Back of the Envelope

This is part of the series of posts which are going up automatically while I'm in the middle of my move. All these posts were written before August 29th, in some cases by as much as two weeks.

Old Post: My previous post on this topic is here.

I've been reluctant to return to this topic. My last attempt to discuss it earned me a public reprimand from my mother. My rather mild attempt to refute it earned me another reprimand for talking back to my mother. (It's a good thing he didn't see the e-mail I sent her privately.) So, it is with some trepidation that I approach this topic again. (If you're worried about my relationship with my mother, don't be. We've made our peace--such as was necessary. I think my mother would have been more upset if I refused to argue with her. Who do you think taught me to debate in the first place?)

The main point of my last post was that when you are asked for money, it is better to offer something else. Nothing anyone has said has dissuaded me from that, and none of the examples raised counter my basic point. If someone asks for money so they can buy food, it is better to offer him food. If someone asks for money for shelter, it is better to offer shelter. If he wants money for a subway token, give him the token, or even offer him a ride. Pointing out the good people can get from the money you give them doesn't counter my argument at all. They can get the same thing if you pay for what they want directly, and it's more valuable that way because you are personally investing in them. I'm not saying to do less, I'm saying to do more. It's liable to cost you more in time, in emotional investment, in risk, and, yes, in money, but it is better.

And if you want a Biblical support for this position, look at Jesus. Count the number of times the Bible tells us that he gave money to the poor. Now, count the number of times he healed them, fed them, taught them, or just conversed with them. Jesus was not against giving money to the poor. He instructed the rich young ruler to give his entire net worth to them (Matthew 19:21-23), and we know the disciples kept a fund where the money went to the needy (John 21:4-6). But the Bible doesn't mention a single time when Jesus himself gave money to a beggar. Perhaps he did--in fact, I would say he probably would have whenever he encountered a beggar whose primary need really was for money. Did that never happen, or was the interaction simply not worthy of recording in the Bible? Whatever the case, whenever we see Jesus interacting with the poor, he's not handing out coins. He's doing something more.

Now my own charitable activities, such as they are, won't impress anyone. Still, it will help if you know where I'm coming from. While I was in Boston, for about a year I volunteered at the Salvation Army. For the most part, I just participated in the weekly Bible study they had there, but I also helped to conduct a survey of people who made use of the Salvation Army's facilities. Most of the surveys were done inside, after the meals that the Salvation Army provided, but some were conducted on the street. I learned a lot about the homeless community in Boston, and I learned a lot about how the Salvation Army helps them. Among other questions, the survey asked what the primary reasons for the individual's homelessness were, and one of the options was drug and alcohol abuse. The majority of people I surveyed identified that as one of the top three causes of their homelessness. Now I don't say that to condemn them, or to say they brought it on themselves, but ignoring that fact would be to abandon them to the state they are in. A large part of the Salvation Army's mission is to help them recover from their addictions.

The Salvation Army offers a range of services to those who come to them for help. While meeting their immediate needs through a soup kitchen, a walk-in center where they can spend cold days, and a shelter at night are all a part of their ministry, their goal is not merely to meet immediate physical and spiritual needs, it is also to help them move out of homelessness, to become self-supporting individuals. The people who run the program are not naive, self-righteous do-gooders. Most of them have been through the program themselves, and they tend to be more hard-headed and cynical than the outside volunteers.

I do not know whether the Salvation Army gives money to individuals. I think that may be done in some of their services, but if so, it's done only after an interview and some vetting of the individual. When we were instructed on how to conduct the surveys of the homeless, we were told that we should not give the interviewees money. Eventually, we took to giving them gift certificates to Dunkin' Donuts instead.

Perhaps an example from my own life would help to illustrate this point further. When I first moved to Rochester, I drove my U-haul up to my apartment at midnight, uncertain how I was going to move in. I could handle most of the furniture myself, but there were a few items that needed two people to move. Fortunately, a complete stranger who was walking by offered to help, and I accepted. Between us, we got everything moved in in under an hour. After his help, I offered to buy him lunch some time as a thank you, giving him my cell phone number. Instead, he asked for cash. While I thought this was a bit odd, his help was certainly worth it, so I gave him a twenty.

Within a couple of days, he called my cell phone, asking me for a loan of a few dollars. The amount was trivial, so I gave it to him, even though I thought the reason sounded rather flimsy. It didn't end there. He continued to call me up, two or three times a week, asking for money. Always, he called it a loan, although he never attempted to pay me back. His reasons became flimsier. At one point, he said he needed to go to a nearby town to visit his girlfriend, that a friend was willing to drive him but he needed $20 to give his friend for gas money. I offered to drive him myself, for free, but he refused, saying it would insult his friend. This didn't make sense to me, as I didn't see how a friend could get upset with someone accepting a free ride from another person when he was charging. I tried to refuse the money, saying that my offer of a ride was the best I could do, but he whined and begged until I gave in. This was neither the first time or the last he succeeded in wearing me down. This went on for about over a month, and it was becoming expensive.

Finally, I said no. He wanted money for groceries, and I offered to go with him and buy the groceries for him, but I would no longer give him money. Never again. This time I managed to ignore his needling, and I ended up going with him and buying his groceries. He thanked me, promised to pay me back, and left. I never saw him again. He never called, never came by, never paid me back.

So is there any way I could have handled this better? I don't know, but I'm fairly certain that offering him money from the beginning was a mistake. I did owe him for his help, and paying him for it was fair enough, but doing so turned what I hoped would be a friendship into a patronage. That was apparently all he was interested in, but perhaps doing something different could have changed things. Certainly Jesus would have handled it differently.

Old Post: The beginning of this story is here.

I'm moving this week, but I've decided to keep posting during my absence using Powerblogs' post scheduling feature, which puts up posts I've written beforehand at the scheduled times. In addition to an eclectic collection of long, thoughtful posts, I am posting the first part of A Phoenix in Darkness, which is available for free here, as an experiment in storyblogging. Now you can read the entire first part of Phoenix right here on the main body of the blog, in HTML (personally, however, I prefer the PDF).

For centuries, the Ordo Dominorum has defended humanity against threats beyond its comprehension, but the Order's secretive ways and strange powers have earned the Domini only fear and hatred from those they seek to protect. Aulus and Nathan, two young Domini, believe that the Order's success in hunting down and destroying magical threats has now made it possible to reform the Order and make it a part of the world. Will the murder of a fellow Dominus by a peasant woman be the impetus to begin this change... or proof that the Order has not been as successful as they believed?

A Phoenix in Darkness, while a stand-alone work of fiction in its own right, is part of the backstory for The War of the Elementals, taking place a few years after "A Stranger in the Library." Both The War of the Elementals and "A Stranger in the Library" can be found here. If you enjoy this portion of A Phoenix in Darkness Part I: "The Murder", all of Part I is available for free here.

---

Part I: The Murder
Chapter 2

Seth called to the watching serfs, "I am a member of the Guard!" His bloody surcoat should tell them that much. "Someone needs to go to the gatehouse and get help." Most of them averted their eyes; a few attempted to make a quick escape.

"You!" He pointed to a middle-aged woman who had not only stood her ground but met his eyes.

"Yes... sir?" she said. Her simple grey dress was unremarkable, although Seth thought the material looked smoother than what most of the other serfs were. Her long, dark hair, marred with strands of white, framed a face whose skin was so pale that it was almost translucent. Nathan wondered whether she had some illness.

"Go to the gatehouse and tell them what happened. Have them find the captain; he needs to come himself." Seth figured the guardsmen would be more likely to believe her than any of the children, while she'd also move faster than any of the old men. "Wait!" he said as she turned to go. "First... do you know this woman?"

