Back of the Envelope

I've been thinking about the first seven chapters of Eyes in the Shadow, with its dangerous encounters and narrow escapes. And more dangerous encounters with narrow escapes. And another... Well, you get the picture. I think things are getting dangerously close to becoming repetitive. It's time for a change. Now, I have an idea as to what that change will be, but I'm not entirely certain how to pull it off. It may be that I won't have it done in time for the next Storyblogging Carnival. If that's the case, I'll come up with something else as a substitute.

The elections in Iraq have come to a conclusion, with a phenomenal 60% turnout overall. I'd call that successful, as that kind of turnout just doesn't happen in the US. There was some violence, as FoxNews notes:

As estimated 8 million people — 60 percent of eligible voters — braved violence and calls for a boycott to vote in Iraq. A string of homicide bombings and mortar volleys killed at least 44 people, including nine attackers.

U.S. and Iraqi forces sought to clamp down on violence by imposing a strict curfew and seriously restricting traffic around polling places. About 300,000 Iraqi and American troops were on the streets and on standby to protect voters.

Eight million voters and forty-four deaths. Any death is to be mourned, but this pretty much puts an end to Zarqawi as a force in Iraq. It's not the bloodbath he promised, and if he can't deliver on this, intimidating and terrorizing the people taking part in the most important event in Iraq's recent history, then he's shown himself impotent. The Iraqi people stood up to terrorism, and the people won. Now they know that Zarqawi's nothing more than a braggart with a small following, able to murder, but not able to alter the events in Iraq. What followers and sympathizers he has will drift away, leaving him only with a small corps of dead-enders. They won't go away: they'll continue to attack Iraqis and US forces in Iraq, but now they're nothing but criminals opposed to the Iraqis themselves.


Update: My initial comments on the turnout in the first few sentences were more appropriate for the original 72% estimate. While writing this post, I corrected the number but neglected to tone down the enthusiasm appropriately. 60% is good, about what the turnout was for the November election in the US, but I wouldn't call it phenomenal in itself--although I would call it phenomenal in the face of Zarqawi's threats.

The blog Pseudo-Polymath paid me a visit the other day, so I've returned the favor. Mark Olson is a programmer and a Christian, and a member of the Church Directory. He's also a serious cyclist and a really cool blogger. He issued a challenge to non-believers, asking them to read N.T. Wright's The Challenge of Jesus, while he reads books of their choosing, and each of them writes an essay about the book. Here is the Mark's first essay. He also considers biological ethics on a much grander scale than most people have, arguing that we need to "consider as possible everything we can imagine, then what from that larger list of possibilities do we consider ethical. After one comes up with a consistent theory in that 'larger' space of what might be done, then when new technology appears, we have some context in which to frame our arguments." These days, this is something only Science Fiction writers do. Finally, he's considering the question of charity, whether done by individuals, the Church, organizations, or the State, and forming a framework to consider this topic.

All in all, it's a fascinating blog, and there's a good chance I'll be adding it to the main blogroll soon.

I haven't really been following the James Dobson/Spongebob Squarepants issue. Why not? Well, I didn't find it very interesting, to be honest. From the very beginning, it was obvious that the whole thing was following the usual pattern of a Religious Right story™. The anatomy of a Religious Right story™ is something like this:

1. A religious conservative says something poorly worded.
2. The New York Times (or some similar newspaper), always looking for the opportunity to turn a poorly worded public comment into the latest controversy of the day, takes his words out of context and blows them out of proportion.
3. Other newspapers take the Times's word for it and run the story. Meanwhile, libertarian bloggers, eager to show that they're as quick to condemn stupidity on the right as stupidity on the left, are quick to condemn the religious conservative.
4. Evangelical bloggers, who are religious conservatives and thus more sympathetic to their own, and less ideology-driven news services, look into the matter more closely and discover that the Times and all its imitators have blown the story out of proportion.
5. The libertarian bloggers realize their mistake and back down--slightly.
6. The general public, getting all their information from the New York Times and its flunkies, add one more story to their file on Religious Right stupidity.
7. My co-workers, who are clearly part of the general public, discuss how this incident demonstrates the stupidity of the Religious Right.
8. Not having followed the story, since I realized the path it would be taking way back in Step 2, I find myself vaguely aware that the controversy was a whole lot of nothing (I at least skimmed the relevant blog posts), but I lack the grasp of the facts necessary to effectively defend the religious conservative.
9. I decide to research the issue and write a blog post, so that the next time the topic comes up, I'm prepared.

And that's how these things work. Now, applying this model to this particular case, Dobson explains what he was talking about:

From the outset, let's be clear that this issue is not about objections to any specific cartoon characters. Instead, Dr. Dobson is concerned that these popular animated personalities are being exploited by an organization that's determined to promote the acceptance of homosexuality among our nation's youth.
...
The video in question is slated to be distributed to 61,000 public and private elementary schools throughout the United States. Where it is shown, schoolchildren will be left with the impression that their teachers are offering their endorsement of the values and agenda associated with the video's sponsor. While some of the goals associated with this organization are noble in nature, their inclusion of the reference to "sexual identity" within their "tolerance pledge" is not only unnecessary, but it crosses a moral line.

The New York Times, meanwhile, turned the story of "Dr. Dobson criticizes advocacy group for using Spongebob Squarepants in elementary school video" into "Dr. Dobson accuses Spongebob Squarepants of being gay", mostly through a lot of innuendo and ascribing of motives without evidence, and very few quotes:

On the heels of electoral victories barring same-sex marriage, some influential conservative Christian groups are turning their attention to a new target: the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants.

"Does anybody here know SpongeBob?" Dr. James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, asked the guests Tuesday night at a black-tie dinner for members of Congress and political allies to celebrate the election results.

SpongeBob needed no introduction. In addition to his popularity among children, who watch his cartoon show, he has become a well-known camp figure among adult gay men, perhaps because he holds hands with his animated sidekick Patrick and likes to watch the imaginary television show "The Adventures of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy."

Now, Dr. Dobson said, SpongeBob's creators had enlisted him in a "pro-homosexual video," in which he appeared alongside children's television colleagues like Barney and Jimmy Neutron, among many others. The makers of the video, he said, planned to mail it to thousands of elementary schools to promote a "tolerance pledge" that includes tolerance for differences of "sexual identity."

Dobson's position is actually pretty nuanced. (And here I thought The New York Times liked nuance.) He's not opposed to the video itself, which is typical multi-culti pap. It's the group making the video, and the fact that the kids might see the use of a video they produced in school as an implicit endorsement of the group and its entire agenda by the school, but it's important to see the difference. Maybe he's ascribing to the kids too much intelligence and not enough wisdom. As for what the group, We are Family, actually advocates, here's what Dobson explains:

I want to be clear: the We Are Family Foundation — the organization that sponsored the video featuring SpongeBob and the other characters was, until this flap occurred, making available a variety of explicitly pro-homosexual materials on its Web site. It has since endeavored to hide that fact (more on this later), but my concerns are as legitimate today as they were when I first expressed them in January.

So let us consider the evidence. One of the first resources to catch our attention on the foundation's Web site was a booklet that lists a number of organizational "allies," including five of the largest pro-homosexual organizations in the nation: the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce, and Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG). Also, the Web site made available school lesson plans...

One of the lesson plans, titled, Uncovering Attitudes About Sexual Orientation, presents what are deemed "stereotypical definitions" of words that encourage bigotry and bias. If you have any doubt about the pro-homosexual agenda inherent to these materials, check out these loaded terms, which could be coming soon to an elementary school near you. (All are direct quotes.)

