The Overton Window: Chapter 45

Welcome back one and all to our ongoing series on The Overton Window, the book that makes Fahrenheit-451 seem like a utopia. Last time Noah and Molly had a stupid fight, Noah jumped out of a moving car, and Molly was almost certainly killed by a nuclear weapon. What happens this week? Noah gets what we've wanted him to get all book. More or less.

As I mentioned I am once again selecting a comment of the week, and this week that "honor" goes to Jay for, frankly, hitting the nail on the head:

Let's follow Molly's logic here. If you knew the Nazis were killing large numbers of people, then you would be morally obligated to do something about it. Similarly, if you know the US government is killing people indiscriminately, Molly declares that you're morally obligated to stop it.

Now the logistics are unfortunate, because the US government is killing people in the middle east. Since neither political party seems likely to end this, there's nothing to do but go to the middle east and try to put a stop to it.

So, by Molly's logic, it's morally imperative to go to the middle east and oppose the American occupation. Apparently Molly is, and has always been, an al-Qaeda operative.

Or you can take the view that the constitution is the founding document of a republic, and that it's simply not possible to "live it" without granting a certain deference to the will of your fellow Americans, however stupid and bloodthirsty they may be at any given moment.

Indeed, the ridiculous irony of the entire book is that the sort of give-and-take and compromise that's necessary to make a democracy function is depicted as the exact antithesis of democracy. The key, we are told, to being a patriot is to zealously pursue whatever narrow self-interest you choose and to impose your will on the rest of your countrymen. And all I can say is that I'm glad we don't live in a world the authors' would like, because it's a horrid, oppressive place. Well done, Jay, and keep at it folks: we're nearing the finish line. Finally!

And, with that, let's begin! As always, page/line numbers are in bold, quotes from the book are in block quotes, my commentary is in regular print, and you can navigate the whole series with the provided tag. My footnotes use the traditional star system (e.g. *, **, etc) while references included in the Afterword to the book are noted with numbered parenthetical tags (e.g. (1), (2), etc.). Batteries not included.


***********************************
Dramatis Personae: In an order determined by my department chair.

Eli Churchill: Former janitor at a volcano lair. Fan of remote telephone booths. Shot in the head by parties unknown.

Beverly Emerson: Mysterious correspondent of Eli Churchill's. Molly's Mom. Injected with weed killer by parties unknown blisteringly obvious to everyone.

Noah Gardener: 28 years old. Sets the dating bar "medium-high". Works Vice president at a PR firm. Went to NYU. Is "witty". Frequently forgets where he's going and why. Not good at talking to women. Not really inclined to help out cab drivers. Low tolerance for alcohol. Lost his mother when he was young. Fond of chicken and waffles. Rich as shit. Views himself as a sexual panther. Likes bacon. Considers himself to be good at word games. Wants to bang his mom.

Molly "Hottie McPretty" Ross: Dresses like a hippie, but not really. Looks like a free spirit. Perfectly captures the essence of womanhood. Auburn hair. Green eyes. Pale skin. Has a tattoo on her chest. Wears a silver cross around her neck. Lost her father when she was young. Impressed by fancy cars. Cocktease. Possibly suffering from bipolar disorder. Looks just like Noah's mom. Also looks just like Natalie Portman. Almost certainly dead from a nuclear blast.

Arthur Gardner Noah's father. Owner of Doyle & Merchant. Megalomaniac. Surprisingly vigorous for a 74 year old man.

Khaled: Lebanese cab driver. Sold out by Noah Gardener.

Hollis: Friend of Molly Ross. Very polite. From the country. May be a Yeti.

Danny Bailey: Some kind of YouTube celebrity. Former lover of Molly Ross. Kind of a dickhead. Loves conspiracy theories and incoherent speeches. Sodomized by inmates following the rally. Once dressed up as Colonel Sanders to infiltrate the United Nations. May be afraid of cats. Fast draw, terrible shot. Died pointlessly in a nuclear detonation.

Charlie Nelan: Gardner family lawyer. Silver hair. Impeccably dressed. Looks awesome. Has some sort of weird relationship with GQ. May have the ability to sense when Noah's in trouble using some sort of clairvoyance. Possible kleptomaniac.

Stuart Kearns: FBI agent. Works on homeland security matters. Kinda old and wrinkly. Not particularly trusting. Lives in a double-wide trailer. Sixty-three years old. Died pointlessly in a nuclear detonation.

Mr. Puddles: AKA Gray Death. AKA Ninja Cat. Stuart's cat. Large. Dangerous looking. Possibly plotting his demise. Doomed to die of thirst/starvation/exposure.

Tiffany: A stripper at the Pussycat Ranch. Thinks Danny is awesome.

Ellen Davenport: Old friend of Noah's. Second-year neurology resident at Mt. Sinai. Doesn't appear to need sleep or have good taste in her associates.

***********************************

Chapter 45: In which Noah gives us an excruciatingly dull account of harrowing torture, which is justified in passing.

Recommended Mood Music:




Page 271, Line 1-3:

It could have been most of the night that they worked him over. It could have been days for all he knew. All sense of time had left him while he was still out there on the road.

That wouldn't be a bad opener if we were in a Cormac McCarthy novel. Alas, however, we are not, and Noah is anything but a sympathetic protagonist. Anyway, Noah recalls that after the mysterious "they" had run out of methods for interrogating him where they were, they drove him to an airport, put him on a plane, and took him elsewhere. Presumably this is extraordinary rendition and it couldn't have happened to a more deserving fellow.


Page 271, Line 8-16:

They knew a lot already. They knew that calls had been made from Noah's apartment to a long list of accomplices of a known agitator who'd conspired to destroy an American city or two. They knew that Noah helped one of the central figures in this conspiracy gain access to classified files and information. They knew that he'd helped her evade security and fly across the country to play her part in the failed attack. They knew that two nuclear weapons had fallen into the hands of these terrorists, and that one of them had detonated but the other was still unaccounted for.

Ooooh- dramatic! Or... something? The odd thing is that of the above, almost all of it is true. The two bits that strike me as somewhat less than accurate, however, are as follows. First, Molly didn't play any part in the bomb plot except, you know, to get blown up by it at the end. Yay? Second, it's weird to me that the other bomb would still be unaccounted for if they knew that there were two bombs to start with. I say that because the fissile material used in nuclear weapons is generally traceable, even after a detonation, with the right equipment. So, really, the U.S. should have been able to discern pretty rapidly that, yep, both weapons were present in the explosion. But whatever- who needs facts in this faction, anyhoo? Regardless, it's revealed that after a while a new group of interrogators get into the act with a new method: terror. No, really, that's what it says in the text.