She looked at the dead woman and shook her head; her hard eyes did not soften. "I've never seen her before." She turned her back on Seth as she headed for the gate.

One of the old men stumbled forward, just managing to catch himself on his cane. He turned his head to glare at the man who had been standing behind him, who was now shuffling behind a small gaggle of women.

"Did you know her, sir?" Seth asked.

The old man beamed at the respectful address, showing his few remaining teeth, then stood as straight as his bent back would allow. Seth supposed it was the first time he had been called "sir" by a guardsman. Clearing his throat, he said, "Aye..., aye I did, Sir Guardsman. We all did." His glance included all those standing close by, who nodded and murmured in agreement.

"You all did? What about that woman?" Seth nodded his head in the direction his messenger had gone.

The old man rolled his shoulders uncomfortably, his wrinkled face twisting into a frown. "This is a small place here, y'see. We all know one another, sure enough. But while I know--knew--Lilah here, I have no idea who that other woman was."

Seth frowned. The pale woman's clothes had seemed a bit off, and she hadn't acted like a serf at all. He'd have to question her when she got back.

"Tell me about Lilah," Seth said.

"What is there to tell? She has a husband--working out in the king's fields right now--and kids. There's only a son and a daughter these days."

"What happened to the others?"

"They're dead." The old man said it so casually that it struck Seth just how common dying kids were around here. "One was just a little lass, a couple of years old, when she was lost, and Lilah had a boy who died just a few days after his birth. Just last year, another lad whom the Domini took when he reached manhood."

And that explained it. The mother had lost her son, the latest in a long line of lost children, so when the opportunity had come for revenge, she had taken it, killing the Dominus and then herself.

"Did you think she might do something like this? When did you last talk to her?"

"I hadn't spoken to her for a couple of weeks, y'see." He shook his head vigorously enough to set his wild white hair whipping from side to side. "Perhaps ya should speak to her neighbor, Miriam." He looked around. "I guess she's not here. Can we bury poor Lilah?"

"Later," Seth said. "After we've had a chance to examine the body." He stood there, smelling of blood, as the awkward silence lengthened. The people just stared at the bodies and at him, while he stared only at the bodies. He had asked all the questions he could think of and small talk wasn't appropriate. There was some muted discussion among the serfs, and a few of the women and children sobbed. So did some of the old men, although they fought harder to hide it. At least a quarter of an hour passed before three guardsmen arrived, one of them the captain. The middle-aged woman wasn't with them.

Captain Micah was taller than Seth, taller than any man there. He was slender and quick, a masterful swordsman and a quick wit whose sharp grey eyes could spot trouble with uncanny ease. He kept his red hair and beard in good order, but not too good, lest he seem a dandy. He knew he was the highest authority most folk would ever meet, and he did his best to represent the King's Law. The captain wasted no time taking charge of the situation. He got a full report from Seth, then had the guardsmen move people away from the scene as he set about interrogating anyone who had seen what had happened, following their accounts of the murder with questions about Lilah and the Dominus's activities. It embarrassed Seth that he had not asked what the Dominus had been doing, his original purpose in following him having been forgotten in the aftermath of the murder. It seemed like no one really knew anyway. The Dominus had spoken to a number of the serfs, but not only would no one admit to being one of those interviewed, they all pretended not to know with whom the Dominus had met. Micah was not pleased by this lack of cooperation.

As fascinating as Seth found his captain's investigation, he was distracted by the arrival of four newcomers. One of these, a guardsman named Jacob, was practically dragging a Philosopher behind him. The Philosophers' University was the greatest center of learning in the world, where only men and women who followed the Philosophy, rejecting all gods but knowledge, were privy to the highest level of education. Those so trained were willing to offer their skills to the uninitiated for a price, some portion of which no doubt went back to the University. Despite the distaste that the Manuelites had for the godless Philosophers, their skills were highly useful. This one was a physician, judging by his brown robe with its three black stripes at the hem and the cuffs of his sleeves, trained to diagnose injuries, disease, and, in this case, cause of death. He was a distinguished-looking gentleman, his salt-and-pepper hair and beard neatly trimmed. He looked grim as he knelt to examine the woman, earning grudging respect from Seth for being willing to ruin his robe with the red muck. The other two newcomers were Domini. Their black robes hid all features, although one was a head taller than his companion, taller than Seth as well, though still shorter than the captain. While the Philosopher examined the fallen woman, they knelt beside the dead Dominus.

The serfs reacted to the Domini in an unusual manner. While some slipped away quietly and more kept their eyes averted, a few glared at the black-robed creatures. One woman even shouted, "Have ya come to kill us too?" For a moment it seemed that there would be more yelling as a muttering began to build, but one of the Domini lifted his head to gaze at the crowd from within his faceless hood, and they fell silent as if he had stolen their voices.

When the Domini were done examining their fallen brother, they moved over to Lilah's body. The Philosopher, who was looking into Lilah's empty eyes, said, "Don't touch the body." The taller Dominus responded, "We don't need to." They hadn't touched the body of their comrade either. Instead, they knelt near the woman, just looking at her, before they leaned their heads together. Seth could just make out the words.

"Well?" said the short one.

"I can't see anything. You?"

"I thought I saw, uh, something. But if it was there, it's faded by now."

When they came to their feet, Seth noticed that their robes were somehow clean of the red muck they had been kneeling in. They approached the captain, and those serfs nearby shrank back. So did Jacob and Seth.

"Tell us what happened," the tall one said.

"Talk to Seth," Captain Micah replied, nodding in his direction. "He saw everything."

They turned toward Seth, who for a moment just stared into their hoods wondering why he couldn't see their faces. He tried to tell them they should talk to the serfs, but the Domini just stared at him silently until he broke down and told them everything: what he had seen and what he had learned from the villagers. The Domini continued to look at him, even when he ran out of things to say and clamped his mouth shut. He glared back at them, ruining the effect by fidgeting a little.

The Philosopher saved him from further silent interrogation when he came to his feet and approached the body of the fallen Dominus. The short one heard his movement and turned his head just as the Philosopher knelt next to the corpse. "No!" the Dominus said. "We will deal with the body."

"But..."

"I said we would deal with it," he repeated. The Philosopher frowned, but before he could say anything more, the body in front of him vanished.

The remaining crowd gave a collective gasp, punctuated by a few startled cries. Many took this as a sign that they had already stayed too long and fled. Seth felt his own mouth hanging open, while the Philosopher scrambled backwards, falling onto his rear, where he looked much less dignified. Looking at the ground where the body had lain, Seth thought that something was wrong, as if it were distorted somehow. The Domini moved to flank the spot.

"We will contact you should we need further information, Captain, Guardsman Seth," the shorter one said. Then they started toward the city gate and their tower, walking slowly in single file. For just a moment, Seth thought he saw the air shimmer within the six feet separating them.

* * *

---

FUN FACT: Click more for a fun fact about this story.

(more)

New Post: The next chapter of this story is here.

I'm currently in the midst of moving, and these posts are going up automatically while I don't have access to a computer. This post is a continuation of the Sluggy Freelance Archive Review. It's a chance for you to become familiar with Sluggy Freelance by going through the archives one week each day. You can start here.

Week 12: Escape from the Lab

If you're wondering, you should read the comic first, then read my comments.

Now it's time for Bun-bun's revenge on Torg for his revenge on Bun-bun for his revenge... uh, I guess it wasn't really revenge when Bun-bun set Torg up the first time. Fortunately, a little Baywatch calms Bun-bun down. But first, we find out what everybody does. And on Sunday, we meet Dr. Lorna, Zoe's boss.