• Compulsory Heterosexuality: The assumption that women are "naturally" or innately drawn sexually and emotionally toward men, and men toward women; the view that heterosexuality is the "norm" for all sexual relationships. The institutionalization of heterosexuality in all aspects of society includes the idealization of heterosexual orientation, romance, and marriage. Compulsory heterosexuality leads to the notion of women as inherently "weak," and the institutionalized inequality of power: power of men to control women's sexuality, labor, childbirth and childrearing, physical movement, safety, creativity, and access to knowledge. It can also include legal and social discrimination against homosexuals and the invisibility or intolerance of lesbian and gay existence.
• Gender: A cultural notion of what it is to be a woman or a man; a construct based on the social shaping of femininity and masculinity. It usually includes identification with males as a class or with females as a class. Gender includes subjective concepts about character traits and expected behaviors that vary from place to place and person to person.
• Heterosexism: A system of beliefs, action, advantages, and assumptions in the superiority of heterosexuals or heterosexuality. It includes unrecognized privileges of heterosexual people and the exclusion of nonheterosexual people from policies, procedures, events and decisions about what is important.
• Homophobia: Thoughts, feelings, or actions based on fear, dislike, judgment or hatred of gay men and lesbians / of those who love and sexually desire those of the same sex. Homophobia has roots in sexism and can include prejudice, discrimination, harassment, and acts of violence.

Is this the kind of nonsense you want taught to your kids, especially if the nation's most popular cartoon characters are used to get across the concepts? I pray not!

If you're planning on visiting the We Are Family Foundation's Web site [www.wearefamilyfoundation.org] to verify the accuracy of the above information, don't bother. In the days since this story broke, the majority of overtly pro-homosexual content has been removed. The founder of the organization, Nile Rodgers, appeared on the "Today Show" and said that we had the wrong site and that they had nothing to do with homosexuality. That was Jan. 21. Two days later, most of the homosexual content disappeared or became inaccessible. I will leave it for you to determine the motive behind the mysterious vanishing of such material by the We Are Family Foundation. Suffice to say that we have clear documentation that these materials were being promoted on the Web site as recently as late January, despite denials to the contrary.

Now, people often remove things from their website that they decide they don't want people to see. I've deleted a post or two myself when I decided I had said something I shouldn't have--although never to hide something that someone had called me on. Still, it appears that someone is lying here, and those who don't like Dr. Dobson are liable to assume it's him. It's hard to tell, as I can't give you any first hand account, although others comment on the now missing lesson plans (and link to the removed pages).

Maybe you don't disagree with what the We are Family Foundation wants. Maybe you do but don't see what the big deal about the video is. Well, consider it slightly differently. Consider a video that everyone considers harmless, such as "Barney and Friends." Okay, some people think it is the spawn of the devil, and I think it's annoying as all get-out (although there are far, far worse), but we'll remove that from the equation for now. Then, consider a group that everyone disagrees with, such as NAMBLA, which advocates pedophilia. If you found out that this group was producing "Barney and Friends," you'd immediately start seeing all kinds of innuendo and double entendres in the show. Dobson, remember, doesn't do this with the video. If he suspects it, he ignores it and instead focuses on the obvious fact of who it's sponsored by. But if you found out who was sponsoring such a show, you'd be much more reluctant to let your kids watch it. I'm not trying to equate this video with Barney, although he does appear in it, nor am I trying to equate the We are Family Foundation with NAMBLA, I'm merely pointing out that who sponsors something does matter.

The Iraqis are voting right now. So far, there's been some violence, but hardly the bloodbath you'd expect from Zarqawi's rhethoric. Apparently, the Shiites are much more eager to vote than the Sunnis, but that's hardly surprising. And, as I said before, the Sunnis are only going to hurt themselves. They can't make the elections illegitimate by refusing to participate; they can only make the candidates representing them more sparse. They need us more than we need them. What they really need, of course, is a more US-style democracy, a federal system where smaller local governments are protected by decentralizing power and implementing checks and balances. Doc Rampage wonders why they aren't getting it.

Sluggy Freelance — So the plan fell through, but a mysterious package arrived for Riff, so the day is saved. Uh... hold on, new chapter with its own prologue and the chapter name appearing in-comic, strange people we've never met before, and this mysterious Apparatus which seems to connect them. Uh-oh, this short cloners story has segued into a major storyline. Who is this Kada person and why does she look so much like Sasha? Who is this Makz who only appears as a hologram and did he really betray Kada? (She thinks he did, but if he's only appeared as a hologram, how does she know it was really him?) And just as she gets transported someplace with a space moose and where both of them are surrounded by a weird glow, the prologue ends and we shift to this Calix fellow, who lives in a village surrounded by the same glow. What's the connection between these folks and the apparatus?

Day by Day — Iraq and the military are the main issues this week. It's almost time for elections, and does it bother people that a lot of liberals seem to want elections to fail?

Scary Go Round — Okay, now there's a new storyline, with this creepy little kid promising change. Shelley doesn't handle things too well, though, and she gets herself fired by making some stupid comments to the press.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Dave walks in on Mike and Marsha doing it, which of course freaks him out. Does Dave deserve the torment Mike hands out afterwards? I don't think so--it's Dave's bedroom too, and Mike should have made some indication he wanted privacy. Still, Mike's evil and Dave suffers--must mean everything's back to normal. Then Hazel visits Harry in the hospital, to mock him and reward Mike, apparently by making him spend spring break with his father.

General Protection Fault — So Fooker isn't ready for marriage. Not now, not ever. He isn't ready for imacs, either, but Sharon's working on him.

Schlock Mercenary — And time passes. Howard Tayler burns through weeks of comic time in a couple of days. Seems Tagon's Toughs stole something that a lot of people are going to want back, so they're avoiding civilization for a while.

Evangelical Underground is accepting nominations for the first annual Evanglical Blogging Awards. Go ahead and nominate your favorites. Unfortunately, there aren't any categories where I'd be competitive. If only there were a category for best Quantum Computation blogging!

Old Post: This story begins here, and the previous chapter is here.

This is Chapter 7 of Eyes in the Shadow, finished Thursday night as I was suffering from massive sleep deprivation from a bout of insomnia the night before. If it seems a bit short, that's because it was supposed to be the second part of Chapter 6, but it got bumped.

---

Chapter 7
A Back Door

Ryan pulled to a stop in front of the dormitory.

"I have a bad feeling about this," he said. The day had grown overcast, which didn't improve Ryan's mood.

"Don't worry, it'll just take me a moment to get my stuff," Dominic said as he opened the door and got out.

"You're lucky," said Emily. "Ryan and I never had a chance to pack."

"Yeah, I kind of noticed." Dominic closed the door before Ryan could come up with a good comeback.

Ryan watched him walk off, dodging skateboarders as he darted up the stairs to the dorm. The square building was one of those ugly modern buildings, with a huge glass wall fronting the first floor and stone facing on the four stories above. It looked like just about every other college dormitory. Next to the door was an intercom system, and Dominic punched a keypad and held a brief conversation with someone on the other side before being let in. As the glass door closed behind him, Ryan wondered whether he was coming back. If he was looking for a chance to run out on them, this was it. Do I really think he'd do that? He promised his sister. Ryan wasn't sure, but he did know that Dominic was scared. More frightened than Ryan was, it seemed, and for all the wrong reasons, too. Who the Hell understands religious people?

Ryan kept the car running, figuring that a quick getaway was more valuable than saving gas right now. They were just pulled up to the curb, a little bit past the dorm on their right side, since Ryan hadn't wanted to spend the time to go hunting for a parking lot. The less time we're here, the better. Still, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to find a legitimate parking place. What am I worried about? They can't tow the car while we're in it, and I can always move it if someone complains.

He settled back on the plush cloth seat. After a moment's thought, he began playing with its controls. Ryan'd had scant time to adjust the driver's seat to his liking as in their rush to leave the rental car lot before Red-eyes found them. The seat was still too far back, and he used the seat's electric motor to move it forward, then raise it a little. The car wouldn't feel so awkward now that everything was in easy reach. He considered turning on the radio, but he really didn't have the patience to look for a radio station he wanted to listen to. He never listened to it much anyway, as he found music distracting and talk radio worse whenever he was trying to do something. Ryan could never just listen to the radio—he inevitably got bored and started doing something, at which point the radio was a distraction and off it went. Oddly, he didn't have the same problem with television, perhaps because it engaged his eyes as well as his ears. For that matter, he loved to read, which was all eyes and mind and no listening at all. He just wasn't a very aural person, and that applied to long conversations as well. He could concentrate when he was participating, but his mind wandered whenever he was just supposed to listen. For instance, right at the moment, Emily was chattering about something she and Dominic had done when they were little, and Ryan was trying his best to at least pretend he was paying attention. He nodded and said "yeah" and "huh" in an attentive matter whenever Emily would leave a space for response—which wasn't often—but he couldn't for the life of him remember what her story was about, and tuning in to Emily's words for half-a-minute didn't offer him much clue, as she was talking about how her story had demonstrated the psychology of sibling relationships, still without giving him any hint as to the actual events of said story. He might have been worried about missing the point if he weren't fairly certain that there was none.

