Most recent LJ Idol poll is up. With 28 people remaining, its easy to read them all. I encourage doing so. And voting! (=
[Poll #1348977]
( FAQ: OMGWTF is that the actual poll? )
In the blackness of space, it would have looked like a golden comet hurtling through the starry background. For weeks it would be visible approaching the planet. First a distant speck the very existence of which astronomers would argue about. Day by day it would grow brighter, larger, closer. A comet? Is it on a collision course with us?
But comets appear to fly sideways, the “tail” off to the side. This one would appear to have the tail right in front of it. That would probably be the first sign something was amiss. That and it’s decelerating rapidly.
Up close, if this were a movie, the spaceship would appear to roar past … flying backwards. Enormous engines blasting a straight and steady stream of fire forward into the direction it’s heading. But this is not a movie, so it wouldn’t roar (there’s no sound in space), and without a point of reference who’s to say the ship is moving one way or the camera position is moving the other?
Nevertheless, engines first, the ship speeds past our arbitrary vantage point. Cylindrical modules, spherical nodes, tubes and girders, all painted a chalky white. Perhaps a little darkened on the faces currently facing backwards. Near the front (current back) end, emblazoned in big red letters on the hull is Ex Animo.
If this were a movie of course, this would also be accompanied by some dramatic music.
And this music is in fact playing. In the control room, because Captain Garrey has a soft spot for the dramatic. But, after all, this was a pretty dramatic moment for the entire crew. Other solar systems had been explored in the several years since propulsion breakthroughs made interstellar travel possible, but that didn’t mean being on the first expedition to a new solar system was anything short of a lifetime experience. After months in transit (five accelerating, five decelerating), the Ex Animo was approaching its destination, the star Alpha Piscis Austrini. So it felt appropriate that Garrey pipe some suitably intrepid music through the ship – but certainly not so loud to distract from everyone being on top of their game monitoring the sensors.
“Twenty minutes until arrival in orbit” called out Helmsman Trogyev, trying to sound clinical and matter-of-fact. All eyes were on the large viewscreen covering the front wall of the bridge. On it the planet Fomalhaut could not yet be seen but the star was becoming visibly larger by the minute.
This wasn’t, of course, the view out a window. The bridge is located in the most logical position on the ship – in the very centre. Views from the wide array of cameras and sensors projecting from the outside of the ship could be used to project a variety of images onto the main bridge screen. And so, as the ship blasted backwards decelerating into the system, the view on the screen in the bridge is still the direction the ship is traveling, as if they were facing that direction.
“Fifteen minutes.” Everyone on the bridge had their own sensor display to be monitoring but no one was about to blame anyone for only glancing at that from time to time while watching the main screen as the planet became visible – a green orb hanging in space like an emerald.
“Ten minutes.” The image zoomed in, the planet filled the main screen. Beautiful and green, white clouds draped in long swirls around it..
“I’m picking up an incoming object sir!!” called out Stephens, one of the sensor operators, with alarm. “About three hundred meters wide, metallic, accelerating towards us out of orbit from the planet!”
All eyes stared at the screen in disbelief.
“Can you bring it onscreen?” asked Garrey. Seconds later a blurry grey blob appeared on the screen. It slowly materialized into a grey oval shape as it rapidly closed distance with the Ex Animo. “It appears to be saucer shaped” reported Stephens.
“Shall I attempt to contact them?” asked communications officer Callista urgently. Garrey gave her the go-ahead and she initiated the pre-planned communications sequence prepared for the event of extra-terrestrial contact.
Not a person dared to breath as they awaited a response to the incomprehensible (but assuredly genius) message which had been written by a team of mathematicians and experts back on Earth. The alien craft silently closed the distance.
“It appears to be energizing one of its arrays!” reported another sensor operator. The ships were now less than a minute from intersecting one another and the incoming saucer was slowing its approach. “Lets hope this is a communications device and not a weapon!!” thought Mark, looking back at the Captain nervously. Notwithstanding the “What Would Picard Do?” sticker Garrey had humorously slapped on the front of his desk, this ship carried no science fiction shields or weapons.
Suddenly there was a loud humming noise and everything went blurry. And then things went black.
Liiiick. Mark awoke to his face being licked. It was slobbery, and disconcerting.
He opened his eyes and saw the branches of trees above him, and blue sky beyond that. Earth trees. And a dachshund was licking his face.
Deeply confused, Mark sat up. He appeared to be sitting in a city park. There was grass, trees, a park bench or two, lamp-posts, a mailbox, and bounding all four sides an unbroken white fence. He could have sworn he’d been cooped up in an interstellar starship for the last several months. He was, after all, still wearing his blue uniform coveralls with UNOOSA patch.
The grass seemed… odd. Then he realized. The grass was plastic. It was just realistic looking astro-turf! And in fact.. The trees were plastic! He ran over to the mailbox – not only was it plastic, but it didn’t actually open. And why would there be a mailbox here anyway? … and then Mark realized – aliens had placed him in a terrarium!
Mark regarded the dog. He quickly realized he knew this dog. It belonged to one of the chemists, and was named Watson. The aliens must not have known who to put him with.
Presently, as Mark regarded his strange surroundings, a door opened up in the “sky” --actually just an illuminated blue ceiling-- and a ramp came down to the ground. Bright golden light glowed through the doorway.
Two alien creatures emerged and made their way down the ramp. Their bodies looked round and bulbous, and they walked upon a number of tentacles. They each had two eyes upon stalks and a short proboscis with a mouth on it.
They approached Mark, who could think of no better course of action then to stand there and see what happened. Standing in front of him, the alien being pointed at itself with its noodly appendage and said “Gavagai.” It then pointed at Mark. “Uh, Mark?” Mark responded. The other alien being jotted something down on what appeared to be a notepad. It then held up a picture of the Earth. “Earth?” ventured Mark, and the other alien jotted down on the notepad.
Mark observed that two more aliens had come down and were a little ways off attempting to communicate with the dog. They were surprisingly proficient at making barking noises.
Weeks passed with the aliens making regular visits to attempt to communicate, and gradually becoming more proficient at it. Mark gathered that the rest of the crew was similarly in other terrariums. Eventually the aliens transferred communications officer Callista into his terrarium. At first he thought the aliens had thought to give him a friend, and though he had never been particularly close with Callista, he appreciated it. But then he learned their true motives.
“Why you do not mate with her?” Gavagai asked impatiently.
“What?!”
“Why do you not breed with the female?”
“I do not WANT to breed with the female!”
“Not-of-sense! You humans love to breed. Is she not nubile?”