Things I noticed:

1. Monday: We find out what Torg and Riff do. Torg's a freelance web-designer, and Riff's, well, he won't say what he does, so Torg calls him a freelance bum. The topic of Riff's employment will come up again. This is also the closest this comic has come to explaining it's name. Best Exchange: Torg: "And Riff here... well... he sorta builds stuff, dimensional portals... summons demons... What do you do?" Riff: "No comment." Torg: "'Freelance bum.'"

2. Tuesday: Zoe's a co-ed, looking to become an intern. I'm guessing that means Zoe's probably 20 (Junior in college), and the guys are a couple of years older, say between 21 and 23.

3. Wednesday: Bun-bun's back, returned from the grave like any good horror movie villain. Of course, we already knew he wasn't dead. By the way, is it just me, or does the Bun-bun silhouette in the third panel look a lot like the "Have a Nice Day" smiley?

4. Thursday: Aww, how cute! Torg misses his little (homicidal) bunny. And his bunny misses him too, in a stalking kind of way!

5. Friday: Bun-bun's mad, but not too mad. He may be mean, but he's got a sense of indebtedness, so he's willing to let this one slide.

6. Saturday: So the other lab animals go to live with Sam. Just what every bachelor need--escaped lab animal roommates. Talking escaped lab animal roommates. I hope none of them have anything contagious.

7. Sunday: And here's Dr. Lorna. She's based on Dr. Laura. I've never listened to Dr. Laura, but I assume this is a bit of an extreme. You get the impression that Pete doesn't like Laura, though. Notice that Riff claims never to have heard of her. Second best line: "Um... Lorna? That caller was 12." Best exchange: Zoe: "Well, it's good money." Torg: "I didn't know interns made any money." Zoe: "Torg, just leave me alone." Bun-bun: "Hey, I hear Howard Stern's looking for an intern that looks good in a thong." (I thought Riff was saying that last one at first, but it's clearly Bun-bun. It's more of a Bun-bun thing to say.)

Please do not post spoilers, or speculation that looks like a spoiler, in the comments of this post.

New Post: The next week of Sluggy is here.

I moved out of my old apartment today and I'm now on the move. Tonight, I'm staying at a Holiday Inn, which happens to have wireless access. Nice!

Now for the bad news. While the scheduled posting works, there are some bugs and idiosyncracies. I still haven't figured out which is which. Right now it looks like all my posts are triple or quadruple posting, depending on how many times I edited them before they went up. There may be something I can do to prevent that from happening. My best guess is that every time I told it to Publish on Scheduled Date, it sets it up to publish again, meaning it will publish once for each time I did that. Now, if I only tell it to do that once, and henceforth use the Save and Edit Later option, maybe it will only post once. But... I have no way of correcting for the posts where I've already scheduled it multiple times. So it looks like I'll still have to go back tomorrow and remove the multiple postings. Frustrating, and not very pretty for those of you visiting now, but I'll do my best to clean things up at the end of the day.

I'm moving this week, but I've decided to keep posting during my absence using Powerblogs' post scheduling feature, which puts up posts I've written beforehand at the scheduled times. In addition to an eclectic collection of long, thoughtful posts, I am posting the first part of A Phoenix in Darkness, which is available for free here, as an experiment in storyblogging. Now you can read the entire first part of Phoenix right here on the main body of the blog, in HTML (personally, however, I prefer the PDF).

For centuries, the Ordo Dominorum has defended humanity against threats beyond its comprehension, but the Order's secretive ways and strange powers have earned the Domini only fear and hatred from those they seek to protect. Aulus and Nathan, two young Domini, believe that the Order's success in hunting down and destroying magical threats has now made it possible to reform the Order and make it a part of the world. Will the murder of a fellow Dominus by a peasant woman be the impetus to begin this change... or proof that the Order has not been as successful as they believed?

A Phoenix in Darkness, while a stand-alone work of fiction in its own right, is part of the backstory for The War of the Elementals, taking place a few years after "A Stranger in the Library." Both The War of the Elementals and "A Stranger in the Library" can be found here. If you enjoy this portion of A Phoenix in Darkness Part I: "The Murder", all of Part I is available for free here.

---

Part I: The Murder
Chapter 1

Quian's serf village spilled out of the city's grim walls like rotten apples from an overturned basket. The road coming out of the gate, an iron-bound door which could barely accommodate a cart, much less a full-sized wagon, soon got lost in the maze of cottages. The haphazardly placed, weather-worn buildings of graying wood and thatched roofs defined wandering dirt pathways. A recent rain had turned the dirt a deeper, darker brown that squished underfoot. The road re-emerged from the other side of the village only to dead-end at a manor house a few miles later. This manor belonged to the king, but as he never used it, it was left to his steward to oversee the manor and the fields these serfs kept running. Only serfs occupied this small, forgotten part of Manuel's capital. Important people with important business avoided village and manor house both.

At least one important person did wander the village today, a man wrapped head to foot in a black robe such that nothing, neither face nor hands nor feet, could be seen. A pocket of emptiness traveled with him as people dressed in rough homemade clothing of grey and brown scrambled to keep their distance. A leper might have caused the same reaction. Once a safe distance from him, they kept their eyes averted. Only one person watched him with any interest as the Dominus approached.

Seth was a large, blocky young man, with a square face topped by a shock of sandy blond hair. He wore a white tabard emblazoned with a crimson hawk with outstretched wings, covering a long shirt of chain armor. It was lighter than the armor most soldiers wore, but he dealt with lesser threats. The longsword across his back was enough to warn off most of those who would test the armor. He was a proficient swordsman and ready to use his weapon if needed, but it would do little good against the man he watched. Seth had followed the black-robed man here, expecting that he meant to cause mischief, as Domini always did. His superiors would have told him to mind his own business, but Seth had not consulted with them. He did not expect to be able to stop the Dominus, but he hoped to expose some of the mystery in which the Order cloaked itself. For the most part, the Domini kept to themselves, hiding in their towers and rarely speaking to anyone when they came out. While rumor told of myriad misfortunes they caused with their strange powers, no one had ever caught them in the act, even for those things everyone agreed they were behind. Seth's ambition to catch this Dominus in some misdeed had faltered when he lost the Dominus as he entered the village this morning, and only now, well past noon and on his way back, had he found him again. What have you been up to all day?

A woman of indeterminate age, wearing a bonnet and a dark brown dress with a once-white bodice, stepped inside the emptiness around the man in black, approaching him from behind. The Dominus continued toward the gate, walking neither fast nor show, oblivious to the woman's hurried approach even when she produced a dagger from within the folds of her skirt. She held the dagger with expert ease, positioned for an upward thrust. It was no carving knife, but a narrow, sturdy weapon with a needle-sharp point, a stiletto such as an assassin might use. Seth pushed himself away from the wall he leaned against, shouting "Stop!" The Dominus paused and turned his head in the direction of the cry, but Seth's concern was for the clearly suicidal woman rather than the Dominus.

She didn't seem to notice Seth, who had closed half the distance at a dead run which set his armor to rattling as she positioned her knife behind the Dominus's head, hardly needing to compensate for his reaction to Seth. At the same moment, the Dominus lifted his arm, his deep sleeve falling back to reveal a dark hand pointing in Seth's direction, and Seth knew he was going to die by some arcane magic. He opened his mouth to yell "Wait!" even though he was certain he'd be dead before he could offer an explanation, but he never got the word out. The Dominus went rigid, his outstretched hand--the only visible part of his body--splaying open, then collapsed without a sound, pulling free of the dagger which the woman had driven into the back of his neck. In his surprise, Seth stumbled and went sprawling in the mud, his wind leaving him in a great burst.