Given the scant attention he was giving to her, it was a wonder he noticed when she stopped cold. His automatic "uh-huh" got caught in his throat as he noticed that her eyes, locked on the rearview mirror, were suddenly wide. "What?" She remained silent, her eyes scanning the mirror, her head tilting to get a better angle. "Emily, what is it?"

"Red-eyes," she said.

Ryan's right hand went to the gearshift while his left stabbed the lock button, the automatic lock sealing every door in the car. "Sorry, Emily, but we can't wait for your brother anymore."

"But...," she began, her neck craning further to the left to keep her target in sight, her hand searching for the door lock, "he's not coming toward us. He's going toward..." Her hand found the lock and clicked it open. Rather than waiting for Emily to realize that she had unlocked rather locked the door, Ryan jabbed the automatic lock again. But he had misjudged Emily's intentions. Rather than locking Red-eyes out of the car, she had done exactly what she intended and let herself out, and she was already pushing the door open by the time the lock clicked shut again. "Dominic!" she shouted.

I knew coming here was a bad idea. Both times!

Ryan shifted the car back into park and jerked the key from the ignition. Somebody should teach that girl the value of self-preservation! Ryan got out of the car, wondering how he was even going to spot Red-eyes. Unless he had decided to go noticeable again, Ryan could be staring straight through him as he walked up and snapped his neck. Emily had the hand mirror and was using it to search for Red-eyes, apparently having lost track of him. He could be on top of her before she could even find him! Ryan circled the car to come up beside her. Since he found it difficult to watch the mirror over her shoulder, he futilely scanned the sidewalk.

The dorm had a wide patio fronting its glass wall, and a slightly narrower set of steps connecting the patio to the sidewalk. On either side of the stairway was a grassy slope, still green in the Southern winter, and more grass plus a few shade trees bracketed the patio and its two-foot-high brick wall. Few people loitered in the cold weather, most of them hurrying on their way. However, the skateboarders were continuing their stunts on the patio, one hopping his board from the patio to the sidewalk without touching the intervening steps. He had a rough goatee, a winter hat hiding his hair, a white T-shirt over a long-sleeved black shirt, baggy shorts long enough to come to Ryan's ankles had he worn them, and no protective gear whatsoever. His landing looked good to Ryan's inexperienced eye, so he was surprised to see the young man fly from his skateboard, landing hard on his back against the stairs. His board continued a few inches before bouncing against nothing more solid than air and rolling backwards. What the--? And just like that, Ryan could see him: Red-eyes, standing above the fallen skateboarder, his arms just now dropping to his sides. You miscalculated, didn't you? People usually go around you, even when they can't see you, but it's awfully hard to turn a skateboard in mid-flight. But while Ryan saw him, the skateboarders still didn't. They rushed to their fallen friend's side without a glance for his assailant. For that matter, Emily was still frantically scanning her mirror back and forth. Red-eyes ignored the skateboarders, stepping around them to head up the stairs. Ryan's eyes followed Red-eyes' intended path to the dorm, looking through the glass wall to see Dominic, wearing his sunglasses even inside, coming down the stairs, a duffel bag in one hand and a laptop case hanging from the opposite shoulder.

"Another possibility is that this guy is using you--getting you to run and then following, hoping you'll lead him to something." Or someone. Someone like Dominic. Ryan dropped the keys into Emily's hand as he brushed past her. "Drive the car around back," he said, pointing at the dorm.

"Where? How? Why?"

"Hurry!" Ryan shouted as he sprinted off, making a straight line across the grass and over the low wall surrounding the patio, in a dead run for the door. He passed within ten feet of Red-eyes on the way to the door, close enough to feel his icy aura. Like in the dream. God, I hope I'm imagining it. Ryan would not have been surprised to feel Red-eyes' hand wrapping around his wrist like a manacle, a manacle with razor sharp claws which sank into his skin. He almost looked back, but he didn't dare. I don't want to know how close he is.

Ryan could guess that Red-eyes' intention was to catch Dominic just as he came out the door. If so, his timing was impeccable, which made Ryan's slightly less so. He arrived at the door just before both Dominic and Red-eyes, but when he tried to open it, he found the it locked, the knob refusing to turn. He glanced at the intercom system. It was obvious how it worked: dial the room number and they'll let you in, or, if you live here yourself, slide your ID card in the attached cardreader. It made a lot of sense if you weren't about to be ripped apart by a psychotic mutant demon. Lacking ID card and friend in the building, Ryan could only pound on the door to indicate that Dominic should let him in. While Emily's brother looked confused by Ryan's wild knocking, he pulled the door open anyway. "What--?" he began. As soon as the door was ajar, Ryan shoved his way inside, causing Dominic to overbalance and fall in a tangle of luggage. Ryan heard a distinct crunch, but he didn't pause to find out what Dominic had broken. As quickly as he had flung the door open, he twisted himself around to the other side and threw his full weight against it. The door did not slam shut, as he had hoped it would. The hydraulic door closer resisted his efforts. He could see Red-eyes now, only a few feet from the door, his arm outstretched to catch it before it could latch. Ryan pushed harder, the hydraulics pushed back just as hard, Red-eyes' fingers touched the door... Click. The latch had reached home.

For a moment Ryan thought Red-eyes wasn't going to stop, that he'd just walk straight through the door, but after one more step he came to a standstill. His right hand pressed against the door, his face mere inches from the glass, Red-eyes gleaming—no, glowing, Ryan was sure of it this time. He raised his left hand in a fist and pounded on the glass. Ryan jumped with the glass, but the door held. Red-eyes struck again, and again.

"Are you okay?" Ryan said to Dominic, who was slowly gathering his things and himself from the floor.

"Yeah. Is that Red-eyes?" He gestured to the door.

"You can see him?" Ryan asked.

"He's kinda hard to miss."

"You'd be surprised," Ryan replied. He was going to explain, but hadn't Emily already told this story? If Dominic hadn't believed it, Ryan didn't have time to try to convince him. "I don't know how long that glass will hold. We should go."

"Where? And where's Emily? Is she out there with that?" Dominic asked, still just watching Red-eyes. Ryan had long since gotten used to the empty expression that somehow still conveyed malevolence, so he wasn't interested in staring at him right now, certainly not while he was trying to break through the glass which was all that separated them.

"That way." Ryan pointed to the back. "This place does have a back door, right?"

"I dunno. I haven't really checked." At Ryan's frosty stare, he shrugged. "Hey, I'm just visiting. I haven't been here a whole day yet."

Great, just great! "Well, pray that it does then, `cause that's where Emily's supposed to meet us."

Dominic led the way toward the back, taking Ryan down a long hallway. They passed several closed doors, each with its own number and an eyehole, so Ryan guessed they were more dorm rooms. Behind them, the pounding continued, and he thought he heard glass crack. If this was a dead end... It wasn't. They found a door at the end of the hall, which opened onto a stairwell with flights leading up and down.

"Arghh! Where now?" Ryan asked.

"Down," said Dominic.

"I don't think we want to go to the basement."

"No, I'm pretty sure the ground is lower at the back of the building. If there's a back door, it's down."

"Are you sure?"

Dominic shrugged. "Not really."

"If you're wrong--" Ryan froze as he heard glass shatter behind them. Well, it's not likely I'll get the chance to kill him, is there? "Down it is."

