Belland Family, Inc. Announces First Expansion to Popular "Family Life" Simulator.
New development promises interactive entertainment, challenges.

Area Man Joe Belland, Dictator-for-Life of Belland Family Enterprises, announced today that production had begun on the first expansion to the popular "Family Life" simulation that many fans have participated in. In a press release, His Excellency stated, "for four and a half years now, we have offered the highest quality life-simulating experience. We feel that the timing is right to add on to our already popular brand name. We hope that our users will enjoy participating in what will surely offer new opportunities for entertainment and challenges."

The as-yet-to-be-named expansion is scheduled for release in the third quarter of 2009. When asked for details of what sort of enhancements to the family-life simulations that the Belland brand name already offers would be provided by the expansion, The Almighty replied, "we feel that by branching out into the younger demographic, we can provide our fans with a unique and previously-unknown type of life-simulation."

President-and-First-Murloc Area Woman Anne Marie Belland expanded on the announcement, stating that, "after four and a half years, we felt that our Life Simulation had begun to stagnate and that by adding onto the simulated family, we would be able to freshen the experience, while maintaining the same core simulation experience that our fans have come to enjoy."

When pressed for details, She Who Must Be Obeyed admitted that production had only begun three weeks previously, and details on the finished product had not been finalized. "However," she continued, "over the coming months we look forward to sharing news and details with our fans, as they become known."

Both the God of Awesome and the Goddess of Sexiness announced jointly that the expansion would be the first in what would hopefully be many new expansions to the brand.

-----

BELLAND FAMILY, LLC is a definitely-for-profit organization dedicated to providing young and old alike an entertaining life-simulation experience, and taking over the world. It was formed on January 10th, 2004.

(With a wink and a nod to Angst Technology.)

Dear Alicia Cisneros of Dallas, TX.

I just wanted to let you know that Asurion is shipping you a package via DHL Express. It was shipped on November 18th, 2008 using Waybill 28033626132 to your address at:

9919 Brockbank Dr

Dallas, TX

75220-1647

You can track it at DHL's website, or by using the following link.

http://track.dhl-usa.com/atrknav.asp?ShipmentNumber=28033626132

You can expect it to arrive today around 3:00pm. Please visit http://www.dhl-usa.com/ for more details.

Oh, and pretty please double-check your e-mail address when purchasing things online. It will make both our lives so much easier.

FLASH: A WOMAN IS PREGNANT!

ABC News announces that a woman is pregnant again! Bellow are excerpts from the article that was understandably written in haste without time for editing corrections since this story was too big to delay. I've made my own corrections to make this easier to read, but rest assured that I will not detract from the accuracy of this amazing story.

Barbara Walters Exclusive: Pregnant Man Woman Expecting Second Child

In First Interview Since Giving Birth, Thomas Beatie Tells Barbara Walters About Life With Daughter Susan

By ALAN B. GOLDBERG and KATIE N. THOMSON

Nov. 13, 2008

Thomas Beatie, the controversial woman people are calling a "pregnant man" who gave birth to a daughter earlier this year, reveals to Barbara Walters in an exclusive interview that she is pregnant again with his her second child.

Thomas Beatie, a transgender woman without traditional moral values, welcomed a baby girl, Susan, June 29. Since sharing the story of Susan's birth with ABC News, she and his wife her roomate, Nancy Beatie, hadn't spoken to the media been able to get enough of the national attention they so craved until they sat down last month with Walters.

Thomas Beatie, who is in his first trimester the first three months of her pregnancy, tells Walters she did not go back on the male hormone testosterone after Susan's birth so she could have another baby.

"I feel good," she said. "I had my checkups with my hormone level, as far as the HCG. And everything is right on track." He She says the baby is due June 12.

Thomas Beatie also spoke to Walters about Susan's birth, which was not via Caesarean section. He She was in labor for 40 hours; Nancy Beatie cut the umbilical cord.

In the spring, Thomas Beatie wrote an article in the national gay magazine The Advocate, revealing that she was legally male and that she was pregnant. He She released a photo showing his her bearded face and pregnant belly. The news -- and the controversial photo -- ignited a media frenzy and provoked questions about traditional notions about predictably gave the liberal media a new angle to try to distort the public's understanding of sex and gender.

"Hiding a pregnant man woman is like hiding an 800-pound gorilla," she said of his her decision to go public. Husbands around the country agreed. "Nancy and I wanted to tell our story from our own mouths before it got out and the made-for-TV movie deals would start rolling in."

Thomas Beatie says she was surprised at how quickly the news of the woman being called a "pregnant man" spread.

"I was shocked that it looped around the world in 24 hours," she told Walters. "I mean, it was on Chinese Web sites and, you know, Web sites in Romania and Russia and Brazil."

He She became exactly what she wanted to be: an instant target of the tabloids and paparazzi, and fodder for talk shows and late-night television. Some people called Thomas Beatie a freak. Reasonable people call her an attention hungry woman without any traditional sexual morals. He She received death threats, and thousands of hateful comments still litter the Internet. To this day, she continues to receive anonymous hate messages and secretly loves the attention.