He looked up, spitting dirt from his mouth, to see the woman holding a dagger now smeared with blood. Without a trace of hesitation, she lifted the dagger to her neck and pressed the hard edge against the side of her throat. In one fluid motion she pulled it down and across. The dagger cut the artery cleanly, and blood spewed out in a spray, followed by another, and another, as her heart continued to pump, heedless of the fact that it now expelled the useless blood from her body. She stood wobbling on her feet for a few moments, the knife still gripped tightly in a hand which had dropped to her side. Then, even as Seth pulled himself to his feet against the drag of his chain armor, the woman's legs folded and she went to her knees. A moment more there, with the blood turning the front of her dress an ugly shade of crimson, and then she fell to her left, where Seth caught her. By this time the blood had begun to slow, the supply depleted, and Seth just knelt in the red mud as he helplessly held the dying woman. He thought she might have been attractive once, although hard times had worn much of the flesh from her face. Her light brown hair, still unstreaked by grey, was surprisingly free of blood, with only the tips of the longest strands which had escaped the bonnet turned red. Seth watched her as she died, eyelids drooping closed over blank eyes and a last breath sighing from her lips. He gently laid her down in the mud and stood up, barely sparing a glance for his stained surcoat, where the red hawk's tail now merged with a larger red splotch. Seth wiped off his bloody hands on the clean upper part of his surcoat, leaving ruddy hand-shaped smears, trying to control his rising gorge. The stunning manner of the woman's death made him feel nauseous. His heart continued to race, uncertain that the horrible incident was over.

He had paid no attention to the Dominus, aside from noticing that he still lay on the ground. He looked at him now, at his back, at the hole in the neck of his robe where blood dribbled off the black fabric and onto the ground. Seth knew what he was seeing, but he still argued with himself before he was convinced that it was less likely for a Dominus to lie face-down in the mud than that he really had been killed by a simple knife to the back of the neck. Seth had assumed that the Dominus had forced the woman to cut her own artery, but staring at the dead creature, he thought that he would have had to seek revenge from beyond the grave. Eän help me, maybe he did.

He glared around the mostly empty streets, where a few of the bolder serfs were creeping back into view. First came the children unmonitored by any adult who could hold them back. Some of those stared wide-eyed at the bodies before them, while a few cried openly, others turn and ran, and still others lost interest and simply wandered off. Any kid living here had seen death before, Seth figured. Usually not as bloody and spectacular, but who could say this was worse than the slow and merciless work of disease and hunger. Some adults came next, women and old men. They had much the same reaction as the children, although most had too much dignity to turn and run without making a show of disinterest first.

---

FUN FACT: Click more for a fun fact about this story.

(more)

New Post: The next part of this story is here.

I'm currently in the midst of moving, and these posts are going up automatically while I don't have access to a computer. This post is a continuation of the Sluggy Freelance Archive Review. It's a chance for you to become familiar with Sluggy Freelance by going through the archives one week each day. You can start here.

Week 11: Torg's Revenge

If you're wondering, you should read the comic first, then read my comments.

Fortunately, they let Torg out of jail. He's angry with Bun-bun setting him up. By the end of the week he manages to get his revenge and get Bun-bun sent to a research lab. Meanwhile, Zoe's hanging out with the guys... it's good to see them getting along. Poor Sam has a crush on Zoe, but Zoe finds him disgusting.

Things I noticed:

1. Monday & Wednesday: Sam never seems to leave when Zoe thinks he does.

2. Thursday: Yep, Torg's still angry, and Bun-bun's still contemptuous.

3. Friday: Mr. Sock-Lop, Torg's answer to clockwork Torg. It's funny how Bun-bun has the more sophisticated technology.

4. Saturday: You're right, Torg, that is damn bizarre! That's an image I don't need in my head.

5. Sunday: Bun-bun does not take to animal testing well. Now where does he hide the Glock? And how does he use it without opposable thumbs? This is the first time we've seen Bun-bun handling a gun with his own paw. That Dr. Schlock certainly doesn't seem to be having much luck in the animal testing field, does he? He's persistent though. Maybe he should go into an alternative field, like inflatable technology or time travel.

Please do not post spoilers, or speculation that looks like a spoiler, in the comments of this post.

New Post: The next week of Sluggy is here.

I've been getting a lot of visitors coming from my old Blogspot site recently. I'm not certain why this is, since, while the site is still there, it isn't updated any longer. If you're visiting from the Blogspot site, please let me know what brought you there in the first place.

Last Monday, Rudy Gersten wrote an article in National Review Online lambasting the NBA basketball players who refused to play in the Olympics due to "security concerns":

The terrorists have won at least one battle with the United States this summer. They have scared away many of our most talented basketball players from playing on the 2004 U.S. Olympic team in Athens. The list of perennial NBA All Stars that either declined invitations or withdrew after previously agreeing to play is quite impressive: Tracy McGrady, Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, Karl Malone, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Jason Kidd, Mike Bibby, Jermaine O'Neal, Vince Carter, Elton Brand, Kenyon Martin, and Ben Wallace — to name just a few.

Many of these players have not been shy about why they refused to play for Team U.S.A. Wallace and fellow NBA championship teammate Richard Hamilton quit the Olympic team for "security reasons," according to the Detroit Free Press. Even though their own head coach, Larry Brown, is the head coach of the Olympic squad, both players were apparently not as brave. Same goes for Kidd, O'Neal, McGrady, and Wallace — all of whom cited "security concerns" as their primary reason not to play.

Several of these players will be in the basketball Hall of Fame one day. But there ought to be an asterisk next to each of their names, to let generations to come know that they decided not to represent our country in the Olympics while America was at war.
...
We have more than 150,000 troops from our armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting for our country, and for freedom, and yet we can't even gather our best athletes to represent us in the Olympics? No other country — and no other sport — has this problem. So why is it that only our multimillionaire NBA players are so frightened? They are supposed to be the toughest athletes in the world, at least according to the image they like to project on and off the basketball court. So maybe they're really not as tough as they would like us to believe.

According to Dave Barry, the end result of this refusal to play is quite apparent:

But before you get too cynical about the Olympics, let me stress that not all the athletes are taking performance-enhancing drugs. Some of them appear to be taking performance-reducing drugs. I refer here to the U.S. All-Star Billionaire Men's Basketball Team. There was a time when the United States always won in basketball. Sometimes, just to make it competitive, it would send a team consisting of only four players to the Olympics, and they still kicked international butt.

But in this Olympics, our men hoopsters have been playing like — to use the Greek word for it — tipiyokti. First, they lost to Puerto Rico, which is ridiculous, because Puerto Rico is basically the 51st state. It's like losing to New Jersey.

But then the U.S. men lost to Lithuania. Lithuania! I mean, I'm sure it's a fine country and everything, but it has, what, 50 residents?

I bet the Lithuanian gross national product is less than what the U.S. men's basketball team spends per week on sneakers. This is embarrassing, people! We're America! The most powerful nation on Earth! The entire world hates us anyway! We should at least be able to derive some athletic benefit from this, in the form of stomping the juice out of Lithuania.

Listen: If we let Lithuania beat us in basketball, it's only a matter of time before France does. And if that happens, we basically have no choice but to use nuclear missiles.

I don't have a whole lot of respect for professional athletes anyway. This doesn't help.

This is part of the series of posts which are going up automatically while I'm in the middle of my move. All these posts were written before August 29th, in some cases by as much as two weeks.

Hugh Hewitt's new book is about winning elections.

While he lays out the case for George Bush's re-election, that is not the only, nor even the central, purpose of the book. The strongest argument he makes for Bush's re-election is that if you are convinced that the war which the terrorists are waging against us is real, then it is important to make sure the Republicans win, even if you disagree with the Republicans on practically everything else. The Republicans are determined to win this war; the Democrats can't even agree that there is a war. Hugh Hewitt's thesis is that this one plank of the platform is important enough, and the Democrats' unseriousness towards the war confounds the war efforts to such a degree, that it is vital to make sure that the Republicans are in power and the Democrats are kept far away from it. But, as I said, this is not the main purpose of his book.