Page 272, Line 5-13:

Strapped flat to a cold metal table, head immobilized and inclined to be lower than the feet, a wet cloth over the face to restrict his breathing- and then just a slight dripping of water, maybe half a glass, just enough to begin to run down his nostrils and into the throat. Some primitive part of the mind simply comes unhinged when it knows it's drowning and knows it can't get away. Try to be as strong as you want; it doesn't matter. If he'd actually known anything at all that they wanted to learn, before ten seconds had passed he would have told them, and they would have known he was telling the truth. [emphasis added]

Okay, so, first off, as descriptions of waterboarding go, that ain't bad, except that it's too clinical. A little first-person narration rather than this shit from a training manual would have been more compelling. Second, however, check out that last line- the bit about knowing that he was telling the truth. Seriously? Do we seriously believe that, crazy authors? Do you really believe that people being tortured are incapable of lying? Because they're not. See, when you torture someone you may get them to the point where they're willing to tell you anything just to get the torture to stop, but when we say "anything" we mean anything. It doesn't have to be true, it doesn't have to have a basis in fact, they just have to believe that if they tell it to you, they'll stop getting tortured. And therein lies the problem with torture- it provides the motivation, but unless you can independently verify what you're given, it's liable to be crap. Even worse, there's always the temptation to torture just a bit more to make sure you've got everything, thereby creating the temptation for the victim to start lying to satisfy you, which then reinforces your belief that you should torture still more to get the next bit of hidden intel. Torture an innocent man long enough and he'll tell you enough to "validate" the use of torture. And whether the information is good or not, you've still dishonored yourself.* But, hey, if the authors want to justify the utility of torture even as their own protagonist is being tortured by the bad guys, well, by all means! As the description goes on, it's revealed that the interrogators claim that they've worked over both Molly and Molly's mother, who gave up Noah's entire involvement. It doesn't seem to occur to Noah that, aside from desperately wanting inside Molly's pants, he's not really involved, and instead he focuses on something dumb.


Page 272, Line 21-26:

After all they'd put him through, Noah would have gladly believed almost anything they'd said, but even to his clouded, brutalized mind these last two assertions didn't ring true- those two [Molly and her mom] would never betray their cause. If Molly was going down, she would go down swinging and silent. Knowing that gave Noah the first bit of hope that he'd had in a long time.

I swear this moron has Stockholm syndrome. Although he's right, Molly has not in fact given him up to the authorities. Granted, it's because her corpse is tangled up in the melted, radioactive wreck of a rental car, but that's beside the point. Anyway, the authors continue to describe Noah's harrowing torture, eventually giving us this gem:


Page 272, Line 29-31:

They seemed to take his complete lack of useful knowledge as a sign of stubborn resistance to their questioning. And, after all, you never know when a valuable little nugget of intel might surface.

Right, and that is exactly my point about torture: how do you tell the difference between resistance and ignorance? Well, you can't, so you just keep torturing until you run out of time or they tell you something, thereby justifying (to you) the torture. Can someone please tell me why we're still having this kind of debate about jurisprudence? Regardless, the narrative indicates that at this point the torture suddenly stops, the interrogators clean Noah up and make him look less like he's been getting tortured, and they put their tools away. Visit from the Red Cross perhaps? Yeah, I'm guessing not.


Page 273, Line 13-18:

A number of dark plastic surveillance domes were distributed across the ceiling. The chief interrogator looked up at one of the cameras and made a gesture to those watching to indicate that the subject was now ready to receive his guest. On that cue, the tiny red lights of the surveillance cameras winked out in sequence.

A few seconds later, a figure appeared in the open doorway.

Jesus does the writing in this book suck. I mean, "...made a gesture to those watching to indicate that the subject was ready..."? Couldn't they have just written "...gave a thumbs up"? It would have been much, much more evocative and would have told us exactly the same damned thing. And what is going on here? Who is so secret that his or her presence is actually more shocking than actual torture?

Well, if you want to know you'll have to come back next week, because this is the end of an admittedly short and stupid chapter. So, join us then when we reveal Noah's mystery guest and get to listen to yet another stupid speech.

Toodles!


* A great fictional treatment of these issues, actually, can be found in Susan R. Matthews' "An Exchange of Hostages"

The Overton Window: Chapter 44

Welcome back one and all to our ongoing series on The Overton Window, the book that I simply don't know how to explain to my daughter. Last time Danny and Stu lost the will to live and allowed themselves to be reduced to incandescent vapor. What happens this week? We return to Noah and Molly who have- hands down- the most bizarre exchange in the book.

As I mentioned I am once again selecting a comment of the week, and this week that "honor" goes to Ken for at least providing supporting evidence:

By the way, it's not just that they stay on the truck for three miles--it's that they set the thing for three miles, specifically, and then stay there.

Yes, the chance grows greater that your terrorist will stop the farther (away) you let him get. But three miles was arbitrary in the first place.

Maybe it's the length of time Stuart thinks it would take Danny to give him a blow job. (Textual evidence: Kearns offers Danny "a cigarette.") But at any rate--even if you know the road, and the GPS coordinates three miles therefrom--it's silly to set it for any distance if you're not going to jump, and not to set it for a longer distance if you are.

Only authors who believe Glenn Beck's--er, Danny's--"I'm getting too old for this Shitty Organization" speech is more important than successfully stopping a terrorist organization would select this trick of the tail.

Indeed, leaving matters of potential fellatio aside (although it would explain the leg tapping from a few chapters back...) this is an excellent point. Why not just blow the damn thing up right away? Why take the chance? For a shitty speech? Well, apparently, yes. Because this book is just basically a random collection of vaguely unfortunate events that provide the connective tissue between shitty speeches. Yay? Well done, Ken, and keep at it folks. The dumb ain't over yet.

And, with that, let's begin! As always, page/line numbers are in bold, quotes from the book are in block quotes, my commentary is in regular print, and you can navigate the whole series with the provided tag. My footnotes use the traditional star system (e.g. *, **, etc) while references included in the Afterword to the book are noted with numbered parenthetical tags (e.g. (1), (2), etc.). Some assembly may be required.


***********************************
Dramatis Personae: In an order determined by my buddy from high school.

Eli Churchill: Former janitor at a volcano lair. Fan of remote telephone booths. Shot in the head by parties unknown.

Beverly Emerson: Mysterious correspondent of Eli Churchill's. Molly's Mom. Injected with weed killer by parties unknown blisteringly obvious to everyone.

Noah Gardener: 28 years old. Sets the dating bar "medium-high". Works Vice president at a PR firm. Went to NYU. Is "witty". Frequently forgets where he's going and why. Not good at talking to women. Not really inclined to help out cab drivers. Low tolerance for alcohol. Lost his mother when he was young. Fond of chicken and waffles. Rich as shit. Views himself as a sexual panther. Likes bacon. Considers himself to be good at word games. Wants to bang his mom.

Molly "Hottie McPretty" Ross: Dresses like a hippie, but not really. Looks like a free spirit. Perfectly captures the essence of womanhood. Auburn hair. Green eyes. Pale skin. Has a tattoo on her chest. Wears a silver cross around her neck. Lost her father when she was young. Impressed by fancy cars. Cocktease. Possibly suffering from bipolar disorder. Looks just like Noah's mom. Also looks just like Natalie Portman.

Arthur Gardner Noah's father. Owner of Doyle & Merchant. Megalomaniac. Surprisingly vigorous for a 74 year old man.

Khaled: Lebanese cab driver. Sold out by Noah Gardener.

Hollis: Friend of Molly Ross. Very polite. From the country. May be a Yeti.

Danny Bailey: Some kind of YouTube celebrity. Former lover of Molly Ross. Kind of a dickhead. Loves conspiracy theories and incoherent speeches. Sodomized by inmates following the rally. Once dressed up as Colonel Sanders to infiltrate the United Nations. May be afraid of cats. Fast draw, terrible shot. Died pointlessly in a nuclear detonation.

Charlie Nelan: Gardner family lawyer. Silver hair. Impeccably dressed. Looks awesome. Has some sort of weird relationship with GQ. May have the ability to sense when Noah's in trouble using some sort of clairvoyance. Possible kleptomaniac.

Stuart Kearns: FBI agent. Works on homeland security matters. Kinda old and wrinkly. Not particularly trusting. Lives in a double-wide trailer. Sixty-three years old. Died pointlessly in a nuclear detonation.

Mr. Puddles: AKA Gray Death. AKA Ninja Cat. Stuart's cat. Large. Dangerous looking. Possibly plotting his demise.