Since Susan's birth four months ago, Thomas Beatie, 34, and his wife her roommate, Nancy Beatie, 46, have been living a quiet life in Bend, Ore., and have rarely been seen in public, keeping their blinds drawn and monitoring surveillance cameras that surround their property except when on Oprah, various other national talk shows or in the newspapers.

Despite concerns for his family's her house's occupant's safety, Thomas Beatie says that she won't let fear rule their lives since seeking attention is so much more fun and that she feels has somehow convinced herself that they are a traditional family.

"We are a man two women with no traditional sexual morals, woman and child. It's ironic that we are so different but yet, we're just a family, just the same as anyone else that has no traditional sexual morals and constantly seeks national attention," she said.

When asked why she makes many people uneasy, Thomas Beatie said, "I think that people are not used to seeing the image of a pregnant man. And it's causing a lot of people to think. … I used my female reproductive organs to become a father mother." No kidding.

…

Though Thomas Beatie physically and legally transformed himself from a woman to has convinced a lot of people to believe that she is a man, she did not have "bottom" surgery, known as phalloplasty, to create an artificial penis. He She also left his her female reproductive organs in place.

"I don't feel like removing your sexual reproductive organs will make you any more of a man or any less of a woman," she said. It remains a mystery why changing a legal document would convince her.

Last year on "20/20," Walters reported on how children as young as 5 years old are transitioning from one gender to another because the adults around them are confusing the hell out of them. And in the last few years transgender people have gained gradual acceptance forced their way into the mainstream, even showing up in Hollywood plot lines, such as on the TV series "Ugly Betty" and "Dirty Sexy Money." But what happens when that transgender child grows up and wants to have a baby?

In 2003, Thomas and Nancy Beatie were legally married, and like many couples, they decided to start a family. The couple wanted to have a biological link to their child, but Nancy Beatie had a hysterectomy. The couple did not want to hire a surrogate to carry Thomas Beatie's harvested eggs, feeling no surrogate could be as conscientious as she.

So how does a man who was once a woman get pregnant? The first step was to stop taking testosterone, his a male hormone. After four months she began menstruating.

The Beaties then decided that they wanted a real challenge. Instead of finding the most promiscuous of creatures on the earth who would have been happy to abide, the male human, the Beaties then needed decided they would try to get a doctor who could help them obtain donor sperm and inseminate it into Thomas Beatie, but nine doctors rejected them.

In the end, the Beaties did it all themselves. First, they bought donor sperm on the Internet and Nancy Beatie used a syringe she had bought at a pet store to inseminate her husband roommate. Soon after, a home pregnancy test confirmed that she was pregnant.

Thomas Beatie says that pregnancy did not make him her feel more like a woman. "I did not feel maternal or motherly or womanly and pregnant. I felt like Nancy's husband, and I felt like the father of my child."

…

Thomas Beatie says she and his wife her roommate are clear on their parental roles. "I am my daughter's father, and that's all I'll ever be to her. Nancy is Susan's mother." Susan offered no comment at the time.

But state officials in Oregon had a different view when it came to the baby's birth certificate. "The nurse in charge of birth certificates came in and said, 'Portland won't allow this. That means, Thomas, we're going to put you as mother and Nancy as father.'" This upset everyone understandably. Portland apparently found a way to please none of the people all of the time.

…

The Beaties insist that they are a married, heterosexual couple and that the birth certificate should list them as father and mother. Legal experts say that regardless of how Thomas Beatie is listed, his her parental rights are protected because she is the baby's biological parent. But because she has no biological tie, Nancy Beatie could find her rights threatened. In related news, Tom Adams insists that he is the King of Spain and that his power is undermined by a small elephant that lives in a teapot and controls an unstoppable army of whirling dervishes.

In order to secure Nancy Beatie's parental rights, legal experts say the Beaties need to do what many same-sex couples with children do and have Nancy Beatie, the nonbiological parent, adopt Susan. But understandably, the traditional nature of adoption appalls the Beaties.

Instead they want to fight to change the birth certificate. They asked the American Civil Liberties Union to take their case but were turned down [editor's note: Get the Beaties the correct phone number for the ACLU. I'm pretty sure they'll take it]. They are still seeking legal representation.

"I feel that it's a flawed document," Thomas Beatie said in union with advocates for traditional families. "We'd like to see this process remedied for the next child, for the next pregnant woman."

Life in the Beatie home is pretty typical when they are not on Oprah or trying to get attention some other way. Thomas Beatie tends the garden, Nancy Beatie breast-feeds the baby. But while the Beaties paint a picture of themselves as a have managed to convince themselves somehow that they are a normal, everyday family, others who are not so foolish see them as outsiders and question their claims and motivations. Many have accused observed the Beaties of going public to profit from their story.