More importantly, he lays out the case for partisanship, and why it is important to make sure Republicans are elected even when the individual candidates do not match all your ideological principles. Now if you disagree with the platform of the Republican party in toto, then his argument is not very persuasive, but nor does it attempt to be. However, if you agree with part of the party platform and can live with the rest (and, as Hugh argues, you should most emphatically agree with the Republicans about the War on Terror), then it is important to make sure Republicans win every possible election to make sure the part of the platform you care about is implemented. He makes a strong case that the Democrats are very good at confounding any effort of Republican government--from judicial nominations to education reform, from tax policy to national defense. The Democrats were in power for fifty years, and they are reacting very badly to the possibility of being out of power. While the Republicans learned to compromise while they were out of power, to take what they could get and moderate what they couldn't prevent, the Democrats never learned that lesson: they always play for all or nothing, even when that means fighting dirty. They will use filibustering and other legislative tricks, the sympathetic media, lies and outright demagoguery to get their way.

After making the minimalist case that the Republicans should be in power, and the stronger case that the Presidency and 51% of the House and Senate are not enough if you want the Republicans to be able to exercise that power, he moves on to the longest and most instructive part of his book--how to help the Republicans win. Here his advice becomes practical: how to make a political argument and convince your friends to vote Republican, how to influence the media (the longest chapter in this section is on blogging), how to donate to political campaigns and how to decide whom to donate to.

He also discusses different sorts of partisans, and encourages people to be Principled Pragmatists, as he believes this is the most effective way to influence elections and thus policy-making. In his own words (pp. 81-82):

These partisans are partisans for ideological reasons. They mey be pro-union or anti-closed shop; pro-life or abortion rights absolutists; religion-in-the-public-square enthusiasts or antiporn activists; or missile defense or unilateral disarmament visionaries. They have passion about a particular set or sets of ideas.

But they also have prudence. They vote for and contribute to and organize on behalf of any candidate in their party, the victory of whom will advance their agendas even in tiny increments and even if that candidate occasionally slams their views. Thus, an ardent pro-lifer could work for Arnold Schwarzenegger's election as governor because of Arnold's ability to assist in the election of GOP Senate candidates and, of course, President Bush's reelection because Bush's reelection advances the core pro-life agendas.

These are the principled pragmatists. They believe in coalitions within the party.

This is not the book to read if you want to know why you should vote Republican in this election. While Hugh covers that briefly, he doesn't go in depth. (I'd recommend David Frum's The Right Man for why Bush is a good president, and Rich Lowry's Legacy for why Clinton was not. Much of what applied to Clinton also applies to Kerry, especially since he's taken on many of the same advisors.) Nor is it a good book to cover the history of the parties and their political bases--while he covers that, I found his terminology murky and his logic convoluted in places. If you already support Bush, however, and want to know how you can help his re-election efforts, or whether you should really support all those RINOs (Republicans in name only), then this book is for you.

The Doc has some nice things to say about Phoenix. I appreciate that he took the time to read it, and I'm glad he liked it.

I'm currently in the midst of moving, and these posts are going up automatically while I don't have access to a computer. This post is a continuation of the Sluggy Freelance Archive Review. It's a chance for you to become familiar with Sluggy Freelance by going through the archives one week each day. You can start here.

Week 10: The First Halloween Party

If you're wondering, you should read the comic first, then read my comments.

The guys have returned home to their own dimension, where they meet Zoe again--who happens to be their next door neighbor. Zoe remembers them better than they remember her--of course, she noticed them being big jerks while they hardly noticed her at all. Still, this is their chance to start over and build a real friendship based on mutual fear of Bun-bun. Hey, maybe they'll bond at the Halloween party thrown by Sam Sein, a friend and neighbor of Torg's and Riff's who is now making his first appearance in the comic.

Things I noticed:

1. Monday: Fear of Bun-bun drives Zoe into Torg's arms.

2. Tuesday: I'm not sure what Zoe's thinking--probably just making sure the guys notice her this time so they don't trample her again.

3. Thursday: That is one bad bunny. This is the first time we've seen him use a gun. Where the heck did Bun-bun get a clock-work Torg anyway? Torg makes a convenient scapegoat for his schemes.

4. Friday: So the guys still have their weapons from the alternate dimension. I'm not sure how they're hiding them in their costumes.

5. Also on Friday: The alien's wearing a dress. Does that mean it's female? Of course, Torg was wearing a dress on Tuesday.

6. Saturday: Torg is framed. And Zoe seems a bit more... familiar with him than I would expect considering their short and unpleasant history.

7. Sunday: Our first ghost in Sluggy. This comic is actually quite spooky for about five panels. That wasn't one of the tougher ghosts I've seen in a comic strip.

Please do not post spoilers, or speculation that looks like a spoiler, in the comments of this post.

New Post: The next week of Sluggy is here.

These are some of my more significant posts this week:

My tale of woe -- Yeah, it's rather selfish, but every blogger's gotta whine once in a while.

Rumsfeld to blame for Abu Ghraib -- Or so it's being spun. I take a look at the actual report, and the spin.

The purpose of science -- I give a prosaic answer to the whole "Why do we do science?" debate.

The Swift Boat Veterans' motivations -- I take a look at the Swift Boat Veterans, and try to figure out what the motivation is behind their attacks on Kerry.

Bush sues the 527s -- I point out how Bush taking action against the 527s can be a good thing.

Sluggy Freelance — The good guys escape from the Dimension of Sham-Pain, but at what price? Leo and Zoe have a big fight. It turns out Leo isn't up to the true weirdness that is Sluggy.

Day by Day — A lot of Kerry, Chris Matthews, and Academia in general are in for it this week.

It's Walky! — And the battle continues. The alternate Head Alien is finally delivered to the good guys, while Sal is ready to sacrifice herself.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — The guys are safe and sound, at Mike's house. I guess it isn't so safe after all. Meanwhile, something weird is going on at Margaret's hiding place.

General Protection Fault — Fooker starts his new job. Unfortunately, his new co-workers recognize him.

Schlock Mercenary — A new player has entered the game. A very familiar player who's supposed to be dead.

Do blog designs affect which blogs you read? We all know that the chief concern of any blog is content, but I find myself shying away from blogs whose design I find difficult. Although I don't like pointing to other blogs as bad examples, I do find Joe Gandelman's blog hard to read. The color scheme bothers me, and followed links don't show up too well on his sidebars. I probably shouldn't complain too much, since his color scheme isn't that different from mine--we both do manila sidebars. On the other hand, I think the Captain's Quarters and La Shawn Barber's new site are gorgeous.

I can't think of any blog I simply don't read because of the site design, but there are a few which I don't visit as often as I could. Of course, design doesn't bother me as much as technical glitches. Sometimes very beautiful blogs have technical problems and load incorrectly on some browsers. I know mine has had trouble with Internet Explorer in the past. I keep my personal computers updated, so I rarely have trouble on them, but some of the other machines I use have trouble with certain blogs.

So, do you have any blogs which bother you with their designs? Are there any you have trouble loading? Finally, is there anything about my blog's design or technical formatting that poses a problem?

Doc Rampage writes that he's gotten a second Instalanche (meaning that he's gotten 100% more Instalanches than I have, and he didn't even have to bug Glenn for it): "I got an inadvertent instalanche from my post on Atrios and the Swift Boat Vets. I almost didn't notice it because it was just in a paragraph where he mentioned Atrios and the name was a link to my post. I assumed it was a link to Atrios as I'm sure many other readers did." I didn't notice it either, alhtough in my case I figured it was a post criticizing Atrios, but since I had already read Doc's excellent post, I didn't see any need to read another one. Here's Glenn's mention and the post he linked to. Congratulations, Doc, and let me know if you have any pointers. I've been hankering for another Instalanche.

