were rightly horrified and demanded that they cease. If they want to do these things in my name, stop. If they want to do these things to make me feel safer, stop. Do not bring dishonor to my name or my country because you are cowards. -- Posted by an 8-year Marine

After nearly ten years of living and working around Athens, I finally saw R.E.M. perform at one of their notorious unannounced performances. It was a combination release party for And I Feel Fine: Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982-1987 CD and When the Light is Mine: Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982-1987 DVD sets from R.E.M. and Finest Worksongs: Athens Bands Play the Music of R.E.M. benefit CD. I had a hunch, and sure enough the original four (plus another fellow I didn’t know) were the second band to play. Mike Mills and Peter Buck returned to the stage throughout the night to play with the other bands. Thirteen dollars was quite a small price to play to see R.E.M. play from ten feet away at the Fabulous 40 Watt. EDIT: I knew he looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him at the time. The fifth band member was none other than Young Fresh Fellows frontman Scott McCaughey. I think that probably maximizes the jealousy felt by my fellow Techies.

So we were out and about yesterday evening, and one place we went into had a large cut-out of a flying Superman suspended from the ceiling. Vivian looked up, pointed, and said, “Daddy!”. What more could I possibly ask for on Father’s Day?

I put my RailsDay entry at weather.ericwagoner.com. It’s exactly as it stood after 24 hours, typos and bugs and all.

I finished with four minutes to spare. Here’s a shot of the front page of the app. It turned out pretty nice for 24 hours… though I’ve seen screenshots of some of the competition and wowsers!

I’ve now got a complete application. I could be adding bells and whistles, but with only two hours to go, it’s time to clean everything up, do some final testing, write some simple instructions to the judges, and let it go.

Four hours to go! Here’s another screenshot. On a whim I tried a “Rock Star (diet) Energy Drink”. It’s like condensed cool-aid with a few Flinstones vitamin pills crushed in. Yum yum!

After 15hrs (including a four hour nap and some quality Vivian time), I’ve got the makings of a nice little app. Here’s a screenshot of the work so far.

I’m comfortable enough with Ruby on Rails now to participate in RailsDay 2006, a 24-hour challenge to build a web application from start to finish. There’re lots of cool prizes, the best of all possible judges, and no small number of participants. It all starts at 12 midnight tonight (Eastern), and we’ll have the next 24 hours exactly to build something cool. Myself, I’m building a weather tracking application (shhh… keep it under your hat!). We’ll see how it goes. This page will show my activity in real-time, if you happen to wander by here on Saturday. In other news, the #1 magazine for market farmers (Growing for Market) has for its current cover story a lengthy article about my latest public project – FarmNotebook. So far the reception has been quite positive. It was a great article (since they let me write it) that makes a strong case for using my website.

I’ve long maintained that sleep’s a crutch, and I’m glad to see that the fine folks at Folger’s agree with me.