January 2004 Archives

... by me.

As the union gets more desperate, the strikers are getting more obnoxious. Last night when I went to the grocery store I had to almost push my way through a small crowd of chanting sign-wavers. I've generally got no problem with people who want to strike, but these guys were going way over the line and making life miserable for everyone around them in a public area.

That's not what really set me off, though.

When I was leaving, some of the strikers were yelling at me and calling me a traitor and so forth (what group do they assume I owe allegiance to?), and I stopped walking and calmly told them that I really do appreciate what they're doing. "I've never seen the lines inside so short before; you're really making my life easier."

That didn't make them happy, and one girl came forward to yell something else at me, but I couldn't hear what she was saying because her shirt spoke more loudly than any scream:

10/11/03 Never forget

... the date the strike started. I almost socked her in the face. How utterly repulsive to equate their stupid strike over paying $5 a week for medical insurance with terrorist attacks that killed over 3,000 people.

What else can I say about it? I'll go back and try to get a picture of someone on the shirts, if I can find more.

Update:
Xrlq encounters a similar (or possibly the same) shirt in Rancho Santa Margarita. I just know if I can get a picture of the shirt I can get a mention on Instapundit... grrr... I've gotta beat him to it!

(More Mithlond.)
(Continued from part 1.)

The pair led me to their bathroom and pointed out Matthew's toiletries. I collected his toothbrush and a few hairs from a comb with the tissue kit, and I heard the students whispering behind me. "What?"

They stopped and Kramer rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. Polder said, "I dunno. His stomach pills aren't on the shelf there. Maybe he took them with him though, who knows."

"Did he normally?" I asked. Both shrugged. "Where was he last night?"

Kramer said, "He went out, prob'ly to Whistler's, with Stephie."

"His girlfriend," Polder injected.

"We were studying all night though. He never came back," Kramer finished.

"Stephie?"

"Stephanie Waller. Astrophysics," Polder supplied.

After resealing the tissue kit I thanked the boys and left, admonishing them to let me know if they thought of anything else.

Back in the corridor, I sent the kit to Dr. Phineas via crobot along with a note asking him to compare the samples and let me know if they matched. I'd started out thinking it a mere formality, but now I was pretty sure the result would come back negative. If Conway had managed to wound his killer, Phineas might be able to point me toward recent patients, but given confidentiality rules I'd have to get that information under the table, not via courier.

Ninety percent of the Grey Haven's residents worked for the Terran Space Authority, and the other ten percent were called IOs, independent operators, pronounced like the moon (and the lover of Zeus who was turned into a cow -- isn't Tolkien mythology much less bizarre?). Even the IOs worked for the TSA indirectly by providing services to it or its employees; in an economy as small and remote as the Rock's, everyone was interconnected. Plus, the ship was wholly dependent on shipments of food from earth, and those all passed through the Whit's hands.

Whistler is an IO who runs a tavern that caters to the Observatory geeks and some of the younger folks from the Port. Unsurprisingly, Whistler's is located between the two locales and near airlock seventeen, the scene of the crime. If Conway was there last night before his death someone must have seen him, so that's where I went.

It was still a bit early in the afternoon but the place was open, although barely. I'd been in a few times before out of curiosity, but now none of the three buxom waitresses who normally circulated through the crowd were on duty and Whistler was handling the bar himself. The lights were low but so was the music, and there were only a few scattered clusters of customers in the booths against the far wall. In between the bar and the booths is a stage, empty then, and a couple of platforms for dancers I'd never seen used. Whistler noticed me as soon as I came in and waved me over.

"Hey Chief, figured I'd be seeing you soon. What'll it be?" Whistler is a good bit older than I am, with a shaved head just to spite his baldness, and he didn't make any effort towards the fashion of the youth he catered to. I sat down on the stool in front of him and the tall, thin man loomed above me from behind the bar.

"Too early for me," I said. "Besides, as they say, I'm on duty."

"Here about the kid who vacced himself, right boss?" he asked, leaning forward and lowering his voice completely unnecessarily considering the noise and the scarcity of nearby patrons. I nodded. "Well he was here, but you know that or you wouldn't be."

"Regular?" I asked.

Whistler nodded. "One of my best. Maybe too good, if you know what I mean. But who'm I to judge?"

"Alone?"

"Not at first. He must've been hittin' it harder than usual though. He got in a fight with his girl and she ran off. Seen it a thousand times."

"Then what?"

Whistler shrugged. "He was hanging out with some other kids I didn't recognize -- from the Perseus? I didn't see him leave."

"Have you got receipts?"

"Sure do, Chief." One for Matthew Conway, and one for a Harris Simon, Perseus. "Huh, I guess he wasn't drinking that much after all."