“She’s plenty nubile, I just love someone else.”
“What is this love? You wish to copulate with someone else?”
“No one here.” Mark thought of his wife back home.
“So love is… desire to spawn with someone?”
“No, no.. it’s… more than that.”
“Other crew members we bred did not have this love problem”
Mark wondered who had been “bred” among the crew. He and Gavagai were walking among the fake trees. Mark poked tentatively at a fake apple hanging from the wrong kind of fake tree.
“So what is ‘love’ and why does it prevent you from copulating?” Gavagai returned to the question.
“Love is … not having to explain to your wife you were forced by aliens to breed with a coworker!!” exclaimed Mark in exasperation. “Why are you so interested anyway?”
“We are concerned about your breeding habits”
“MY breeding habits?”
“Human breeding habits. Humans breed out of control. Most creatures adapt to their environment. Humans adapt their environment to support their own ever increasing numbers.”
“We were looking on wikipedia—“ Gavagai continued, referring to the copy of wikipedia stored on their starship. Evidently someone had taught them to access it. “There is an Earth creature that treats its environment like humans”
“What’s that?”
“Locusts”
“Locusts?!”
“A plague of locusts. This is what humans do too.”
Mark wondered if he’d ever see his wife again.
Blanket wrapped around himself on a cool summer evening, Blehtiyata squinted down the barrel of his musket towards the British fort across the river. A breeze gently rustled through the trees. Every now and then shots were fired, but it was mostly a waiting game. Time was on the indians' side, as Fort Pitt was far from the English colonies’ cities. Blehtiyata’s leader, Guyasuta, knew personally the difficulties the English would have reaching the fort -– he had been a guide for the British force under Washington which had come to assault the fort here nine years ago and started the war.
The British had eventually driven the French out and built their own fort here at the fork where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers come together. But unlike the French, the British made no effort to appease the Indians. They had shown the indians nothing but contempt. And so Blehtiyata, and many other warriors of the Seneca, had switched sides and joined the alliance of tribes led by chief Pontiac against the British invaders.
Blehtiyata lifted his gun as he caught sight of the red coat of a British soldier on the battlements of the fort in a vulnerable position. Before he could take the shot though the soldier was back behind a bastion wall. The British had been refusing to sell ammunition to indians for a while prior to the hostilities, so one had to be very conservative about which shots to take.
Blehtiyata was thankful though that they’d captured some supplies from a shed just outside the fortress. The British had neglected to evacuate its contents into the fort or guard it properly and an indian raiding party had managed to loot it for supplies. Though there wasn’t anything exciting like ammunition in the shed, there had been a large number of blankets which would make the siege much more comfortable for the indians.
Blehtiyata was particularly grateful of the blanket tonight, as he felt like he was coming down with a fever. Getting a cold was certainly far from the worst thing that could happen at war, but it could critically dull your abilities in battle. Blehtiyata pulled the warm blanket around himself to stay warm and healthy.
In February 1754, 41 Virginian colonists began constructing a fort at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers at what is now Pittsburgh in Western Pennsylvania, in order to stake Amero-British claim to the region over French aspirations.
Fort St George was only half complete, when in April of that year some 500 French troops arrived from the North and ordered the Virginians to return home. The French then built Fort Duquesne in place of Fort St George.
Already en route to reinforce Ft St George, a young Lieutenant Colonel named George Washington made camp 37 miles southeast of Fort Duquesne to await further orders in lieu of destination no longer existing.
Under strict orders not to attack the Virginians unless provoked, the captain of the French force sent one of his lieutenants, Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville, with 45 men, to make contact with Washington and deliver him diplomatic papers asserting French claim to the land and demanding he withdraw.
Washington's indian allies advised him of the approaching group of Frenchmen. With 40 militiamen an 12 indian warriors (including Iroqois leader Tanacharison), Washington marched overnight to the encampment of the incoming Frenchmen. There the Amero-British took up positions behind rocks around the camp and at 7am on Washington's order opened fire on the camp. 10-12 Frenchmen were killed, 2 wounded (including de Jumonville) and 21 captured. Washington's forces lost one man.
The wounded Jumonville managed to serve the diplomatic papers on Washington before being executed by Tanacharison.
Writing to his brother following the bloodbath, Washington wrote: "I can with truth assure you, I heard bullets whistle and believe me, there was something charming in the sound."
Back in Britain news of "the Jumonville Affair" evoked shock and disgust. One British statesmen described "a volley fired by a young Virginian in the backwoods of America [that] set the world on fire."
And thus, the French & Indian War began.
I thought it was rain water.
I mean, I'd let a bunch of the gallon jugs that had formerly contained jug-wine (before I turned it into brandy) sit outside, and it had rained recently. Sure it had a cap on it, but I'd just moved all the jugs around and have a tendency to put caps back on the jugs (because thats the best way to keep the caps and jugs together).
So I decided to take a swig of that nice fresh rainwater.
Firstlyofall, I had neglected to take into account that it had been sitting in the sun, so it was bound to be rather warm. Secondlyofall, it turns out it wasn't rainwater.
So I lift up this big gallon jug and tilt it back to give myself a nice gulp of rainwater. But instead, hello burning-hot heated brandy!!! O_O
All distilled liquor comes out crystal clear you see. The colour comes from barrel aging.
It burned like it was at least 180 proof!! Amid visions of having just consumed a dangerously high concentration of ethanol I desperately spit it out. A quick search provides nothing to support it but I thought I'd heard somewhere that drinking close to pure ethanol is dangerous and can cause that alleged blindness. Perhaps just another alcohol myth. On any account, at the time, in my shock at how much this rainwater burned, I imagined that being superheated the alcohol had somehow risen to the top and I'd consumed pure alcohol, and for a moment the thought of going blind flashed before my eyes. (I think it only tasted stronger than it was because it was hot)
But then I didn't go blind, and was left just cursing myself for neglecting to label a jug. All brandy has since been contained in the barrel (where it is already beginning to have an amber colour!).
Now, I was telling this story to the lads at work the following day, and barely had I started when they all looked at me with disgust.
"You ... were going to drink rainwater?!" ventured one of them. It was clear this was a point of shock for all of them.
"Um... yeah? Its distilled water?"
"Around here? Acid rain!!"
Seriously people. Yes I'm sure we have some pollutants in our rain. In fact, a quick search around the computer internets reveals Southern California rain can have a pH of 4.2 to 4.8 (as opposed to "natural" rain at 5.6), but I can't see any reference to bad health effects from drinking that.