The two hurried down the stairs, their footsteps echoing in the concrete stairwell. Ryan cringed at the noise, but it wasn't as if Red-eyes had needed something as mundane as sound to find them before. At the bottom, they found two doors at opposite ends of the stairwell. Each had a small window, so Ryan could see that one opened into a lighted hallway, the other onto the outside. Relieved, he headed out the back door with Dominic on his heels. They stood on a small concrete porch, with three steps heading down to the parking lot. The lot had seen better days: the pavement was cracked and the lines fading. The cars didn't look much better, mostly small imports five years old or more, probably belonging to the dorm residents. Ryan scanned the parking lot, but he saw no sign of the silver car Emily was supposed to be bringing. Where the Hell is she? He felt something cold touch his cheek, and he slapped it away. Just a drop of water. What, did I think it was Red-eyes, caressing my cheek? He glanced skywards. It looked like there would be a downpour soon.

Dominic adjusted his sunglasses, "Where's Emily?"

"I guess she's not here yet. Oh, wait, is that her?" He pointed to a silver car coming down the road behind the lot.

The two hurried down the steps and sprinted to the car just as the downpour began. They reached the car before Emily had crossed more than a third of the parking lot towards them. Emily pulled to a stop as they both climbed in the passenger side, Dominic tossing his stuff in the back while Ryan took the front seat. Even after such a short time, Ryan's hair and shoulders were damp from the rain. He turned to look at the dorm in time to see Red-eyes coming out the door.

"There he is," Ryan said. "Let's go."

"Where is he?" Emily said as she made a tight U turn. "I can't see him."

"You can't?"

"No. How come you can see him and I can't?"

"I don't know," Ryan confessed. Red-eyes was already down the steps and walking across the parking lot. The rain didn't faze him at all. "But he's coming this way. Let's go."

"Alright, alright," Emily said. "I just hope I can find the way out. It wasn't easy to get back here." The car rolled forward to the edge of the lot, and Emily signaled for a left turn.

"Hurry up," Ryan said.

"There's a car coming." In fact, there was a long line of cars, starting with a Beatle, then an SUV, a pick-up, and...

"Cut them off! He's almost here!"

"He's not even halfway yet."

"Huh." Ryan looked over his shoulder toward Red-eyes again. He was coming quickly, but Ryan admitted he wasn't that close yet. Maybe it was only halfway across the parking lot. But how--?

"I can see him in the mirror, silly."

"I'm not the one acting silly. Halfway across the parking lot is too close. Let's go!"

"Alright. Okay. It's clear now anyway."

As it turned out, it wasn't quite clear. Emily had somehow not noticed the white Saturn that screeched to a halt and blared its horn when she pulled out. This caused her to jump, but thankfully she didn't stop, and she pulled into the road, going very slowly. Rainwater streamed down the window, nearly blinding them until Emily figured out how where the controls to the windshield wipers were located. At Ryan's urging she sped up a little, but it still didn't feel fast enough. Red-eyes was fast, and it wasn't like a thunderstorm was going to slow him down at all. Still, they made it onto Ferst, and from there, they found their way back to the Interstate. Only then did Ryan relax, although with the pouring rain, they were still driving at a rate that felt too slow. It really was growing dark, between the clouds and the early evening.

Ryan looked into the back seat, where Dominic was looking back out the window.

"I know we're going slow, but I think we're still going faster than he can run, Dom." It seemed a bit odd to call him Dom, but it was what Emily used.

"No, I suppose he can't. That was scary, huh?" Dominic took his sunglasses off and cleaned them with a handkerchief. "I can still hear my heart in my ears."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. You did okay, though."

"Thanks, but I just did what you told me." He placed his sunglasses back on his nose. "You're pretty good at surviving attacks by psychotic mutant demons."

"Yeah, I've gotten pretty good at running away. So why are you still wearing sunglasses, anyway? It's getting dark out here."

"Is it? Dark or not, I need them to see. My sunglasses have corrective lenses, and you kinda crunched my regular glasses when you knocked me over."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Heh, I'll live. Emily, can you find your way from here?"

"Well, I can just follow I-20 East, right?" she said. "That ought to get us there."

"More or less."

"Dom, why did Red-eyes attack you?" Ryan said. "Was he after you when we thought he was after us?"

"I don't know. Was he even attacking me, or was he doing something else? Let me think about it, okay? I'll get back to you when I come up with something."

He leaned back and folded his arms, and Ryan turned his attention forward. Emily turned up the heat, but she was unusually subdued as she concentrated on driving in the inclement weather. Since Ryan rarely drove in Boston, he often got rides from others, so he was used to being chauffered. Driving in Boston could be a nerve-wracking experience, but so could riding shotgun if you paid too much attention, so he'd long since become accustomed to zoning out and not worrying about other people's driving. Anyway, it wasn't like he'd be able to help if his driver wasn't up to the task, and he thought Emily was handling the weather fine. After a few moments, he noticed soft snores coming from behind him, and he turned to see that Dominic had fallen asleep. I guess I shouldn't be expecting any more ideas from him right away. Still, that last one isn't bad at all. Ryan leaned back, letting himself be soothed by the car's motion and even the sound of the rain splattering on the windshield. He scratched a bit at the cut on his right arm, which didn't so much itch as tingle, but it wasn't too long before sleep came for him as well.

---

This chapter is 3,307 words long, bringing the total length to 23,805 words. One more chapter, and it will definitely be novella length.

The latest Christian Carnival is up at Digitus, Finger, and Inc. Surprisingly enough, I remembered to post about it even when I'm not in it.

I was going to revise and post the next chapter of Eyes in the Shadow, but I got distracted. Maybe I'll talk about why I was distracted later.

Anyway, due to my easy distraction, there won't be a lot of blogging today. (This is due to the fact that I can't blog at work, so I write my posts at home and schedule them for posting during the day.) But I promise, I'll get the next chapter done by tomorrow--I have to if I want to get it in in time for the next Storyblogging Carnival--and there are a couple of things I very much intend to blog about. Maybe one or two will go up tonight.

I really need to pay better attention. I knew Dave Barry was taking a year off, but I missed his farewell column, which indicates that he may be retiring for good:

So this is a great job. And yet I'm quitting it, at least for now. I want to stop before I join the horde of people who think I used to be funnier. And I want to work on some other stuff.

So for the next year, I won't be writing regular columns, though I hope to weigh in from time to time if something really important happens, such as a cow exploding in a boat toilet.

At some point in the next year, I hope to figure out whether I want to resume the column. Right now, I truly don't know.

So in case I don't get to say this later: Thanks to all you editors for printing my column, and thanks especially to all you readers for reading it. You've given me the most wonderful career an English major could hope to have. I am very grateful.

And I'm not making that up.

I'll miss Dave Barry. And if the Miami Herald is hiring, I can be funny. Really!

I did a bit of reading on RSA encryption in order to prepare myself to explain Shor's algorithm on this blog. Then I realized that there's no way I can explain Shor's algorithm without doing something more generic and explaining some of the simpler algorithms first. But, having already read up on RSA encryption, I didn't want to just let that knowledge leak out of my brain without writing something about it. So I'll start by quoting from this website, which has a quick explanation of how RSA works:

1. Find P and Q, two large (e.g., 1024-bit) prime numbers.
2. Choose E such that E is greater than 1, E is less than PQ, and E and (P-1)(Q-1) are relatively prime, which means they have no prime factors in common. E does not have to be prime, but it must be odd. (P-1)(Q-1) can't be prime because it's an even number.
3. Compute D such that (DE - 1) is evenly divisible by (P-1)(Q-1). Mathematicians write this as DE = 1 (mod (P-1)(Q-1)), and they call D the multiplicative inverse of E. This is easy to do — simply find an integer X which causes D = (X(P-1)(Q-1) + 1)/E to be an integer, then use that value of D.
4. The encryption function is C = (T^E) mod PQ, where C is the ciphertext (a positive integer), T is the plaintext (a positive integer), and ^ indicates exponentiation. The message being encrypted, T, must be less than the modulus, PQ.
5. The decryption function is T = (C^D) mod PQ, where C is the ciphertext (a positive integer), T is the plaintext (a positive integer), and ^ indicates exponentiation.