Jon Weidner at Random Jottings has an extensive list of the reasons to go to war with Iraq. Of these, I thought these two particularly stood out:

7. This is a WAR! WMD's: While it's true we haven't found stockpiles, we've found weapons programs that could have quickly rebuilt stockpiles, which Saddam clearly wanted and had before. And more importantly, this is a war. Not a case at law. The mere appearance of plans to attack us or our allies is justification for an attack. In a war, it is our responsibility to attack any enemy nation if feasable. It is those who oppose war-like attacks during war time who bear the responsibility of providing reasons why we should not.

7. This is a WAR! pt II. We have partly created the terrorists, by consistent weakness and vacillation over several decades. We have taught the terrorists to attack us! Withdrawing from Lebanon taught Hezbollah that suicide bombs work. Failure to respond in the Iran hostage crises taught a generation of terrorists that we are weak and vulnerable. Withdrawal from Somalia taught them the tactics now used in Iraq. We have waited so long to respond, that only a long bloody struggle will teach them a new lesson.

Iraq was the correct move because it is a bloody quagmire (though I don't think that term is really correct.) It is only by being resolute in the face of casualties and setbacks that we can overcome the education we have given terrorists by our past weakness. Failure to do so now will mean a much bigger butcher's-bill will be presented sometime in the future.

I have my own list of reasons, posted during my first week of blogging, but it's less complete than Jon's.

Donald Sensing and the folks at the Corner are really unhappy about this:

President Bush on Thursday sought to smooth over differences with Sen. John McCain by promising to take legal action to stop political ads by outside groups, including those attacking the war record of Bush's Democratic presidential rival, John Kerry.
...
Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel said the campaign would seek a court order to compel the FEC to act on the campaign's original complaint about outside groups, filed March 31. He said the court could order the FEC to act within 30 days.
...
"The president said he wanted to work together (with McCain) to pursue court action to shut down all the ads and activity by the shadowy ... groups," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One.

"The president condemns all the ads and activity by these shadowy groups," McClellan said.

(The Reuters article is incredibly one-sided, pointing out all the weak connections that have been dug up between the Bush campaign and SBVT, but failing to mention the numerous and stronger connections between the Democrats and its 527s, in an article where Bush is, indirectly at least, referring to all the connections.)

What's my take? I'm of two minds about this. If the 527s are violating some law, that should be enforced. If they're keeping the letter while violating the spirit, which seems to be what Bush and McCain are arguing, that's another matter, mainly because I don't agree with the spirit of the McCain-Feingold act, and I didn't think Bush really agreed with it either. I'm not for a legislative solution here--or rather, I think the proper legislative solution is to repeal the dumb act and allow free political speech. However, that's one reason I'm glad this is coming to a head. This should be dealt with, out in the open, with the consequences of the law clearly visible, and a new solution, which protects free speech, crafted. I don't see any of the players seeking that, but I'm hoping that there's a strong enough demand for it that the right solution will be sought.

I've been attempting to get all four of my substantive posts finished for the filler week, but I don't think I'll make it. In particular the "Why I Believe in God" post doesn't look like it will be finished in time. I wanted to deal with the question of how we know that God is good. This is a question that comes up in the philosophical problem of evil, in speculative fiction such as Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, in the Satanic Bible, and elsewhere. It can be addressed in a number of ways. The way that I hear most often is the least satisfying: "God is good because good and evil are defined in relation to him. God cannot do evil because if he does it, it's not evil." I think there are more satisfying ways to answer this question, and I'd like to attempt it at some point, but when writing the post, I had difficulty laying out the question. For one thing, I first have to consider whether it's possible for human beings to, in effect, judge God. I consider God's response to Job, for instance. Do I lay out the case that while we cannot know the full mind and purposes of God, he does expose himself to us through revelation, and expect us to respond to him on that basis? Or do I plow through all that and say that, right or not, we do respond to God and form opinions of him, and here are the facts and the possible opinions? The more I think about it, the harder this post looks to write, but I do not want to leave the question, a question that is asked everyday by people wondering who is this God that they should love him, unanswered. I'll get to it at some point, I think.

Update: Oops. When talking about the "philosophical problem of evil," I got stuck in an alliteration rut and said the "philosophical problem of pain." Pain is not the same as evil, and is not what I meant to refer to. It's been corrected above.

I spent most of my day preparing for the move, so I haven't spent much time blogging today. I had a phone interview in the morning, I took the car to the dealer this afternoon, and dismantled some furniture this evening. I'll write a few posts tonight which will go up tomorrow so it's not so empty.

(Oddly, despite the low posting, my traffic today was higher than normal. I didn't write many posts, but I did a good job of selling yesterday's.)

There's a new Christian Carnival up at Patriot Paradox. In particular, I noticed a post by Messy Christian on her habit of writing letters to God. This is something I've done before, mainly because I've always felt that I write better than I talk. I know I concentrate better when I write, and I think what I write is more sincere. It's not something I do every day, but reading Messy Christian's post makes me think it's something I should do more often.

I've been wondering at the motivations of the Swift Boat Veterans. While they're attacking Kerry strongly, they're not doing it intelligently. Much time is being spent on medals, the Bronze and Silver Stars and Purple Hearts, rather than on the much stronger cases, such as his lies about Christmas in Cambodia or his shameful anti-war activities. "Why?" I wondered. If their goal is really to see Kerry lose, wouldn't they be focusing on the places where they had a stronger case and could seriously harm Kerry rather than the places where it all devolves into he said-he said debates and eyewitness accounts, already clouded by the fog of war, further dimmed by 35 years? They're weakening their strong accusations with these weaker ones, giving the Kerry campaign (and the mainstream media) weaker arguments to attack so they can avoid the strong ones. Mac Owens says in his National Review Online column:

...I am concerned that the Swifties' focus on Kerry's record in Vietnam distracts us from the real story — his cynical, hypocritical, and yes, his dishonorable actions once he returned home. The Swifties' second anti-Kerry ad now focuses on this aspect of Kerry's career but because they have been portrayed in the press as vindictive, small-minded pawns of Karl Rove and the Republican party who are attempting to tarnish the honor of a man who served his country, this ad may not have the impact it should.

A column by Michael Novak in National Review Online does a lot to illuminate the motivations of the Swifties and explain their strategy:

When John Kerry called the Swift Boat Vets for Truth "liars" on August 19, he ignored a point articulated afterwards by his spokeswoman, Stephanie Cutter: "When somebody's attacking your military record, you reach a boiling point, and he reached a boiling point last night," Cutter explained. "When you go and fight in a war, when you spill blood for your country, your instinct is to fight back and defend your record."

Cutter was looking at matters from Kerry's angle, but her point works even more powerfully from the point of view of the Swift Boat Vets. That's because even before Kerry got fully free of the Navy (he was in the Naval Reserves until 1978), he took away the honor of his Swift Boat brothers, who were then as young as he was, and mostly still in harm's way. He said they and others like them had killed, burned, raped, and acted like the barbarian armies of Genghis Khan. He broadcast this message all around the world, until it echoed in the jungles and the prison camps and down the rivers of Vietnam — and these young men in uniform had no way to defend themselves.