In fact, the Beaties have made some money. They sold photographs of their family to Getty Images, a photo agency, and were paid to appear in a British documentary that will air on the Discovery Health Channel next week.

Thomas Beatie has also written a book about his life, "Labor of Love," which goes on sale this week.

Buying guns over the weekend

As was probably very predictable, our little adventure into weapons purchasing was reduced to a matter of budgeting and practicality as opposed to my grand hopes of building a force of firepower no one could oppose. Yes, that’s right; I did not buy the Barret Model 82 and a MOAB. Ultimately it came down to costs and practical use. So this is what we got:

I of course still have my Beretta 92FS which I’ve had for a couple of years now. It weighs 32oz roughly and can hold a magazine in excess of 10 rounds (though some laws prohibit magazine that hold more than 10). It fires 9mm rounds. It’s good enough for the Marine Corps, so it’s good enough for me. Besides that, I like working with what I’m used to. As far as this weapon was involved over the weekend, I got more ammo for it.

Ileana got herself a Charter Arms Goldfinger .38 special. It is a small 12 oz. 5 shot revolver. While I myself prefer magazine fed handguns, Ileana preferred the reliability combined with the easy of handling. In case you didn’t know, revolvers are less likely to jam than magazine fed weapons, and they require significantly less maintenance which is another plus. The gun is small enough for Ileana’s small hands to reach everything. The light weight also makes it far easier for her to aim than my bulky Beretta 92.

We also got a Mossberg 500E shotgun which fires a .410 Gauge shell. It can hold up to 6 shells when fully loaded (including the one in the chamber). It fires the least powerful (common) shotgun round, but that comes with the advantage of not destroying our house or killing our neighbors on the other side of our townhouse’s walls should we need to disassemble someone dumb enough to wander into our house at 3am. While not the most manly of all available home artillery, it serves as the most practical solution after a handgun for general family defense. It has a short 18.5” barrel for easy(er) maneuverability down hallways and around corners and weighs in around 6lbs making it easy for everyone in the family to carry it. Because it is small, lightweight and fires a round that won’t knock the rest of my family back on their butts, I feel confident that my family can learn to use this effectively even in my absence.

We purchased some miscellaneous items like ammo, a waterproof case for the shotgun (you never know when you might be paddling down the street in a canoe with hurricanes the way they are), a holster to keep Ileana’s gun protected inside her purse, gun handling class for Ileana, etc. All in all, by the time we get Ileana’s carry permit, we will have spent just over a grand on this weekend. Now down the road, laws and budget allowing, we may purchase a rifle. I currently have my heart set on an AR-15, but I may have to do a little budgetary juggling since that alone approaches $2K. Like I said, I like what I’m used to.

A line from the book I'm currently reading.

"The only thing known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle. He reasoned like this: you can't have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously. Presumably, he said, there must be some elementary particles—kingons, or possibly queons—that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if, in mid flight, they strike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expounded because, at that point, the bar closed." —Terry Pratchett, Mort

It's NaNoWriMo, Don'tcha Know.

That's right. The month during which aspiring authors are encouraged to write a 50,000 word* novel. I suppose it would be good motivation to make large headway into SP Episode II, but unfortunately, the NaNoWriMo organizers failed to take into account the launch of Wrath of the Lich King.

See you in a few months!

(In one discussion I read of the event, one insightful person pointed out that publishers probably have an unusually high number of rejections in December.)

*50,000 words is on the short side for a noves. A commonly given example is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is approximately that long. For comparison, SP:E1 was 96,000 words, or just shy of the length over which publishers won't publish your work, unless your name begins with "J" and ends in "oanne Rowling".

The RESPONSIBILITY of Self-Defense

This is a re-post (with some editing) at Joe's request from my old website, owibtyw.com. I'll get my old website up and running when I have a ton of time on my hands to do it. The header for the original "Rants" pages was this: "It has become necessary for me to say what I have to say because too many people I know have said things that utterly blow my mind and this prevents me from blowing up in their face due to their unbridled ignorance." So if you think that this is too harsh and aggressive, just understand that this was intended to be more therapeutic for me than educational for you (ass!), and that's why I never posted it on Joe's blog. So here it is:

I want to start this by saying that self defense is not just a right but is also a responsibility. If you are capable of it, you absolutely must defend yourself. This conclusion follows from the same argument that says you must not commit suicide and the argument that says you should defend others. I say the latter because when you defend yourself, you prevent further injustices on others by killing, apprehending or beating the aggressor into rethinking his actions.

Furthermore other potential or real aggressors rethink their actions when they understand that people are defending themselves.

The above paragraph is not arguable, so don't bother. You can add to it, but if you think you can detract from it, you simply contradict truth and reality, and frankly you are just cheesing me off. So before you start taking Bible quotes out of context as many people so artfully do, ask yourself, "Does Jesus want you to not defend your children?" Once you then figure out what the real meaning behind "turn the other cheek" is (spoiler hint: pride), you can consider yourself "up to my level" and ready to discuss the rest of this with me.