Now consider, lemonade has a pH of as low as 2, and fresh apples have a pH of 3.3 to 3.9 (source and more!). The fact is, the danger of acid rain isn't that its going to dissolve your face off or is poisonous to drink. The harmful effects of acid rain almost entirely consist of the fact that it alters the pH of entire ecosystems and in extreme cases corrodes things that are constantly out in the rain. Many organisms, from fish to plants, and especially micro-organisms, cannot live in the wrong pH. The loss of some of these causes a cascade failure down the food chain and ecological devastation.
However, I'm pretty sure I've subjected the contents of my stomach to much more extreme doses of pH. Moreover, in my particular corner of the terra firma, we don't have smog and our rainstorms usually blow in from the sea.
This discussion, however, brought to mind a montage of recent memories: of every person at work refusing to even so much as smell the honey-brandy liquor I had made, of Jeremy saying he simply would not try the coffee Dave was going to make from the beans on the tree in his yard. Times like this, I can't help but think, wow, you guys are so OC.
I mean, its RAIN WATER people.
The Not Too Distant Future: Darren gripped the edge of his top-hat to brace it against the warm breeze as he stepped out of the zeppelin. It was early evening and the breeze seemed to be the perfect temperature. The air felt electric with excitement. Darren and the other passengers from the airship made their way to waiting horse drawn carriages which would take them the remaining distance to their destination: ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
clauderainsrm's place for the LJ Idol Season 5 Season Finale Ball!
You know Darren. He's on your friends list. He always reads your entries. He just never comments. But he always votes for you. Maybe he'll do LJ Idol next season. Maybe not.
The carriage rolled past a series of twelve foot tall statues of previous LJ Idol winners in heroic poses and finally came to a stop in front of the Clauderainsrm estate. Darren and his fellow passengers stepped out and beheld the magnificant home of LJ Idol administrator Clauderainsrm: the entryway was in the classic style, sweeping steps leading up to a portico with white marble columns. Wings of the elegant ediface stretched in both directions, while on top a large golden rotunda and majestic spires jutted into the twilight sky. In front of Clauderainsrm's humble abode stretched gardens and fountains (dominated by the statues of previous LJ Idol winners) on either side of the cobblestoned road the carriages were coming down.
"First!" shouted one of one of Darren's carriagemates, intrepia, joyously, upon reaching the steps.
"Hahaha, whatever, more like you're on the List of Shame!" laughed a nearby idolist who was already present.
"Hahahah-- oh" Intrepia's mirth was cut short when she realized it wasn't a joke -- the other idolist was pointing to a large "List of Shame" pinned to the wall listing all those who hadn't shown up yet. Nearby another idolist was taking down the list onto a spreadsheet on a clipboard they were holding.
Other idolists were arriving in other ways. With a loud BZAP and puff of smoke a delorean appeared and skidded down the drive, from which blueashke and supremegoddess1 emerged. lifeinamarble had just landed by parachute and was taking off his goggles and replacing them with a monocle. As lordrexfear made his way to the front door some papparazi jumped out of the shrubbery and snapped several pictures of him and hollered something about a website several times before security could subdue them and escort them away.
Darren and the other arrivees made their way up the red carpet into the building, through the elegant foyer and into the grand ballroom. It was already filled with idolists, idolists' friends, and idolists' made-up voting friends, all in their best victorian finery. Top hats and evening coats filled the room, flowing gowns, corsettes and bustles. Overhead hung dazzling chandaliers, while the walls and furniture were bedecked in a fine green.
Everyone mingled and met the people they'd been hearing so much about for the past several months. There was gossip (it turns out one of the finalists was actually a robot, and many people weren't sure it was fair for a robot to win) and speculation (the season winner would be announced later in the night) and reminiscing about events of the last several months. Like the time Gary (as Clauderainsrm is sometimes known to go by, as if thats his real name or something) declared January the "Month of Doom" and had eliminated 90% of the idolists by the end, only to declare February the "Month of Regret" and bring nearly all of them back. Then there was the gradual reduction of the writing submission week from five days to, in "June, the Month of Ultra-Doom" 24 hours (with six hour voting periods).
Darren had just bumped into a gorgeous young lady with jet black hair, a black corsette and dress, cute pointy eyebrows, and sparkling green eyes, and was about to strike up a conversation with her when a murmur and hush filled the room. "Kithan has just announced Gary is about to make his appearance!" someone leaned over and whispered. All eyes turned to the stage at one end of the room.
A figure walked out on the stage, and there was a shocked gasp from the entire audience as they realized LJ Idol's Gary, AKA clauderainsrm is, in fact, American Idol host Ryan Seacrest!!
Gary / Seacrest (henceforth: Garycrest) said a few words, and introduced the singer who would be performing: recent American Idol champion Mark in Spades (aka lifeinamarble) and continued. Darren cast about for the stunning young lady he had seen earlier but she was no longer to be found nearby.
The party went on into the night. In addition to the ballroom there was activity in a number of other rooms throughout Garycrest's house. There were lofty balconies, access to pleasant gardens, couches and tables for sitting and talking. People consumed delicious platters that had apparently been arranged by ewok_626, and everyone's favourite beverages were available to embibe upon.
A few times Darren caught that one girl's eye again, but was unsuccessful in finagling to talk to her.
There were some interesting characters present, as one would expect at a gathering of LJ Idolists. In addition to the robot finalist, there was a moose with a bow tie, an orange tabby kitten, technophile it turns out is actually an anime character in real life, but, most shocking of all, was when George W Bush showed up.
"What? What is he! doing here?!" Darren heard people exclaim. The question and its answer echoed across the room like wildfire:
"He's been in the competition all along!"
"What? Say it isn't so! What's his lj name?"
"rm!"
Shock.
Darren was talking to a fellow about bees when he saw The Girl head out to the balcony. He saw his opportunity to potentially go talk to her, in a romantic location even, but this damn guy was rambling on about bees! Darren felt antsy.
Fortunately, a very attractive young lady with a peacock feather in her blonde curly hair happened by at that moment and thoroughly distracted the fellow. As the guy greeted the young lady with "Oh hey princesslips," Darren excused himself and scampered to the balcony.
Unfortunately all he found out there was a serious looking gentleman answering his phone -- "Yes Sarah? ...wait you want to do what?!"
Darren returned indoors sadly.
Darren spied Her again while he was talking to a group of people about their favourite topics, but lost sight of Her in the crowd.
"I really liked how creative everyone got on the Bacon topic" a gentleman in a fedora was saying.
"My favourite was the Impersonate Another Idolist topic" said a girl dressed like a librarian. Darren wasn't really paying attention to the discussion anymore. Meeting That Girl had become an obsession. He surrepticiously scanned the room.