Your public key is the pair (PQ, E). Your private key is the number D (reveal it to no one). The product PQ is the modulus (often called N in the literature). E is the public exponent. D is the secret exponent.

You can publish your public key freely, because there are no known easy methods of calculating D, P, or Q given only (PQ, E) (your public key). If P and Q are each 1024 bits long, the sun will burn out before the most powerful computers presently in existence can factor your modulus into P and Q.

Follow all that? Now finding prime numbers isn't costless--it takes a computer time to do so, and to do all those calculations. If I recall correctly, it's O(N³), meaning that the number of operations the computer has to perform is some constant times N cubed, where N is the bit length of the encryption code. The constant and any smaller terms are ignored.¹ This is the reason you create keys which are only 2048 bits long, even in the largest key used in RSA. That's 2 kb, or .25 kB (since a byte has 8 bits). Now even something as simple as this post is 4.9 kB long (I checked), and since the plain text has to be smaller than PQ, so you couldn't encrypt this whole post using your key. What you'd have to do instead is break this post into chunks, and use the key to encrypt each chunk, then send each encrypted piece to the person on the other end. That means that you'd use the same key 20 times in order to encrypt the whole thing. As I mentioned in my earlier post, using a key multiple times makes it possible to attack an encrypted message by simply trying every possible value of D until you get something that decodes all those chunks into something that makes sense. Of course, RSA has another brute force method of attack. Since the attacker will have PQ, E, and C, he can try every possible value of T in the equation T^E mod PQ until he gets C. Since the cipher text is unique, he will have definitely found the plaintext when he finds the T that works. Unfortunately for him, that will only solve for one of those chunks--it gives no information on the other ones. If, instead, he tries every possible value of D, he'll need some sophisticated algorithms to decide whether his value of D gives him a sensible message for all the chunks. Both of these are bad ways of trying to solve this problem, though. These algorithms are both O(2^N), the only appreciable difference being the constant out in front. The fastest method of attack is trying to factor PQ, which is only O(2^N/2)--the method which the author of the article says will take until the sun burns out (This isn't the fastest algorithm for factoring a large product of primes. I believe the fastest is O(exp(N/3)), but it's still very slow.). However, if you have a quantum computer, you can use Shor's algorithm, which is O(N²log(N)). This factors large products of primes faster than they can be produced.

¹I'll be using this notation a lot in this post, despite the fact that it's been a while since I've done these calculations and there's a good chance I got a lot of the numbers wrong. By which I mean slightly off, not that I'm just guessing or anything. Honest!

Cynthia Lo has a few thoughts on women in ministry:

I do believe that once a woman is married, her primary role is in serving her husband. The same is true once a man gets married; his primary role should be in loving his wife. The words "serve" and "love" have a different connotation in Christ than we put on them in everyday speech, of course. So, if I were to ever get married, then sure, I would be happy letting my husband lead the small group while I "assisted". But what about a single woman's role in ministry? For me, I believe that the ministerial gifts that I have more fully developed are in small group leadership and music. I do believe that God has blessed me with talent and ability in those areas. Therefore, if I were not able to be a small group leader at all in a church, I would not feel that is in line with God's purposes for me. While I am single, my calling is to serve Him fully, and I believe that includes leadership and authority in some fashion.

Kevin gave me an interesting perspective from InterVarsity's standpoint, and from his own PCUSA background. Actually, he mentioned this one Stanford professor that they were trying to recruit to MIT, and his wife actually interviewed for pastoral positions at Park Street. Ultimately, he stayed at Stanford, and she became the senior pastor of a UCC church. I was a little taken aback. Although I believe that women can and should co-lead small groups and serve on the music team and such, I do draw the line at female pastors. I guess not really because I inherently think it's "wrong" (the Bible is surely not clear on that), but because churches with women pastors tend to be super liberal in their theology. But then Kevin said that so many churches base their views on women on a very vaguely worded Pauline teaching. Hmm. Jesus and Paul both included women in very prominent roles in their ministries. Should we be doing the same?

Cynthia actually takes a somewhat more conservative view than I expected (a bit more conservative than my own, actually). It is interesting to watch the church work this out, and irritating beyond reason when people start crying sexism. This is a difficult topic, where once again, we have to deal with the Bible as it is rather than how we would prefer it to be. I may touch on this subject on a later date, but for now, read Cynthia's post.

A while ago, I explained how quantum key encryption worked. At the time, I said that this form of quantum encryption is in the early stages of commercial application. Well, along comes this article (just a preview--the whole thing isn't free) in Scientific American to prove my point. "Best Kept Secrets" by Gary Stix is in the January 2005 issue. Here's an excerpt:

Today quantum cryptography has come a long way from the jury-rigged project assembled on a table in Bennett's office. The National Security Agency or one of the Federal Reserve banks can now buy a quantum-cryptographic system from two small companies--and more products are on the way. This new method of encryption represents the first major commercial implementation for what has become known as quantum information science, which blends quantum mechanics and information theory. The ultimate technology to emerge from the field may be a quantum computer so powerful that the only way to protect against its prodigious code-breaking capability may be to deploy quantum-cryptographic techniques.

So, what companies are producing these quantum key distribution systems? They would be id Quantique, a company in Geneva which has an optical fiber system which can operate over tens of kilometers, and MagiQ Technologies, located in New York, which can send keys up to 100 km. So how much will one of these systems run you? MagiQ is charging $70,000+ for a system, while I don't have a clue what id Quantique charges (incidentally, Quantique also produces a quantum random number generator, for those who like true randomness, at least according to the accepted theory of quantum mechanics). Of course, as I pointed out in my previous post, quantum key distribution is inefficient, and, as I didn't point out, it's also technologically hard to do, so these products don't have the highest bitrates in the world, somewhere around 10 kbps. Yes, that is slower than any current dial-up modem. You can re-use a 1000 bit key to encrypt 2000 bits of data, just by using it twice in a row, so you don't have to send the key as fast as your data, but this pretty much kills the key's usefulness. I mean, it's still a pretty good key, but it's no longer unbreakable, which was the whole point of spending all this money on a quantum key distribution system in the first place, wasn't it? If the same key is used twice, this gives your eavesdropper (Eve) an avenue of attack. Even if there are 2^1000 variations for Eve to try, when both halves of the data makes sense, then she knows she's found something. It may not be quite the correct key, as you can imagine that several keys will give you sensible messages, but she has more information than before, and the more times you re-use the same key, the closer Eve comes to finding exactly what that key is. Whereas, if the key is as long (or longer) than the message, then any key she comes up with is just a random guess. Sure, you can come up with all sorts of messages that make sense that are 100 letters long or less, but there's no way to tell which one is what was actually sent.

Doc managed to get himself quoted on Instapundit. What, you don't see him? That's because he used on of his aliases. Having done a full investigation of this Doc character, consisting mostly of reading his bio on his webpage, I happen to know he uses the alias Dave Gudeman from time to time. It puzzled me that he got a mention without getting a link, though, thereby receiving an Instalanche and incidentally giving me a few spillover hits, so I checked with my sources (I e-mailed Doc). It turns out that his Instalanche-less e-mail was all part of a clever plot to *bzzt* to ooto toto

...

Ugh! I forgot about the implant! It's Doc's idea of a Non-disclosure Agreement and it *bzzzzt* ittididit

No, can't talk about that either. I better end this post before *bzzzzzzzzt*

Sheya Joie is hosting the next storyblogging carnival, number eleven, so be sure to send your stories to her at sheyajoie~at~yahoo~dot~com (replacing ~at~ with @ and ~dot~ with . of course). Sheya's the first person to host twice so far, and I look forward to seeing whether she does it the same as she did previously or differently. I've settled into something of a rut and I'm interested in seeing new ideas.