Premises: Before you start thinking I'm some nut who thinks everyone should own a nuke, no I don't. I think there is a reasonable cut off for what weapons should be considered legal to own.
Now to get into the arguable portions:

Q. Doesn't having a gun in a house endanger the children there? Sure, just like the steak knives, wall outlets, bathtubs of water, cars in the garage (multiple ways), gas stoves, any glass that can be broken, pest poison, bleach, stairs, pets with teeth, some pets without teeth, trees, neighbors, stools, refrigerators that latch shut... and sharp corners.

You can go here for factual stuff to "bolster" the anti-gun argument. But notice the lack of a logical connection. For instance:

"Guns killed X number of people between I-J years of age in year Y." ... So? And how many of these dead people tried to defend themselves with a gun? Theoretically remove all guns from the world, and do you think that you wouldn't have a similar stat for knife murders? Having a gun does not increase motive, dim bulb. The object of aggression being more defenseless does increase the likely hood of violence though.

"Suicides are more likely to succeed if a gun is used" ... ?!?!?! Of course! Jumping off a building leads to a similar statistic too! Try taking into account the number of failed suicides where the suicidee had access to something truly lethal like a bridge or a gun. Failed suicides are the result of attention hungry nuts, not people who truly want to end it, so the use of guns is a misleading stat. You want to argue with me? Then you bring me stats that show outlawing guns reduces the number of suicides significantly. Good luck. You won't find it in Canada.

And to counter the ridiculous notion that family is 43 times more likely to die if you own a gun, check here.

So if it really was a problem, why aren't firearm deaths listed among the leading cause of death among children? Oh, wait it is. It is listed as the 0.01% cause of unintentional deaths among children. That would be 0.003% of all child deaths in the US. 3.5 times that many kids die of accidental poisoning! Almost 50 times that many die from auto accidents! Are you gonna stop driving your kid?

Q. Don't guns lead to more violent crimes? No, but more defenseless people does.

If you think that outlawing guns will cause a significant decrease in gun violence, just know that 80% of offenders get their guns from family, friends, a street buy, or an illegal source. ((http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/guns.htm)) So congrats on decreasing the number of defensive weapons that law-abiding citizens can buy, ass.

Less than 10% of victims (83,000 out of 931,000 in 1992) of violent crimes have defended themselves with a firearm in this country. Of that 10% that defended themselves with a firearm, one-fifth of them actually suffered an injury as opposed to the one-half of those that didn't defend themselves with a firearm. ((Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief)) That means that you are 2.5 times more likely to suffer an injury during a violent crime if you don't defend yourself with a firearm.

You can easily find statistics online that say firearm related crimes drop when strict gun laws are enforce like in Australia. Unfortunately most of these are misleading anyway since I can also find statistics that say the opposite over more time. But the real question you need to ask yourself is whether that led to a decrease in violent crimes. How does it benefit you if gun-violence goes down and you get stabbed instead? To accurately compare countries, you must compare their rates of violence without firearms as well to accurately gauge just how violent the society is with or without guns. I got tired looking for those stats from a "non-biased" source (sites that don't overtly advocate gun ownership even though I know they're right).

Q. If I'm in a dire situation though, shouldn't I wait for the experts to show up to help me? Sure, if you don't mind being raped or dying before they arrive.

If you are so ignorant that you think 911 is your first line of defense, I feel for your children. While you are huddling under your desk with your kids and the cops are still 10 minutes away, you can be sure that Charles Manson Jr. is going to enjoy the next 5 minutes looking before he finds you. You are your first line of defense, dip wad. Police are backup and cleanup. If their job was an instantaneous response, they'd set up base in your house. So because you didn't have the guts to own something to defend yourself with, someone else can walk all over you or worse your children (who hopefully are not as dumb as you are).

Oh, and the experts never helped on 9/11. The only people who got anything done were on United 93 and they did what they could with what they had. Do you think one shmuck with a box cutter would have killed more than one person if someone on any of those planes was packing heat? I think not.

Which leads me to my next point: Places where guns are absolutely restricted frequently turn out to be more dangerous. Schools and airplanes have been the sites of recent violence in America, and even if you have a carry permit you cannot enter with your weapon. Does this stop criminals from entering them with guns or other weapons (box cutters, etc)? No! It just leaves the rest of us defenseless, dumbass.

So I say, anyone deemed competent enough to carry a concealed weapon (ex-military or school trained non-violent non-felons) should absolutely be allowed to carry their concealed weapon to just about anywhere (within reason, i.e. not to court, federal building, places that are already heavily guarded). So nuts to this stupid "no guns on planes" rule. The next terrorist that tries to take a plane should consider first "I wonder who might be packing heat".