"I think Gary really went too far with the Why Gary is Awesome topic, and so does baxaphobia!" Imafarmgirl was saying.
"And by "Week 47: I Can't Believe This Is Still Going On!" he clearly had gone mad ... imafarmgirl!" added in Baxaphobia.
Darren thought he saw The Girl over by the steam powered water cooler. He tried to get a glimpse through the crowd.
"And the topic of Something about Bagles, the Space Station, Your First Sexual Encounter, Sulfites, & Apis mellifera scutellata -- I think Garycrest must surely have been completely insane at that point! remarked one of the characters from Lost (apparently they'd all been following the whole season of LJ Idol). "Though actually we got some crucial plot ideas for our show from the entries that week!"
"And remember, that was only Week 18!!" someone else pointed out.
In a side conversation an adorable blonde girl with bangs was relating every topic mentioned to sex. It was making Darren feel quite flustered.
Kithan took the stage again and tapped a glass with her bionic hand.
"Ladies and gentlemen! And animals, fictional anthropomorphic beings, and... androids!" (nodding at the robot finalist) "It is time for the moment you are waiting for, the announcement of the Season 5 LJ Idol!!"
Gary / Ryan Seacrest took the stage. "What an amazing story! To think that this Idolist was actually eliminated in Week 17, and then brought back in during the Month of Regret, only to make their way to the very top! Please give it up for--" but Darren didn't hear the rest. He had spotted The Girl, making her way down a side hall.
Where would she be going? Maybe she was sick and would appreciate someone looking after her? She caught his eye and flashed him a devilish grin. Darren nearly had a heart attack. She turned and headed down the hallway. Darren scrambled through the cheering crowd after her.
He caught up with her just outside the door to Gary's video library. Her green eyes burned with a fiery intensity. She winked coyly and opened the door, pulling him in with her. For a second Darren wondered if he'd be able to blog about this.
Shelves and shelves were filled with every episode of Survivor, Lost, The Office, 30 Rock, and the Amazing Race. Even episodes which had never been aired. But Darren's perception of the world consisted of nothing other than the gorgeous face in front of him. Her eyes burned so intently, her smile glowed so cheerfully.
Darren had his back to the cold wall, with The Girl pressed against him. She leaned in for a kiss and the whole world but her eyes disappeared to Darren.
But then abruptly she pulled back. She stood up, holding only three fingers against Darren's chest to keep him against the wall.
"Ahahahahaha foolish mortal! ...its too easy! She laughed. How peculiar.
"You think you are the pursuer, that I am your unwary quarry! That you are going to work whatever charms you have upon me and I'll actually be impressed, hah!" This was turning out.. quite rude, to say the least, thought Darren.
The girl smiled wider, revealing two long fangs. She licked her lips, keeping Darren transfixed in her gaze. She savoured the thrill of a totally successful entrapment for a moment. She had managed to lure her prey right to where she wanted him, at a moment when no one would notice, and avoided being seen with him at any point. Perfect. What a sucker this lad had been. She lunged for the kill.
Darren held her back with three fingers gently pressed against her sternum. 'How peculiar,' she though, he shouldn't be able to do that. Slowly the look of alarm and shock on Darren's face gave way to a sly grin. People sometimes had the most irrational response to their imminent and utterly unavoidable demise.
"You're a vampire," started Darren, his voice suprisingly steady, "that, of course, is obvious by now. Your penchent for haughty monologues when in a perceived position of power is such a silly weakness."
The girl's confusion gave way to alarm when she realized she herself was unable to move. Darren continued:
"You don't have a word for what I am, because my kind don't fail. And we eat vampires for breakfast."
He meant it quite literally, and without wasting another moment on small talk he vaporized the vampire into a cloud of supernatural vapours and devoured them.
With all the polling going on in the various corners of lj, esp for competition related things, I was wondering, does anyone know if anyone's written a programme that automatically tracks polls? And makes graphs out of the data maybe?
So I've been tracking the latest LJ Idol poll. Trying to look at it about once an hour and note the vote totals of the some five individuals*, the lowest and 10th lowest (since the bottom ten are getting eliminated) in a spreadsheet on excel.
When it comes to making a graph out of it I can make a line graph with each person as a separate line and vote numbers as the Y axis, but I can't figure out how to make the X axis time rather than subsequent iterations of my checking standing. Fortunately the iterations are relatively consistent but there's a few big gaps.
Anyone have any advice on the arcane secrets of graph making? All the graph making options excel gives seem pretty incomprehensible. /=
Picture of the Day
FLUP FLUP FLUP FLUP FLUP FLUP, a red helicopter lifted off from Ketchikan Airport and headed out across the Tongass Narrows. Destination: nowhere. Sarah Palin had one goal:
To shoot a moose in the face!
“Wait wait, I see a turkey!” exclaimed Palin into her helmet mic as they skimmed along 100 feet above the countryside. “Stop the chopper Trog, Imma gonna shoot it!”
“My name’s not ‘Trog’” responded Trevor, the pilot, as he brought the helicopter to a hover. Palin gleefully aimed her M-249 machine gun, with underslung M-208 grenade launcher, at the hapless bird. “Pardon THIS!!” she shrieked as she let loose a hail of bullets.
R’T’T’T’T’T’T’T’T’T, Palin unleashed a deafening stream of 800 bullets a minute upon the bird. Spent bullet casings bounced around her and out the helicopter’s open door. Clods of dirt shot up all around the bird as it scrambled desperately.
She let go of the trigger as she heard Trevor trying to say something over the mic. On any account, she could no longer see the turkey in the cloud of dust and smoke.
“What!?” she demanded irritably.
“The Rev’s on the phone for you”
“Oh. Tell him … I’m busy with state business”
As the dust cleared, she could make out the turkey running across the pockmarked ground, miraculously unscathed. Not very accurate, the M-249. She moved her finger over to the grenade launcher trigger.
“I’ll pwn you like I pwned Mr Joe Biden in that debate!” she mumbled under her breath.
PLUNK, the cylindrical grenade round lazily arched through the air, turned end over end a few times, and landed near the turkey. KABOOM.
Palin smiled sweetly as she was pleased not to see a surviving turkey anywhere near the smoldering crater.
Flying low over the rolling tundra, she finally spotted it -- a moose! She kept an eye on him through her binoculars as Trevor piloted the chopper closer: An elegant bull moose, calmly munching on grass.
Palin set the binoculars down and shouldered her RPG, putting the scope to her eye. Hmmmm. This would make an extremely satisfying explosion, but as she watched the moose in the crosshairs it didn’t seem right. This just wouldn’t do.
