Back of the Envelope

I'm sure it will come as a surprise to all of you that I support Bush for President. Yes, yes, I know you all pegged me for a Nader supporter. But before you all go to vote, I'd like to lay out why I do so and do my level best to convince you that you should too. Bush has taken a lot of flak for launching the war on Iraq, and there are people in my own family who really dislike Bush for this. Now I explained why it was important to take on Iraq in a very early post on this blog. To immodestly quote myself:

...When making the case for war, the White House considered a number of reasons, which Wolfowitz elucidates:

The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but . . . there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two...

Now all these things are true concerns. While the WMD reasoning has come under a lot of fire recently, there's no doubt about Saddam Hussein's barbaric treatment of his own people. His ties to terrorists are well-known, and there's good evidence, if not absolute proof, of his ties to al Qaeda. As for the WMDs, it's true that no large stockpiles have been found. That they existed at one point is not in doubt; he used them in the war against Iran and against the Kurds. Whether they've been destroyed by US attacks against Saddam through the years, destroyed by Saddam in secret (the least likely, I think), buried in the sand, or shipped to Syria, I don't know. The programs, however, were certainly there--Kay reported on many of them. None of them involved large scale manufacturing, but when it comes right down to it, we were never as worried about large scale manufacturing as we were about producing just enough to contribute to a terrorist attack. It does not take a large quantity of chemical or biological weapons to mount a terrorist attack--remember the anthrax letters? They involved an absurdly small quantity of anthrax. Imagine what could have happened with larger, but hardly massive, quantities.

These are not the only reasons, however. Another reason, largely unstated, is that we are embarking on a mission to change the whole of the Middle East, and that could not happen with Saddam Hussein in the way. Contrary to what Edward Said would have had us believe, the biggest problems in the Middle East are not due to poverty and ignorance, but to tyranny and oppression. To deal with that, we have to bring democracy to the Middle East. Now, since a large number of people in the Middle East already want democracy, it's not as if we're forcing it upon them, but they are currently living under oppressive regimes who are uninterested in the idea, or use it just for show. See Iran's recent "election." The way to start that change happening is to show support for these native movements, to demonstrate that democracy can work in the Middle East, and to demonstrate our own determination to follow through. Aside from being a strong candidate of where to first establish democracy in the Middle East, Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a living example of US impotence. While we beat Saddam in 1991, he had routinely thumbed his nose at US and UN demands. What is probably worst of all, when a popular uprising occurred in response to his defeat in the first Gulf War, he crushed it ruthlessly, while the US did too little, too late. In doing this, the US failed to show support for the democratic forces in Iraq, and as long as the US did nothing, this was taken as a continuing sign that the US either could not or would not do anything against the tyrants of the Middle East who oppressed their people.

It should be self-evidently obvious why it's important to keep WMDs out of the hand of terrorists. Don't think Saddam could do it? We may not have found production facilities or stockpiles, but we have found the odd sarin shell. Even one of these detonated in downtown New York could kill tens of thousands. Those who support continued sanctions should realize that they couldn't last. The sanctions were already crumbling: Saddam was skimming off the Oil-for-Food program, controls over what could be imported through the program were loose and there was a thriving smuggling program with neighboring nations, and France, Germany, and Russia were all arguing for an end to the sanctions. In Boston, I would see posters and protests against the sanctions all the time. These protesters, and these nations, didn't have an alternative which would constrain Saddam--they were basically saying let's end the sanctions and let Saddam do what he wants. The choice was not between war and continued sanctions, it was between war and an end to the sanctions.

So that's why leaving Saddam in control in Iraq was not possible. Why is it important to democratize the Middle East? The underlying belief is that it is not poverty and lack of education that are the root causes of terrorism--the 9/11 hijackers were mostly middle class and educated in Western colleges--but tyranny and oppression. It may take generations, but if liberal democracy takes root in the Middle East, especially a free press and freedom of religion as opposed to state-run propaganda masquerading as news media and state-sponsored madrassas teaching hatred, terrorism will no longer be an attractive method for those seeking reform.

Another reason to continue is that we must show the world that terrorism does not work. Terrorism had been used for years, and in almost every case it was successful, causing America to retreat to protect itself at the expense of others, a pattern which arguably began with Vietnam. The unwillingness of Americans to accept casualties to achieve it goals encourages more violence. It is largely cited by Osama bin Laden as the reason he believed terrorism would work against us. Terrorism had killed an increasing number of Americans throughout the nineties, as I've pointed out earlier, and which appears in the graph below.

Our response was feeble at best. The more bin Laden could get away with, and force Americans to retreat, the bolder and more frequent the attacks became. If, however, America proves that it can stand firm in the face of the attacks, that it will not be deterred by casualties, the rationale behind terrorist attacks evaporates. And it is working, right now, in Iraq. Attacks against Americans are down, even while attacks on others are increasing, because the terrorists have found they can kill Americans, but it does not affect our efforts in Iraq. Zarqawi himself has said as much. So while they'll continue to kill Americans whenever they have a chance, especially close to the election when they think it will have an influence, they're slowly learning that it won't succeed. When's the last time an American was kidnapped and behedaded? Recently they've been focusing on Italians and British and others. Why? Because kidnapping Americans hasn't advanced their goals. They've had much more luck gaining concessions from other nations. This is, small scale, what we are trying to do large scale in the Middle East right now: show that we will not be deterred and we will not be intimidated. We will win even if we must make sacrifices, because we know we are, by our sacrifices now, making future sacrifices unnecessary.

Kerry promises to return us to the ways of the nineties, in which bin Laden attacks, and we respond, while slowly giving him more and more of what he wants. Perhaps Kerry will carry on in Iraq, but he'll go no further, and he does not fundamentally understand what the war on terrorism is all about. Bush promises to fight to win, even if it requires sacrifice. If Kerry wins, we may still see democracy in Iraq. If Bush wins, we'll definitely see it, and hopefully see democracy in Iran, Syria, and Lebanon as well, very possibly without requiring military intervention.

As a side note, there are some who say we should let the world go its own way and just defend ourselves. Who cares what they think if they can't attack us? We could try that, but we would not be successful. Defending ourselves a hundred percent would mean closing our borders, building walls between us and Mexico and Canada. We'd have to replace free trade with no trade, since shipments into the US present a risk. Since most terrorist attacks take place on Americans overseas, we'd have to close our embassies, bring our troops everywhere in the world home, and forbid our people from traveling to other countries. Become full-scale isolationists. Perhaps we could survive and even thrive that way, but would anyone of any political persuasion really want to pay that large of a price? And what would become of the rest of the world? Israel would be destroyed: it'd only be a matter of time. Taiwan would be absorbed by China. If South Korea didn't simply surrender to North Korea, there would be nuclear war on the Korean peninsula. Pakistan and India might very well do the same. I don't even want to think about what would happen in the Middle East. America's presence on the world stage ensures peace for billions. Perhaps we could ensure the lives of the few thousand that it will cost us to wage this war if we retreated, but are we willing to sacrifice that many in order to do it?

The war is the main reason I support Bush, although I will quickly mention a few others.

First, I fear for the state of the Supreme Court if Kerry wins. Liberals always appoint liberal activist judges. I think it is important to start changing the state of the courts, to return power to the people and their elected representatives rather than the unelected justices and the lawyers.

Second, I believe that to the degree that there is a healthcare crisis in this country (and I'm not too sure that a broader view supports this assertion), rising healthcare costs are due largely to lawsuits and overregulation. Liberals would have the government help subsidize this through government health insurance, giving us the wonderful healthcare that Canada has--cheap but ineffective. Enacting tort reform and deregulation, removing the waste from the system, is a far better solution than providing government subsidies to the waste. Not only that, but if you want any progress in healthcare, it makes more sense to support Bush. I think the tort reform solution has a better chance of getting through Congress, and it would definitely happen sooner, than Kerry's healthcare solution.

There are things I disagree with Bush over, but I'm hard pressed to think of any issue where I prefer Kerry's position over Bush's.