What if I don't trust average Joes with guns in life/death choices? The situation was posed to me "Even if you had your gun with you on a flight, if a terrorist picked up a baby and held him as a human shield then what would you do?" Why do people think that if they pose a lesser-of-two-evils problem to me, that I should be hesitant to answer? "Duh-uh Tom what be worse: paper cut or shoot in head?" I don't hesitate to answer: “shoot in head.” So to answer your obvious lesser-of-two-evils scenario, I'd shoot through the baby into the terrorist. Oh no! That's so scary, Tom! How could you?! Give me a break. One terrorist down, one baby as collateral damage even if it’s my own kid, or maybe you still don't understand the words we are using. Say it with me terr-or-ist. They do not keep their promises. They do not have mercy. They will kill again if they have the chance. Some dumbass terrorist tells me "Put your weapon down or I will kill this baby", and my mind will translate it from bull-crap to English as "Ha ha, now I will pose an emotional dilemma for you. It will disarm you. Then I will kill you, this baby, and every other baby on this plane. Ha ha, this baby is already dead!" If you think otherwise, you have sunk to a depth of ignorance that Jacque Cousteau could only dream of exploring.
What do you mean you don't trust people to make life and death decisions?!?! Who do you think does make life and death decisions? Robots?! It seems to me you don't have a freakin' choice to trust some backwoods hick approved for a carry permit or not. You have a terrorist on board: you are screwed. Your best chance of survival lies in the one guy with any brains to actually defend himself with a weapon greater than what the terrorists have. So screw your trust. No one else should be forced to go defenseless just because you don't trust them. Why don't we throw you at the terrorists to distract them while we actually try to set up a weaponless defense, ass.

What if I'm afraid of guns? Buck up, or take a martial arts class. You can be trained to move faster than most people can draw their weapons. Good on you if that's the way you want to go. As for me, I'm lazy and like a long range solution to problems.

Well why don't we just teach everyone martial arts or hand out "batons" to people who fly planes? I threw in batons because that was an actual suggestion by someone arguing with me.

Ok... You are stupid. You've been watching too many Jackie Chan movies. 99% of the time, after the initial contact is made (i.e. first hit) in any close combat, the fight will break down into grappling on the floor. So any theory that "one whack with a baton, you could break someone's wrist" is just stupid. How's this for an answer? "Or they can take the blow, not break their wrist because you swing like a girl, and then they cut your throat with a box cutter because you bothered to get into close combat with them." Consider a long range, semi-automatic approach next time.

Oh, while we are in the dumb fantasy question, no, shooting a gun in a plane will not suddenly cause the plane to decompress so violently that the plane is ripped inside out and everyone is flung onto the island in Lost. Sorry.

In Conclusion: No I don't think guns are for everyone, but your squeamishness should not prevent the rest of us from defending ourselves. What's more, you owe it to your children to provide them adequate protection. And no, the police are not your first line of defense because they take time to show up.

Now that the election is over....

A couple bumperstickers I want.

One, "Palin 2012"

Secondly, something that summarizes these posts by Scott Ott and John C. Wright.

Over the last eight years, I've gotten so sick of the hatred and vitriol directed at the current president. You know, the bumper stickers that say "Not my president" or "Bush should be behind bars" or "Buck Fush" or "Bush is poopy" (yes, I did see that one; it reflects the level of maturity I expect from the left). Even the media (especially the media) had resorted to it. Did anyone ever notice how President Bush was never referred to as such in virtually any newspaper article? Every time I saw him referenced, it was always as "Mr. Bush".

Now that there's someone I don't like in the white house it's my turn to show that I am the better man, and refrain from resorting to such infantile name-calling. I'm thinking a bumper sticker like:

"Obama is my president. He may be a liberal hack, but he's MY liberal hack."

Also, it may be time that I stopped shirking my responsibility to defense of my family and bought a firearm, before they are banned. The advice of some guy on the internet is "First, get a shotgun. If you can afford it, a Benelli M4. If you can't, get a Remington 870, preferably a 'Police Magnum'. Barring that, a standard 870 in a minimum-legal length barrel configuration will do superbly. You can also get a plain 870 hunting shotgun and get whatever barrel you want for it. There's plenty of 870 aftermarket accessories to make it do whatever you want it to. Mossberg 500s run a close second, but the safety location makes some add-ons unwieldy. If it's going to be for home defense, get a flashlight add-on. If you've got the money, a Surefire foregrip is ideal. If not, pick up a Maglite LED with a pressure switch and a mount. But a light of some variety is essential."

Reasonable advice? I know there are at least two readers of this blog who are also gun owners. What do they think? Perhaps I should head to a local gun store on December 4th?

El. Oh. Freaking. El.

The Kindness of a Stranger.

I was coming home from a training session in Houston a couple months ago (just days ahead of Ike; dodged that bullet). When I arrived at the departure gate at IAH, there was a woman in the waiting area with five kids, and what looked to be a sixth on the way. There were, of course, many other passengers, but none were quite as, shall we say, prominent as this family. The children were behaving as children do. Not particularly rambunctious, but not sitting still and minding their own business. The woman, on the other hand, was behaving as a pregnant mother might be expected to behave when travelling on her own with five children, not one of whom looked over 10. She was actually louder than the children.

