Well, the reprieve is over.

Shawn's nephew, Brian, was shipped out today. We'd originally been told he was headed for Kuwait, but when he talked to Shawn last night, he said they were going to "the front," wherever that may be at this time.

It's odd. On some levels, the spotty coverage I've seen seems to imply that the fighting is over (I loved Dennis Miller's description of the toppling of the main Saddam statue as looking like "a narcoleptic hailing a cab.")

Yet there's also massive looting and general lawlessness.... Gee, the Kurds are trying to set up an autonomous region and the Turks are trying to stop it, leading to another potentially explosive situation -- is anyone truly surprised at this? (Rob/Aphrael has some good commentary on the situation -- Rob, when are you going to get a comments section? BTW, whenever I tried linking directly to the Turkey/Kurd entry on 4/10, I kept getting the SARS entry instead, so the above link is just to his main blog.)

UPDATE 3:15pm PDT: Link corrected to Turkey/Kurd entry


I had a dream last night. It felt kind of WWII-ish, based on the landscape being more European than desert. The tank battalion was set on a surprise course directly across enemy territory, instead of going around via a more circuitous route. It was okay, though -- after all, they were in tanks. Nothing could hurt them.

Then they started hitting the landmines.

I didn't sleep very well.

---

QotD

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. general and 34th president (1890-1969)