Their instinct has also been "to fight back and defend" their record.
...
After John Kerry's two campaign books came out — the more scholarly one by historian Douglas Brinkley and the more or less official one by writers from the Boston Globe — the Swift Boat Vets grasped for the first time John Kerry's view of his four-months service with them (from November 17, 1968 to March 17, 1969). In Brinkley, they read for the first time Kerry's contemporaneous (and also his recent) reports on that period — and they were shocked.
...
Unfit for Command's first five chapters concern Kerry's accounts of the time they all spent together. When they weren't on their six-man boats, the lot of them billeted together, ate together, and spent the majority of their time together. Their boats almost always went out in small packs — at least two, often five, together. They stayed close to each other for mutual support. They shared the same orders, and planned out jointly their tactical procedures for the day. Men were often shifted from one boat to another. Normally, one officer — in his groups, usually Kerry — wrote up the after-action reports.

Kerry had a typewriter and was always writing. He kept a private journal of his own. Some of the other officers didn't like the task of writing daily reports, but Kerry did. Most of the Swift Boat Vets didn't realize what Kerry had been filing in those reports, or recording in his journal, until the Brinkley and Globe books came out.

Backed up by many sworn affidavits from well-placed eyewitnesses, John O'Neill's lawyer-like chapters tell a story of each major action very different from Kerry's. This may not seem important to the rest of the world, but to the Swift Boat Vets it means a great deal. They feel an obligation to the truth as they saw it, felt it, and shared it among themselves at that time and for years afterwards. They want to cut clear from Kerry's new version of events — and for the first time they see what his old version of events was, as recorded in Brinkley's quotes from his journals.

This helps me to see the Swift Vets in a new light. Their purpose is not only, or even primarily, to make sure that Kerry loses. Their foremost motivation is to tell their side of the story, to defend their reputations first from Kerry's glory-hogging and second from his war crime allegations.

This, I think, gives the lie to the "Republican smear machine" allegation that all the Democrats are throwing around. If Karl Rove and the RNC were behind this, their priority would be to make sure that Kerry loses, and thus they would center their arguments around the clear cases where Kerry lied and where they could damage him politically. They would not put their efforts into defending the actions of the other Swift Vets during those four months, not when the price was diluting their strong arguments with weaker ones.

Serge at Imago Dei and John Zimmer at Letters from Babylon are discussing the goal of science. John argues:

Serge at Imago Dei asks in a recent post, "Is the goal of science to discover the truth, or merely come up with the best naturalistic explanation for complex phenomena?" Serge, as well as the Dawn Treader and Macht in comments to Serge's post, suggests that the goal of science is to discover the truth. Though I greatly respect these Christian thinkers, I must disagree. Instead, I argue that the goal of science is to describe the natural world naturalistically and provide an increasingly useful model of physical principles. Of the two options given by Serge, then, the latter is the better—science's task is to "come up with the best naturalistic explanation for complex phenomena." It might be that early practitioners of modern science embraced a broader, grander goal of knowing truth. But even if that is so, I think it is now prudent to accept a narrower goal and scope of science and to limit science's authority to a "naturalistic" framework. The basis for this limitation is that science's data is limited to the physically observable. That science is able to study only what is physically observable provides justification for the statement that "science can only tell us about the material world," at least directly. While Macht correctly notes that scientific knowledge can at times inform other areas, like the interpretation of Scripture, in such cases all that science has presented is data about the material world (such as geologic or astronomical data suggesting an age for the earth). What we do with that data about the physical world (i.e., how we incorporate it into a larger worldview) is a separate task.

While Serge says:

For clarification, I would agree that science can only study what is physically observable. For instance, in no way do I believe that we can detect the presence of the Holy Spirit by scientific instrumentation. The evidence in science consists of what we can observe empirically. That is not in question. The question is whether we have to accept naturalistic explanations for such empirical observations even if all of the data point to a supernatural cause?

Why does science need to be limited in this way? Why can't we see if the physical evidence we have fits into a theory with supernatural elements? In my opinion, this handcuffs our ability to explore our world in unacceptable ways. I'll give two examples.

In some ways I think they're arguing semantics, talking around each other while agreeing on most points. But I really want to say that they're not so much talking about the purpose of science as the limits of science. When it comes to why we do science, I have a more prosaic answer that only an engineer could give: we do science for the benefits we get from it. The day when we saw no practical benefits from the science we do is long past. We now believe that any science will ultimately benefit us, and this is reflected in the papers we write, the funding proposals we make, and the way we present science to the general public. While scientists make high-minded attempts to justify science for the sake of science, the general public measures science by its success in practical matters, whether it's curing diseases, predicting the weather, or creating a faster computer.

This rough pragmatism may account for the popular conception of science, but it's hardly a good measurement for the proper scope of science, is it? Being able to do something with scientific knowledge isn't a measurement of its truthfulness, is it? But is science really about absolute truth? At the end of the day, science is about mathematical models, and how well they fit and predict the real world. The ultimate test of those models is to take them out of their usual context--nature--and place them in an artificial context--experimental measurements. Their ability to continue to work demonstrates their validity. The ability to move to more and more complex artificial contexts--into technology--proves the models' robustness.

Thus we know science is true, in the sense that it's a good enough model for now, because it works. This accounts for 99% of science, the science that is measured and tested in the lab and finds its way into practical applications. The remaining 1%, which includes the questions of origins and naturalistic vs. supernaturalistic explanations, doesn't fit into this approach, and thus it becomes a contentious issue. Science may in fact point to evolution, or it may not, but because scientists cannot perform experiments to prove evolution or to prove creation, and more to the point, they cannot derive any practical application from their supposed knowledge, the public views it as a matter of speculation rather than science. This is not a satisfying definition of the scope of science to a philosopher of science, or to most scientists, but at the end of the day, it's probably a more useful one from the standpoint of the general public than any which the scientific community would prefer them to have.

Old Post: I first told of my frustrating but amusing problems below.

My tale of woe has become less woeful. It turns out the problems with the debit card were due not to an early expiration by my bank, but by a typo on my part. Whew! Now if only my other problems would go away that easily.

According to a headline on Netscape.com yesterday, at least. While the promo on the front page mentioned Rumsfeld himself, the headline on the article (from the Associated Press) only says: "Prison Abuse Report Cites Top Commanders." It also says

• "senior commanders and top-level Pentagon officials including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld can be faulted for failed leadership and oversight"
• "the report contradicts the Bush administration's assertion that the problem was limited to a few soldiers acting on their own"
• "The report is one of several that have examined various aspects of the abuse scandal, which rocked the Bush administration and triggered calls by some in Congress for Rumsfeld to resign. Its findings are similar to that of other reviews, although it is the first to point blame at Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

Overall, it's remarkable just how many times the article says that Rumsfeld is at fault. To be fair, the article does cite the report itself, and the commission members, who clearly say that what blame lies with Rumsfeld comes from lack of oversight and mistakes in how policy was disseminated:

"There is no evidence of a policy of abuse promulgated by senior officials or military authorities," the report said. "Still, the abuses were not just the failure of some individuals to follow known standards, and they are more than the failure of a few leaders to enforce proper discipline. There is both institutional and personal responsibility at higher levels."

The report itself can be found here. I haven't read through the entire thing--just the executive summary, and it's not nearly the "blame Rumsfeld" hitpiece which the article makes it out to be. Rumsfeld's biggest mistake seems to have been the changing guidelines for prisoner interrogations, which were repeatedly revised as more and more lawyers took a hand in it (just my impression from the quick once over). It's not that any of the incarnations of these guidelines allowed the sort of abuses which took place at Abu Ghraib, but the numerous versions of the guidelines created confusion as to what was permissible where, which had the effect of making the guidelines the soldiers were told they should follow seem less absolute. More blame is placed on Sanchez: "We believe LTG Sanchez should have taken stronger action in November when he realized the extent of the leadership problems at Abu Ghraib. His attempt to mentor BG Karpinski, though wll-intended, was insufficient in a combat zone in the midst of a serious and growing insurgency." (p. 15) Overall, however, it sounds like most of the problems the report cites are a series of bureaucratic missteps and miscommunications, the sort that are easy to condemn in retrospect but impossible to avoid entirely. In the conlusion to its executive summary, the report says: "While any abuse is too much, we see signs that the Department of Defense is now on the path to dealing with the personal and professional failures and remedying the underlying causes of these abuses." (p. 18) Finally, from a CNN article:

Asked if Rumsfeld should resign, Schlesinger said, "His resignation would be a boon to all of America's enemies and, consequently, I think it would be a misfortune if it were to take place." The three other panel members concurred.