Next stop: Stephanie Waller. I thought she might be in her quarters, given the circumstances, but when I didn't get an answer I went to her laboratory. Rather than let me in -- and risk having me disturb her computers, as if I didn't have a Ph.D. of my own already -- she pushed me back out into the corridor and spoke to me there. I could see she'd been crying, and her pretty face was flushed and her eyes were red. She shoved it all aside mentally and spoke before I did, very matter-of-factly.

"I didn't think he'd really do it. If I did, I would've done something."

"You know who I am, right?" I asked, and she nodded. "Tell me whatever you can about the last night."

She stared past me at the corridor wall. "When we left the Fishbowl everything seemed fine. We got some dinner and went to Whistler's for some dancing, you know, whatever." The Fishbowl was what the students had taken to calling the Observatory, after the nickname of its illustrious leader. "He started drinking though and just kept on going. I'd never seen him get like that before. He was complaining about the Fish and the data they'd collected from the Oromë, just normal stuff, but he seemed crazy last night. I tried to calm him down."

Waller started crying but didn't bother wiping the tears away. She was still staring off into space and I didn't say anything, waiting for her to continue. "I tried to calm him down, but he didn't want to listen. He said I didn't understand, but who could understand him better than me? I've worked for the Fish as long as he has, I know what it's like. But he didn't want to hear it. He said he was done with it all, done wasting time. He said he was going to kill himself. I didn't believe him, and I left. I mean, come on, I didn't think he'd do it. He was drunk!"

I let her gather herself together for a few moments and then asked, "How long were you together?"

She sniffled. "Three years. Since he got here, I guess."

"Is there anything else you can tell me?"

Waller shook her head and wiped her face on her sleeve. If she had been wearing any makeup that morning it was long gone. "What else is there to say? What else do you want to know? That's it. I don't know. That's all there is."

And it all made sense. I thanked her for her help. "Can you come by the Port office this evening at six? I may need your help identifying some of the men from Whistler's last night." She nodded and I took my leave.

I stopped at the hospital and pulled Dr. Phineas from an exam for a quick palaver. "The tissues don't match, do they?"

"Certainly not. The blood belongs to a man of Asian extraction, and Conway was Caucasian." He lowered his voice and continued, "There weren't any patients with blade wounds today. Not that I see many, mind you."

From there I hurried to the Port to talk with Mister. He let me into his office and sat me down.

"What is it, Bill? What's going on?" he asked, anxious for an answer.

"I need the entry logs from last night. Who came over from the Perseus with a guy named Harris Simon?"

With no more than a curious glance he pulled up the records and printed them off. I scanned through them quickly. "Get the Whit and the Fish over here," I told Mister. "They're gonna want to see this."

By six o'clock everyone had gathered in Mister's office. Waller was the last to arrive, and the others were impatient at being kept waiting. Rather than making explanations -- and eager for a dramatic conclusion -- I didn't tell them anything more than that we were going over to the Perseus to visit Alan Chen.

The Perseus and the Mithlond were mated by a magnetically sealed corridor wide enough for a small parade. It had to be large enough to allow cargo loading under pressure, and it was always fairly busy. Most of the traffic consisted of goods moving from us to them, and passengers from the Perseus going back and forth. The guards at the other ship's airlock weren't too keen on letting us pass without badges until Mister threatened to cut their ship loose into space. They let us by, but not before summoning the captain to escort us.

He introduced himself to me as Captain Jalloman, and he didn't give me a first name. He was skeptical at first, but he'd spent enough time with Mister and the Whit that he was willing to take us to Alan Chen's stateroom without much coercion.

The six of us nearly filled the cramped hallway outside the metal door of room 11187-D, and Captain Jalloman knocked on it firmly, like a man in his own home. "Open up there, Chen. There's some men here to see you." Within a few seconds the door slid open and revealed a slightly disheveled Asian man halfway through the process of undressing.

"Yes sir?" he said, apparently surprised to see his captain standing in his hallway.

"Well?" Captain Jalloman asked, turning to me.

I was taken aback.

The Fish spoke up first. "This man isn't injured," he said flatly, reaching for his pipe before stopping himself. Chen looked back and forth between them all before grabbing a discarded shirt from a nearby chair and pulling it over his head. "You think he killed Matthew?"

"I didn't kill anyone!" Chen said immediately, and I pushed closer.

"I know you didn't. Sorry for the trouble. Was there another Asian man who went with you last night to Whistler's bar?"

"Yeah, Mark. Rodine. What's this about? I haven't even seen him today."

"I'll bet you haven't," I said. "Where's his stateroom?"

"Right down the hall. M."

I thanked him and hurried down the hall toward door M. The others trailed behind me, and I could sense their growing irritation. I hoped the prize would be behind door number two.

Without waiting for the captain to do the honors I rapped on the metal, but there was no response. "Captain? Can you open it?"

He grunted and wordlessly punched a code into the keypad beside the door, which then wooshed open. The room was small, and from the doorway we could see all of it. A figure lay huddled under the blanket on the narrow cot. When the door opened he slowly peeked out.