Update: I was up pretty late writing this, so if any of it is confusing, feel free to ask questions.

The next story is Everythinig Happens on Halloween by Darleen. It is quite a story, frightening in a way few stories manage. The ending made me go back over it, trying to piece together the clues, to see if I understand what's really going on. It may keep me up tonight.

Meanwhile, I have to compliment the author on just how well-told her story was. A lot of what makes a story scary involves not plot, but how it's told. I especially enjoyed the drawn out descriptions at the end, partly since I've just finished a similar scene in the sequel to Fire.

Wow, it's been a while since I've done one of these. Two months, in fact. I'm going to make this two separate posts, one for October and one for November. I'll eventually move them back to the proper place in the archives (November 1 and December 1), but I'll just note here that these weren't written until December 5th. Anyway, here are all the important posts from October.

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Nuclear Bunker Buster symposium -- My post for Hugh Hewitt's nuclear bunker buster symposium, wherein I argue that we should develop such weapons only if we're willing to use them.

An Unexpected Answer, Chapter 1 of an unnamed story -- Well, the story has a name now, but this is where you should start if you want to read Eyes in the Shadow.

Iraq and al Qaeda -- After pointing out some new evidence of an Iraq-al Qaeda link, I resign myself to the fact that if you don't already believe in a link between the two, it's going to take more evidence than you ever see in the intelligence business.

Stolen Honor -- I point out that the Democrats were behaving pretty hypocritically to go up in arms over Stolen Honor without batting an eye at Michael Moore's plan to broadcast Fahrenheit 9/11 on election eve. I don't think any of the big blogs pointed this out, but I still didn't get an Instalanche or anything. I ask you, "Is that fair?"

Why can't they stay out of our elections? -- Why does everyone in the world think they should have a say in our elections? I say, "Sure, you can vote in the US, if we can vote in your country."

Hmm, I thought the other Jonathan Edwards spoke for the dead -- John Edwards promises miracles without even feeling the need to address the ethical problem. Evil which you overlook because it's inconvenient leads to the worst abuses.

The most boring video in the world -- Why are children's videos so mind-numbingly dull to adults?

First impressions of Doom III -- Okay, I admit, I was compelled to buy this game. And it is one tense game, let me tell you!

Draft rumor e-mail counterattack -- Doc Rampage writes an e-mail designed to counter the draft rumor.

Leadership and IQs -- I don't think there's a direct correlation between leadership skills and IQ.

Breaking and entering -- A heartwarming story of breaking into my sister's home.

The religious right: extreme minority? -- I google a few polls to show that the evangelical positions on embryonic stem cell research, abortion, and gay marriage are actually rather mainstream.

Like Dean Esmay, I cannot wait for the election to be over. I definitely hope Bush wins, and I'm even feeling a bit optimistic that he will, but more than anything I just want it to be done with. I'm not planning on staying up late Tuesday to watch the election returns--in 2000, that was an exercise in frustration, and those 10,000 lawyers the Democrats are employing are promising to do the same this year. Hopefully, by the time I wake up Wednesday morning it will all be over, but I intend to sleep late, just in case.

Sluggy Freelance — Torg decides that the best way to survive in the Dimension of Pain is to release all the good that's stored in the Demon King's Fridge of the Heavens. But first he has to find it, and in the process he stumbles upon a trapdoor arachnaseuse's trap, made to look like the Demon King's abode. Fortunately, the spider-like creature turns out to be on Torg's side, and she helps him find the real Demon King home, which is near the Elder Village (where the Demon Spear was).

It's Walky! — And that's it... It's Walky! is done! It was fun, wasn't it? And they all--meaning those who were still alive--lived happily ever after. David Willis isn't going away completely, however. He will continue to draw new Roomies comics on Tuesday and Thursday. Roomies was the comic that preceded It's Walky!, and it featured many of the same characters. It's not clear where exactly the new Roomies strips fit in the timeline, but it's clearly before Joyce was inducted into SEMME. Although it's vaguely possible that Willis will do something very evil with the new strips and make all of It's Walky! a dream.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Oh my! Roger's mom dies dramatically in Roger's arms. And there's Margaret, who killed her. What will Roger do with her? And, of course, there's going to be a scene change before we find out.

General Protection Fault — Finally! Nick has proposed to Ki, and she's accepted. And Trudy sees it all and finally realizes that she has no chance with Nick. I actually feel sorry for her, even though she's a murderess who tried to take over the world.

Schlock Mercenary — Tagon makes it to the escape pod--technically a teraport cage. Unfortunately, everything's already gone wrong, and he has to cut his losses. Starting with killing the prisoner. What comes next? Technically, I already know since I've read Sunday's by now, but I don't want to believe it. My guess is you won't want to either.

The next story I'm highlighting from the Storyblogging Carnival (just a reminder, I'm not highlighting them all--mine definitely won't be included, for example) is Victims of Slavery vs. Lloyd's of London. It's less of a story than a fictional court decision. It's told well, however, and it's very funny. Be forewarned, though: you may consider it highly offensive if you consider restitution for descendents of slaves a good idea.

The third story in the Storyblogging Carnival is When the Mind Hears. It's a short cliffhanger, powerful as well as confusing. Are you sensing a pattern here? None of the writers seems to want to tell us what the heck is going on. Now, I guess I'm not one to speak, as I like to incorporate plenty of mystery into my stories that I don't clear up until about midway through, but it's annoying when other people do it. Anyway, hypocritical pet peeve aside, it's a nice story, and I'm wondering whether the doctors are trying to cure the girl's deafness (I think she's deaf), or something else.

Now that It's Walky! is done (although David Willis is continuing to do bi-weekly updates, but the updates fit in the timeframe of Roomies, which was the prequel to It's Walky), I'm going to be adding a new webcomic to the update list to replace it. I won't link to this comic yet, but it is the sequel to Bobbins, which ended in 2002 after four-and-a-half years. I read this new comic's entire archive (it's not very long) before I realized it was a sequel. I was wondering why the artist was tossing in characters with little or no explanation and referring to events he had never shown. I'll get into the sequel later, but for now, you may want to start reading through Bobbins, from the beginning.

The next story is by Sheya Joie, called The Child, One. I think the One means part one, since if you click next, you'll be taken to The Child, Two. Doc Rampage thinks it's allegory, but I don't think I agree. Then again, I've only read part one out of eight so far, since that's what was submitted to the Carnival. It looks interesting--a nameless, amnesiac child left somewhere unfamiliar with just a single item as a clue. I'll wait to see whether part two is submitted to the Carnival next week before going on.

This time, rather than writing one post to discuss all the stories I found interesting in the Storyblogging Carnival, I'll take them one at a time in their own posts. First up, the entries from Jeremiah Lewis of Fringe. There are four of them, each exactly fifty words long, not including the title. I'm not sure how, or if, they fit together, but each one is cool in its own right. The brevity makes them compelling and mysterious, with plenty of unanswered questions.

Arsenic
Garrot
High Wire Fate
Rebellion

Very much worth reading, and it won't even take very long.

I have by now become used to the mainstream media's inability to determine the difference between fundamentalists and evangelicals, much less to understand what the religious right is. Heck, I'm not sure I understand what's meant by the term. Sometimes it's nothing more than a catch-phrase to describe all those conservative Christians who are also political conservatives, which would include my fairly moderate self. The mainstream media tends to lump them all together, which wouldn't be a problem except that they then ascribe the same beliefs to the far left of the religious right as to the far right. Thus we all want to see abortion banned, a ban on gay marriage, an end to stem cell research, and prayer in public schools. Of course, when they go into full demagoguery mode, Democrats accuse the religious right of wanting to round up gays in concentration camps, to keep women out of the workplace and legally subservient to their husbands, and to remove all trace of other religions from the public square--or perhaps just deport all the unbelievers. Now, there are probably some people who believe those things, but I've never met them, nor do they make up even a sizeable minority in the evangelical movement. Bush is an evangelical, and he's a fairly moderate one. His positions on embryonic stem cell research, partial-birth abortion, and gay marriage are not only middle-of-the-road for evangelicals, they're also middle of the road for America, which is why I find The Economist's complaining so annoying (Hat tip Megan McArdle at Instapundit):

If Mr Bush is re-elected, and uses a new team and a new approach to achieve that goal, and shakes off his fealty to an extreme minority, the religious right, then The Economist will wish him well.