Captain Ed has reserved the domain name restoreirony.com, and he wants to know what he should do with it. My first suggestion, that he use it for a satire site, seems to fit the domain name fairly well, but I have a better idea, even if it's not so good a match for the name.

The past month has shown, remarkably, the failure of the mainstream press to cover news which they don't want to cover. It is clear that blogging has filled much of that void, with its ability to research and bring to light stories that the mainstream media would prefer to avoid, but bloggers tend to mix opinion with the actual news. Perhaps it would be useful to have a straight news site, one which reported news stories that are undercovered by the mainstream media. While it wouldn't be free from analysis, it would shy away from opinion in favor of just presenting the facts. It would have to be a group blog, with various bloggers acting as reporters, and rather than an editor, the members and the blogosphere itself would fact-check the site, which would have a robust corrections policy.

Now bloggers don't often do original reporting, but they do it occasionally, and when it comes to online research, they do a better job than any non-blogging news professional I know. I think this may be a good opportunity to prove it, and to show the "professional" journalists what journalism really looks like.

After the whining in the earlier post, I figured I ought to leaven it with some good news. Not too long ago, the job hunt was getting tedious and going nowhere. Just this past week, though, I've had three companies want to interview me. This doesn't mean I have a job, of course, but it's encouraging. I'm starting to feel like a hot commodity.

A couple of bloggers, such as Jeremy Pierce and Ed Morrisey, are noting how Bush has turned the tables on John Kerry by calling for both of them to disavow all third-party ads (while Kerry's only asking Bush to denounce the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth). Frankly, I thought this was old news. Bush has been saying this from the beginning, as Captain Ed has previously said. I suppose that now that Kerry is becoming louder in his demands that Bush denounce the Swift Boat Vets, Bush is also becoming louder, so it's getting more press.

Update: Oops. I referred to the wrong post by Captain Ed. This is the post I originally referred to, while this is the one I should have referenced. It's been corrected above.

Usually there's nothing more tedious than listening to a blogger whine about how horrible his life is. But it can be fun too, and as I consider my current situation at least as amusing as it is frustrating, I thought I'd share.

1. June 29 — I find out that my Postdoc will not be renewed next year, meaning that I need to find a new job after August 31. I first check with my other advisor to see if he can take over my Postdoc, but no luck.
2. July 29 — It's been a month and still no luck with the job search. It looks like I'll definitely have to move home with the parentes for a while. I start planning the trip.
3. August 9 — I get a call from my cell phone company, letting me know that the bill they had sent me had been returned. It seems that there's a problem with my mail: I don't know what exactly, but I later learn of two other letters, one a bill, which never reached me. It's quite possible there are others. I ask the post office to look into it. They promise to keep an eye out, although they don't know of any reason why I wouldn't be getting my mail.
4. August 12 — I discover that I can no longer use my credit card when Paypal rejects my payment. When I call the credit card company the next day, they let me know that my credit card number may have been stolen because of a security lapse (although no fraudulent activity has been detected on it), and they will replace it as a precaution. (They neglected to inform me because somehow when I updated my mailing address a year ago, my phone number was not updated.) But in the meantime (5-10 business days), I am without my only credit card when I absolutely need it to move.
5. August 15 — Feeling desperate for a credit card, I ask my parents whether the card in both my name and my mother's is still active. It was originally mine, but I gave it over to my mother at some point and haven't used it for years. It's active, but it's maxed out. They recommend that I use my debit card instead. I don't like doing that, but I don't really have a choice.
6. August 21 — I discover just how expensive moving can be. I really should not have put it off this long, but I was hoping the new credit card would arrive before I had to make the reservation. Still, the price doesn't depend that much on the reservation time. It's expensive, especially to take directly from my checking account, but I can afford it, since I've been frugal the past month or so.
7. August 23 — I managed to find a company that will ship my stuff for a few hundred dollars less than renting a moving truck would cost. I make a reservation using my debit card. So far, so good. The problem is that they tell me my debit card is set to expire this month, so I need to give them another credit card. (Which one? The one which hasn't been replaced yet, or the one that's maxed out?) The debit card itself says it won't expire until February 2007. I'm not sure why there's a difference, but I can guess. My bank is being bought out by another bank, and I guess they're replacing everybody's bank card. So why didn't I get a replacement earlier? It's possible I did and just tossed it out, mistaking it for another credit card offer before I knew my bank had been bought out. I think it's more likely that it "arrived" about the same time all the rest of my mail was getting lost. Like the credit card bill for the card I can't use--that should have arrived a week ago, and according to the company it was sent, but I still haven't seen it.

So that's my situation. I have a credit card that I can't use because it's being replaced, another one I can't use because it's maxed out, and a debit card that's set to expire next week. And even if they send me new ones, I'm not so certain I'll get them, since I still don't know whether my mail is getting to me. (I've gotten mail since I talked to the post office, but I have no way of knowing what might not be getting to me.) So despite having plenty of money in the bank and a credit card balance that's well below its limit, I'm having trouble coming up with the money to make this move. I'll be stopping by the local branch of my bank this morning (convenient banking hours, 9 AM - 3 PM) to try to straighten some of this out.

Now having shared all this, I realize that while it's frustrating, none of it is truly disastrous. In fact, the other, shared credit card was maxed out to deal with a family situation which makes my financial difficulties pale by comparison. After all, I have money, I just can't get to it. Okay, that's enough woe for one morning.

New Post: My tale becomes less woeful above.

In The Corner, Peter Robinson wants to know why Moses had horns in Michelangelo's sculpture of him. This isn't particular to Michelangelo's sculpture, but was common in Medieval and Renaissance art. The explanation which I've heard can be found at the Fitzwilliam Museum's website, in regards to a miniature by Honroé:

The horns came about because of an ambiguity of the Latin version of Exodus 34, 30. After being addressed by God on top of Mount Sinai and given the Tablets of the Law containing the 10 Commandments, Moses descended to his people in the desert. His face was seen to shine with a divine light. The word cornutam used in the Latin translation of the passage can mean both 'shining' and 'horned.'

So in much medieval and Renaissance art the great Jewish leader is shown with goat-like horns emerging from his forehead - a strangely diabolical looking attribute for this forerunner of Christ.

That's just one reason I'm thankful that modern translations use the Hebrew and Greek texts. Mr. Robinson treats this as if it is a great mystery, although the way I've always heard it, it's fairly straightforward. Perhaps there's more to this story than I thought (and quoted above).

Update: Peter Robinson has more. His responses inspired me to take a look at the Hebrew text, using Blue Letter Bible (a great resource, by the way). It turns out that the Hebrew word is just as ambiguous as the Latin when it comes to horns/shining. This would normally strike me as very odd. I do know that in many ancient cultures, "horn" was synonymous with strength (Hebrew and Latin words for horn both have that connotation), so it's not too far-fetched that the word translated as radiance originally had a sense akin to displaying strength, but that's just speculation on my part.

On the other hand, of the online Latin dictionaries I've checked, only one has listed shining as an alternative definition for cornutam (and I can't find that one again), but not all of them even had cornutam (the adjective, cornutus, -a, -um, to be technical) as an entry.

Well, I worked on a couple of the substantive posts for the upcoming filler week last night. I've made enough pro