"One guess as to who they end up sitting behind," I commented to myself. I seem to be a children-on-airplanes magnet, in that I always end up with a small child behind me. Not that I'm complaining, mind you; I would rather they are seated behind me than behind another passenger. I'm far too patient and non-confrontational to angrily confront the parent.

So when the plane finally boarded, I was seated in the second-to-last row, port side, and sure enough the family was seated in the last row, starboard. There was a problem, however, with their tickets. As the flight attendants were helping the family to their seats, they noticed that the airline had only sold the family four tickets: one for the mother, and three for the three eldest children. The two youngest were small enough to sit on a lap, but the mother was only allowed to have one child on her lap, and none of the other children were old enough to have a child in their laps. Safety regulations did not permit two children to share a seat. The flight attendants and the mother were just starting to get anxious, trying to figure out how to seat this family, when the gentleman in the row behind me, just next to the family's seats, spoke up.

"He can sit in my lap," he said of the second-youngest child, the one that had no lap and no seat.

He was a younger gentleman, probably in his early thirties or late twenties. He had a goatee and a kindly face. I assume he was from Texas, because of his looks, his slight drawl, the fact that we were leaving from Houston, and the fact that no one in LA would ever offer that sort of kindness to a stranger.

It was a couple hours from Houston to Denver, and the gentleman kept the young boy entertained the entire way. It was Frontier airlines, so each seat had DirecTV in the back of the seat, but unlike JetBlue, you have to pay for it. The flight attendants offered the service for free to this family, and the man watched cartoons with the boy for most of the flight. The boy was very inquisitive, and the man talked with the boy, answered his questions, and made sure the mother only had to worry about corraling four of her children through the flight.

And there was nothing weird about it. Nothing stalker-ish, or paedophiliac in his manners or mood.

I found myself quite moved by this simple act of Christian charity. No one in Orange County would ever do such a thing for a random stranger. We're all too busy rushing to work, trying to beat the traffic, drinking our Starbucks soy lattés, and thinking about ourselves to be any sort of concerned about those around us.

After the flight arrived in Denver, as the passengers debarked, one of the flight attendants turned to the man and said, "you're a saint."

How right she was.

"And the king answering shall say to them: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me."

And Yet—Somehow—Life Goes On.

I think the stoics had it right when they said that if you wanted to be happy, you could not let external events affect you. It makes sense; if your happiness depends on factors entirely beyond your control, how could you ever achieve it?

This is particularly true for elections. I was mildly upset for a little while after the 2006 election, when the Republicans, apparently tired of running the legislative branch of government, succeeded in giving it away to their opposition. Eventually I realized that it didn't matter if the rest of the nation disagreed with my political or social beliefs. I don't require a majority referendum to validate what I know to be the truth.

With this election, obviously the greatest loss is in the cause for the defense of human life, given Obama's track record of being the single most pro-choice member of the senate, going so far as to oppose legal rights for newly born infants, and boldly standing up for his vote against the ban on the single most barbaric procedure ever devised by man.

The judges that Obama will appoint are going to set the pro-life cause back decades, and we will undoubtedly be feeling their effects for years after.

But, ultimately, this civil rights battle won't be won in the courts, but in the hearts and minds of the people across this great nation. And it is constantly being fought and won on a daily basis, judging by polls and statistics. The abortion ratio continues to fall, even under pro-abortion presidents, and each new generation is more pro-life than the previous. According to a 2003 Gallup poll, 72% of teens believe that abortion is morally wrong, and fewer teens than adults believe it should be allowed in all circumstances (19% vs. 26%). And as the Baby Gap widens, this shift will likely continue. Any philosophy that frowns on procreation is unlikely to survive.

My next concern was over economics. Considering Obama's proximity to the people who, if not caused, then severely contributed to the current financial situation, and considering his outright socialism, I was worried about financial security.

But it's times like this that we should thank God for our Papa, Benedict XVI, who reminds us, "we are now seeing, in the collapse of major banks, that money vanishes, it is nothing. All these things that appear to be real are in fact secondary. Only God's words are a solid reality."

And he is right (of course). What is money? Does it make me happy or lead me to God? If not, why should I be concerned about it, then?

While a national election may seem far more "big picture" than burnt toast, it is important to remember that in the biggest picture, which is that of God, they are both as dust. And in that big picture view, it doesn't matter who wins the election; His is the final victory.

But perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind, even in the midst of darkness, is St. Thomas Aquinas' insistence that "God permits evil in order to draw forth some greater good." What that greater good is, how it will come about, and when, are questions we may not ever fully understand the answers to until God reveals them to us in the next life.