“Set her down Trog! I’m going in on foot!” Palin called out. It was time to get up close and personal. Adrenaline coursed through her veins at the thought.
She picked up her rambo knife and filled her pockets with grenades. This was going to be fun.
As Palin crested a small hillock, there he was, not a hundred feet away. He raised his elegant head and looked at her fearlessly, almost challenging her to come closer. His antlers jutted proudly into the sky, his muscles rippled under his thick brown fur. Under his chin hung a shaggy beard that was kind of.. sexy.
Palin approached until she was standing right beside the magnificent beast. She gazed deep into his large brown eyes. A feeling strangely reminiscent of when she and her husband Todd dressed up like moose began to take hold of her body, only this time it was more real. This time there was no Todd fucking forgetting to stay in character!
Overhead, the aurora borealis danced across the sky. It twisted and writhed, arched and pulsated across the heavens. It was amazing. Palin had never experienced anything quite like this. She felt the moose’s steamy breath, and she knew the moose.
Palin lay in the grass and smoked a cigarette wistfully. The wild, writhing, throbbing mind blowing experience had long since ceased, and it was getting late. She had drifted off to sleep afterwords, and when she awoke, He was gone. She felt slightly used by this, but after such a life changing experience, she just couldn’t be mad.
“He needs a name,” thought Palin to herself. She went through her favourite names “Trig? No I’ve used it. Track? Used it. Tripp? Used it Tr…. Dennis! Dennis it is!”
Trevor looked up as he saw Palin approaching the landed helicopter. Empty handed.
“Where’s the moose?”
“Ohh, nevermind the moose, Trog!” responded Palin with a knowing smile, “you know where my friends are going seal clubbing tonight?”
“Yes, did you want to join them?”
“No, I’ve had a lifechanging experience. We’re going to STOP them!!”
FLUP FLUP FLUP FLUP FLUP FLUP, the helicopter lifted off into the crisp night air.
Last week I went up north and hung out with the delightful and lovely miss gratefuladdict. Adventures were had, which I wrote about in more detail here. In lj related news, however, I met blueashke, supremegoddess1, lostin_thestars, and stagger_lee77 while up there. They were all delightful and good times were had. In LJ Idol news, this means LJ Idolists emo_snal, gratefuladdict, blueashke and supremegoddess1 were all in the same place at the same time! Shenanigans.
Picture of the Day
"Cheep cheep"
The eggs weren't even hatched yet. Not a crack. But they were cheeping. I didn't know they could do that.
"Cheep cheep"
It all started with a previous batch of chickens. Mum is a science teacher, and her class had raised up a gaggle of chickens from incubated eggs. At the end of it we ended up with a rooster named Falafel and a white hen named Tzatziki (I called her Zeze for short).
Unfortunately, as roosters are wont to to, Falafel had this habit of crowing between 5 and 6 am. This doesn't fly in the suburbs. I really liked Falafel -- he had a lot of personality for a chicken. But he had to go. But we were able to trade him in at the feed store for a bantam hen we named The Seniorita.
"Cheep cheep"
Chickens, as you know, lay eggs. Normally they just forget about them and wander off. But the Seniorita would habitually sit upon her eggs until chased away, and purposefully laid them in hidden places.
It would sometimes take us awhile to find her new place, and then we'd find an egg trove. But as soon as it was found she'd relocate. So it was Easter year round in my backyard.
Clearly she desperately wanted to be a chickenmom. But she hadn't ever been pollinated, so to speak, by a rooster, so it wasn't going to be.
Eventually, however, we took pity on her and bought fertilized eggs from the feed store. One by one we replaced her unfertilized eggs with fertilized ones while she wasn't looking. She didn't seem to notice that her eggs were getting a LOT bigger than they formerly/normally had been (bantam hens of course being fairly small).
About a month later, they started to hatch. She was, I'm pretty sure, overjoyed. Her chickendreams had come true!! She sure showed "you can't have babies if you've never met a rooster" Zeze!
Unfortunately, in her joy and enthusiasm to take care of her new chicks, she completely forgot about her three remaining eggs!
So we took them and put them in a cardboard box with a blanket and a lamp for heat.
"Cheep cheep" -- these eggs were cheeping! Every few minutes, one or the other would let out an adorable muffled "cheep cheep"
If I recall correctly the first one hatched overnight. In the morning, there was a chick standing there looking damp and confused. We found the chickenmom still hunkered down with all her chicks under her wing and pushed this one under her wing as well.
One by one the other eggs hatched over the next 24 hours (video!) and were reconciled with mother without incident. However, there was a problem.
She wouldn't accept the runt. The last one hatched. I don't know if she just had too many babies at that point or he came too long after the rest (probably about a week after the first one?) for her to feel like he was truly part of the same family, but she wouldn't take care of him, wouldn't let him hang out with them and play in their reindeer games -- she'd actually chase him away and peck at him )=
So back in the box he went. I made sure he stayed warm and fed and took him out and played with him whenever I had a chance because I worried he'd get lonely. I remember watching TV with him on my lap (and I don't normally watch tv!).
I'd take him for walks in the backyard. Unfortunately I had to guard him from the other chickens, who would charge at him if they got half a chance. Rude. )=
Eventually a student from mum's school adopted runt. I kinda missed him but hopefully in a one-chicken-home he'll get the attention and lack of pestering he deserves.
..at least until they have to deal with...
"cock-a-doodle-doooooo!"
This also is not an official LJ Idol entry. In fact, its not even mine and its not even "home game" -- the writer probably hasn't even heard of LJ Idol, BUT, I think this is the perfect entry for the subject of "Cracking Up". I bring you apoplecticfittz's....
A Guide to Laughing on the Internet
I see a lot of laughing on the Internet. It is certainly a part of the culture of the Internet, as bizarre as that seems. We have LOLcats, for heavens sake. And you know, you all do it too with your hehs and your hahas. Even you, Mr. ahahahahaahahahahahahha and your excitable laugh. I do it. I can admit it. The thing is, I'm pretty sure it is all pretty disingenuous. You aren't really LOLing when you "LOL". And you know what, fuck you "LMAO" person. You didn't really laugh your ass off. I'm fairly sure of it. It would hurt and how would you sit?
I have a hot and steamy resolution. It involves a lot of alcohol, and possibly explosions. I've been doing a lot of resoluting lately actually. Generally, it is preceded by soluting, and desoluting.