Once again, by "fealty to an extreme minority, the religious right," The Economist means "openly religious and opposing partial-birth-abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and gay marriage." So how extreme a minority is someone holding these positions? Let's check some statistics:

• 84% of Americans say that religion is very important or somewhat important in their lives (55% say very important)
• 70% of Americans agree or mostly agree that it is important that the President have strong religious beliefs (same link as above)
• 69% of Americans oppose partial birth abortion
• 57% of Americans oppose abortion on demand (same link as above)
• 47% of Americans oppose federal funding for embryonic stem cell research
• 62% of Americans oppose gay marriage

So much for the extreme minority meme, huh? Bush's positions are pretty clearly mainstream.

I've had slow progress with the writing recently. You wouldn't be too far off to chalk it up to Doom III and Jedi Academy. I am working on the next chapter for the Storyblogging Carnival, although it's going rather slow. It'll be shorter than the last chapter, but it will finally start in on some answers to the ever important "What the heck is going on?" question. Of course, after this, I have no idea what will happen. That won't stop me from writing, but I don't have a clue what the next chapter will be about. I don't even know how to explain everything that's gone on so far. Meanwhile, I'm still working on the sequel to Fire, and doing them both at the same time occasionally gets confusing as I get Ryan and Emily mixed up with Victor and Dorelle (you haven't met her yet). Fortunately, the storylines aren't at all similar, nor are the characters much alike, so it's only the names I'm having trouble with. Despite that, suffice it to say that there is progress on both fronts, albeit slow progress.

Update: I get repetitious when I'm tired, and boy was I repetitious here. Edited so it's not so grating to read.

So I broke into my sister's home the other day. I bet this has happened to you.

My mother was worried about my sister since she hadn't heard from her in a couple of days. Sarah lives with her daughter just a couple of miles down the road from my parents, and she is in constant contact with them. So much so, that a couple of days of not calling my mother is enough to make her worried. (When I lived in Boston, I only called her once a week, and if I missed a couple, it usually took my mother three weeks or so to get worried.) My mother tried to call her, but while the cell phone rang (no land line), there wasn't any answer. When she called a neighbor, she learned that my sister's car was there, but my sister hadn't been seen.

So my mother sent me. Or more accurately, she called me Monday morning, waking me up, and asked me to check on my sister when I got a chance because she was worried. I would have waited, but my mother's worry can be infectious, so I was out the door within twenty minutes, and on the way to Sarah's place. As I said, her worry can be infectious. This being St. Francisville, cell phone service is spotty, so the most obvious answer is she didn't feel like calling and her cell phone didn't ring when my mother called. But if that were the case, wouldn't there be an "Out of Service Area" message rather than unanswered ringing? So what else could have happened? Numerous possibilities, very few of them good, occurred to me.

I parked by the home, behind her car. If it's there, she should be too. I get out and walk up the steps to the door and knock. And I get an answer from my two-and-a-half year old niece, Hope. "Hello? Hello?" I identify myself using her cute name for me, [censored to eliminate teasing possibilities], and ask her where her mommy is. Being two, she gives a nonsensical response. I try the door and find it locked. So I knock on the door and call my sister's name. Still no answer aside from my niece's prattling.

Well, it's time for something more extreme. There's a window next to the door. It's high up from the ground on my side, but close to the floor on the inside. I borrow a cinder block to stand on and open the window, which is just behind a futon. As soon as I do, Hope stands up on the futon, reaches her small arms to me over the back, and says, "Help up! Help up!" As generous as the offer is, I really think I need to do this myself, so I have her get off the futon and stand back while I push it aside and climb in the window.

Once again I ask Hope where her mommy is. She leads me to the back bedroom and starts pounding on the door with her hand. The door is locked. I probably should have spent a minute or two calling to her, but by now I'm pretty worried, so I circle through the bathroom to the other door to her room, which isn't locked.

And there she is, just waking up from her daughter's pounding on the door. She's since complained about my walking in on her, but she was hardly indecent. Hope had woken up earlier than her mother, and whatever Toddler Containment Devices (an adaptation of my sister's term) Sarah might have used, they were obviously insufficient. My knocking, meanwhile, hadn't been enough to wake her.

As for lack of contact during the weekend, well, sometimes she just spends the day alone with her daughter, and really, she never gets a good cell phone connection in her house, so it usually doesn't ring. (No idea why it would seem to ring rather than give an "Out of Service Area" on our end.) All's well that ends well, and produces an amusing story besides.

Next time, though, my mother can do the breaking and entering. Meanwhile, I'll be saving the "Help up! Help up!" story for my niece's wedding.

The last strip is today. I'll miss it. I think It's Walky! is the third webcomic I started reading, and the only one of those three which I still read regularly. It has a great story, which the artist describes as Dawson's Creek meets Men in Black. It originally started as a regular college comic strip called Roomies about Danny, his horny roommate Joe, and the cute girl with a crush on Danny, Joyce. Danny's girlfriend from high school, Sal, is the first indication that something weird may be going on, as she appears and disappears with little explanation. Then the aliens arrive. Soon characters are dropping out because of this alien subplot, and then Roomies reaches its conclusion and It's Walky! begins. In a way, it'd be more accurate to describe It's Walky! as a spin off, where a lot of the characters who dropped out of Roomies or were just recurring guests in the first place become the major characters of the new strip, which is focused on the alien invasion. Overall, it's a lot of fun, and I suggest you start, at the beginning.

I'm sure you've all seen this optical illusion before, but it's pretty dramatic in this picture.

Tom Harrison now has a blog, Monday Afternoon. Tom's a regular visitor and commenter both here and at Doc's blog, so I'm glad to see he's finally blogging. Go visit, and add him to your blogrolls. I have.

Democrats are angry. Angry enough that they won't accept losing this election, from the looks of it. Doc Rampage has a few thoughts on Democratic rage:

I know a Bush-hater who says he was glad the Florida challenge came out the way it did because he thought Bush supporters were angrier (I don't agree, but that's what he thinks). He felt it was better for them to win because that would calm things down. But this year he thinks Kerry supporters are angrier (clearly), so they ought to win.

I wonder if he hasn't stumbled across a premeditated strategy behind all the hatred and spite we are seeing from Democrats this year. Could it be that they think Republicans will back down and let them win from fear? That would explain the hateful rhetoric, the screaming and name-calling on news shows, the premeditated attack on a conservative, the violence against Republican campaign workers, and intimidation tactics against Republican voters [Lots of links in Doc's original post]. It is starting to look like an actual strategy rather than separate spontaneous incidents.
...
Of course fear and intimidation work. It can work on a small scale, as when someone asks someone for a dollar in a threatening manner. Not threatening enough to make it a robbery, but threatening enough that the victim might not want to take the chance of it turning into a robbery. It works at a larger scale as when threatened riots change university policies. It can even happen at national scales, as when Spain was bombed a few days before the election. And if Bush loses in November, it will have happened to the US as well.

What the Democrats may have miscalculated is that Bush draws a large part of his support specifically from people who will not be intimidated. While Kerry voters wanted to run to the UN for comfort after 9/11, while they wanted to find a way appease the bad people, Bush voters wanted to go after the bastards.

I suspect that Bush voters are going to feel the same about any Democrats that try to intimidate them at the polls, too.

Doc's been on fire recently any way you look at it. You ought to be reading him regularly.

Mark Steyn is never gentle, and he doesn't think much of Europe's "ironic jokes":

Hey-ho. In his mea sorta culpa [Brooker for joking about assassinating Bush], he's managed to nail the defects of "the entire civilised world". If by the "civilised world" you mean Europe, Guardian editors, BBC political-discussion panellists, that nice bird from the New Zealand Green Party you met at a conference to demand something be done about something etc, this world is defined almost entirely by its passivity. Whether or not everything is an "ironic joke", hardly anything at all is a "call to action". Does the EU have a position on Darfur? And, if so, who cares?

