Bug's for Breakfast

She looked at the sections of newspaper. From her vantage point, each comic strip seemed the same, a few heads and some dialogue. The sports section wasn't much better, a photograph of someone in a uniform and a story, the same as every other day. And the business section, with a photograph of a guy in a suit, and a story, same as every other day, and not dissimilar to the sports section. The rest of the newspaper laid on the table, between the stacks of prepackaged food that had been heated up for breakfast. Those three sections were not important of their own accord, but they held her interest anyway. Behind each one, obscured by the picture and pretentious writing, was someone she knew.
Behind the one to her left, sports at the moment, was one of her daughters. Most likely the one who had mastered warming up prepared foods, such as this mornings breakfast. Behind the comics, to her right, was the other daughter, who had not yet mastered the fine culinary art of dropping things into hot water. She watched as the sports and comics sections changed sides without exposing the face of either daughter. Their own lives, like the papers they were perusing, were obscuring her two daughters from her, and her from her two daughters.
Her husband was another matter. It had been his idea to come to this colony, where they both stood a good chance for high-paying jobs at the energy plant. She had been hired by the plant, but he had been turned away, and found work in town, processing immigration requests. She wanted him to apply at the plant again, but he was happy where he was, and so he stayed.
They hadn't discussed moving again, which left her almost afraid to mention the rumors of a new colony on another continent. A new colony meant a new power plant, and more jobs. Most of the workers would be new colonists, fresh off of the ships, but she had an opportunity to go over as management. She didn't, however, wish to go alone.
She looked down at her breakfast. She wasn't sure what it was supposed to be, but she had found these meals quite tasty. She remembered when they first arrived, two little children in tow, and discovered that the only foods were the local varieties, poor in both taste and nutrition. She giggled slightly at the thought of trying to keep her children away from them now that they were served as sugar-coated treats. The paper across from her rustled, and she realized her husband had been trying to say something.
"Yes?" she inquired of him.
For a few seconds, there was no response, then his paper lowered to reveal that he wasn't there. She found herself staring into multifaceted eyes, occupying most of a large misshapen black head. She was awed momentarily by the beauty of the dining room light being refracted into rainbows by the thousands of lenses. And then she screamed.
It made a clicking noise, then stood up out of its chair, waiving four black arms around frantically. She cried out for he husband, hoping he would resolve the situation, then she realized her two children were in front of whatever it was. She lunged forward, across the table, and grabbed their papers. As she sat back into her chair, she pulled the papers away from them and onto her breakfast.
The younger daughter wasn't there. A smaller version of whatever was in her husbands place was in her seat. It looked at her and then at the larger one before scampering out of the chair and into the hallway. The other daughter was there, and responded to the loss of reading material with a startled gasp before passing out and slumping to the floor.
The large bug moved around the table to the unconscious daughter and grabbed her shoulders. The woman didn't know what it intended to do with her or her daughter, or even what had happened to her other daughter, but she wanted to fight it. She grabbed a fork and tried to stab it, but it's skin was too tough. She dropped the fork and ran to the kitchen. In a drawer in the kitchen was a cutlery set, unused in this household of prepared foods. She found it quickly and grabbed the largest of the knives.
She could hear a scraping noise from the dining room, and returned through the open doorway. The bug was dragging her daughter towards the hallway. Without hesitating, she climbed the wall behind her, ran across the ceiling, and plunged the knife into the creature's back. She kept stabbing until it stopped moving. She left the knife embedded in the creature, and pulled her daughter away from the pool of light-green fluid that was forming around it's body.
She put her daughter on the table, and sat back down in her chair. She looked at the creature's body as it continued to ooze fluids onto her floor. She had neither seen nor heard of any such creatures. She wondered if her other daughter and husband were okay or not, and then she cried for a few minutes.
She had regained her composure before her daughter woke up. She could hear groaning from the table as she walked down the hallway towards the apartment's foyer. The door was open, which meant that someone had gone out, and she went into the outside hallway to see who was there. In the hallway, a neighbor was standing, repeatedly stabbing a small shovel into what was the face of the smaller creature.
She tried to inquire as to his condition, but only managed to produce clicking noises. His attention drawn, he turned and charged at her with the shovel. She moved, almost bouncing, from the floor to one wall, to the ceiling, and then the other wall. As he spun around in the hallway, she slammed into him from behind with the full weight of her body. He crumpled to the floor, with her on his back. She could hear him screaming for help as her mandibles sliced through his neck.

High Minded Gibberish

It can be found here. Online debates/arguments/discussions are really nothing more than elaborate 'he said/she said' arguments. Someone who's taken basic philosophy can question anything in a manner that has a superficial substantiality to it. Lawyers specialize in this sort of nonsense.