"Matt!"" Waller screamed and tried to push her way into the room. I grabbed her arm.

"Stay back, Stephanie. He's the killer."

She struggled against me. "What are you talking about?"

Conway cringed on the bed, and I turned to see the faces of my other companions before explaining. "It's simple, really. He fooled you Stephanie. He wasn't drunk last night, and he never planned to kill himself. He may be depressed and frustrated, but his escape wasn't death. He wanted to go to the stars.

"He set you up to think he killed himself, but his roommates were ready to believe it was foul play. They didn't think he'd commit suicide, and neither did you, really. It was all an act.

"After you left Whistler's he hooked up with Simon, Chen, Mark Rodine, and the rest of their group. Maybe he planned on murder from the outset, or maybe he only planned on getting some help stowing-away, but either way he ended up luring Mark Rodine into airlock seventeen, stabbed him, and evacuated him into space -- all while remembering to bring along his heartburn medication."

I turned to Conway who was still sitting on the bed, now shaking his head. "The airlock was the perfect place for a murder. It's almost soundproof. After you killed Mr. Rodine you stuffed him into your spacesuit in the heat of the moment, but then you realized he'd be easy to find if you left him with the helmet beacon. You vacced his body and then went back in and wedged your helmet between some pipes.

"The rest is trivial. You used his badge to sneak back onto the Perseus and hide away here. The guards stopped us, but I doubt they look that closely at confident people with proper badges. But then what? How long did you expect to fool people? Eventually his friends would have noticed Mr. Rodine missing."

Conway just shook his head. "I'd've disappeared into the ship by then," he said. "It's only a few years. A few years to a whole new world."

I turned away. "Well Captain? I'm sure you won't mind if I take him into custody. Mr. Conway will be traveling to some interesting places, but I don't think any of them will be very pleasant."

I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but civilization is officially over.

Everyone knows that the only reason men do anything is because they think it'll get them some attention from women (no one knows why women do anything). All of civilization is was built by men trying to get the best women to have sex with them. The advance of civilization was really just an incidental byproduct of the fact that sex generally involved eventually having kids, because for whatever reason the women threatened to quit having sex otherwise.

Get with the times, that's so 20th century!

For a while, liberated women seemed to be the up-and-coming social fashion -- they wanted to have sex, but you know, maybe the babies could wait a while. This was a new twist, but they still ended up having kids because that's just what happens. Thus, civilization endured for a while longer.

Now, women apparently don't even want to have sex, they just want our money. We always suspected this was the case, but in the past men bravely held out for sex before handing the money over. No more. Thanks to the internet -- and the total depravity of women -- I give you the imaginary girlfriend.

Some are hot, some are uh... otherwise, but who can really tell? That's the beauty of the internet! Both those listings could be for the same person (or company)! An entrepreneurial woman could have dozens of imaginary boyfriends.

And what does a man get for his $220.00?

This auction includes:

- Me sending you a one page letter, scented with my favorite perfume, once a week. YOU get to choose the details of the letter! ie: Sexy, Hot, Kinky, Sweet and Innocent, etc etc..

- I will also be sending you a sweet card on Valentine's Day! Also scented with perfume!

- If you buy me now for the Buy It now price you will get six, 1 hour webcam sessions on Yahoo, with light cyber and mild 'flashing' ;) This is for Buy It Now ONLY!

- Talking on AIM every other night. This will most likely be discussed since schedules may clash. Plus you will get photos emailed to you.

- You will receive 6 voicemail messages from me. ;) You just need to let me know when to call. NO LIVE PHONE CHATS. You also get to decide the details you want me to say in these messages!

- A real photo to hold and show off.

- You choice of 2 sexy thongs or bras scented with my perfume.<3

Terms and Conditions

- This in NO WAY makes me your real girlfriend.

- After the 60 days all communications are broken, no more chatting, e-mails, letters or phone calls..etc, etc. In other words no we can't be friends after this. Sorry. <3

- After 60 days, IF the buyer wants another 30, 60, days ie: letters, chatting etc. Price can be discussed over e-mail. Just let me know! ;)

- The winning bidder must tell the specifics of the relationship: ie: how we met, where, etc.

- The 60 days begins when I receive payment, I will email you after the auction has ended.

Actually, this sounds like some real girlfriends I've uh, known of. Anyway, the point is that this is just the tip of the iceberg. We all saw how liberation spread, and it's only a matter of time before women catch on to this new relationship paradigm.

Collect your things, because this crazy train called life is pulling into the last station.

(HT: BoingBoing.)

My brother sent me an article about this year's World Economic Forum, and here are some quotes from some attendees that interest me.

"I do not see much hope in the political domain, but a lot of hope in the technological domain," said [former Israeli Prime Minister] Shimon Peres....