Brooker's ironic assassination target, being famously moronic, is deluded enough to believe that, when one takes a position on something, one is expected to act on it. But in the "entire civilised world" that's no longer necessary: "Sneer globally, act fitfully" is the watchword. Because Belgium opposes the Iraq war, its foreign minister makes a few anti-Bush cracks and various lesser figures attempt to indict Rumsfeld and co for war crimes - but they know nothing's going to come of that; it's an empty gesture.

Now suppose Belgium took the opposite position and decided it wholeheartedly supported the Iraq war and stood 100 per cent shoulder to shoulder with its American friends in the battle for freedom: in that case, they'd have dispatched a rusting frigate to, oh, the eastern Mediterranean or maybe 30 of their elderly infantrymen to help run the canteen in Qatar. That, too, would have been an empty gesture.

That's why, whoever's president, the September 10 international system can't be put back together. The Cold War required deterrence, which is about as suited to a passivist European culture as can be devised, and even then there were plenty of wobbly moments.

Read the whole thing.

Doc Rampage has the fourth Storyblogging Carnival up right now, with ten stories from around the blogosphere. Check it out.

Instapundit points out an article which says that based on military testing, Bush probably has a higher IQ than Kerry. His IQ is mid-120s, while Kerry's is about 120:

Mr. Bush's score on the Air Force Officer Qualifying Test at age 22 again suggests that his I.Q was the mid-120's, putting Mr. Bush in about the 95th percentile of the population, according to Mr. Sailer. Mr. Kerry's I.Q. was about 120, in the 91st percentile, according to Mr. Sailer's extrapolation of his score at age 22 on the Navy Officer Qualification Test.

Linda Gottfredson, an I.Q. expert at the University of Delaware, called it a creditable analysis said she was not surprised at the results or that so many people had assumed that Mr. Kerry was smarter. "People will often be misled into thinking someone is brighter if he says something complicated they can't understand," Professor Gottfredson said.

Many Americans still believe a report that began circulating on the Internet three years ago, and was quoted in "Doonesbury," that Mr. Bush's I.Q. was 91, the lowest of any modern American president. But that report from the non-existent Lovenstein Institute turned out to be a hoax.

Now I'm not going to say what my IQ is, but I went to Grad school at MIT, where, based on my best qualitative analysis (a wild guess), 120 would be about average. Maybe a little low.

For the Undergrads I can be a little bit more precise, using this handy-dandy SAT to IQ conversion formula (see this page for more information). Thus, looking at the Freshmen admitted to MIT in 2004, the average SAT score is 724 verbal and 759 math, which gives us .095*759[math]+.003*724[verbal]+50.241=124.5. So either candidate would do okay at MIT, but they wouldn't stand out.

However, I can't think of too many MIT students who would make good leaders, much less Presidents. I know I wouldn't. In some ways, I think the smartest students I know would make the worst leaders. MIT doesn't produce a lot of leaders; it produces technocrats. If I were to pick the MIT alum who best demonstrates the type of leader the average MIT student would make, it'd have to be Kofi Annan. I bet you didn't know that he's an MIT alum. Yes, he graduated from MIT in 1972 with an MS from the Sloan School of Management. His thesis is online here. I don't think we want a President like Kofi Annan.

I just saw Terry McAuliffe on CNN saying that we all know that the Republicans fully intend to disenfranchise voters. I have just one question: why would we want to? All the polls say we're ahead. Not by much, I admit, but it does look like we're going to win, so why should we mess that up by trying to prevent people from voting? All this is based on the rumor that the Republicans prevented blacks from voting in Florida in 2000. Unfortunately for Democrats, no one's actually managed to come up with any evidence that this did indeed take place, as Jonah Goldberg says:

In 2000, Janet Reno — still the attorney general — dispatched crack squads to highlight the crimes against democracy the Democrats had been touting. They came up empty, too. Indeed, even Al Gore's lawyers — who saw nothing wrong with trying to squelch the votes of Americans serving in the military — failed to cite a single example of the allegedly "pervasive" disenfranchisement Democrats claimed had taken place. You always know something's fishy when party hacks say one thing in front of cameras and another in front of judges.

The only disenfranchisement in Florida was Gore's successful effort not to count the military absentee ballots.

Unfortunately, this isn't just Democratic fearmongering. And you know it's bad when worse than demagoguery is going on. The Democrats have made it clear that they don't believe the polls. Their position is that there's no way that Bush can win the election fairly (from Jonah again):

The prior Sunday, Eric Holder, a member of the Democrats' "Election Task Force," told Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday, "If every vote is allowed to be cast, and if every vote is counted, John Kerry will be president within a day of that election."

Wallace chuckled at what he thought was so much partisan bravado. "Well, I don't know how you can guarantee that," he said.

"You heard it right here," Holder responded coldly. "If every vote is allowed to be cast and every vote is counted, John Kerry will be president."

What Holder is basically saying is that if Bush wins, Kerry will claim that he cheated, and he will attempt to sue his way into the presidency. Again.

I see only two ways to avoid this. One is if Kerry wins. The other is if Bush wins by such a wide margin that Kerry can't make the argument that he lost because of cheating. But I predict he'll still try.

There's an AP article detailing some of the oil-for-food scandal revelations (Hat tip to Joe Gandelman). The AP article describes three lists: the oil voucher list, those companies and individuals who got vouchers good for oil and exchangeable for cash, the exempt list, those companies who automatically got deals without going through the usual approval process Iraq used, and the blacklist, companies whom Saddam refused to deal with, often because they dealt with Israel. From the article:

Companies on Saddam's special lists got vouchers giving them priority for deals in humanitarian goods under oil-for-food, or to act as middlemen for companies providing goods.

Some Iraqi officials confirmed the lists were crafted to reward companies from countries supporting Iraqi political goals, especially the lifting of U.N. sanctions, investigators said.

"These lists illustrate how Saddam Hussein cynically manipulated and corrupted the oil-for-food program," said Hyde. "The fact, disclosed in the Duelfer report, that some countries based their Iraq policies on these corrupt practices is shameful."

Anyone who's been following this can tell you that the oil-for-food scandal has been covered in great detail by Claudia Rosett. The basic idea is that Saddam was allowing companies to overcharge him by 10% for what they were supplying if they kicked back a portion of their profits directly to him. Aside from this, there's the sanctioned materials that were smuggled in through this program, oil vouchers used to buy political influence, and political blackmail made possible by being on the take. From Ms. Rosett's Senate testimony:

It must also be kept in mind that once Saddam had done a tainted deal, delivered a bribe, received a kickback, given a gift of those now-infamous oil vouchers; he had the goods on the other party to the deal. Along with the graft came ample opportunity for blackmail, a danger to which the U.N. was also, apparently, indifferent. Very likely, Saddam's partners in graft had more to lose than he did — especially as the program proceeded, and Saddam's regime, having tested the U.N. envelope again and again, discovered it could game the system almost any way it chose. I refer you, for example, to the establishment in 1999 of the Dubai-based trading group, El Wasel & Babel, one of the UN-approved suppliers to Oil-for-Food, designated last Thursday by Treasury as a front company — engaged in procuring arms — for Saddam's own regime.

Much of this is covered in the Duelfer Report. In short, a lot of people were benefitting from the oil-for-food program, with the exception of the Iraqi people, the only ones who were supposed to benefit from it. A lot of this money bought Saddam political influence at the UN and in France, Germany, and Russia, the allies whom John Kerry is so assiduously courting. I think it's fair to say that their opposition to the Iraq war was not from humanitarian concerns. The real coalition of the bribed and coerced is emerging.