When, rising from the bed of death,
o'erwhelmed with guilt and fear,
I see my Maker face to face,
O how shall I appear?
If yet, while pardon may be found,
and mercy may be sought,
my heart with inward horror shrinks,
and trembles at the thought;

When thou, O Lord, shalt stand disclosed
in majesty severe,
and sit in judgment on my soul,
O how shall I appear?
But thou hast told the troubled mind
who does her sins lament,
the timely tribute of her tears
shall endless woes prevent.

Then see the sorrow of my heart,
ere yet it be too late;
and hear my Savior's dying groans,
to give these sorrows weight.
For never shall my soul despair
her pardon to procure,
who knows thine only Son has died
to make her pardon sure.

Words: Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
Music: Third Mode Melody (Thomas Tallis)

July 31, 2178.
Planning ahead FTW!

Since Space Pirates Episode I seemed to be well received by the four people who read it, I feel a little more comfortable discussing it in this space. If it pleases the readership of this blog, I may post a few articles with "behind the scenes" information from time to time.

NB: this post contains very minor spoilers. If you have not yet read SPE1, and intend to do so, you may or may not wish to skip this post.

In case you hadn't figured it out, that date is the date that Space Pirates begins on. While it may have been difficult to figure out, a very observant reader, making a few educated guesses, probably could have guessed it, along with a few other possibilities. Allow me to go through the clues, and explain why I chose that date in particular.

When I was first looking for a time frame in which to set SP, I had to balance a few things out. I didn't want the technology to feel outlandishly advanced, so it couldn't be so far into the future that you would expect everyone to carry personal laser guns, ships to travel through hyperspace, or people to move ship-to-shore with transporter beams. On the other hand, it had to be far enough into the future that mankind had colonized much of the solar system, and it was believable that there were cities with millions of people on them.

I figured 200 years into the future might be the right balance point to accommodate, but I didn't want it to be exactly 200 years. I wanted to err on this side of that mark, making it a little less than that. So I decided it should take place 200 years after my birth year, or 2180.

Using Celestia, here's a picture of what the relevant part of the solar system will look like 200 years after the moment of my birth.



This gave me a starting point, and allowed me to create a picture of Arcas station in the story. You might remember, towards the beginning of Chapter 2, when Jack is flying Redemptrix on approach to Arcas, the mention that Jupiter was "beginning its close approach to Saturn", and that it was closer than it had been for 60 years, and as such, the harbor was busy, since it was a convenient stop-over for ships heading to Saturn from the inner solar system. This paragraph originally noted that Jupiter was just past its close approach, and traffic was tapering off, but it could still be used as a stopping point on ships inbound from Saturn.

(This is also your clue to the year. The prologue begins "it is the second half of the twenty-second century", and the 60-year close approach of Jupiter and Saturn takes place in 2179.)

As I continued the story, I needed a place for the crew to head to for repairs, after they were damaged in the pirate attack. (The original plot had them heading for the planet that the fluyt was en route to, because the original plot involved faster-than-light travel, and they weren't even in our solar system. It wasn't until I was half-way into chapter 1 that I stripped out that technology, and had to come up with new locales for everything.) After some browsing on Wikipedia, I decided Ceres would be a good location to have them visit. It was an interesting, if little known, part of the solar system, and was in the asteroid belt, which I had already decided the pirate attack would take place in.

The only problem, is that in 2180, Ceres is about as far as possible from Jupiter.


The red cirlce marks Ceres' orbit, and the red diamond, Ceres herself.

I had already decided that the site of the pirate attack would be relatively close to Jupiter, envisioning it in about a straight line between Jupiter and the Sun. This was because I wanted the shortest possible travel time between Callisto and the fluyt, because I knew the crew would make this trip three times over the course of the story, which was supposed to take weeks, not months. I had referenced that during normal space flight, ships would accelerate at 9.8m/s/s (about the acceleration of Earth's gravity) for about 8.5 hours, which puts them at a speed of about 300k/s (or o.1% of the speed of light). This means in the twelve days mentioned at the start of chapter 4 that it took them to travel from Callisto to the site of the pirate attack, they would have travelled a little over 300,000,000 kilometers, or a little under the difference between Jupiter's semi-major axis and Ceres semi-major axis. In 2180, this would be no where near Ceres.

(Part of the reason I picked that travel speed, is because the "feel" of SP was supposed to be a combination of the 18th and 22nd centuries: travel times needed to take weeks, if not months, like a sailing ship might when sailing from Europe to the New World, but the whole solar system needed to feel within reach, and not at the years' reach that most of it is for us now. (I mean, how long is it going to take the New Horizon's probe to reach Pluto? (Nested parenthesis FTW!)))

The obvious solution was to just back up time a little bit. Ceres has a 4 1/2 Earth-year orbital period, so backing up two years, to 2178, made sense.

So this is what the solar system will look like on my 198th birthday.