This seems to be a common meme, but it's entirely baseless. Technology itself is a tool, and politics will always determine how that tool is wielded. No matter how advanced your hammer, if your building plans are flawed your house will turn our poorly. Likewise, technology alone does nothing to guarantee the future prosperity of mankind. Only those who worship technology as a religion can think otherwise.

Peres was one of many speakers who made the very Davosian point that in a world of six billion people, 80 percent of the economic activity is coming from a mere one billion, while another billion lives on less than $1 a day.

That's a meaningless statistic. There certainly are desperately poor people in the world, but $1 can buy a lot more in Zimbabwe than it can in America.

And there was energetic interest among many in Davos about using technology to improve the lot of the poor.

The thing holding poor nations down isn't a lack of technology, it's a lack of democratic institutions. As I said above, technology won't save people if they're still oppressed by politics. Actually, there is one technological advance that could be of assistance: guns. Give every person in the world an M16 and a thousand rounds and I bet things would change pretty quick.

Giving poor nations money and technology is like giving them fish, whereas giving them a democratic government is like teaching them to fish.

Another prediction: "Life expectancy will go to 150 in the next half-century."

I think that's conservative. We'll see.

There is some attention paid to the political aspect of technology, but unsurprisingly it takes the wrong tack.

Scary though it sounds, over time we will have a hard time keeping the most powerful weapons and tools out of the hands of anyone. We have to somehow create a world where that is not a threat. ...

Microsoft chief Bill Gates spoke privately to the press late Friday night, and he was full of notable thoughts that were generally as optimistic as those of Peres. ...

He also made a statement of the kind one doesn't hear often enough from global leaders: "If you ask what's the greatest divide in terms of rights and equities," he said, "it's national borders. That doesn't seem to bother people as much as I think it will."

The reason we need national borders seems blatantly obvious to me, but let me explain anyway. Despite Mr. Gate's praise for the "breakthtaking" economic situation in China ("it's capitalism at full speed"), that nation is still a Communist dictatorship, and its people are still horribly repressed. As long as the Communists want to maintain power (i.e., forever) they're never going to open their borders or allow truly free trade. Likewise, America can't afford to open its borders because the oppression in the rest of the world keeps most people poor and uneducated and unable to contribute to our modern society except as manual labor (and thugs). Until there's economic and political similarity -- even if not equality -- opening borders would be suicide.

What Gates and many at Davos realize is that it's not only charity to help the world's poor improve their lot. It's an issue of security. As Peres put it at breakfast, "Terror is the war of poor people, and suicide bombs are the weapons of poor people."

Absurd. Terror is the war of Islamic fascists. The September 11th hijackers all came from wealthy families. Most Palestinian bombers are poor, but then almost everyone in Palestine is poor because of Arafat and his cronies. Further, there are plenty of poor people in the world who don't go around committing terrorism. Basically, the only terrorists are Islamic fascists. (Some people will then point out the Irish Republican Army, but they seem to have quit, and they aren't poor; name another non-Islamofascist terrorist group.)

And then the World Economic Forum turned to more serious issues, like fighting spam.

Can anyone tell me what's special about this February 2nd? Here's a hint: it was even more special four years ago.

How many numbers with more than one digit can be pronounced with one syllable?

Am I the only one who sees this as a bad trade?

The bodies of three Israeli soldiers, kidnapped in an ambush by Hizballah in October 2000, and a (living) Israeli businessman were exchanged for 435 "security prisoners" -- about 400 of them Palestinians who will return to the West Bank. In addition, Israel was handing over the bodies of 59 Lebanese fighters to Lebanon as part of the deal.

It's obviously sad that this businessman was captured, and it would be terrible for him to be killed, but how many deaths will be brought about be releasing these four hundred prisoners who are likely to return to lives of terrorism in the West Bank? It's hard for me to believe this type of trade is popular among Israelis. It boggles the mind.

It looks like the grocery workers' strike is ending with a wimper instead of a bang.

The grocery workers say they can't make ends meet on $20 to $25 a day in strike pay. That's an 84% drop in income since the work stoppage started. Some union members have crossed picket lines and returned to their own jobs. Others have taken part time or full time work elsewhere.

One checker says that their strike pay was slashed in half after Christmas. Many lost their health benefits at the start of the new year. Those two developments forced people to give up and move on with their lives.

We may hear more about this story when the union and the stores reach an official agreement, but the strike's really been over for weeks.

(More Mithlond.)

Just like anywhere else, on Mithlond the people with money are the people with power. Since the Rock is a bureaucratic dictatorship, however, the people with money may not be the people you expect. As in any bureaucracy, real power derives from one thing: Spending Authority.

In theory, Dr. Andrew Whittier's word is law on the Rock and for a billion miles in every direction -- subject to review by his dirtside superiors, of course -- but in practice there are three power centers on Mithlond. The Whit controls the vast majority of the money and resources sent up by the Terran Space Authority, but he has very little discretionary control over its use. He's responsible for maintaining all the major functions needed to support five thousand people 100 AUs from home, and most of his budget goes towards those fixed costs. The Whit's a brilliant administrator and manages to slush some funds around to use as leverage, but he's often bound to use his power at the direction of the TSA.