You may be wondering why I haven't posted much in the last couple of days. Despite what you may think, it's not because I've been playing too much Doom III. I've also been playing too much Jedi Academy. Now that I've got my computer working again--all right, so the desk fan pointing at the video card is not so much "fixed" as "temporary solution"--I wanted to pull out another first person shooter. To be honest, I think I like Jedi Academy better. Sure, Doom III has better graphics, and most of the weapons have a more satisfying feel to them, and it's a shining example of the survival-horror genre, but survival-horror was never my favorite. Given the option, I'd rather whip out my lightsaber and really mow through some Stormtroopers.

Anyway, aside from my obsession with computer games, I've also had the hardest time getting online. Dial-up is pathetic, and it's even worse when you have to compete with your parents and your sister to get online. I wasn't able to log in until after midnight last night, which is why you only got the Weekly Webcomic Review, and that was two hours late. I so need a new job someplace where I can get decently fast Internet service. More on that later.

Sluggy Freelance — So the nuke wasn't a real nuke. Arghhh! The DoL is so lame it makes me want to scream sometimes. It has the same effect on Torg. So they escaped the lame-nuke by slipping into the DoP, and now they're trapped there with demons wandering all around. Fortunately, they managed to coerce Sweral and Tryka into helping them. But I was right about Alt-Gwynn. She did teleport to the portal. It remains to be seen whether she'll interact with Torg and Zoe again, or if she'll just close the portal behind the demons, trapping them in the Dimension of Pain once again.

It's Walky! — This week we're growing a new body for Walky while getting bits and pieces about everyone else's life. My, it looks like Jason and Sal are getting along swimmingly. Joyce is spending time with the new Walky, since she's been pardoned for that murder rap from the whole anti-Joyce incident. And they all live happily ever after, except for the ones who died. Hey, they could still come back. We may be resurrecting the whole lot of them, but I sort of hope not. Seems... cheap.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — And while I wasn't paying attention, Maritza does a weekend. So, Margaret shoots Roger's Mom with a shotgun. I hope she survives. Meanwhile, Marsha and April are freaking out about Mike's "coming out." Meanwhile-meanwhile, Blue explains that the green pill is a tracking device (incidentally, this tells us why Jay wanted Thadeus's password and thus how he found Dave) which can also explode on cue. Cool! And now Dave and Blue are on a quest into the dungeons. That's always fun, especially if there's some laser action.

General Protection Fault — And what do you know--Trudy shows up. This may be interesting. She and Yoshi have a little chat, and she tells him to stop building all that high-tech stuff she stole from Nick. A repentant Trudy? I'm not sure I like this turn of the story. I mean, I'm all for redemption in real life, but sometimes it makes fiction less interesting.

Schlock Mercenary — So Tagon and Elf and the prisoner survive while Schlock is blown to bits. This isn't the first time that's happened. Since Schlock's an amorph, it's relatively easy to put him back together again--although it's harder this time since most of him's been atomized. What's left doesn't seem to have much of his personality. Hmm, scratch that. It may be child-like, but it's still acting like Schlock.

The Storyblogging Carnival is open until midnight tonight, so if you have a story to submit, get it to Doc Rampage by then.

Old Post: The previous chapter of this story is here.

This is the second chapter of the story in progress I began two weeks ago. Until the story is done, or until I'm no longer able to continue, this story's multiple chapters will make up my entries in the Storyblogging Carnival. It's fun to write, and I hope it's fun to read.

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Chapter 2
Flight

The bitter cold froze Ryan's sweat and caused his entire body to break out in goosebumps. He didn't dare pause long enough to zip up his jacket when the large and dangerous stranger was right behind them, much less put on a cap to keep his head and ears warm. He did, however, manage to pull his jacket's hood over his head to keep the snow out of his hair. Unfortunately, the oversized hood was more trouble than it was worth. It blocked his peripheral vision, and the zipper which attached it to the jacket had a tendency to disengage at inconvenient times. Even now it was working loose. He glanced at the girl, who only had that Christmas sweater to keep her warm. It occurred to him to offer his jacket, but there wasn't time for that. For now the narrow alley leading away from the mall's emergency exit was still empty, but it would momentarily be filled with people fleeing from the buzzing alarm which the closed doors barely muffled. The girl was running as best she could through the six inches of snow lining the alley. Ryan somehow managed not to lose his footing in the unfamiliar powder. While snow was common in Boston, accumulation was not. The city's snow removal machinery efficiently plowed, blew, and shoveled the snow into large, dirt speckled piles with the consistency of pebble-filled ice cubes.

Lamps mounted on the walls provided most of the illumination in this empty canyon with its tall and featureless brick walls. Ryan lost sight of the girl as she left one ring of light, her figure lost behind the gauzy curtain of falling snow. Cursing himself for letting her get so far ahead, Ryan picked up the pace. Can't she wait for her fiance?

"Hell, she didn't even tell me her name. If she really believed all that nonsense about us being destined for each other, wouldn't she have told me?" he muttered.

"It's Emily," she said from below, much closer than he expected. She was on her hands and knees in the snow just beyond the ring of light whose edge he had just reached. White powder coated the front of her sweater and jeans, and more was scattered in her face and hair. There was an impression in the snow where she must have fallen, which explained how he had lost sight of her.

Ryan grabbed her arm and pulled her up. "I'm sorry, I... My name's Ryan."

She turned to him, brushing the snow off. "Ryan, I know you don't understand what's happening. Me either. But I need help, and I think you're the only one who can help me."

Ryan wanted to shake his head, say this was crazy. Instead he nodded his head and said, "This is crazy, but I'll help. We need to hurry."

"Yes, we do. Please try not to curse, though."

"Huh? What does that--"

The door squealed as it opened behind them. They both turned to look at the stranger, and then as one turned and ran, or at least stumbled along as best they could in the hindering snow. That guy is chasing us and she wants me not to curse? Dammit, I've never had a better reason.

They made it to the next lamp before Ryan dared to look back, tossing back his hood to do so. At least the snow is slowing him down, too. That-- He would have stopped if Emily had not grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him along. Realizing that stopping right now was a very bad idea, he tucked his chin so that his eyes were free of snow while keeping watch on his footing. Snow in his eyes was the only explanation for what he had seen. That large man could not have been walking on top of this powdery snow. Ryan and Emily combined had to weigh less than he did, so how could they be sinking up to their ankles while the soles of his boots were still visible? It just couldn't be. Even so, his methodical long strides were gaining on them. He had already closed half the distance.

Fortunately, the alley ended in another twenty feet or so, with a small pile of gray snow and ice blocking the way to the well-shoveled sidewalk beyond, where the concrete showed through the spattering of snow patterned by the flat edge of a snow shovel. Here the Boston snow removal machine had successfully eradicated all the clean, white snow. Street lamps lit up the area beyond the alley clearly, punctuated by the headlights moving on the busy road. His mental map of the mall was insufficient to tell him what street it was, but any street, visible to the public, had to be a boon.

Emily reached the snow pile and scrambled over. He followed her example, gripping the brick wall at the edge of the alley with his numb right hand to help pull himself over the uncertain footing, loose and powdery on the crust but with a hard and slick center. Emily, now on the sidewalk, seized his other hand to help pull him over.

Something jerked him backwards, pinching at his shoulders and armpits, lifting him up and back, as it pulled at his jacket. Ryan turned his head to see the large stranger right behind him, one hand wrapped tightly around his jacket's hood, the other scrabbling for a good grip on the back of the jacket. It was the first time Ryan had a really good look at his face. With the added elevation from the snow pile, their heads were nearly even. The face was square and blocky, too wide but otherwise normal. It was the expression which was all wrong, not angry or excited or afraid but simply blank and dull, not what Ryan would expect on a man who was trying to kill him. And there was something else, something that Ryan almost didn't notice at first. His eyes weren't normal. They had normal looking whites, irises, and pupils, except that the irises were a shade Ryan had never seen before. They were red, and not some dull, dark red that he might have believed were a normal shade of eyes for some rare ethnicity, but a brilliant, primary red that seemed to glow in the lamplight. That's it. She is crazy and somehow I caught it.