Tiffany: A stripper at the Pussycat Ranch. Thinks Danny is awesome.

Ellen Davenport: Old friend of Noah's. Second-year neurology resident at Mt. Sinai. Doesn't appear to need sleep or have good taste in her associates.

***********************************

Chapter 44: In which Molly and Noah have a totally incoherent exchange.

Recommended Mood Music:




Page 267, Line 1-2:

"We got you?" Molly shouted. "We got you? Are you really self-centered enough to believe that any of this is about you?" [emphasis original]

Okay, okay, woah there, super-bitch! I don't like Noah any more than you do- indeed, I rather suspect that I like him less than you do- but that seems like an unreasonable reaction. You have been leading the guy on for personal gain for basically the entire book- that makes his anger justified, you know? Yes, your goal isn't to harm him specifically but, nevertheless, he has a legitimate grievance here. And oddly, Noah seems to realize that, too.


Page 267, Line 4-5:

"You people could have killed me, for God's sake, so maybe you can forgive me for taking this personally."

Indeed, in a startling break from the usual, Noah actually has a good point here. He has every reason to be angry with Molly and I've been wondering for some time why he isn't more angry. And no, "Molly's tits" and "Molly's mom" are not acceptable answers. Nor is "Molly's mom's tits". I mean, seriously, people!


Page 267, Line 6-8:

"Hollis stayed with you every minute until they came for you; he made sure you were okay. I'm so sorry you've got a headache now, but nobody tried to kill you."

This line is interesting, and revolting, in my opinion. First off, Noah never said that Molly tried to kill him, he said that Molly took action that placed his life in danger. That's a different thing- more akin to accidentally killing a woman whom you secretly dosed with rohypnol so you could rape her. Actually, it's almost exactly akin to that given that Molly did, in fact, secretly sedate Noah. In either case, the perpetrator wouldn't have meant to kill the person, but would nonetheless have been responsible if they did. Second, Molly's defense that Hollis was there the whole time makes no sense unless Hollis is- at a minimum- a freaking EMT with the proper equipment. I've got pretty good first aid skills and, I gotta be honest, if someone stopped breathing because they were heavily drugged or otherwise had a life threatening reaction (e.g. tachycardia, hypotension, etc...) I'd have a very hard time dealing with it. Most low tech first-aid is based on the assumption that the body is working with you in some way to stay alive, an assumption largely negated by the use of drugs, which trick the body into doing shit it otherwise wouldn't. And since the average person doesn't have anything to counteract said drugs with, it's a bad situation. So, unless we're willing to accept that in addition to being able to determine the time from the stars (Page 97, Line 25-29) and lecture people on ammunition making (Pages 158-160 or so) Hollis is also a medical professional (who just happens to prefer overalls), Molly's defense is utterly absurd. Third, there's the issue that Molly is allegedly fighting for individual freedom but in this scene is basically saying, "Hey, sure we violated your right to make your own decisions by drugging the crap out of you, but since we didn't really mean to kill you, and took half-assed measures to make sure you didn't accidentally die, you can't get angry". Does this reflect how the authors feel about civil liberties? Seriously?! And then, last but not least, Molly is basically talking down to Noah like he's a child- which he does deserve- but for objecting to being placed in danger against his will for her selfish interests- which is a valid objection. And we as the readers are clearly supposed to side with Molly. Good lord, these people are seriously deranged. Honestly, the only consistent way to account for Molly's actions is to conclude that she's either (a) bipolar, (b) a psychopathic secret agent or (c) some combination thereof. And yet... that doesn't seem to be what the authors intend. Noah continues to bitch at her for the way she's treating him, she claims that she's done it all because she's trying to stop the conspiracy- whatever the hell it is since they don't actually know at this point- and she says that she had to try even if she knows her effort is doomed to failure.


Page 268, Line 5-8:

"You don't have to try. I [Noah] told you, we can both ride this thing out. I can't believe I'm hearing myself say this, but I still want to help you, Molly. That cabin in the woods that you talked about, wherever you want to go until this blows over, I can still make that happen." [emphasis original]

Never in the history of human events has one man wanted tail so much from a woman of so few virtues. I mean, good freaking lord! By this point she's repeatedly deceived him, drugged him unconscious, left him in the care of a yeti/rapist, deceived him again, and basically coerced him into protecting her against his own interests. And yet he's still desperate to become her sugar daddy. What does he think her vagina is made out of- heroin?


Page 268, Line 9-13:

"How dare you dangle that in front of me again! What do you think, that I don't want it? That I don't want you? Don't you think I'm scared, and I dream some nights about getting away and never having another worry about the people like your father and what they're trying to turn this world into?" [emphasis original]

Actually, Molly, yes, none of us really see any reason to think you "want" Noah. To this point you've done nothing but deceive and exploit him and, when he finally calls you on it, you basically told him to stop being such a whiny bitch. There is NOTHING in your behavior that is in any way consistent with you wanting anything to do with Noah. But, alas, we're in a novel that is not populated with humans but instead with some sort of perverse simulacra thereof, and so nothing really works as it ought to. That includes this scene, which at its best resembles nothing so much as an incoherent fight between a couple. And that's awkward and unpleasant to witness under any circumstances, even in print in a shitty novel. Anyway, Molly reminds Noah of how he claimed to get what she and her ilk are up to, he reiterates that he does, and then we're off again.


Page 268, Line 20-27:

"No, you don't, Noah. You have no idea. You think knowing the truth is enough? A lot of people know the truth, and nothing changes. So today, after twenty-eight years of drifting through life and taking everything from this country and never giving anything back, today you tell me you've finally seen the light and that's supposed to mean something to me?"

"Doesn't it?"

"Once you know the truth," Molly said, "then you've got to live it. That's all I'm trying to do."

And frankly her truth scares the shit out of me. Any time truth justifies what amounts to a quasi-terrorist insurrection I think we should be a little concerned. I'm also not sure what to make of the whole "taking everything from this country" bit. What the hell does that even mean in this context? Sadly, we never get to find out because at that moment Molly, and Noah, notice that there are a shit-ton of cops coming up behind them. Noah has this stupid moment of truth and decides to become a man of action. Okay, no, that's not quite it: he's so determined to get into Molly's panties that he decides to put his money where his mouth is and demonstrate how determined he is to save the country by jumping out of a moving car. Nope, not kidding.


Page 269, Line 16-23:

"Slow dow," Noah said. "I'm getting out."

"What?"

"Don't stop, just let me out." He cracked the door and the wind whipped inside, and she let her foot off the gas and braked until the car had slowed to the point where he might just survive if he stepped out onto the road whizzing by under them. There was no way to be sure if she understood what he was doing; no time to explain. Maybe he'd never know, but like she said, none of this was really about Noah Gardner.

Just... wow. What a putz.


Page 269, Line 24-32:

He took a last look at Molly. There were tears in her eyes but she kept them firmly fixed on the way ahead.

"Good-bye," Noah said.

She answered, but so quietly and privately that the words clearly weren't intended to reach him. If they were never to see each other again, it seemed, this was just something that she must have wanted read into the record. Wishful thinking, maybe, but he felt he knew in his heart exactly what she's said.

I love you, too. [emphasis original]

Delusion, thy name is Noah Gardner. Indeed, this is just another of the many examples where I'm forced to conclude that this entire romance is pure invention on the part of Noah. Hell, Molly hasn't even been nice to him, really, at any point, so I think we should just assume that, in fact, he's a delusional moron and move on. Anyway, Noah stands in the middle of the road right before a bridge over a shallow wash, the cops are forced to stop so as to avoid hitting him. Cops hop out and come running towards him to, we can only hope, club him unconscious and then drama happens.