Not bad, not bad. At least Ceres is on the correct side of the Sun, relative to Jupiter. But it had to make sense that they would head to Ceres, and not somewhere else. I didn't want them going to Earth, because this is supposed to be a tale of life off our homeplanet. Mars would be another logical place, being particularly close, but I didn't want them going there, because it figures prominently in Episode II, and I didn't want to be re-treading the same ground. In this view, even Venus might make a better repair stop. Basically, I had to pick a time where it would make the most sense to head to Ceres for repairs, instead of another well-known location. My solution to that was to find a time when those planets were retrograde from Redemptrix' position after the pirate attack (which you can imagine as being a few degrees counterclockwise from the line from Jupiter to the Sun).

(A note on retrograde travel: if you told a NASA scientist that you wanted to travel in a retrograde orbit, he would probably laugh at you. The Earth is traveling at almost 30k/s in its orbit around the Sun, in a counterclockwise direction (as seen from the Sun's north pole). To counter this, and try to fly clockwise around the Sun, would mean you would have to completely counter that velocity, and expend extraordinary amounts of fuel. Far more than any rocket could practically carry into orbit. It's for this reason that when we launch rockets, we always launch them east (in the direction of the Earth's rotation, to take advantage of that velocity) and rockets that leave Earth's orbit always travel counterclockwise around the sun. However, here I had established technology that allows ships to travel approximately three times faster than the Earth in her orbit about the sun. Countering this momentum would be trivial. This is part of the reason why Redemtrix had to be damaged to the point where she could hardly accelerate. It made any retrograde object unreachable.)

Backing time up a few month, we see that, conveniently and coincidentally, all three likely inner solar system planets become retrograde from Jupiter, with Venus crossing the line towards the end of October.



But in the proluge, I had mentioned that not all colonies were on planets, and that some cities were just space stations. I thought it likely that there might be colonies in a Lagrangian point, as there has already been a society advocating just this. This meant backing up time further, to when the L4 points, which precedes an object in its orbit by 60 degrees, for Mars, Earth, and Venus were also retrograde.

It's difficult to eyeball, but Venus' L4 becomes retrograde relative to Jupiter around mid-September.



You can see in this picture, that both Earth and Mars L3 points are not retrograde, but are more than 90 degrees around the sun, making them impractical. Zack mentions that Earth's L3 is 6 to 8 weeks away.

Of course, there is always the possibility of there being some other station close by. I attempted to hand wave (careful with that link; it will suck hours of your life) why they wouldn't head to one by having Zack mention "Granger outpost", a heliocentric station (implying it orbits the sun directly, and is not associated with any other body), and having Jack make a vague mention that it would be "unwise" to head there, as if they had a history with the place.

Now, there was one more thing to take into account to find the date, and that was the mention, again in chapter 2, that it was "close to midnight in Callisto's four hundred hour-long day." I also established that Arcas (link for those that didn't get the reference) station was about directly opposite Jupiter on Callisto. This made sense to me, because if it was primarily used as an interplanetary harbor, it would make sense to build it where you could take most advantage of Callisto's orbital momentum, on the outermost edge of its orbit, where you would be traveling the fastest. So midnight Arcas time would mean that Callisto was in opposition to the Sun, from the perspective of Jupiter.

Callisto orbits Jupiter once every 400 hours, or just over 16.6 Earth-days, so stepping backwards from mid-September, from opposition to opposition of Callisto from Jupiter, that would mean that chapter 2 begins on either September 14th, August 28th, or August 11th. I chose August 11th for now obsolete reasons (it had to do with Regina's birthday, which I removed as a plot point from the story).

Here's the Jupiter system on August 11th.



You can sort of tell by the bright side of Jupiter that Callisto is opposite from it.

Here's the same view date, as viewed from Callisto.



Conjunction occurs just after 7:30pm, UTC. (Hence the reference that it was close to midnight; I figured they landed around noon UTC.)

Twelve days after August 11th, is August 23rd. This is what the solar system looks like then, the day of the pirate attack and all those shennanigans.



Ceres is very clearly closest to Jupiter when compared with the inner solar system planets, and even more convenient than their Lagrangian points. You could probably figure out their exact position by using the reference that they were 30 million miles from (48 million km) from Ceres. Presumably there is a circle in space that is 311 million km from Jupiter and 48 million from Ceres. Or I did the math wrong. (A quick math check shows the latter. On August 23rd, Jupiter and Ceres are 474 million km apart, so there's a missing 100 million km somewhere in there. Oh well, that's what revisions are for.)

From here, you can construct the rest of the timeline of the story:
July 31st: Chapter 1
August 11th: Chapters 2 and 3
August 23rd: Chapters 4 and 5
September 6th*: Chapters 6, 7, and 8
September 7th: Chapters 9 and 10
September 22nd: End of chapter 10

*[minor spoiler warning]When Tim Sikorsky captures Jack and his crew, Tim asked Jack what he was doing. Jack replied "Oh, we just thought we'd go out for a Sunday drive. Get a little fresh air." September 6th, 2178 is, in fact, a Sunday. This is completely coincidental, as I had written that line long before I checked what day of the week, or even knew the date, that it took place on. After I worked out the exact timeline, it turned out that it was a Sunday.