It begins with creating a solution of, basically, water and sugar. Sometimes we use molasses, sometimes we use malted barley. You'd think we'd use the sugary substance we have literally tons of laying about -- honey -- but honey is naturally antibacterial and we need bacteria (yeast) to live in the solution. Over the next few weeks to as short as a few days, yeast will thrive in the solution and convert the sugar into EtOH, ethanol, the alcohol we know and love.
Once this process has completed, it is time to de-solute it (ie divide the solution into component parts). We do this by heating it to a temperature between the boiling point of the two major components, alcohol and water. Alcohol evaporates above 78.3 celsius, and water, obviously, evaporates at 100. This is distilling.
Over the course of a few hours, if the still does not explode and kill us all, it will divide the solution into two new solutions -- one of between 60-80% alcohol (and water and some other materials from the original solution), and in the bottom of the still a slag of everything that didnt evaporate.
There is a pervasive urban legend that amateur distillation can yield a product that will make you blind. This is totally incorrect. Distilling does not make anything that wasn't in the original substance. What caused blindness is back in the days of prohibition people would load up their moonshine with methanol and other dubious substances in order to artificially up the alcohol content or volume.
Then it is time to re-solute. Since an 80% alcohol solution is kind of gnarly, one typically waters it down 50-50 with water (preferably distilled, so it is pure water). One then filters it through activated charcoal to get out anything else less desirable that made it through the distillage.
Then, my latest thing is to mix honey into the solution. Honey is sweet and delicious, flavoursome, and kind of has a little bit of a bite itself really (and I have a metric shit-ton of it). The flavour (and colour!) in most commercially available distilled beverages comes from months to years of barrel aging. Most home distillers don't have time for this but you can buy "rum essence" (or brandy, or tequila or...) and mix it in and have something that tastes exactly like the commercially available product (this seems kind of like cheating to me, however).
This was all going to be a silly lead in to me saying I was going to take my bye this week, but hey I think it turned into an entry itself. (=
LJ Idolists will be familiar with the idea of "green room" but for the rest of you, its a post to which people just kind of hang out in the comments and comment to one another and such. With that in mind, I'm declaring this post a green room holiday party!
So regardless of whether you celebrate Festivus, the nativity of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Saxon Yule, or one of those more obscure December holidays, come into the commentsphere and mingle!
::lights fireplace:: gratefuladdict is in charge of coordinating cookies. superhappytime is in charge of music*. agirlnamedluna and tigrkittn are the welcoming committee. boxsofrain is in charge of strategically placing mistletoe. ;D
Edit: Puts out Glögg :d
Edit 2: Later we'll play "pin the wreath on clauderainsrm" ;)
“Yuri Stepanovich Predstav?” asked Ivan matter-of-factly. Across the table, squinting in the bright light, Yuri nodded.And thus begins a story I wrote in 2003 for a creative writing class. Interesting fact, I had the distinction of being interrogated in a United States Diplomatic Security interrogation room earlier this year. They sat me down at a chair bolted to the floor, at a table bolted to the floor, facing a one way window that looked like a mirror from the inside. There was even a spotlight on the ceiling pointed at me (which they were kind enough to leave off).
“You may call me Sergeant Alexandrov,” continued Ivan, rifling through a stack of papers on the metal desk between them. There was a slight pause while he occupied himself thus.
Noticing Korey focusing on a point somewhere over his left shoulder Nathan discovered there to be a small hole in wall next to the door. It appeared to be merely an empty socket, but somehow Nathan found it unnerving.I like to go against the current though, so its fitting that on a topic where everyone else is writing their favourite true story, I'm going to write about my fictional stories. The abovequoted story was the first of two complete short stories we were to write for that class (ENL5F)(one in the beginning, one at the end). I definitely would like to think I could write it better now, but it is what it is. And what it is, is a satire of the teacher.
It sounded like it was raining outside. “So tell me about yourself,” smiled Korey, her eyes shining like green globes in the darkness.
“My parents never paid any attention to me,” Jonna was saying. Dave considered how outrageously cliché his present experience was. “Of all the people to be stuck on a desert island with,” Dave thought to himself. As an editor Back Home, he would have laughed at any columnist foolish enough to submit a story similar to his present situation: shipwrecked on a desert island with an exceptionally annoying girl who goes on about how neglected she feels.I love satire. Interesting fact # 2, I attended the same secondary school in Ireland that Jonathan Swift did, (Kilkenny College, founded in 1538!). Satirizing the people's psyhological conditions doesn't end with the teacher. I found that for some reason an overwhelming number of the girls in the class were writing stories about mothers, girlfriends, sisters, daughters, or wives being neglected. The neglected female was seriously the theme of about 90% of the female submitted stories in that class for some reason. In the story quoted above, I think everything Jonna says other than "I like pink" (and maybe that too? I forget) is either a quote or reference to a submitted story about neglect in the class. The prompt had been to write a scene that takes place in one room (so I stretched the definition of room of course). This one was only submitted to the teacher -- I don't think it would have gone over well with several people if it had been circulated. ;)
"When we arrived in Mshasa everyone was already dead. The so-called ‘Allied Democratic Forces’ rebels had shot everyone, including the goats."But like I said in the beginning of this entry, my favourite stories to write are true. I like to write historical fiction, but the background preparation and research one has to do to write hisfic2 is probably at least ten times that if you're writing a story set in contemporary life or a made up world. The morning that Conflicting Opinions was due I was googling around to find a typical Ugandan or Congolese name and found that there had been a new border massacre regarding exactly the kind of event portrayed in the story that very morning. Thats the kind of truth that I think is so much more important to write about then some girl who's boyfriend doesn't pay attention to her, or some magical land where people have little fox ears on their heads.
Dear Journal,Silly is another favourite staple of mine though, and I love myths and folklore, so the one prompt I couldn't resist not twisting was when we were told to tell a myth, legend, or folktale from the point of view of someone other than the traditional protagonist. After realizing Grendel had so already been done, I chose Humbaba the Demon from the Epic of Gilgamesh. Its short, and tinseltoes said it was her favourite so you should read it. (=
Today I just kind of hung out in the shade among the giant Cedars, and enjoyed the complete silence. There were some really beautiful butterflies. When Gilgamesh & Enkidu get here I am going to shatter their minds with sheer terror. Then maybe I’ll eat them. I’m thinking they’ll taste good with mustard and maybe a little salt. I am Humbaba, I breath and there is death!
"Upon once a time..."Begins the final short story I wrote for that class. When the prompt is simply to write a story building on everything that was taught in a class about how to write a short story, how do you twist that prompt? The answer, you violate all the rules and expectations in an utterly epic manner! I love this story. The very idea of this story makes me want to laugh maniacally. I ought to warn the potential reader that its a bit... experimental. I'd also like to note, however, that only the proper nouns are made up, all the other strange words are just incredibly obscure. (=
The spent shell landed on the table with a small clang. Through the smoke in front of him he could see a bullet hole in the wall beside the metal door.