Page 270, Line 20-25:

And then they disappeared, as did the rest of the world, in a silent split-second flash of bright white light from behind him. It was so bright that it crossed the senses. He could feel it on his back, he could hear the light and smell it. When his vision returned Noah saw the officers standing in the road where they'd been, some covering their eyes, but most looking past him, blank-faced, their hands hanging down at their sides.

Right, so, obviously a nuclear detonation. Keep that description in mind- it'll be important later.


Page 270, Line 26-31:

He turned to look back over his shoulder, in the direction Molly had gone, and miles away he saw the rising mushroom cloud, a massive, roiling ball of fire ascending slowly into the evening sky. The expanding circle of a shock wave was tearing across the open desert toward them, toward everything in all directions, and a few seconds later it arrived with a crack of thunder and the sudden gust of a hot summer wind.

Okay, so, here's the thing: Noah got out of the car, let Molly keep driving, and then a nuke went off. Problem is, Molly was heading towards the blast. So what's happened to her? You might think we can't know but, thanks to the wonderfully detailed description above, we know a few things. First, Noah felt the thermal pulse from the blast on his back. This means that he had a direct line of sight to the explosion. Given the curvature of the earth and average male height this implies that he's about four kilometers from ground zero (that's about 2.5 miles, which is consistent with the authors' description that the mushroom cloud was "miles away"). Now, keep in mind that he could be closer- it's just that he can't really be any farther way than that. What else can we tell? Well, the sound of the detonation is described as arriving with the shockwave, which tells us that the shockwave traveled at mach 1. That translates to about 340 meters per second, and thus the shockwave would need about 12 seconds to reach Noah. That sounds consistent with his description of having felt the explosion, turned around, observed the mushroom cloud, then observed the shockwave, and only then being engulfed, so we'll stick with the 4 kilometer figure. It's hard to tell how big the detonation was- last chapter I argued it shouldn't be more than 1 kiloton- but the flash of the detonation is described as being "split second". The fireball from a 1 kiloton blast would only last two-tenths of a second, which is awfully short (I'm relying on the nuke effects calculator from last time here). On the other hand a 30 kiloton blast would produce a fireball which would survive for about nine-tenths of a second. It's a little hard to guess what the authors meant by "split second" but let's assume they meant something akin to its literal meaning and the blast was 9 kilotons, giving a fireball duration of 0.5 seconds. At that size, everything within 1.7 kilometers would essentially be destroyed by the thermal pulse (i.e. lethal third-degree burns), within 1.5 kilometers would be destroyed by the compression wave, everything within 900 meters would be killed by the overpressure, and anyone within 1.3 kilometers has just received a lethal dose of radiation. With me so far? Good.

So where was Molly in relation to the blast? Well, we don't know her speed, but Noah described it as fast and scary. For the sake of argument, we'll go with 70 miles per hour which is about 113 kilometers per hour, or 1.88 kilometers a minute. Based on the description as well as speed limits out west, I actually think this is somewhat conservative, but whatever. Noah had Molly drop him off because they were being pursued by cops who were apparently gaining on them. We'll give the cops a speed of ninety miles per hour or 145 kilometers per hour, which works out to 2.42 kilometers per minute. Noah and Molly could not have seen the cops before they were above the horizon, which means within about 4 kilometers. If we assume the cops were 3 kilometers back when Molly dropped Noah off, it would take them about 1.24 minutes for them to reach Noah, assuming that they could stop instantaneously. In that time, assuming that Molly could instantaneously return to 113 kph (yes, I know she can't, but the cops can't stop instantly either, and the assumptions partially cancel each other out. Besides, I'm waaaay too lazy to worry about acceleration curves, particularly given that we have no idea what anyone is driving or how slow Molly was really going when Noah jumped out.) in 1.24 minutes she could cover 2.33 kilometers. And keep in mind that after the cops arrived they stopped, tried to get around Noah, and then dismounted and approached him. We'll allocate another 30 seconds for that which allows Molly to travel an additional 0.94 kilometers for a total of 3.27 kilometers. Given that Noah is 4 kilometers from ground zero, that puts Molly at 4-3.27=0.73 kilometers from the point of detonation. As a result, with a nine kiloton weapon, Molly has received a fatal dose of radiation and received third degree burns over any exposed skin. She's also within the area of widespread destruction from the compression wave, which probably totaled her car, and she's most likely blind- if only temporarily- from the flash. So much for Molly. But, hey, what if it was only a 1 kiloton weapon like I thought? Well, in that case she just misses the worst of the thermal pulse, which gives third degree burns out to only 687 meters, but is within the zone of widespread destruction from the compression wave (739 meters) and has received a lethal dose of ionizing radiation (840 meters). So, again, Molly is most likely dead and/or blind. And even if she missed the area of third degree burns, that doesn't mean she doesn't have massive second degree burns on every inch of exposed skin. She is not having a good day.

Now, aside from the fact that this all works out to be the most bizarre SAT question ever, I bring this up because in virtually any situation we can imagine, Molly is currently dead or VERY badly injured as she was less than 1 kilometer from a nuclear detonation of at least 1 kiloton. And to think Mister Troll was worried. So does this mean she's really dead?

Well, if you want to know you'll have to come back again, because this brings us to the end of the chapter. Come back next time when Noah gets his just desserts. It'll be fun!

I just can't stop laughing at this.

Seriously, best meme ever? Good Guy Lucifer:



Aaaaaand... random idiot who thinks my amusement at this is "proof" that atheists secretly worship satan* in 3... 2... 1...


* For the record, we don't, because we don't f-ing believe in satan. Or god. Or gods. Or angels. Or whatever. We're ATHEISTS for crying out loud.

The Overton Window: Chapter 43

Welcome back one and all to our ongoing series on The Overton Window, the book that makes the founding fathers wish that they had somehow been even more clear. Last time Noah got all pouty because Molly did what Molly has been doing since this stupid book began. What happens this week? We return to Stuart and Danny who have managed to trap themselves in the back of a terrorist van in the middle of the desert. So, yeah, things are going as per normal for Stu.

As I mentioned I am once again selecting a comment of the week, and this week that "honor" goes to Mister Troll for his prophetic vision:

Shift-option eight. Glad to help.

So all the characters are gathering near a nuclear weapon? Dare we hope?

So, first off, thanks for the educational tip about the ° symbol. Second, however: yes, you should dare to hope because without hope, what is life? Thanks for playing, Mister Troll, and keep it up, everyone! We're nearly to the end.

And, with that, let's begin! As always, page/line numbers are in bold, quotes from the book are in block quotes, my commentary is in regular print, and you can navigate the whole series with the provided tag. My footnotes use the traditional star system (e.g. *, **, etc) while references included in the Afterword to the book are noted with numbered parenthetical tags (e.g. (1), (2), etc.). Poof!


***********************************
Dramatis Personae: In an order determined by a twenty sided die.

Eli Churchill: Former janitor at a volcano lair. Fan of remote telephone booths. Shot in the head by parties unknown.

Beverly Emerson: Mysterious correspondent of Eli Churchill's. Molly's Mom. Injected with weed killer by parties unknown blisteringly obvious to everyone.

Noah Gardener: 28 years old. Sets the dating bar "medium-high". Works Vice president at a PR firm. Went to NYU. Is "witty". Frequently forgets where he's going and why. Not good at talking to women. Not really inclined to help out cab drivers. Low tolerance for alcohol. Lost his mother when he was young. Fond of chicken and waffles. Rich as shit. Views himself as a sexual panther. Likes bacon. Considers himself to be good at word games. Wants to bang his mom.