Keep in mind that it's entirely up to the host to decide which stories to accept and which not to; I have no say over it. Heck, she doesn't even have to accept my submission. While I accept pretty much any story that's not downright pornographic, some of the hosts have higher standards of decency.

John Zimmer has some words chiding modern contempt of ancient beliefs:

It is sometimes difficult for us moderns to stifle our laughter at the ignorance of our forbears, particularly in the sciences. We marvel at the longevity of Galen's influence in medicine, founded as it was upon the balance in the body of the ancients' four humors—blood, phlegm, and black and yellow bile. Likewise we wonder at the alchemists' insistence that gold could be wrung from lead. We must not be too quick, however, to discount the theories of centuries gone by simply as products of a less developed encyclopedia, or as the fruits of a darker time when science and religion mingled too freely. In fact, some insight can be found in their maxims and formulations, truths that twenty-first century science is ill-equipped to recognize... I do think we should approach `ridiculous' ideas of the past with a mind to learn from their wisdom as well as from their errors. Otherwise, we are limited to the understanding of our own age, very small piece of human history that it is. Our times are peculiar for their currency, not their inerrancy.

This is something I've considered before. The first thing to realize is that we're no smarter than our ancestors. I'd even hesitate to say that we're more knowledgeable. Certainly, as a society, we have a lot more data than someone who lived a few hundred years ago, but people today tend to be specialists, with their knowledge highly focused in one or two fields. A couple of hundred years ago, it was possible to be an expert in all fields of science, having studied everything that was available, while still being well-read in literature and philosophy. That is simply impossible today--no matter how knowledgeable you are, there will be numerous fields you'll know next to nothing about. It is much harder to see connections, or to place what you know in its larger context. I think we lose something through this.

You'll notice a new blogroll in the side bar. It's something Joe Carter came up with. He's calling it the Church Directory, but I'll admit I'm not a huge fan of the name. It's a collection of evangelical blogs, so I'm just calling it Evangelical Blogs. There are a lot of blogs on it, including quite a few I'd never heard of before. For example, check out Blogcorner Preacher. He is much more focused than my own blog on Christianity and Biblical teaching, and he's not always gentle about it. It's worth checking out. I'll highlight more blogs on this new blogroll as I have a chance to check them out.

In the Winter 2004 issue of IEEE's Technology and Society magazine, there's an article by Jurgen Altmann and Mark Gubrud titled "Anticipating Military Nanotechnology." (The article is not available online.) The article is not so much speculation about future nanotechology (NT) which the military will be using, as it is about the need for international controls on nanotechnology. I don't really agree with the authors, for a number of reasons. Let's start with their quick rundown of what nanotechnology may be able to do:

More specific military applications include new propellants and explosives of higher energy density, and miniaturized guidance systems for small munitions. Nanostructured material could bring improved armor penetrators and some strengthening of light armor. Firearms could gain range and accuracy at reduced weight. Small missiles could become practicle even against human targets.
...
NT and microsystems technology would permit vehicles and mobile robots of decimeter down to millimeter size, some using biomimetic forms of propulsion. One variant would be to use small animals (rats, insects) controlled by implanted electrodes. Although the munitions payload of small robots would be limited, they could attack at senstive spots, or act in swarms to achieve a mass effect...

Implants in soldiers' bodies could monitor their health status, and release drugs for therapy--or to influence performance and mood. Identification, communication, or espionage devices could be implanted to keep them hidden. Another type of implant would use electrodes to contact nerves and the brain to reduce reaction time and to communicate sensory impressions or (simple) information.

NT approaches could soon lead to extensions of chemical and biological warfare. Nanoparticles designed to ferry therapeutic drugs across the blood-brain barrier or to concentrate in certain organs could as well deliver harmful substances. A mechanism developed to kill cancer cells after recognition of a mutant gene or protein could be used to target (or spare) a certain group, possibly even a certain individual, on the basis of either genetic factors or some separately administered biochemical marker...

If this sounds like sci-fi, it is. The authors readily admit that these technologies are decades away, and may prove impractical to implement. It is true that there are people seriously considering how to implement such technologies, however.

These technologies are cause for some concern to the authors: "New technology can make old treaties seem out of date, and can thereby tempt states to abrogate or disregard them." They fear that international law, a term which I find inaccurate at best, cannot keep up with the new technology. Further, they worry about destabilization:

Small, highly accurate and lethal weapons may encourage offensive uses. Deterrence would be weakened if strategic forces could be attacked by non-nuclear means such as stealthy, precision-guided weapons or miniaturized systems covertly infiltrated in advance of an attack. Autonomous systems of confronting powers operating at close mutual range at sea or in space would need to detect and react quickly to any attack, creating potentials for accidental war and uncontrolled escalation.

Their proposed solution? Cooperative International Regulation. They propose the following guidelines:

• Existing arms control and disarmament treaties and humanitarian internaional law should be upheld (and updated where needed). In particular the Biological Weapons Convention should be strengthened by a verification protocol.
• All kinds of space weapons should be banned, possibly with special rules for nonweapons use of small satellites and carriers.
• Autonomous 'killer robots' should be prohibited; a human should be the decision maker when a target is to be attacked.
• Small, mobile artificial systems (including biological-technical hybrid systems) should be severely restricted, allowing only exceptional use (such as search of collapsed buildings).
• Body implants that are not directly medically motivated should be subject to a renewable moratorium of ten years' duration.

I actually believe the third one is reasonable, if hard to enforce, as it's essentially a programming question of whether the robot attacks without human permission. But I have my doubts about some of the foundational reasoning behind these proposals. They argue that one of the things they want to do is keep these weapons out of the hands of terrorists, "Most of the specific applications which could be abused... would require large R&D programs to bring to fruition. Terrorist groups are unlikely to be able to obtain such systems unless the capable states develop and deploy them to scale." This would make sense if there were no such thing as state-sponsored terrorism. We aren't too worried about terrorists stealing US nuclear weapons. We are very worried about the Iranian government developing nuclear weapons (with help previously received from sympathizers in Pakistan) and handing them to the terrorist groups they sponsor. This brings me to the most questionable paragraph in the article:

If international limits can be agreed to, including verification and enforcement mechanisms, it is reasonable to expect that they can be implemented. All technological societies already take measures to reduce toxic emissions, improve safety, and otherwise balance costs and benefits; new measures are introduced every year as technology evolves.

The key point the authors seem to be missing is that any new arms control agreement is unlikely to be more successful than the current arms control agreements. You know, the ones countries like Iraq, Lybia, Iran, and North Korea have spent years making a mockery of, pretending to go along with while working on these technologies in secret? Any arms control agreement depends on the honor of the participants, and when it comes to the realpolitik of international relations, cheating is the norm. I don't trust any nation not to make full use of whatever wriggle room these treaties allow, and I sure don't trust the likes of Iran and North Korea to make a goodwill attempt to follow even the letter of the law. Perhaps fifty years down the road, when Iran and North Korea and tyrannies around the world have become liberal democracies (gee, I'm optimistic, aren't I?), then I'll see the value of such international treaties. But I just don't see that happening anytime soon.

I'm going to have to update some sections of this website now that I've moved, especially the About Me page and the autobiography. I've gotten started on it, but I don't know how long it will be before I finish. I'll let you know.

Cool, Lileks is doing some storyblogging. I wonder if I can convince him to participate in the Carnival.

I was planning on going to the 4 pm service at Park Street Church today, but the snow still hasn't stopped. It's pretty nasty out there. Around 4 pm I'll have a look around and see if I can make it to the 6 pm service. I'd hate to miss church completely...

Sluggy Freelance — This wasn't the best week of Sluggy. Pete's complained a bit about writer's block, and a lot of people have complained that the strip's been off. To be honest, I didn't think it was that bad, and the complaining's been getting on my nerves more than any missteps in the strip. Anyway, comic wise, Zoe is really upset that Torg won't tell his friends what happened to him. I agree that he should, as it's important for them to understand, but I understand why it's hard for him to talk about it. As for the cloners coming to take the house, it looks like Torg's come up with a pretty good idea, but unfortunately, the untimely portal messes with it. I sure hope Pete has a good pay-off in mind, as all the back and forth is getting a bit annoying.