The other two note-worthies are Professor Gerald Bose -- a.k.a. the Fish -- who runs the Observatory, and Micas Reedy who's in charge of the Port. Everyone calls Reedy "Mister" because he signs everything with his initials, MR, and also because he's one of the few residents who doesn't have a Ph.D. in something or other (which he seems to be quite proud of). Both the Observatory and the Port are funded separately from the Rock itself, and Bose and Reedy tend to have more discretion over their funds than the Whit does, which makes them forces to be reckoned with. They each administer the day-to-day operations of their facilities and theoretically fall under the Whit's authority on external matters, but because of their Spending Authority they have a lot of pull when they take an interest. These three together form a sort of quasi-official administrative council, and ninety percent of the Rock's residents work for one of them. The other ten percent, the independent operators, generally work for them too, even if indirectly.

So this morning when I was summoned to meet with them I knew something was up. We have a ship in, the Perseus, and I'd been pretty busy dealing with the transients; I figured if serious law enforcement were ever going to be necessary, it'd be when a starship was passing through. Most of the starships these days had populations at least as large as ours, and the voyagers all wanted to get out and stretch their legs one last time before embarking on their one-way trip into the Unknown. Good for business, but bad for headaches.

I met the three in the Whit's stark office, and they all looked grim. "Bill, sit down," Dr. Whittier said.

"What is it?" I asked, sitting across the desk from my boss and slightly apart from the other two.

"I'll let Gerry tell you."

The Fish cleared his throat and took off his thick glasses, polishing them with a handkerchief and peering into the corner of the room while he spoke. "It's simple, really," he said with the air of one who'd repeated a story several times already. "Matthew Conway, one of my students, killed himself sometime this morning in airlock seventeen. His spacesuit is missing, so I can only assume he was wearing it, possibly because he was wavering over his decision. In any event, when he pressed the emergency evacuation switch he decompressed and was flung out into space. His helmet was found still in the lock, so we cannot track his body." All our spacesuites have tracking beacons in their helmets.

Mister cleared his throat and pushed himself into the discussion. "The lock was covered in blood, Bill. I've seen men vacced before, and there isn't that much blood." The Fish shrugged.

I considered for a moment. "What's more," I said, "if Conway vacced himself, any blood would've frozen in the decompressing air and would've been flung into space with the body."

The Fish couldn't argue with that, and asked, "What then? Do you think Matthew was murdered?"

"Did you work with him closely? Did you see any signs that he might be suicidal?" I asked.

The Fish twitched reflexively and reached for the pipe in his coat pocket before he checked himself. There's no smoking on the Rock. "He was helping me with some observations just sent in from the Oromë. He had seemed rather glum about his work recently; it's certainly possible. We've had suicides before, but never a murder."

The Whit cut off the discussion. "Ok, I'll leave this to you then, Bill. Let me know what you find out. I certainly hope there's no more here than meets the eye."

Taking that as my cue to leave, I stood up. "I'll need to ask you a few more questions Professor Bose, after I check out the scene and speak to Conway's roommates."

It all felt wrong somehow, and as I left I locked eyes with Mister and he passed me a glance that told me he saw it too; I was glad I wasn't the only one. The Fish was acting strangely, but I couldn't believe he was caught up in the murder of one of his students. Then again, he had already made tremendous sacrifices for his work, leaving his family behind on earth to head up the Observatory and dooming himself by low gravity acclimation to never return home. He might kill for hsi work. Many of the scientists here might.

My first stop was at the hospital to see Dr. Hap Phineas, the Mithlond's chief medical officer. He'd been in space his whole career, and if there was anyone who knew about vacuum deaths it was he. I caught him in his records room examining x-rays and he spared me a few moments, taking an instant interest in the case.

"'Explosive decompression', ha!" he said. "There would certainly be some bleeding, yes, if this fellow was decompressed quickly enough, but every spacer knows not to try to hold his breath in the event of vacuum exposure. Even if he was trying to kill himself, that would be an extraordinarily painful way to do it.

"Decompression injuries are rare enough that few people have seen them, but common enough that everyone's heard about them, and the stories tend to be embellished," he continued. "If the victim was wearing a pressure suit, except for the helmet, there may have been bleeding from the ears, eyes, and mouth, but it wouldn't have been immediately significant. Most people can survive vacuum exposure, for over a minute in many cases."

I said, "And the blood would have been evacuated immediately when the air escaped."

"Assuming the depressurization was the cause of the bleeding, of course," he confirmed. "If there's blood in the lock, it was there before evacuation."

I thanked him for confirming my suspicions, and asked him for a tissue collection kit before I left.