If someone wants to agree with you, they will. If they don't, they won't. Even citing original sources won't convince someone that you're right if they don't want to believe it. If they do, then you're just preaching to the choir. The only time you'll make a difference is if someone hasn't already made up their mind, or has seen something somewhere else that is making them question their beliefs.

The support of the Kelo land seizure decision by Daily Kos was met with a lot of skepticism by regulars there, which means that many of them will be forced into question their and Kos' views of government involvement in economic development, property ownership, etc. For those who think it's a tool for WalMart, they'll have to change either their opposition to WalMart, or their opposition to private property rights in general. If a business can't own land to operate on, how can a poor person own land to live on? Views on one relate to views on the other, and this conflict will create a search for answers, which in turn engenders more openmindedness than a thousand diatribes on ideological tolerance.

An online argument, polite or not, means nothing if the reader doesn't want it to. Calling someone an assmuncher doesn't have an impact on your evidence or logic, and neither does saying you respectfully disagree. The horse can be led to water, but whether to drink or not is a decision only it can make.

Goe, distracted.

Judicial Conflict

The United States Supreme Court ruled that police departments don't have an obligation to protect people, even against known threats. The California Supreme Court ruled that business owners have an obligation to protect anyone in their parking lot.

If your life is in danger, you should move to California and live on a parking lot.

Goe, lives too near california.

Carrottop Attacked, Eaten by Eddie Rabbitt

Congress is considering a law to prevent seizures of private land for 'economic development' by ... Congress. It's also supposed to forbid state and local agencies from seizing public land for 'economic development' with federal money, something easily sidestepped with a little creative accounting. This law won't pass because for it to pass, a federal agency, the Economic Development Administration, would have to be gutted. Most congressmen would rather remove their own livers than jeapordize the job security of civil servants.

Most of them probably don't know it exists yet, but they will...

Goe, bothered that only lawyers can be judges.

City Hall

You can't fight it, and with fire trucks running into it, you can't burn it down either.

Goe, saw something frightening.

party problems

But even so, there seems to be a lot of angry talk on the Right that hints at blocking a choice with which some on the Right will be unhappy. That is political and ideological suicide. It will finish off this presidency and splinter the GOP before 2006 (and more importantly, 2008)

from the corner.

Bush pretty much set this in motion with his constant advocacy of big government and unrestricted immigration. NR actually had a cover story on the probability of the party breaking up over Bush's immigration policy. This is a big difference though between the left and the right. The left spends a lot more time making sure that it's members are singing the same tune. It's more of an ad hoc assemblage of conflicting interests than the republican party, but you wouldn't know it from reading the news.

Goe, busy.

content padding

By now, you've probably heard about this plan to seize a justice's land for a hotel. I would like to point out that the 'justice' in such an action is far more poetic than it first appears. The first section of the 14th Amendment was added to our constitution to force states to comply with rights in the bill of rights (which they were not previously bound to respect), a specific example given by it's authors was to prevent state legislatures from using eminent domain seizures as a form of punishment or to effect discrimination.

Courts have claimed ever since that the authors didn't really mean it. The impact back then was the establishment of Jim Crow laws, the impact today is Kelo and this. By accepting their predecessors claims that states can abridge rights whenever they really want, the justices have opened themselves up to the punishment their predecessors refused to protect others from.

Goe, can't sleep.

War News

(NOTE: When I say "early stages," I mean that this Terror War is likely to last as long, if not longer, than the Cold War. If the Cold War began in 1948 and the Terror War began in 2001, then today we're only up to the equivalent of 1951. By that measure, we're doing much better at this early stage than we were doing back then.

from Vodkapundit.

In 1951, we were holding the godless communist hordes back in Korea, we had nukes and our enemies didn't (although they were close), our enemies had been hurt a lot more by the Second World War than we had, and we'd already lost eastern europe.

Now, we're holding the islamic militants back in Iraq, we've got nukes and our enemies don't (although they're close), our enemies have been mildly hurt, and we've already lost western europe.

In 1981, we'd lost most of Latin America, Asia, and Africa, the countries that were still on our side were either tyrants who needed our help to prevent a revolt, countries losing to communist rebels, or european allies eager for an excuse to switch sides.

Our three biggest victories during the cold war were the berlin airlift, the korean war, and Ronald Reagan. Two came near the start, the third only after our enemies had killed 60-70 million people, with three decades of setbacks in between. Where will we be in 30 years?

It may be an apt comparison, but it's certainly not a pleasant one.

Goe, should actually try to get some sleep.

hmm

this seems to work. ugly as hell though. maybe i should try livejournal with the silly icons n stuff. least i can say what i want without being silenced by people too lazy to do their own research.

Goe, mulling.

Bored

So bored...

I noticed that Speilberg is making another remake, this time of The Sword of Gideon. It's following his War of the Worlds remake, and two remakes in a row is a little odd for a director who owns his own studio.

Goe, saying meh.