Day by Day — Lots of interaction between Jan and Damon this week, mostly involving Jan spouting liberal dogma and Damon mocking it. It's fun!

Scary Go Round — More of the little green guys, claiming to be Starsky and Hutch to get on a radio show. Ordinarily, I wouldn't be very interested, but is that Natalie? She's supposed to be dead. I mean, it looked like she made it back, but it wasn't clear how she could be alive again, what with no body. It does look like she has a body, but it isn't quite human. And finally, it now looks like the little green guys have been eaten by bears. Hopefully, that's the end of this stoyline.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — So, Marsha and Mike are back together, and April isn't happy about it. Too bad, April, but at this point, you're getting annoying. Go find your imaginary floating wiser self, already, and come back to some morality. Now Dave wants his cat back, but he's still suffering from some of the feedback from the empathic connection and he lasers Paul. Good for Chester! I mean, Dave... er, whatever. Paul needed that.

General Protection Fault — Uncle Wisebottom has tested Fred and determined that he's sentient. Unfortunately, according to the IQ test, he's not as smart as he thinks he is. Personally, I'm kind of glad--he was a bit uppity.

Schlock Mercenary — Elf has her new body. It looks good, too. She and Schlock get caught up, which takes quite a bit of doing, as Schlock's lost most of his memory.

I'm not planning to do much blogging today, but I am planning on doing a couple of other things. First, I need to do some more unpacking and setting up of furniture. That's what I've been doing for most of the day today, and I still haven't gotten much done. Moving takes forever! If I could only figure out where the screwdriver was packed, I could start putting together the rest of the furniture. Second, I want to work some more on the next chapter of Ryan's and Emily's story, so I have it ready for the next storyblogging carnival. I also need to jog. (Thank God for treadmills, as it's kind of snowing outside.) Then, I'm planning on doing some blogging, but I think the decent sized tech posts I intend to write won't be going up until next week. I've even been pondering doing a quantum computation post on Shor's algorithm, but I think I need to do a few posts on quantum algorithms in general first, and I'm not really sure where to begin. Also, I think I need to explain RSA encryption before I tell you how to break it. So I haven't really forgotten the blog, I just have a lot of other stuff to do.

The Christian Carnival is now online at Sidesspot. My post on the Old Testament Law is in there.

I've added a new blog to the blogroll. Faith*in*fiction is a blog by a Christian acquisitions editor at Bethany House Publishers. If you're looking for advice on writing, or looking for someone interested in buying fiction with Christian themes, this is where you should look.

The Evangelical Outpost has chosen the winners for its blog symposium on Americanism and Puritanism. I didn't win, but then my entry was just a quick personal note, so I'm not surprised I wasn't in the running. I did notice that some of my blogging friends, including Imago Dei and Letters from Babylon, got honorable mentions, though. Check out all the entries.

I was going to put up a post saying that blogging will be light today, but as none of the posts I scheduled for yesterday went up, if I can reschedule them for today, there should be plenty of posts--although nothing important, I'll admit. If it doesn't work, then you won't see this post anyway.

Anyway, the reason blogging was going to be light is because I went to the RMV right after work yesterday to convert my New York license to a Massachusetts one. Surprisingly, this only took 45 minutes (30 of which were waiting). Since I was out anyway, I ate at Friendly's, a place better known for its ice cream than its meals. It was good, but this means I didn't get home until 8 pm, and I've been trying to get to sleep by 10 pm so I can get into work at 8 am (while having enough time beforehand to do some blogging and webcomic reading). Even so, I usually haven't gotten to bed before 11 pm nor gotten to work before 8:30 am (it's okay, my hours are flexible enough that as long as my hours include 9 am - 4 pm, I'm good). Anyway, if I start by 7 I can do a bit of blogging before bed, but by starting at 8, or really, 8:30 by the time I get settled, there's just not that much time to blog. Besides, I was inspired to do some writing yesterday. I mean, really inspired, using spare pieces of paper while waiting at the RMV or for my meal to write out more of the next chapter of Eyes in the Shadow. Once I got home, I had to transcribe that to the computer, and hence didn't have much time to blog. So that's why there wasn't going to be much blogging today. Although, if the posts I scheduled for yesterday and rescheduled for today actually go up, there will be plenty of posts.

This is a test.

Update: The fact that this post went up means the post-scheduler is working again, so I think I'll just leave it up rather than write a new post informing you of that fact.

I've had a lot of traffic the last couple of days, over 200 yesterday. Sure, that's not much for the big-time bloggers, but I don't think I've ever had this much traffic in a single day except for my three -lanches (from the Corner, Instapundit, and Best of the Web). Some of that is due to the Storyblogging Carnival, but not all. In fact, the majority of it is due to people doing Internet seaches. One of the searches where I come up high in Google is "Ars Gratia Artis" (I'm #2 for the full phrase, and #1 for the abbreviated "Gratia Artis"). This is a Latin phrase meaning "Art for the Sake of Art," and also the motto of MGM Studios. I turn up because of this little writing experiment, so I felt compelled to add a tidbit at the beginning explaining what the phrase means. It makes me wish I had a better sample of my writing on that page.

The other search result that's bringing a lot of traffic is this post on the murder of a Coptic family in New Jersey. I'm surprised I'm so high on the web searches, but I seem to be turning up in a lot of them (by some curious coincidence involving my Storyblogging Carnival post I'm number one for the Google search of "Armanious tragedy"). I've added an update to the post in question with some more current news, since it's getting a lot of attention. And because I believe that this incident needs more attention.

For some reason, none of the posts I scheduled to go up today have appeared. I don't know why. Yes, some people may call this cheating, but I've been pretty open that I use post scheduling, and since I can't blog at work, it's the only way I can get some posts up during the day.

I'll try scheduling another post for tonight and seeing if it goes up. If not, then I'll at least know the problem is consistent. Sorry about that--usually the post scheduling works fine.

Update: Okay, it's definitely not working. For the record, I didn't lose any data: the posts were still there, they just hadn't gone up as scheduled. I e-mailed Chris at Powerblogs and he got back to me right away (within 15 minutes), and he's trying to fix it right now. Wow, that was quick! Thanks, Chris! And you bloggers out there, I'm serious, if you're looking for a new host, check out Powerblogs. It may seem an odd recommendation in a post complaining about a bug, but occasional quirk or no, you can't beat the customer service.

I don't usually update a post which is more than a day old. I prefer to write a new post, so that regular readers don't miss what I wrote. I made an exception with this post on the murder of a Coptic family in New Jersey, possibly by Islamists¹, since it's getting a bit of traffic through various websearches. However, I saved a bit for a new post. Here are two paragraphs which I didn't quote from the CNN article previously:

Grief and rage erupted Monday at the funeral for the slain family members, who were found bound and fatally stabbed in their home early Friday. Mourners fought in the street, with many blaming Muslims for the deaths.

As the coffins were carried through the streets to St. George & St. Shenouda Coptic Orthodox Church, one protester's sign, above a photograph of the smiling Armanious family read: "American Family Beheaded on American Soil. Welcome Bin Laden." Others declared: "Terrorists Reached Our Home" and "Bush: Crush Sleeper Cells."

I very much doubt this was connected to organized terrorism. (Although I also doubt it was just one person.) But I think that before you brush this reaction away as anti-Muslim bigotry, it's worthwhile to ask whether there is a significant part of the Muslim immigrant population in America that is unassimulated, that has a culture that is not only distinct from our common culture, but isolated, which doesn't believe in American ideals or laws. This is becoming a big problem in Europe, and it took some high profile murders to get the Netherlands to start thinking about it, and I still don't know whether the rest of Europe is taking this problem seriously. It's something we need to consider carefully here as well. The solution is not to ban immigration or round up immigrants, but some careful thought on the dangers of radical multiculturalism. Cultural diversity is fine, but cultural isolation is not, and we shouldn't be saying it is.