Airlock seventeen was cordoned off when I arrived, but there wasn't anyone in sight. I was sure news had gotten around by now, but I guess no one had any particular inclination to see the grisly scene itself. I pulled the yellow "Terran Space Authority Secure Area" seal from the wheel and cycled the inner door of the lock. It opened with a smooth hiss.

Matthew Conway's helmet was wedged between an air pump pipe and the right wall, which is why it wasn't sucked into space, and splatters of blood lay pooled on the floor and splashed across the left wall. The emergency evacuation panel glass was broken, and two red lights flashed alternately, warning that the lock could be opened to hard vacuum with the press of the large red button. Even in an emergency the button wouldn't operate with the inner door open -- not without an access code, anyway -- but the lights still set me on edge. No spacer likes to be quite that close to the void, and I wished I'd brought my own pressure suit.

There wasn't much else to see, so I scraped up some of the dried blood, sealed the tissue kit, and left. I put the security seal back in place, just in case there was a reason to come back.

I wanted to know whom the blood in the airlock belonged to. If it didn't come from decompression, then someone shed it before evacuation, which meant it might belong to the killer. First I had to make sure it didn't belong to Conway; I wanted to talk to his roommates anyway, so I went to his quarters in the Observatory.

Mithlond is a vast complex, mostly empty corridors and unallocated space. It was built to house fifty thousand people or more, and the current residents didn't use more than a fifth of its total volume. It was cheaper and easier to build it all in the Belt before sending the Rock out to the edge of the heliosphere than to add on once it was here, so it was very spacious compared to just about any other space craft. Many of the unused sectors were sealed and unpowered, so it could take a while to walk from end to end. The TSA administrative offices were sunside, the Observatory was on the opposite end of the Rock, spaceside, and the Port was on the skin in between. The middle was mostly empty, except for a few recluses trying for as much privacy as could be found in such an intimate setting. Most of the Observatory geeks lived near their work, but airlock seventeen wasn't close to a residential section -- it sat between the Port and the Observatory -- so I had a bit of a ways to walk.

Conway's roommates were young, which shouldn't have surprised me since Conway himself was a student. They were both torn up over his death and offered to help me however they could. Their quarters were spartan, and every flat surface held a computer or instrument of some sort, all happily plugging away, oblivious to their operator's death.

"Did Conway seem suicidal to you? Depressed?" I asked them, and they both shook their heads.

Feldon Kramer answered, "No, no. Harried, anxious, nervous, frustrated maybe, but Matt wouldn't've killed himself. He was almost done with his dissertation, another few months."

"What was he planning to do after he finished?" I asked.

The other roommate, Anston Polder, said, "Go back to Mars, I suppose. Once his work here was completed he would've had to leave. I'm not sure he wanted to go back, he loved it out here, but I know he wanted to finish his work."

"How did he get along with Professor Bose?"

Kramer shrugged. "As well as anyone, I suppose. The Fish isn't the easiest person to work for, but he's brilliant, and he never wastes a good mind. That's what he tells us all the time, even when he's working us to the bone. 'I am not going to waste your mind', he says."

"If Conway wanted to stay on the Rock, wouldn't Bose have kept him?" I asked.

Kramer shrugged again, and Polder looked at him hesitantly before saying, "I think he asked him, but the Fish said no. He doesn't hire his own students. He thinks it's 'incestuous'. He always hires from outside, and he told Matt to look elsewhere and then apply back in a few years."

"How did he take it?" I asked.

Polder said, "I dunno. It's the same answer everyone else gets. Myself, I can't wait to get outta here. A few more years, though."

"Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to kill Matthew?" I asked, and their eyes widened.

"Do you think he was killed?" Kramer asked flatly, as if this were a new consideration for him. Polder watched me closely when I answered.

"I'm just trying to look at every angle. This is the first death I've investigated, you know. Did Conway have any enemies you can think of?" They both shook their heads, but I could tell they were thinking it over more deeply now. "If you think of anything else, let me know. Meanwhile, I need a sample of his DNA. Where's his toothbrush?"

That's when things started getting interesting.

(Continued in part 2.)

What does it mean to be poor in America? Who are all these people the leftists (and GWB) want to help by forcibly taking my money? According to a report by the conservative Heritage Foundation called "Understanding Poverty in America", most poor Americans are pretty well off.

If poverty means lacking nutritious food, adequate warm housing, and clothing for a family, relatively few of the 35 million people identified as being “in poverty” by the Census Bureau could be characterized as poor. While material hardship does exist in the United States, it is quite restricted in scope and severity.

The average “poor” person, as defined by the government, has a living standard far higher than the public imagines. The following are facts about persons defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:

- Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or
patio.
- Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
- Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
- The typical poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to
those classified as poor.)
- Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.
- Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
- Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
- Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.

Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a
microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home
is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry, and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family’s
essential needs. While this individual’s life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, liberal activists,
and politicians.

There's another 18 pages, so go take a look.