Ryan could not have spent more than two seconds looking into those unnatural eyes, one of his hands pulling at the wall with all of his strength, the edge biting into a hand too numb to feel the pain, the other pulled by Emily, as his legs just tried to keep his footing so he wouldn't fall into his pursuer's arms. The big man pulled on him with his right hand locked on Ryan's hood and his feet now sunk beneath the snow and planted firmly on the concrete beneath. How the hell is he getting traction? Red-eyes' left hand had still not found a grip on his jacket, and that's the only reason the chase did not end then and there.

The lousy, inconvenient zipper connecting hood and jacket, the zipper which Ryan cursed every time it came loose, wondering why anyone would need to detach the hood on a winter jacket, gave way. After that, physics did its thing. Pulled by Emily and his straining right arm, Ryan went over the icy ridge, stumbling three or four paces into the sidewalk while Emily somehow managed to keep them both from falling. The stranger, hood still in his right hand and left hand still empty, fell backwards, his traction finally lost, and landed in the snow with a whump. Ryan did not pause to recover his balance, but simply kept moving, using Emily's centripetal pull to make a sharp left rather than running out into the high traffic street. Now that he had clear, almost snowless sidewalk in front of him, he started running. Emily, still holding onto his left hand, joined him in his mad dash away from the stranger. Dammit, I meant to go right.

No help for it now, anyway. Now that he was out of the alley, he thought he knew where he was. Boylston Street, on the river side of the mall, but still several blocks from the river. With most of the snow shoveled away here, he had enough traction that he could run all out, and he did so, hopeful that he had at least a few seconds to gain some distance. Emily ran beside him. To the left, the wall of the mall fell away, recessed for a wide, empty plaza, behind which were the main entrance to the mall and an outdoor foodcourt, whose tables and chairs were now empty, since people with sense did not dine outside in the snow. Heh, maybe I should be surprised that it's empty. A small crowd was gathered in the plaza, having left the mall due to the alarm. The crowd was way smaller than it should have been, considering how overloaded the mall had looked when Ryan was inside. He guessed that not too many people were paying attention to the alarm. Yup, not too many people with sense here. He was just as glad, as he and Emily had been the cause of the alarm, and the emergency didn't seem to have much interest in anyone other than them. Besides, the last thing they needed right now were hundreds of people blocking their path.

Ryan and Emily plowed through the few stragglers who had drifted from the plaza and into the sidewalk, Ryan barely managing to avoid bowling over a stroller. As he looked back over his shoulder at the horrified parents with the intention of at least shouting an apology, he saw the pursuer not a hundred yards behind him and his apology froze in his throat. He was moving with the same purposeful long strides, not running but steadily gaining ground, his trenchcoat trailing behind him in the wind. Ryan would have thought they'd be further ahead by now. He whipped his head back around to face forward and narrowly avoided running into another couple who stared at him with wide eyes.

His breath was whipped away before he could see it, but he had no doubt it would be visible if he dared stand still long enough. It was coming in gasps now, the cold air raw in his throat. His clothes were damp from snow on the outside and sweat on the inside, leaving his skin freezing underneath. His clumsy, heavy boots were not designed for running, but he made do despite the soreness of his calves and ankles. He just hoped he didn't hit a slick patch of ice, as he was having enough trouble keeping his feet as it was. I'm not going to be running a marathon anytime soon. We haven't even gone a mile yet. Ryan looked back as they cleared the sparse crowd to see the red-eyed man closing on them, now within fifty yards. How can he be closing? He's walking while we're running. His blood ran as cold as his skin. If we can't outrun him, what can we do?

Ryan hadn't had time to think through a strategy, having focused on putting some distance between them and the stranger. That seemed unlikely now, but he didn't know what else they could do. Find a cop and hope he'd care more than everyone else? Ryan was beginning to doubt that a cop could stop this man. Maybe some transportation, a bus or the T, Boston's subway? They didn't have time to wait at a bus stop or a T station. Now I wish I had a car, he thought, wondering whether he'd even have a chance to reach it if he did. A cab? If they could put some distance between them and Red-eyes, then maybe they'd have time to hail a cab, but he was close and he was gaining. Besides, this wasn't New York. Cabs weren't so common that you could hail one at whim.

We can't outrun him and we can't fight him. We can't even hide unless we can get some distance. Ryan glanced at Emily. Her face was flushed and she was panting for breath. He didn't know how much further she could go. She didn't look any better than he felt, and she had been running from him longer... Of course! He's after her, not me!

Ryan skidded to a halt, shouting "Keep going!"

Emily might not have noticed him stopping, but she heard the shout. She slowed, looked back. "Find a cab or something!" he yelled after her as he turned to face Red-eyes. He didn't know whether she did as he said, but he didn't have time or breath to explain. For that matter, he didn't have time or breath to think it through as carefully as he would have liked. If he's after her, then I'm just an obstacle. If I'm enough of an obstacle, maybe she'll have time to get away. And if I'm lucky, he'll lose interest in me afterwards.

As Ryan assumed a fighting stance, he had second thoughts. He had been greatly overmatched in their last encounter. Ryan watched Red-eyes approach now, over six feet tall and at least two hundred and fifty pounds, striding down the middle of the sidewalk as if nothing could conceivably slow him down or force him to step aside. Indeed, anyone who crossed his path was out of the way by the time he arrived without even acknowledging the man who caused subconscious retreat. If I'd been smart, I'd have gone in a different direction than Emily. He considered doing that now, just getting out of the man's way and letting him do whatever he wanted with her. He could snap my arm or leg without slowing down, maybe even my neck. He certainly wouldn't hesitate to do so. He was ashamed at his cowardice, at being tempted to give up Emily to protect himself. He didn't know what Red-eyes wanted with her, but it couldn't be good.

If the big man had continued on his path, not slowing his methodical pace or even deigning to acknowledge him, Ryan might have given into his panic and run. But seeing him there, Red-eyes slowed, bearing to the right, toward the street where cars were continuing to roar past. He means to go around me? Red-eyes considered Ryan an obstacle which needed to be avoided rather than trampled. That thought gave him courage and he moved to block the man's path. Dammit, why aren't I ignoring the stupid part of my fight-or-flight response which says to fight? Ryan knew he had no chance to win, that at best he'd delay Red-eyes without being too badly injured, but even then there was a lot of pain in his near future. He resigned himself to that fact as best he could. It was the price for doing the right thing, and that was that.

Ryan placed himself in front of Red-eyes, at the very edge of the curb. His feet almost slipped on the ice, but he managed to slide off of it without falling into the standing pool of ice, slush, and water which lapped against the curb, unthreatened by Boston's drainage system. Ryan took a few steps back, away from the ice, but when the pursuer came to a halt at five paces, staring at him, he stood right on top of the icy patch without seeming the least unsteadied by it. What, is he wearing ice cleats now? "Why do you impede me, mortal?" Red-eyes said. The voice sounded wrong. It wasn't loud enough for a man speaking right next to him. It sounded distant, like the echo of a voice, pitched low and resonant to carry but barely traveling the five paces to Ryan.

"Mortal? What the hell does that mean?"

Ryan was sure it was an illusion, a result of uncertain light of the Boston streetlamps and the snow, but the man seemed to grow taller while his eyes flashed with red light. The lips in the expressionless face quirked upward at the edges. "For a moment I thought you might be a hazard, but you know even less than she does. Your courage is mere ignorance."

"Who are you?" Ryan asked. If he could get it talking, maybe he could buy more time.

"Don't you mean `What are you?' No you don't. You have eyes to see but you don't see, or you see but you don't believe. Now be gone and forgotten, mortal!"

Red-eyes started to take a step forward, not at all lacking in traction despite the thick sheet of ice beneath his feet. Ryan once again took a fighting stance, his heart thudding in his ears loud enough to drown out his panting breath. He was already sore and tired, but at least he would make this guy remember him.