Killer bees. You have no doubt heard of them. After being accidently introduced to Brazil (from Tanzania) by a mad scientist (Warwick Kerr; my boss actually has met him and reports he's a very nice man) in 1957, the Africanized Honeybees slowly spread through the Americas. By the early nineties they had reached the southern United States and there was panic. Now they are pervasive across the southern reaches of the United States, since they easily outcompete European Honeybees (there are no native American Honeybees).
However this entry is not about Killer Bees. This entry is about the bees that are actually driving killer bees out of their own homeland.
Bees that can clone themselves.
Clone Wars
The binomial name of honeybees is Apis mellifera. Honeybees can further be divided into subspecies.
Apis mellifera mellifera I'm assuming was the first one named. It is the German honeybee and was popular previous to the 20th century and was the first to be introduced to the Americas. A. m. ligustica is the Italian honeybee, which is currently the favourite among commercial beekeepers. Generally this is what commerical beekeepers keep (at least in the US).
A. m. scutellata is the so-called Killer or Africanized bee (-ized because its assumed to be a crossbreed between the 26 queens Kerr brought over and "nonafricanized" bees). As mentioned they are native to Tanzania and southern Africa. Bees in Europe evolved to be docile because those that survived were those people could work with to harvest honey. In Africa predators (and people) would destroy the hive to get the honey, so the bees that survived were the ones that were mean as shit
And A. m. capensis is the Capetown Bee. Because there are strong winds around Capetown (South Africa) the queen would often get swept away on mating flights (did I mention queens go on mating flights?). To compensate for this potential loss of the only egg-layer (which would theoretically mean the death of the hive in 24.7 days), ALL the workers in a capensis hive can lay eggs!! O=
HOWEVER, since these bees have never mated, their eggs have only the mother's DNA. They are therefore clones of the bee that laid them.
Furthermore, capensis bees can actually infiltrate scutellata hives without being killed (the usual treatment of illegal immigrants in beehives). These "undocumented workers" then go about laying clones of themselves!
It seems the capensis bees then proceed to loaf about and are underrepresented among the bees foraging for their new host colony. As they clone themselves and live off the welfare of their host colony the burden soon becomes too great and the scutellata hive collapses (not literally House of Usher style, but everyone starves). I’m assuming the capensis clone slacker army then moves on to a new scutellata hive.
I find this interesting because, while there are certainly other insects, such as the cuckoo wasp (and animals such as the cuckoo bird) who sneak their eggs into a similar animal’s nest to be raised by them, I know of no other creature that is such a social parasite. They have a normal lifecycle like any other bee (the workers don’t reproduce themselves in a hive of their own with a queen of their own), but if their queen is lost or they become seperated from their hive, they switch to a new parasitic lifestyle. And furthermore they don’t completely loaf, they DO do SOME chores, just extremely half-heartedly,like bad roommates.
So yeah. Apis mellifera scutellata may be taking the Americas by storm, but back home they are being pushed out by slacker clone armies.
Related
The Birds and the Bees - My official guide to bees, wasps, yelloyjackets, bumblebees, hornets, & bears oh my!
Colony Collapse Disorder - Everything you wanted to know about everyone's favourite thing to ask me about.
How to Write a Bee Attack Article - Since newspaper writers always bungle it.
A Bee In Math - Find out how the numbers 24.7, 2,500, 61,750, 500, and 54f relate to bees.
The following is all true except for incidentals:
The sun was shining, which was a welcome relief from the recent storms. Things were looking good as Vortigern rode through the rolling grasses of the Salisbury Plain in southern England1. Behind him followed dozens of the most important Britonic leaders.
Things were looking good for Britain. For the first time in the more than a generation since the Roman army marched out, the country was united under one leader – Vortigern. And now it looked like for the first time, there’d be peace.
When the Roman governor of Britain, Constantine, declared himself Emperor of all of Rome and took every available soldier in Britain with him to the continent (where he was defeated and killed before he reached Rome), a huge power vacuum was left in Britain. First the peasants rose up and burned manors and villas and there was chaos.2 Then the Picts from the north began pushing in on the territory of the Romano-Britons, and the Scotti from Ireland began making incursions. But Vortigern would be damned if the Scots would ever get a foothold in Great Britain, so he hired mercenaries from Germania to come fight for him.
And so the Saxons under Hengest came, first in three boats and then in more. They settled in the south-eastern peninsula of Kent and helped Vortigern defeat his enemies and restore order. Things went well, and Vortigern married Hengst’s beautiful daughter Rowena.
But things weren’t as good then as they were at the moment. There had still been fighting across the land. Not just in Britain but on the continent, Attila the Hun was burning the known world to the ground.
And then the Saxons turned on the Britons and there was bitter fighting between them. Vortigern’s sons Vortimer and Catigern both died in the ensuing battles and so did Hengest’s brother Horsa.
But now, now the Saxons had been driven back to the shore and were suing for peace. Vortigern had discussed the matter with his advisors and concluded that they would grant the Saxons the land they currently occupy in order to appease them and gain their cooperation against the Britons' enemies. With the conclusion of this peace treaty they would, for the first time in anyone’s memory, have achieved peace in their time.
The Briton delegation and the Saxon delegation met at a great hall just a few miles north of the peculiar standing stones3 that had already stood in the Salisbury Plains longer than anyone could remember (and yet later legends would have them being placed there later or even memorial to the event that was about to occur). Both sides left their swords and shields and armed retainers outside, entered the hall, and closed the great door.
Hengest was a huge man, his exploits on the continent in the Battle of Finnsburgh were already famous before he even came to England. He stood proudly like a stallion despite his army’s recent defeats. The mood in the room was tense with distrust but both sides were also very weary of the war.
The Saxons seemed a disorderly lot to the Britons. While the leaders of the Britons wore robes and capes of the Roman style, the Saxons wore the furs and trousers more typical of Germania. And they were not a homogenous lot, but in fact consisted of Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians. Separate ethnic groups, but an Angle and a Saxon were the same as far as a Briton was concerned and who’s ever heard of a Jute or a Frisian? Vortigern was sure on any account the Angles and such would assimilate into England without leaving a mark in the end.
Suddenly Hengest shouted something in the Saxon language and before Vortigern knew what was happening, all the Saxons had pulled Long Knives from their leggings and all around him there was crashing of tables and screaming and fighting! Two Saxons grabbed Vortigern and held a knife to his throat.