There certainly are real poor people in America, but I think the government has shown time and again that it isn't philosophically equipped to deal with the problem. Rather than focus with tight efficiency on those who are truly in need, the government simply throws handfuls of other people's money into the void. If more people were aware of the condition of our nation's "poor" -- and if they were allowed to give voluntarily rather than by forcible taxation -- I think the definition of poverty would quickly change to something more realistic.

How about this:

The good news is that the poverty that does exist in the United States can readily be reduced, particularly among children. There are two main reasons that American children are poor: Their parents don’t work much, and their fathers are absent from the home.

In both good and bad economic environments, the typical American poor family with children is supported by only 800 hours of work during a year—the equivalent of 16 hours of work per week. If work in each family were raised to 2,000 hours per year—the equivalent of one adult working 40 hours per week throughout the year—nearly 75 percent of poor children would be lifted out of official poverty.

Get a job, you lazy bums! It's for the children!

(Thanks to Cypren for pointing this report out to me.)

Arizona State Representative Doug Quelland delivered an opening prayer that invoked many traditional Christian values and left Democrats ruffled. What the Democrats' reaction really shows is that they don't understand what prayer is about at all.

"The opening prayer is the one opportunity during each day that we can come together as a body. The opening prayer should unite us, not divide us.

"But the prayer on January 26, 2004, was divisive. It was a pandering, mudslinging, name-calling political statement. It was hateful and mean-spirited. It was undignified.

"The citizens of Arizona deserve better. We are diverse. We have unique perspectives. And our unique voices should be respected. Especially during the opening prayer, as members of this body we must set aside our differences and show respect for Arizona in all of its diversity."

Rep. Quelland wasn't praying to Arizona, or to the citizens of Arizona, or to the diversity of Arizona -- he was praying to God. The purpose of prayer isn't to show respect for diversity or to bring people together, the purpose of prayer is to speak with God by confessing the evil we do, thanking him for his blessings, praising his greatness, and asking him to meet our needs and the needs of others.

The real disagreement here is that the complaining Democrats don't believe in and worship the same God as Rep. Quelland. They worship themselves, and they think prayer is all about them.

I'm sure you're all vaguely familiar with this Rock, this Restaurant At The End Of The Universe I'm writing from -- considering your tax dollars are likely paying for it -- but let me fill in a few details; few remember that Pluto was the god of the underworld before he was a dusty ball of ice, and I'm much farther away than that. Having long ago run out of Greek and Roman names, the astronomical bureaucracy turned to noms from more modern stories to excite those few in its audience who cared for such things, and named this particular astro-body Mithlond. In Tolkien mythology, Mithlond (the Grey Havens to Men) was the harbor in Middle-earth used by the Elves to sail West, away from the never-ending death and decay of Men to the Undying Lands. Maybe the naming committee set its sights a bit high in this case, but the idea instantly stuck, and so here I sit under a hundred feet of rock, one of the few thousand humans farthest from the star that gave us birth, caring for the driest harbor conceivable and the grayest of havens.

Before being christened Mithlond, the Rock went by the less-glamorous name of Asteroid 12001, 1996 ED9, Gasbarini, after some Italian fellow most likely. Selected mainly for its heavy iron composition, 12001 was "re-purposed" (as they say), fitted with some crude subbies and a crew of nuts, and cast out from the sun. None of the original crew is still around, but from what I've heard everything didn't go quite as smoothly as the folks back on earth were led to believe. Nevertheless, even if nothing else worked as planned, the subbies positioned the station right near the leading edge of Sol's heliosphere and held her there.

A few years later, the Vingilot was her first customer. After spending three weeks at sub-light to reach the Mithlond her crew was grateful for the rest and reprieve. Some minor repairs were performed and the Vingilot took on stores from the station before being the first ship to travel into the galactic wind. A few days later, free from Sol's influence, they fired up their super-sees for the first time and promptly blew themselves into oblivion.

Some started calling the station Charon's Ferry, but since that initial disaster there've been more successes than failures and humanity has begun to creep across the Orion arm of the Milky Way. I'm told there are some 20,000 stars within a hundred light years of earth, and we've been to nearly a hundred of them. And every single ship has passed through the Grey Havens on her way out.

I shipped up ten years ago, and I've spent most of my time on the Rock troubleshooting and doing odd jobs for Dr. Andrew Whittier, the Chief Administrator. My specialty is diagnosing software malfunctions, and there are plenty of those to go around, but last week the Whit re-purposed me as the Rock's CLEO -- that is, its Chief Law Enforcement Officer. There hadn't been much need till now, and the bureaucracy handled any problems that arose. Until recently, almost everyone on the Rock worked for the Whit, and crimes could be handled arbitrarily and administratively. There wasn't much more than petty theft and larceny, anyway.