Molly "Hottie McPretty" Ross: Dresses like a hippie, but not really. Looks like a free spirit. Perfectly captures the essence of womanhood. Auburn hair. Green eyes. Pale skin. Has a tattoo on her chest. Wears a silver cross around her neck. Lost her father when she was young. Impressed by fancy cars. Cocktease. Possibly suffering from bipolar disorder. Looks just like Noah's mom. Also looks just like Natalie Portman.

Arthur Gardner Noah's father. Owner of Doyle & Merchant. Megalomaniac. Surprisingly vigorous for a 74 year old man.

Khaled: Lebanese cab driver. Sold out by Noah Gardener.

Hollis: Friend of Molly Ross. Very polite. From the country. May be a Yeti.

Danny Bailey: Some kind of YouTube celebrity. Former lover of Molly Ross. Kind of a dickhead. Loves conspiracy theories and incoherent speeches. Sodomized by inmates following the rally. Once dressed up as Colonel Sanders to infiltrate the United Nations. May be afraid of cats. Fast draw, terrible shot.

Charlie Nelan: Gardner family lawyer. Silver hair. Impeccably dressed. Looks awesome. Has some sort of weird relationship with GQ. May have the ability to sense when Noah's in trouble using some sort of clairvoyance. Possible kleptomaniac.

Stuart Kearns: FBI agent. Works on homeland security matters. Kinda old and wrinkly. Not particularly trusting. Lives in a double-wide trailer. Sixty-three years old.

Mr. Puddles: AKA Gray Death. AKA Ninja Cat. Stuart's cat. Large. Dangerous looking. Possibly plotting his demise.

Tiffany: A stripper at the Pussycat Ranch. Thinks Danny is awesome.

Ellen Davenport: Old friend of Noah's. Second-year neurology resident at Mt. Sinai. Doesn't appear to need sleep or have good taste in her associates.

***********************************

Chapter 43: In which Danny and Stuart die. Finally.

Recommended Mood Music:




Page 262, Line 1-5:

"Nine-one-one, this call is recorded, what's your emergency?"

Wherever they were going, the ride was awfully rough. Danny was holding on tight to a cargo strap near the open door at the rear of the moving truck, the only place in the metal compartment with a signal solid enough to make a call on Kearns's satellite phone.

I'll admit it- this is the closest to heroic that Danny has ever, and will ever, get. So, how impressed do you think we'll be with his follow through? Well, he tells the operator he's in the desert with an FBI special agent and a possible nuclear weapon. They, logically enough, ask for his location, and then things get silly. Well, sillier.


Page 262, Line 11-14:

"Listen, I know what you people can do. You already know where I am better than I do, you know whose phone I'm calling from, you know the route I'm on, and in about ten seconds you'll be sure who I am because you'll have verified my voiceprint, so stop wasting my time."

Right- he does okay at first, and then wanders off into paranoia land. Yes, the U.S. government has some neat technology, but is Danny conceited enough to believe that he's on a "surveil at all costs" list? Does he think that local 9-1-1 systems are thoroughly integrated into the national intelligence system? Does he think the Masons run the world? Just at the moment, it seems like the answer to all these questions is "yes" and, painfully enough, the authors appear to agree.


Page 262, Line 15-17:

Some odd noise broke onto the line for a time; not interference, but a series of electronic clicks, tones, and dropouts.

"Okay, good deal, is everybody on now? Everybody listening?"

On the one hand, I kind of wish that the U.S. intelligence community were this freaking efficient. We'd all be a lot safer from al Qaeda. On the other hand, I'm glad it isn't, since that helps with the whole civil liberties thing. And on the gripping hand, I'm suddenly wondering if Glenn Beck is the sort of guy who checks his soap for listening devices. Because they could be anywhere, you know. Anyway, Danny puts the phone down near the open door so that the authorities can track it (track a SATELLITE phone, mind you, which is not an easy task) and checks on Stuart, who has been shot in the leg and is examining the nondescript bundle they saw in the truck.


Page 263, Line 11-19

Agent Kearns had said that after these last few years of working this operation undercover- all the while doing his best to appear to be a raving militant agitator who'd turned against his government and was openly calling for a violent revolution- he really had only one remaining contact in the FBI. His frightening online persona was well-known to tens of thousands of fringe group wackos and law enforcement personnel alike, but only one person alive could have credibly testified that Stuart Kearns was actually a loyal American doing his duty to protect and defend the United States. And here was that person, dead.

Okay, so, is anyone surprised by this turn of events? Anyone at all? Because they basically foreshadowed this with a neon sign. And I mean a big neon sign. Like, if you built a neon sign that covered the near hemisphere of the freaking moon. But, hey, whatever, act surprised and horrified and then lets get on with our business. In this case our business is watching Danny draw Stuart's attention to the next stop on the tour- the torpedo shaped doohickey they're sharing the truck with.


Page 264, Line 1-4:

"This looks like an old Mark 8 atomic bomb," Kearns said, "from the early 1950s." He pulled the light closer and ran his hands over the surface, stopping at a series of seals and stickers that carried dates and the initials of inspectors. "It's been maintained all these years."

We're going to geek out a little bit about nuclear weapons in this chapter, so we may as well get started now. The venerable Mark 8 is a gun-style bunker-buster type weapon. It's heavy as fuck, built like a tank, and has a yield of between 25 and 30 kilotons. By comparison, it's progenitor, the Mark 1 "Little Boy" atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of 13-18 kilotons. All that being said, the Mark 8 is in a size class that would currently place it essentially in the tactical rather than strategic range. So, for example, the B83 is currently the most powerful nuclear weapon in the U.S. inventory, and it clocks in at 1.2 megatons. By comparison, the Mark 8 is a measly 0.03 megatons (Seriously! It's just the metric system but, if that scares you, here's a handy calculator). So, this isn't what you'd call a big nuclear weapon, although in comparison to most conventional weaponry, there's really no such thing as a small one. Anyway, just humor me, as this will become relevant in a bit. Leaving all the geekery aside, however, there's the additional question: if the terrorists already had one nuclear weapon, why did they bring it to the meeting with the guys who were going to sell them a second?


Page 264, Line 5-10:

"So this is a live one, then?" [Danny asked]

"Sure looks that way to me." A line of heavy metal conduit ran from the rear of the thing and Kearns followed it with a finger, pointing. The tubing went across the floor and through the wall to the driver's compartment. "And it looks like they've jury-rigged it to be set off from the front seat."

Now, we should keep in mind that when we were introduced to Kearns' fake bomb way back in the day (Page 172, Line 1-11) we were specifically told that it was made to look legitimate. Given the involvement of Kearns' supervisor in all this, we have no real reason not to suspect this one of being a mock up. Except, of course, that we're in a crappy novel. I also find it suspicious that the terrorists would have embedded the control cable in a conduit, almost as though they expected to have hostile, yet unarmed, parties in the back at this point. Most curious. Anyway, Danny states that the whole thing is a setup and Kearns asks why.


Page 264, Line 16-18:

"It's like I told you before. Whoever's behind this needed a patsy for a false-flag domestic attack, Stuart, and that's you. And they needed to make my people the enemy, and that's why I'm here."

Never mind that, arguably, his "people" WERE the enemy, given that his fan club is trying to nuke Las Vegas. I mean, yeah, maybe they had help, but...


Page 264, Line 26-32:

"Well, whoever's behind this, we've screwed up their plans for now." [Kearns said]

"But not for much longer. This guy's driving somewhere like he means to get where he's going, but if he calms down long enough to stop and come back here to check his load, we're toast. We're unarmed, and he'll just stand back and shoot us like fish in a barrel. Then he'll go to Vegas tonight and do what he's going to do. We can't wait for him to do that."