The Saxons mercilessly slew all the unarmed Britons in the hall. There was commotion outside but the armed retainers wouldn’t be able to get in – the door was barred, and halls such as this were designed to repel attack. Vortigern could only watch helplessly as his most important supporters were massacred. Eldol, Consul of Glevum, alone successfully defended himself with a large piece of wood and escaped through a high window.
Vortigern, however, they spared, but not before making him swear at knife-point that in addition to Kent, Essex and Sussex would belong to the Saxons.
Postlogue
Vortigern would return to his people with a calamity on his hands and all his supporters dead. Not only was war on again with the Saxons, but internal fighting soon enveloped the Britons. Legend has it that the abovementioned Eldol himself eventually beheaded Hengest in a later battle. A Britonic leader named Ambrosius Aurelianus would lay siege to Vortigern’s tower and kill him. Regional warlords such as Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall and Uther Pendragon of Dumnonia would wage war on one another for the rest of their lives. It would be hundreds of years before England was once again unified under one leader.
This night, would be known for most of the next 1,500 years as The Night of the Long Knives.
( Commentaries and Footnotes )
If there's one thing I think people should care more about, but instead seem to have a shocking disregard for it is people in other countries.
Sure people will always express a polite concern about the welfare of people in other countries, maybe even vaguely endorse policies or movements which they've taken a wild guess might help people in another country. But I found when it actually comes to seriously caring about them, people exhibit a shocking geographic discrimination.
The most blatant example of this I think is during presidential elections, where for months you hear every day about both candidates stumping around about how they're gonna stop "us" from "losing american jobs!!" etc etc. And even outside the context of elections you hear people say that - losing American jobs to anyone in any other country is apparently always considered a tragedy.
You see, if someone in Ohio loses their job to someone in Guatamala, all I ever hear is that thats an outrage. From politicians, from people in Ohio, from people here thousands of miles from Ohio.
But the way I see it, someone in Ohio loses their job, three people in Guatamala gain jobs. That unemployed person in Ohio is probably STILL better off than the three people in Guatamala who now have better jobs than they did before.
And so, I don't care if trade liberalization causes Americans to lose their jobs. And I submit that you too should consider people living outside your border to be just as human as those living within it.
Addressing the Excuses
As I've run this argument past my friends, as I mentioned yesterday, nearly all of them balked at it. Lets explore some of the counter-arguments they raised:
(1) "Trade with oppresive regimes legitimizes them!!" was one I got from a number of my friends. And this is a convenient out that makes one feel really morally upright for not caring about people, but does it really make sense?
First and foremost, do you know of any South American (those from elsewhere please bear with me on the focus on trade in the Americas, but it's the terms trade liberalization is usually talked about in here) regimes that are evil and oppressive offhand? I mean, yes there are certainly some sinister ones that come to mind in the past, and there's some now that have corruption problems or are otherwise less-than-optimal, but are any of them actually non-democratic? I think first and foremost this counterargument hinges upon a silly, inaccurate and patronizing idea of what life in South America is like.
But furthermore, studies show* that democracy only flourishes when per capita GDP is higher than $5,000 per annum. Therefore the answer to helping oppressed people is not to refuse to have anything to do with them but rather support their economic development.
(2) "Yeah now those jobs are being done by people in sweatshops!" -- Yes human slavery does still exist and still do sweatshops. HOWEVER I know of no country, particularly in the Americas, where it's a regular part of the economy. People have a choice in what they do. If they're working in factories in conditions that we'd find deplorable or with a standard of living we'd find unacceptable, it's presumably because they didn't have better options. They chose to work at the factory because without the factory their options would be worse.
I'm not saying we should call the situation all a-okay because of this logic, I believe everything possible to improve their conditions should still be done, I'm just saying that it's not because of free trade that their conditions are bad. And more to the point, because their conditions aren't optimum is absolutely not a justification for not wanting them to "take American jobs."
(3) "Hey I'M from Ohio!" objects hereticxxii at my use of Ohio as an example. "LOL but now you work in Korea" say I.
(4) "Well what if it was YOUR job that was taken overseas" Honestly I'm pretty sure if I got edged out by beekeepers in Mexico I'd feel the same way about it if I got edged out by beekeepers in Utah ("the Beehive State") or say that filthy squatter who set up his beehives on empty land not half a mile from our bees last week and the County has been dragging its feet on investigating. His bees are bad-tempered (one stung me in the ear while I was snooping around) and his practices unhygenic (leaving collapsed colonies side by side with healthy ones, is he TRYING to infect them all with something?!) ... but I digress.
But yeah, if I lost my job I lost my job and blaming the guy that took it would just be focusing frustration in a wrong and negative direction.
What About Those Who Lost Their Jobs
My main point here is that we shouldn't see Americans losing their jobs due to free trade causing those employment opportunities to move elsewhere as something deplorable, due to the fact that the people receiving those jobs are better off. But so as not to be completely insensitive to my fellow Americans, I thought I'd hit on why it's also better for America.
The world is a better place when everyone is producing what they have a comparative advantange in producing. That is, everything is being produced by whomever it is most efficient for it to be produced by. The free market causes this to happen, and this is a good thing because it means there is more all around consumer goods being produced, meaning there is more for everyone to consume. To put it more simply, it's better for the economy.
When we subvert free trade by trade barriers we keep our people happily doing stuff that they are not the best at producing. They may be happy, and if they're in a swing state the politicians will pander shamelessly to them, but they're not actually going to be producing as much as they would if economic restructuring were allowed to follow its natural course. Over time if we were to allow it to sit like this our economy would become increasingly backwards as it would fail to keep up with the global economy.
Being unemployed sucks. Finding a new career can be daunting. However, these auto workers or factory workers who are losing their jobs DO presumably have the ability to do other things, and would presumably end up doing them if they had to.
In Conclusion
In conclusion the fact that people care about the welfare and specifically employment status of people belonging to their own country infinitly more than they care about the same for people of a different country is an arbitrary discrimination. You should care just as much about the welfare of people in other countries and you shouldn't try to edge them out with protectionist trade policies.
* I wish I could remember my original source for this but I can't. But if you google for example "democracy $5,000 per capita" you get a number of references to it, including one from JSTOR that is surely a scholarly enough source to cite, but I no longer have JSTOR access /=
** Pictured at upper right: employees making use of gratuitous free space at the Budweiser factory I visited last week
See Also
The Making of Entry 3 - An outtake
Topic 3 Bonus Entry - Probably a better entry than this one!
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