The population has jumped over the past few years though, and the days when I recognized everyone in the corridors are over. Sectors and tunnels dug deep into Mithlond during its construction are being unsealed and powered-up to house all the newcomers, and there's always some dispute or another cropping up. The Whit was tired of dealing with all the hassle himself, so he's shoveled it onto me. People started calling me "Cleo", but I put a stop to that right quick. Those that know me still call me Bill, and the rest call me "Chief", which suits me just fine.

I'm supposed to keep this journal "for the record" as the bureaucracy says, so here it is.

Via Drudge I saw an article about Bill Clinton only sending two emails during his presidency, but the story misses the likely reason. Presidential emails sent from government computers (i.e., all the computers in the White House) would be public records and available for any interested party to read. Under those circumstances, I wouldn't write email either. I've also heard that President Bush's legal counsel advised him to stop using email when he became president.

It's possible that both presidents use(d) secret, personal computers to send private emails, but there's not really any way to know that for sure.

Manish over at Damn Foreigner relates an exchange that highlights the important difference between anonymous and pseudonymous writing.

Apparently Andrew Sullivan was criticizing Atrios on Minnesota Public Radio for not revealing his "true" identity, claiming that no one can evaluate his positions without knowing who he is. However, Mr. Sullivan misses the fact that we can evaluate Atrios' writing in its own context because it is published under a consistent name; Atrios has chosen to allow his writing to stand on its own merit, a decision Mr. Sullivan should appreciate as a fellow writer who has written pseudonymously himself (follow that link at your own risk). Pseudonymous writing has a long and noble history, including works such as The Federalist Papers and authors such as Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens. As long as pseudonyms are used consistently, writings done under pen names are as easy to criticize and evaluate as those done under real names. (And what's the difference between a real name and a consistently-assumed false name, anyway?)

In contrast anonymous writing is unattributable and often irrefutable because an anonymous author can change positions and arguments at any time without having to maintain intellectual honesty or consistency. Anonymous writing has as long a history as pseudonymous writing -- particularly in extremely oppressive conditions -- but it's generally rightly seen as cowardly and prima facie unpersuasive unless the work can stand entirely on its own without any external support (as could be provided by other works from the same pseudonymous writer). Anonymous writing can often serve to call attention to a cause, but the actual work of building a case must afterwards be accomplished by writers with names.

Eponymous, anonymous, and pseudonymous writing all have their place, and freedom of expression demands that all be allowed; ultimately the decision belongs to each individual author. There are trade-offs for each.

As for myself, I use my real name because I'm not particularly afraid of persecution and I enjoy seeing my name pop up in Google.

How would you describe to a child the difference between an opponent and an enemy?

Joshua Livestro reports that the Swiss canton of Schaffhausen has instituted a regressive tax structure in which marginal tax rates go down as residents earn more money -- they pay less in taxes on each dollar earned than they paid on the one before it.

I think it's a great experiment, and the canton's government is hoping that rich folks will pour in in response to the new system. That sounds like a reasonable expectation. The real question is whether or not such a system will increase net tax revenue across the entire country, or simply move revenue around. Either way, assuming the Swiss have an American-like competitive state/canton government structure, Schaffhausen will benefit and others may soon follow suit. I've written before that I don't want to maximize government revenue, but I am in favor of tax cuts even if they do end up giving the government more money. Hopefully we'll see positive results from Schaffhausen's experiment in a few years.

Mr. Livestro also makes the argument that regressive tax systems are more moral than progressive systems because they encourage people to be productive.

The morality of it is easy enough to explain. It is after all fairly widely accepted that working hard and saving for a rainy day both constitute morally good behavior. Any tax system that claims to have its basis in morality would therefore have to encourage precisely those activities. Whatever else they might like to say about it, the taxaholics would have to admit that the Schaffhausen income tax does exactly that -- and does it in spades. Who wouldn't want to go out and work, work, work, if every extra Swiss Franc earned will be taxed less than the previous one?

That makes sense, and the morality he espouses is one I agree with, but I still don't think the government has any business using the tax system to coerce people. I think that a flat income tax or a consumption tax would be best, and least intrusive. I don't think the government or the public should how much money I make or treat me any differently because of it.

The Hill reports that the immense budget deficit (and the reaction from many conservative groups) is starting to trouble Congressional Republicans -- who are largely to blame for the recent ballooning of non-defense spending.

Conservative Republicans have been emboldened to demand strict spending reforms by a report released yesterday by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that forecasts a nearly $2.4 trillion dollar budget deficit over the next decade. ...

Conservatives say that their list of reforms includes across-the-board non-defense budget cuts, spending caps with real teeth and requirements that efforts to waive House budgetary rules be voted on by the GOP caucus behind closed doors in order to reach the floor.

The idea of spending caps is great, but in order for them to be effective they'd have to be enacted via Constitutional amendment because Congress cannot pass laws restricting the actions of future Congresses.

The growing backlash against mounting deficits is being led mostly by junior lawmakers who have served for less time in the House than many of their colleagues and who still retain more of the ideological fervor that caused them to run in the first place.

Pence