Since the cab was coming from behind him, Ryan didn't see it before its tires kicked up a spray of icy water from the street and soaked his legs. With a startled cry only slightly more dignified than a four-year-old girl's, he leapt aside, all thoughts of a heroic last stand forgotten in that single freezing instant. He was glad he did, since if he had not, the cab's door, even now swinging open, certainly would have hit him. It did hit Red-eyes, whose miraculous traction finally gave way before the force of the slowing but still-moving cab. With one foot still in the air, he actually slid backwards for several feet like some huge, clumsy figure skater, before he hit the edge of the ice. Unfortunately, the edge of the ice was also the edge of the curb, and he went over, falling into the street and its standing pool of icy water. The tremendous splash must have covered the headlights of the cab, having now completed its sudden stop, with grey slush and muddy water, but Ryan didn't notice since he was staring at Emily, leaning out of the open door.

"I found a cab," she said.

"How? What--"

"Hurry!"

Ryan might have continued to ask questions if he hadn't seen the large hand on the cab's hood. He dashed to the open door while Emily scooted aside. By the time he was ducking in a large head had followed the hand and Red-eyes was almost to his feet. He slammed the door shut.

"Let's go!" he shouted to the cabbie.

"Where you going?" he asked, not at all concerned about the large, angry man with glowing red eyes who was even now coming to his feet in front of his cab.

"Um, how about the Burlington Marriott?" Emily suggested.

"That pretty far. You sure you want to go that far? It expensive."

Ryan couldn't see the cabbie, but the accent was Middle Eastern. From what Ryan saw on the news every day, much of the Middle East was dangerous even for the civilians just trying to get by, and he supposed an immigrant from one of those areas might feel a certain equanimity towards large, violent men trying to get into their cabs, but he still found it unnerving that the driver didn't react when Red-eyes, now on his feet and circling the cab, tried the passenger side front door. It was locked, and Ryan's reflexive jab at the lock on his door was so hard that the impact from the needle-like locking mechanism stung even through his hand's numbness.

"Yes, yes," Emily replied. "Now can we go?"

"Okay, but I only take cash," he said, and shifted into gear.

"Fine," Emily answered.

The large man tried Ryan's door handle and found it locked. As the cab began to move, he struck the window with his fist, and the glass jumped in its frame but didn't break.

"You hear something?" the cabbie asked as he started an illegal U-turn in the street, cutting across two lanes of traffic and into a third. Despite several long horn blasts, both from the traffic and the cabbie himself, the taxi slid into the correct lane. Ryan's eyes never left the form of their pursuer, though he thought the effort to keep him in sight might result in whiplash. Red-eyes stepped directly into the street, somehow not eliciting a single honked horn as drivers braked or swerved to avoid him. He was within a couple of feet of Emily's door as they passed him. Ryan had no doubt that if their U-turn had been just a little less brazen, he'd have managed to intercept them somehow.

When the taxi came to a stop at a red light only a few seconds later, Ryan and Emily both peered out the back window. They could see him coming, only two hundred yards behind, with that machine-like stride of his that was faster than most people could run. Ryan knew he could not see his irises from this distance, but he imagined he saw a red glow nonetheless. It had to be his imagination. Had to be.

He was walking in the middle of the street, between two lanes of traffic, but without seeming to notice the cars on either side of him. Nor did the cars seem to notice him. No one honked, or shouted, or made rude gestures at him. That was downright unnatural for Boston. They must have seen him, because their cars drifted around him with as much clearance as they would make for any pedestrian in the street, but with less commentary.

He was less than fifty feet away when the light turned green. He was within twenty feet before the cab started rolling forward, but so slowly that he was still gaining. His hand reached out to touch the trunk just as the taxi started to pull away. Ryan looked forward to see that the light, still a hundred feet ahead, had already turned yellow. Why can't Boston invent a traffic light that lasts more than thirty seconds? Even as he watched, and with twenty feet to go before they reached the light, it turned red. Ryan's heart sank. Maybe they could keep the doors locked and hope the windows held until the light changed. He looked out the back window again. Only fifty feet.

He needn't have worried, since the cabbie ran the red light.

The cabbie looked into his rear view mirror to notice Ryan and Emily staring out the back window, "What you two doing? Police not following, are they?"

"No, no they aren't," Ryan said. And the man who was following was falling behind, even his quick pace not equal to a Boston cab. Sighing with exhaustion as much as relief, Ryan turned around and slid into his seat. He was still freezing cold, especially below the knee, where his pants' legs had just suffered an additional soaking, as if running through the snow had not already let chill water seep into his socks and jeans. Above the knees, his plentiful sweat had dampened anything the snow had not. He must smell awful. Fortunately the cab was warm, and the numbness in his ears, cheeks, and fingers was beginning to recede. It wouldn't be enough to dry him out, but he'd take damp and warm over damp and cold anytime.

He glanced over at Emily, slouched in her seat, and from the way she looked, cheeks flushed, eyes closed, breathing deeply through her mouth, she was as exhausted as he was. She had somehow found time to fasten her seatbelt, however, which struck him as a singularly wise idea considering what he'd already seen of their cabbie's driving. He quickly followed suit.

---

This is Chapter 2 of a story in progress. This chapter is 4,054 words long, and the total story is 6,198 words long.

New Post: Chapter 3 of this story is now available here.

I've been lax about participating in the Christian Carnival since I've been trying to run the Storyblogging Carnival. But I still like to keep track of it, and the most recent Christian Carnival is up at Proverbial Wife. I haven't had a chance to read through the entries, but it looks like Marla Swoffer has done a superb job of putting it together. Check it out, and get to know some of the Christians in the blogosphere.

By the by, while I'm still on the topic of Storyblogging, the next chapter of the unnamed story I began two weeks ago will be up later today.

Now this is interesting. Captain Ed points to an AP article that shows that Bush has doubled his support among black voters. Most of that seems to come from black conservative Christians, where his support has more than tripled:

That helped the president narrow the still sizable gap with Kerry among blacks, who preferred the four-term Massachusetts senator over Bush, 69 percent to 18 percent. The group's poll before the 2000 election found Gore with a 74 percent to 9 percent lead over Bush.
...
But Kerry had 49 percent support from black Christian conservatives, down from the 69 percent Gore enjoyed in 2000. Bush was at 36 percent among the group this year, more than tripling the 11 percent he got four years ago.

Republican officials say they are making an effort this year to reach out to the black community. Campaign aides have cited Bush's support of school vouchers, public money that can be used to help pay private school tuition, and support of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage as issues that might win him more black votes.

About 48 percent of blacks surveyed supported vouchers, the same percentage as in the general population, according to the Joint Center poll. About 46 percent of blacks said there should be no recognition of a gay couple's relationship, compared with 37 percent for the population overall.

This is especially interesting since some black conservatives believe that Republicans will not see major gains among the black community until there are significant changes in that community from within. Of course, not all polls agree with the poll AP cites, but I am not entirely surprised. I suspect conservative Christians (by which I mean people whose Christianity is conservative, not necessarily their politics), black or white, are having a harder and harder time staying with the Democratic party. If its positions on abortion, stem cell research, and religion in the public square weren't enough, the utter contempt that many prominent Democrats insist on pouring out on conservative Christians has to start grating. Sometimes they aim for anyone who takes Christian doctrine seriously, and sometimes they aim specifically for politically conservative Christians. I don't see that as much better.

Doc Rampage has an e-mail he thinks would make a good counterattack to the draft rumor e-mail going around. As a matter of policy, I don't forward e-mails to my friends, since my friends tend to be net savvy and I'd like to keep them. And I've never gotten the draft rumor e-mail. If I ever do, however, I intend to break a netiquette rule and hit "Reply All" so I can send them this e-mail. You may want to do the same. Doc has the e-mail on his site with all the links clickable, so if you want to check his sources, you should go there.