Kearns looked up at him. "So what do we do?"

This bit is interesting to me because, while we knew that Danny had shot his gun dry, we did not know that Kearns was dry as well. Oh, if you count shots in the relevant chapter (Chapter 41) you can find explicit mention of five and then an implied sixth. We don't know for sure what weapon Kearns was carrying- Danny referred to it as a .38, which is a type of round as opposed to a firearm- but the authors probably meant for us to assume a snub nosed revolver. Thing is, I find it odd that Kearns wouldn't have at least one speed loader on him. Additionally, we're assuming the terrorist who jumped in the truck and left in a panic is armed, which seems like a risky assumption. Finally, you've gotta love that somehow Danny is better in a crisis situation than the FBI agent. What the hell?


Page 265, Line 3:

"I've got an idea," Danny said, "but I don't know if you'll like it."

Oh, I strongly suspect nobody will like it, Danny. Really! Anyway, they go over to where their fake bomb is, sit down, and take out its arming keys.


Page 265, Line 10-11:

If one of these bombs was real, then it stood to reason that they both were real. And there was really only one way to find out.

Okay, we're abusing the term "reason" here. First, we don't know that either bomb is real. Second, the reality of one device doesn't in any way imply the reality of the other. And third, if you were lucky enough to come into possession of TWO nuclear weapons, why would you have both of them in the truck when one of them blew up? Nukes ain't like dynamite- setting off one doesn't set off the other, it just blows the other the hell up. Yes, you COULD set them off simultaneously, but I don't think that would be very useful and, frankly, it'd be a difficult engineering challenge to make sure they were triggered in just the right order and fast enough to ensure that each of them completed their operational cycles and exploded before the detonation from the other arrived. So, if you managed to get two live weapons, you'd send one off to blow up Vegas NOW and save the OTHER one for later. And don't tell me the terrorists were planning to do that- they would have brought another vehicle with them. So, in short, we have good reason to think that the terrorists, at least, only believed one weapon to be genuine. But, whatever, here we go. They activate the bomb, set it's GPS coordinates for three miles down the road, and arm it. So, in other words, when the truck travels three more miles, boom! Assuming that this thing is real, anyway. Keep that in mind- it'll be important later. Anyway, Kearns offers Danny a cigarette, Danny declines, and then reminds Stu of his oath to protect and defend the constitution, basically pointing out that he's about to do just that. Stuart likes that idea and then asks Danny how he feels about his imminent conversion to incandescent gas.


Page 266, Line 15-21:

"Me? Oh, this is the perfect way for me to go out, really. The more I think about it, the more I realize I must have outstayed my welcome in my own movement. I take that back; it's not even mine anymore. If guys like these can agree with anything I say, then I've been saying something wrong. And you know what, Stuart? A long time ago I pledged my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor to this country, and now I get to give all three of them at once."

Man, this is just the most trite heroic death scene ever. And shit, I have SEEN Starship Troopers so I know what I'm talking about.* Anyway, after discussing how someday some crazy conspiracy theorist like Danny will piece together the truth the boys share a final, tender moment.


Page 266, Line 29-30:

He reached out a hand and Danny Bailey took it in a firm clasp of solidarity, and just a moment later, they were gone.

Aaaaaand that's it: Danny and Stuart have been blown up in an atomic explosion. Now, lay aside the tremendous relief you feel at that notion and ask yourself something: why the hell didn't they jump out of the truck? See, nuclear weapons are powerful, yes, but they're not supernatural death gods, they have limits, and in this case the limits are pronounced. Given the description in the book, Danny and Stu most likely set off a W54 warhead in an SADM configuration. That particular device has a variable yield that tops out at one kiloton. That's ONE kiloton, or 0.001 megatons. That's pretty small for a nuke, and it forces us to ask: if they had exited the truck when they were still three miles from ground zero, would they have survived? Well, when it comes to nukes, one of three things can kill you. First, there's the ionizing radiation, which can turn you into jelly from the inside out. To kill you, though, you have to be mighty close to the blast. Second, there's the thermal pulse- the blast applies so much heat to you so quickly you burn up, either immediately or are burned so severely you can't survive long. Finally, there's mechanical force- the compression or blast wave, which can kill you directly if the overpressure is high enough, or can riddle you with shrapnel. Given that we're out in the middle of fuckall nowhere, we're going to ignore the possible dangers of mass fire (although if you're curious, Lynn Eden has a wonderful book on the subject). So how bad would these effects be from a one kiloton blast at three miles? Well, using a handy nuke effects calculator the answer is: not very. You'd see third degree burns out to about 700 meters, near total fatalities from the compression wave to 300 meters and widespread destruction from same to about 740 meters, and lethal ionizing radiation to 840 meters. Given that a mile is about 1600 meters, our "heroes" could have set their bomb and been about 4800 meters from ground zero when the weapon detonated, well outside any of the lethal radii. Hell, if they stayed down after they stopped rolling they would almost certainly have been below the horizon** and therefore shielded from the blast effects that require direct line of sight (i.e. the radiation and the thermal pulse). Yes, they would have been banged up, but if they survived the fall they would have lived. But what if it wasn't a W54? Well, it was, because nukes are freaking heavy, and they couldn't have lifted the damn thing otherwise, but fine, let's assume that the weapon they set off was actually equivalent to a Mark 8, meaning 30 kilotons (i.e. 0.03 megatons). At that yield, the third degree burns would extend to 2.8 kilometers, near total fatalities from the compression wave to 860 meters with widespread destruction from same to 2.3 kilometers, and lethal ionizing radiation to 1.6 kilometers. However, a mile equals about 1.6 kilometers, so our "heroes" would have been around 4.8 kilometers from the center of the blast. In this case, yeah, they'd almost certainly get hurt, but again they'd probably survive just fine. Now, Stuart is a trained FBI agent and knows his nukes well enough to identify a Mark 8 by sight, so how the hell did he not know that they could have screwed up the conspiracy's plans even more by setting the bomb, hopping out, surviving, and then telling their story afterward? Either because he's an idiot or the authors are lazy, and I leave it to you to decide which is more likely.

But, likely or not, that does bring us to the end of our chapter. Come back next time when we rejoin Noah, who throws a hissy fit. Good times, eh?


* I actually really like the book, but the movie is just awful.

** This, as a side note, is the real reason for the old "duck and cover" drills: by getting down you get below the horizon and may miss some of the blast effects. It's also the reason for an air burst detonation.

Seriously?!

We're doing this now? With a democratic administration. Seriously? Even though the FDA has recommended making plan B available over the counter we're not going to just because:

According to the New York Times, today marks a strange moment in history, the first time the Health and Human Services Secretary has ever overruled an FDA decision. And boy, the FDA is struggling not to sound completely irate over this decision. It’s hard to blame them, as Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has just rejected all available scientific evidence, her traditional pro-choice politics, the advice of all the relevant medical academies, and basic common sense to tell the FDA that they cannot make Plan B emergency contraception available over the counter to anyone who wishes to buy it. Right now, in violation of a judge’s orders, the FDA has restricted OTC sales of Plan B to women 17 and older, even though there’s no scientific evidence to suggest it’s harmful to younger women. The FDA finally came to its senses on this issue, only to have this victory for women’s health snatched away at the last minute by Sebelius, sending shocks of confusion and betrayal through the pro-choice community, who always thought of Sebelius as a member in good standing.