¹Bloggers use the term Islamist not as a synonym for Muslim, but as a way of saying Islamic fascist, those who believe that it is their duty to kill the infidels and the heretics.

You know, I'm as surprised as you (check the announcements at the bottom of the page). I thought that man was unstoppable, like a borg or something. Me, I get writer's block every now and then. Usually what I do is stop working for a day or two, relax, read a book. About that time inspiration will strike, but it won't be for what I was working on. Then I'll spend some time on the new project, and eventually find my way back to the old one. But I can afford a leisurely pace, as I don't have a daily webcomic with no buffer.

Jonah is sounding awfully optimistic these days:

Amid the media din about the tsunami, Dan Rather's implosion, and the usual grim news from Iraq, an amazing story has been unfolding — but has received scant appreciation from the chattering classes. Democracy is on the march.

The Ukraine election reversal is the most significant victory for democracy in Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Palestinians have held the first legitimate nationwide (so to speak) election in their history (Arafat's previous "election" was a sham). And while the new Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, leaves much to be desired, his fair victory is significant and momentous in its own right.

Meanwhile, Iraq is preparing for its first fair elections since before Saddam Hussein came to power. Those elections won't be perfect. Heck, they may even be a disaster (though I doubt they will). But they are finally going to happen — and that very fact is amazing.

Heck, he sounds almost polly-anna-ish. Who are you and what did you do with the real Jonah? Fortunately, Jonah does show a bit of his usual self a bit later:

Now, it's true I'm known to be something of a "one-and-a-half cheers for democracy" kind of guy. Then again, I've also been known to eat a brick of cheddar like it was an apple, so feel free to take that with a grain of salt. Anyway, it's not that I don't like democracy, it's just that I believe there are more important things than democracy.

I would rather live in an undemocratic country with constitutional rights, fair courts, and a government that upholds the rule of law than live in a democratic country without those things. I'd also rather live in a republic where democracy is tempered and cooled through deliberation and debate. After all, direct democracy is little more than the rule of the mob with ballots instead of torches.

I happen to agree with this. Democracy isn't innately the highest form of government or anything. It's the worst form of government aside from all the other ones. It works, which is good enough for me.

Mark Steyn takes a low view of extending the Geneva Convention to terrorists:

A third of a decade after 9/11, it's hard trying to maintain a war footing against a nebulous enemy. At the Senate confirmation hearings for the new attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, Democrats seem to have decided that the very concept of an "enemy" is dubious, cheerfully cranking up their sanctimonious preening for CNN and berating Judge Gonzales for declining to extend the Geneva Conventions to captured terrorists.

To be covered by Geneva, a combatant has to have (a) a commander who is responsible for his subordinates; (b) formal recognizable military insignia; (c) weapons that are carried openly, and (d) an adherence to the laws and customs of warfare.

Islamist terrorists meet none of these conditions, and extending the protection of the conventions to them would simply announce to the world that, from a legal point of view, there's no downside to embracing terror. Blow up a nightclub or a schoolhouse or a pizza parlor and you'll still get full POW status.

Ah-ha, say the Dems. But, if we don't treat our prisoners with respect, America's brave men and women in uniform will pay the price when they fall into enemy hands.

Hello? Does anyone in the Democratic Party still read the newspapers, other than the fawning editorials of the New York Times?

If an American falls into the hands of the enemy, he's going to be all over the Internet having his head hacked off for a recruitment video or dragged through the streets and strung up on a bridge in Fallujah.

The military historian Sir Max Hastings made the point last week that, in an age of overwhelming U.S. military supremacy, for her enemies asymmetric warfare -- i.e., terrorism -- is the only logical way to go. But the urge by the Democrats and the media to raise them to the level of lawful combatants only makes things even more asymmetric: They can decapitate us while screaming "Allahu Akbar!" and clean up on the DVD sales, while we're only supposed to ask name, rank and serial number, two of which they don't have and they're flexible on the first. The wish to gentrify the enemy and, by extension, their tactics will only result in more kidnappings and more decapitations.

I agree. Read the whole thing.

As usual, Victor Davis Hanson is worth reading:

Indeed, from the oscillating analyses of Iraq, the following impossible picture often emerges from our intelligentsia. It was a fatal error to disband the Iraqi army. That led to lawlessness and a loss of confidence in the American ability to restore immediate order after Saddam's fall. Yet it was also a fatal error to keep some Baathists in the newly constituted army. They were corrupt and wished reform to fail — witness the Fallujah Brigade that either betrayed us or aided the enemy. So we turned off the Sunnis by disbanding the army — and yet somehow turned off the Shiites by keeping some parts of it.

Massive construction projects were hogged by gargantuan American firms, ensconced in the Green Zone that did not engage either local Iraqi workers or small companies and thus squandered precious good will. Or, indigenous contractors proved irresponsible and unreliable, evidence for why Iraq was in such bad shape to begin with. And when we did put exclusive reliance on them, it ensured only lackadaisical and half-hearted reconstruction.
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There are many constants in all this pessimistic confusion — beside the fact that we are becoming a near hysterical society. First, our miraculous efforts in toppling the Taliban and Saddam have apparently made us forget war is always a litany of mistakes. No conflict is conducted according to either antebellum planning or can proceed with the benefit of hindsight. Iraq was not Yemen or Qatar, but rather the most wicked regime in the world, in the heart of the Arab world, full of oil, terrorists, and mass graves. There were no helpful neighbors to keep a lid on their own infiltrating jihadists. Instead we had to go into the heart of the caliphate, take out a mass murderer, restore civil society after 30 years of brutality, and ward off Sunni and Baathist fomenters in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria — all the while keeping out Iranian-Shiite agents bent on stopping democracy. The wonder is not that there is violence and gloom in Iraq, but that less than two years after Saddam was removed, elections are still on track.

Second, our very success creates ever increasing expectations of perfection for a postmodern America used to instant gratification. We now look back in awe at World War II, the model of military success, in which within four years an unprepared United States won two global wars, at sea, on the ground, and in the air, in three continents against Japan, Italy, and Germany, and supplied both England and the Soviet Union. But our forefathers experienced disaster after disaster in a tale of heartbreak, almost as inglorious as the Korean mess or Vietnam tragedy. And they did things to win we perhaps claim we would now not: Shoot German prisoners in the Bulge, firebomb Axis cities, drop the bomb — almost anything to stop fascists from slaughtering even more millions of innocents.
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And yet our greatest generation thought by and large they had done pretty well. We in contrast would have given up in despair in 1942, New York Times columnists and NPR pundits pontificating "I told you so" as if we were better off sitting out the war all along.
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All this we cannot see at the present as we in our weariness lament the losses of almost 1,100 combat dead and billions committed to people who appear from 30-second media streams to be singularly ungracious and not our sort of folk. We dwell on unmistakable lapses, never on amazing successes — just as we were consumed with Afghanistan in its dark moments, but now ignore its road to success. But never mind all this: The long-term prospects are still as bright as things seem gloomy in the short-term — but only if we emulate our grandfathers and press on with the third Middle East election in the last six months.

Many, many people have told me that Iraq has been harder than expected. That is wrong. The toppling of Saddam was much easier than expected, it is the post-toppling phase which is harder. It's not that we lost more people than we expected. Our estimates are always pessimistic, but we expected those losses to be front-loaded, not spread out over a year and a half as they were. A painful war that lasted only a few months would have been something the American public would have endured with little complaint, but we don't have much patience when it comes to the long haul. I wish we did.

After two weeks of living out of my suitcase, I finally got the rest of my stuff. Of course, it's still all in boxes, and it'll take me weeks to unpack it. I'm going to need to buy some shelves before I even begin to have places to put all of it. Still, I was able to find some dishes and pots and pans, enough to make myself an omelet for dinner. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the dishsoap, so it may be a few days before I can actually wash the dishes I used. Ugh, I hate moving! And no doubt I'll be moving again in a couple of years. If I get a permanent position at Lincoln Laboratory then, I'll probably to buy a house, and if I don't, I'll need to find another job.

Oh, and here's a picture of all the boxes:

There sure are a lot of them, ar