Have you heard that there is going to be a draft? If you are concerned about it, read this and pass it along to your friends.
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If the wrong person gets elected this November, the US could end up with another draft. If you don't want that, you should think carefully about who you are going to vote for. When you vote, keep these points in mind:

1. The last draft in America was started by a Democrat (Roosevelt) and expanded by a Democrat (Johnson) and finally ended by a Republican (Nixon). A few years later, a Democrat (Carter) restarted draft registrations. And just last year, it was Democrats who introduced a bill in Congress to start the draft up again. Just last month, the bill was voted on and it lost. The congressmen who voted to restart the draft were all Democrats. Which party do you think is more likely to restart the draft?
http://www.sss.gov/backgr.htm
http://www.sss.gov/FSeffects.htm
http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx@docID=200.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-10-05-draft_x.htm

2. The last time we had a draft it was a huge political benefit for John Kerry and the other liberal Democrats that control the party today. The draft may be the single major thing that destroyed the old pro-American, pro-labor patriots that used to run the Democrat party and let the current crop of tree-hugging, pro-illegal-alien internationalists take over. A draft would put more political power in the hands of the very people that Republicans oppose most. Who is more likely to want that to happen?
http://www.libraryreference.org/johnson.html
http://www.insightmag.com/news/2004/09/20/Politics/Politics.Of.SelfDeception-729423.shtml

3. Both candidates have said there will not be a draft. The Republican, George Bush has a reputation for never backing down or changing his mind. The Democrat, John Kerry has a reputation for constantly changing his mind on everything. George Bush kept every one of his campaign promises except one: that he didn't believe in attacking other countries to change their government. He changed his mind when a group of terrorists killed thousands of Americans on 9/11. Since then he has set out to change the world and make it safer and better. By contrast, Kerry has been for the war, then against it, then for it, then against it. Who do you think is more likely to keep his word?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/29/politics/main646435.shtml
http://www.examiner.com/article/index.cfm/i/091404b_notebook

4. George Bush wants to reorganize the military to make it more efficient. He wants to eliminate missions that no longer make sense (like protecting West Germany from an attack launched from East Germany). John Kerry wants to increase the size of the army by forty thousand. He has frequently criticized Bush for not having enough troops in Afghanistan, for not having enough troops in Iraq, and even for withdrawing unneeded troops from Germany and East Asia. John Kerry wants a larger military that does all the things it's doing now and can also handle the new War on Terror. Bush wants a more focused, efficient, and effective military. Who is more likely to need a draft?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11971-2004Jun3.html
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/16/bush.troops.home/
http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/speeches/spc_2004_0920.html
http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx@DocID=271.html

5. John Kerry says that he volunteered to go to Vietnam and that he was even so gung ho he volunteered for hazardous duty (whether you believe it or not, that's what he says). Kerry brags all the time about what a hero he is. He has even insulted Dick Cheney and George Bush for not fighting in Vietnam. Does this sound like the kind of man who will care if you don't want to go to war? He wouldn't give Dick Cheney a break for having baby. He wouldn't give George Bush a break for flying one of the most dangerous jets in the Air Force while keeping an eye on Cuba. What kind of break is he going to give anyone else?
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/complete/la-na-kerry17apr17,0,1607562.story?coll=la-elect2004-complete

6. Many patriotic Americans despise John Kerry for the way he betrayed our soldiers in Vietnam. He called them a bunch of rapists and war criminals and compared them to Genghis Kahn. How many patriots do you think will want to serve in the military when the commander-in-chief has said such despicable things? Kerry will have to increase the size of the army with volunteers that are willing to serve under him. On the other side, career military people love George Bush and many of them are re-enlisting when their time is up. Who is more likely to need a draft?
http://www.cnsnews.com/Nation/Archive/200409/NAT20040910a.html
http://www.cnsnews.com/SpecialReports/archive/200406/SPE20040604a.html
http://docrampage.blogspot.com/2004_08_01_docrampage_archive.html#109186318154541074

7. Kerry says we need more help and more troops and that he's going to get them from our allies. But except for France and Germany, our allies have sent all the help they can. And the sad truth is that without the threat of the Soviet Union to bring us together, France and Germany aren't too sure they are still our allies. They now think of us as the competition. Kerry has even admitted that he knows France and Germany are not going to send troops. So where is he going to get all the extra troops he was counting on France and Germany for? Does he think young men are going to line up in droves to serve under him after he called our soldiers war criminals and he sided with the enemy?
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040928-103906-3997r.htm

8. John Kerry has called for mandatory service for high-school kids. He wants to force kids to do some heavy charity service before they can graduate high school. So it seems that John Kerry has no problem with forced service. How many high school kids would have to give up sports or after-school jobs, or music or other things they want to do? If Kerry has no respect for the goals and plans of high-school kids, what makes you think he is going to respect the goals and plans of draft-age kids?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1229981/posts
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Maybe you've seen the dishonest email that the Democrats sent around the country, trying to scare people about the draft. Maybe you've seen John Kerry and CBS news spreading those rumors even further. They believe fear of a draft will cause people to vote for Kerry. But Kerry is a lot more likely to start a draft than Bush.

But I don't want this email to be dishonest like that other one so I'm going to tell you the truth: no matter who gets elected, a draft is very, very unlikely. But everything I said above is also the truth: if there _is_ a draft, it probably will be started by a Democrat.

When I mentioned that I was having trouble with my 3D graphics card, you might have thought that I was doing 3D models of vortex motion in thin-film superconductors. Unless you knew me, of course. If you did, you'd probably guess that I was working on getting my computer to run Doom III. I've played first person shooters since Wolfenstein, so of course I played the original Doom, and many, but by no means all, of its successors. The first person shooter genre has become overloaded. Just running around and shooting things, which was all that Wolfenstein and Doom were really about, doesn't do it anymore. Instead, if you want to be successful, you need to do a shooter/RPG (System Shock, which derives more from Ultima Underworld than Doom anyway), make it intelligent, with puzzle-solving, interesting objectives, and deliberate architecture (Dark Forces), or add something besides bigger guns to the mix, such as lightsabers and Force powers (the Jedi Knight series). So what does Doom III do to make itself different from the original? It eschews the run-and-shoot mentality for the survival-horror genre.

The original Doom had the trappings of survival-horror: you alone against the demons. But in the end, despite demons occasionally popping out of trap doors right behind you, it was fundamentally a run and shoot game. While there were big monsters, nothing in the game was truly scary, just hard. Pick up the rocket launcher and start laying waste. Frankly, I thought Dark Forces was a scarier game, as it made better use of the environment and its sound to spring surprises on you (my first Phase II Dark Trooper scared me to death). Doom III has no pretensions of run-and-shoot. Instead, it's about apparent corpses coming to their feet when your back is turned, imps crawling down walls to attack or being summoned by pentagrams, the lights going out as you enter a room and the moaning starts up, so you switch to your flashlight and illuminate one of the zombies heading your way, then switch to a gun and start shooting, then back to your flashlight to see if it's down and whether you can find the other zombie you hear before it finds you. Then there are the special scripted events, such as when you look in a mirror and see yourself turning into a corpse, or the entire monitor turns red and staticky, or a pentagram etches on the floor in blood flares to life. These are usually followed by monsters, so watch your back. In other words, this game tries and succeeds in being scary.

Most of the weapons and enemies from the original Doom are back. There are some new ones of both, although I haven't seen many so far. In terms of weapons, there's now a submachine gun and grenades. The only new enemy I've seen so far is this two headed thing. The old enemies have changed, however. You may recall the Imps in the original Doom, the brown things which tossed fireballs. I called them Oinkers because of the distinctive sound they made. I doubt you considered them scary... just grab the shotgun and open fire. Well, in Doom III they are scary, and I think Imp just doesn't capture what they are, when they come crawling out of spaces they shouldn't fit into or are summoned out of nowhere in a red lightning storm. When one of their fireballs hit, the smoke obscures your vision so you can't see them go on all fours to leap at you, slashing with their claws. If the Imps are scary, I don't look forward to meeting some of the nastier monsters.

In the original Doom, you cleared a room and it stayed cleared. Not so anymore. All monsters are scripted, so if you keep going over the same ground sooner or later you'll get all of them, but pick up a new PDA or complete some other task, and you may trigger the appearance of