You know, I have a daughter, and some day she's going to have sex. Maybe with a man, maybe with a woman, maybe with both. I hope she waits until she's old enough and mature enough to avoid the really dumb mistakes* but she'll have to make her own choices, and live with the consequences. But why exactly would those consequences have to include an unintended pregnancy forced on her by the medieval mores of a vocal minority? I know we're coming up on an election but do we have to play politics with everything?

Seriously, Sebelius, what the FUCK?


* I'm not naive enough to think she'll manage to avoid the only sorta dumb mistakes.

I feel weirdly complimented by this.

Those of you who read this crap with any frequency are well aware of my long-standing fascination with Conservapedia. Seriously, I have been writing about them for a long, long time. Partly, I think this fascination is born out of an interest in how people with very different perspectives think. I am, after all, a social scientist. Partly, however, I think my fascination derives from a base impulse to point and laugh at things I view as stupid. And Conservapedia has an awful lot of very amusing stupid. Alas, however, my fondness for Conservapedia has always been unreciprocated.* That is, until now.

As it turns out, one of the Conservapeons has taken note of my solitary toil over here on Blogger** and decided to respond. Sort of. I refer, of course, to their new page Conservapedia Proven Right:



The heading text, as you can see, explains that it's a page dedicated to all the times that Conservapedia has been correct about something. I won't do an exhaustive analysis of this very short list- in part because it appears to have been written by someone who never really mastered English- but, believe it or not, I am actually mentioned therein:



So let's go through this. First, there's the "Conservapedia Statement":

Conservapedia mentions that some Americans are turning to self-employment during the economic downturn as jobs are difficult to come by. In addition, Conservapedia mentions developing multiple streams of income in case the economy goes into a depression and many people lose their jobs. Conservapedia also gives resources and suggestions for low cost businesses.

Yeah, okay, I remember that. Next comes the column "Liberal claptrap in response":

The liberal "graduate student at a sociology department somewhere in the United States" at the Total Drek blog seems to shiver in horror at the hard work involved. In addition, he appears to want people to have a defeatist cry in their beer attitude instead of having a proactive and creative can do attitude. In 2011, Conservapedia indicates that a sociology major is one of the worst college majors to have.

Um... huh? That doesn't really sound like me, you know? I'm not actually afraid of hard work, nor do I want people to have a defeatist attitude. So what did I actually say? Well, if we follow their link we do, indeed, reach one of my posts about Conservapedia. First off, I provide a quote from their main page, which I will reproduce below:

Rather than searching for decent jobs that are very hard to find, some Americans are deciding to become self-employed. Robert P. Murphy, an economist at the Mises Institute, recommends that one of the best measures to protect against a future economic depression is to develop multiple streams of income rather than risk depending on one or two income sources which may disappear in a depression. In the present economic crises, Americans are using creative ways to launch a wide variety of low cost businesses.

Okay, so, the logic is clear: since the economy is uncertain, maybe you should have multiple streams of income. Fine. Great. But my comments on the subject more or less make the point that while this is good in theory, in practice it's often not practical, and I end in my usual pseudo-profound manner:

And this is, I think, what bothers me most about Conservapedia's "silver lining" that people are starting businesses. These aren't heroic entrepreneurs, they're desperate people who are just trying to survive any way that they can and, unfortunately, for every one of these folks who succeed, there will likely be dozens who don't. It reminds me of nothing so much as that scene in Roger & Me where a woman is selling rabbits for pets or meat in order to stay afloat.

I just never watched that movie before and thought that she was living the American dream.

So, in other words, the fact that people are becoming "forced entrepreneurs" isn't a sign of how great the U.S. is but of how hard things have become. Also, I'm frankly arguing that responding to people who are in a precarious financial position with, "Well, then go work harder!" is often not realistic or helpful.

But, to get back to Conservapedia in the present, what do they say is the result?***

Barack Obama's "stimulus" package fails. Many Americans lose their jobs and have their unemployment benefits run out. In 2011, Fox News reports that most unemployed no longer receive unemployment benefits. Homelessness increases and "Obamavilles" spring up. Unemployment in the United States and many other countries remains high. In 2011, Cafe Press is selling unemployed sociology major bumper stickers.

And this is an utter non sequitur. I mean, what the shit does this have to do with anything that I wrote? And I don't even know what to do with that Cafe Press reference. Leaving aside that the bar for selling something on Cafe Press is absurdly low- hell, I have a store, which I guess means I also have a second stream of income****- I was a sociology major in college and have been continuously employed for over a decade. Ah, well. All we have left is the "date of result" column, which in my case is truly bizarre:

World economy continues to skate on thin ice and the Eurozone is experiencing significant economic problems.

I don't know what kind of calendar Conservapedia uses, but I'm pretty sure that isn't a "date".

So what should we take from this? Well, basically nothing, but since the Conservapeons went to all that trouble to write me a love letter, I thought that the least I could do was respond.

Kiss, kiss, boys!


* Well, unless you count that one time when Schlafly actually commented on one of my posts. Granted, he completely missed the point, but that's pretty much normal for him, no?

** On a related note: Jesus, I still use blogger? Who uses blogger anymore? Hasn't everyone moved to Wordpress? I realized how long I've actually been keeping this place open recently when the service I used for my blogroll actually closed. I feel old.

*** Yeah, they refer to that column as "Result". I don't know if they think that my comments had a causal relation, or what, but there you go.

**** Not true. So far as I can tell, nobody has ever purchased anything. But, then again, I'm selling it all at cost, so it's irrelevant either way.

So that's... unfortunate.

Just to make sure my life didn't contain any rays of sunshine, Sassafras was nice enough to note that, as it turns out, people like atheists even less than I thought. Apparently, people think atheists are about as trustworthy as rapists. No, that's not a joke, that's the study:

Many religious people don’t like atheists, and in fact would apparently rate them alongside rapists on levels of trust, suggests a new Canadian study that claims to be one of the first psychological probes into anti-atheist prejudice.

...

“There’s this persistent belief that people behave better if they feel like God is watching them,” said Will Gervais, lead study author and doctoral candidate in the social psychology department at UBC. “So if you’re playing by those rules, you’re going to see other people’s religious beliefs as signals of how trustworthy they might be.”

I always find it rather creepy when people tell me that the only reason someone would refrain from murder, rape, and so forth is because of the constant supervision of an infinitely powerful being. Seriously? The only reason you don't violently abuse others is because you're afraid of punishment? And somehow that makes atheists- who apparently can and do control themselves in the absence of constant supervision- less trustworthy? Is this really the only world I can live in? Alas, yes, it really is. On the "positive" side, however, it turns out that atheists still come out on top in other respects:

The first study asked 351 Americans from across the country to compare the trustworthiness of an atheist and a gay man, since both represent groups often described as threatening to majority religious values. They rated atheists significantly higher than gay men on distrust, though lower on levels of disgust. [emphasis added]

Okay, great, so in the eyes of many of my fellow Americans, I'm less trustworthy than a gay man, but also less disgusting. So... yay? One shudders to think what these people would make of Stephen Fry. Still, the discussion of this finding by one of the authors is too funny not to share:

“It’s pretty shocking that we get the same magnitude of distrust towards atheists simply because they don’t believe [in God],” said the researcher, who is himself an atheist. “With rapists, they’re distrusted because they rape people. Atheists are viewed as sort of a moral wild card.”

Indeed, one can't help but distrust a rapist because- you know, it's right there in the term- he RAPES PEOPLE. But what do atheists do? Eh... pretty much the stuff everyone else does, but minus the constant references to invisible shit people can't see that sometimes gives rather odd instructions. Like, you know, fly a jet liner into a building or something like that. But wait! There's more:

The levels of distrust were more pronounced among respondents who said they were religious, said Mr. Gervais. One of the studies measured how much people thought believing God is watching makes you a better person.

“That was a really strong predictor of distrust in atheists,” he said.

Those who did not identify as religious were more or less indifferent toward atheists.

Ah, the plot thickens! See, religious people view atheists as untrustworthy because atheists aren't religious. So is this just an outgroup effect? Well, thanks to the story on Jezebel we can find out:

Study authors found that atheists didn't find religious people untrustworthy — says Gervais, "They seem to think that religion is not an important signal for who you can trust."

So, not an outgroup effect. As it turns out, some religious folks are just prejudiced fucks.

Who knew?

The Overton Window: Chapter 42

Welcome back one and all to our ongoing series on The Overton Window, the book that makes Gutenberg spin in his grave. Last time I took a week off for the holiday, but the time before that Stuart and Danny got in a gunfight. What happens this week? We return to Noah and Molly who are having a rough patch in their otherwise horrific relationship.

As I mentioned I am once again selecting a comment of the week, and this week that "honor" goes to a tie between Sassafras and Jay: Let's begin with Sassafras:

Did the authors seriously use TWO semi-colons?! In a breathtakingly ENDLESS sentence where the reader is suppose to NOT chortle at the phrase "without pause?"

Did they pull these idiots aside in Creative Writing class to teach them the ancient art of describing ostensibly exciting things in the most ass-numbing way possible?

If I ever get the chance, I will pistol whip the authors in public. Quickly. WITHOUT PAUSE.

Indeed, they did use semi-colons, and I think we can only assume that they either went to school for bad writing, or simply hate the reader. And America. As for Jay's insights... they're pretty solid, actually:

The important thing to know about those moments of seemingly crystal clear telepathy is that they're all in your head and the other person was probably thinking about lunch.

Which makes it very much like this book: it's so thrilling that when reading I find myself powerless to think about anything other than, oh, my need to do laundry, the vet appointment I need to schedule... basically anything more interesting than this "thriller". Well done, folks, and keep it up. We've rounded the bend on this thing, so now we just have to put it to bed.

And, with that, let's begin! As always, page/line numbers are in bold, quotes from the book are in block quotes, my commentary is in regular print, and you can navigate the whole series with the provided tag. My footnotes use the traditional star system (e.g. *, **, etc) while references included in the Afterword to the book are noted with numbered parenthetical tags (e.g. (1), (2), etc.). I'd buy that for a dollar.


***********************************
Dramatis Personae: In an order determined by the ELF coming out of my stereo.

Eli Churchill: Former janitor at a volcano lair. Fan of remote telephone booths. Shot in the head by parties unknown.

Beverly Emerson: Mysterious correspondent of Eli Churchill's. Molly's Mom. Injected with weed killer by parties unknown blisteringly obvious to everyone.

Noah Gardener: 28 years old. Sets the dating bar "medium-high". Works Vice president at a PR firm. Went to NYU. Is "witty". Frequently forgets where he's going and why. Not good at talking to women. Not really inclined to help out cab drivers. Low tolerance for alcohol. Lost his mother when he was young. Fond of chicken and waffles. Rich as shit. Views himself as a sexual panther. Likes bacon. Considers himself to be good at word games. Wants to bang his mom.

Molly "Hottie McPretty" Ross: Dresses like a hippie, but not really. Looks like a free spirit. Perfectly captures the essence of womanhood. Auburn hair. Green eyes. Pale skin. Has a tattoo on her chest. Wears a silver cross around her neck. Lost her father when she was young. Impressed by fancy cars. Cocktease. Possibly suffering from bipolar disorder. Looks just like Noah's mom. Also looks just like Natalie Portman.

Arthur Gardner Noah's father. Owner of Doyle & Merchant. Megalomaniac. Surprisingly vigorous for a 74 year old man.

Khaled: Lebanese cab driver. Sold out by Noah Gardener.

Hollis: Friend of Molly Ross. Very polite. From the country. May be a Yeti.

Danny Bailey: Some kind of YouTube celebrity. Former lover of Molly Ross. Kind of a dickhead. Loves conspiracy theories and incoherent speeches. Sodomized by inmates following the rally. Once dressed up as Colonel Sanders to infiltrate the United Nations. May be afraid of cats. Fast draw, terrible shot.

Charlie Nelan: Gardner family lawyer. Silver hair. Impeccably dressed. Looks awesome. Has some sort of weird relationship with GQ. May have the ability to sense when Noah's in trouble using some sort of clairvoyance. Possible kleptomaniac.

Stuart Kearns: FBI agent. Works on homeland security matters. Kinda old and wrinkly. Not particularly trusting. Lives in a double-wide trailer. Sixty-three years old.

Mr. Puddles: AKA Gray Death. AKA Ninja Cat. Stuart's cat. Large. Dangerous looking. Possibly plotting his demise.

Tiffany: A stripper at the Pussycat Ranch. Thinks Danny is awesome.

Ellen Davenport: Old friend of Noah's. Second-year neurology resident at Mt. Sinai. Doesn't appear to need sleep or have good taste in her associates.

***********************************

Chapter 42: In which Noah is betrayed or... something? I dunno.

Recommended Mood Music:




Page 259, Line 1-7:

Noah had shaken his one remaining pill out of the prescription bottle halfway through the flight, and now as the last of the medicine was wearing off, a nasty withdrawal was setting in with a vengeance. By the time they reached the car rental counter he could feel himself starting to fade. Headache, chills, dizziness, a general sickening malaise- it was already bad, and he could tell it was going to get much worse over the next few hours.

Yeah, I hate to break it to you, but I think those are the side effects of being Noah Gardner. Definitely the sickening malaise, anyway.


Page 259, Line 8-13:

Molly was driving, since he clearly wasn't fit to sit behind the wheel, and to put it delicately, she drove with a purpose. If he'd been feeling good and in the right sort of daredevil mood her driving might have been easier to take in stride. As it was, though, between his worsening physical condition and being jostled around the front seat by all the surging and braking and swerving through traffic, he wasn't having any fun at all.

Bitch, bitch, bitch, moan, moan, moan! Seriously, the chapter begins with two entire paragraphs of whining from our "hero". Can't we do any better than this in a "thriller"? Well, as it turns out: no, we can't.


Page 259, Line 14-17:

Plus, she wasn't talking. Since they'd started out in the car all he was getting were one-word answers, along with clear unspoken signals that there was nothing so important that it needed to be discussed at the moment.

So, basically, Molly looks like Noah's mom does, and treats him like Noah's dad does. Christ, I don't know if this is oedipal or just generically messed up, but Noah is just a truly worthless human being. Anyway, we learn that they've already left the Las Vegas city limits and that Molly is driving really fast. You know, if you hadn't caught that already.


Page 260, Line 5-11:

"We're going to get stopped," Noah said.

She didn't answer, and she didn't slow down.

"Where are we going, Molly?"

"To help a friend," she said curtly. "Now would you please just let me drive?"

"Fine."

"Thank you."

Oddly, the only place I can see this going is somewhere that features Noah saying something like, "She only hits me 'cause I don't learn good. It's just her way." Note that I'm not saying that I find domestic violence funny- I really, really don't- but I find the idea of violence directed at Noah Gardner to be quite entertaining. Evidently the authors agree, given the treatment of Mr. Gardner thus far in the "novel". Anyway, it suddenly occurs to Noah that their destination is printed on a folded piece of paper than Molly left in the cup holder armrest and, in a rare display of a nerve cord- if not actually a spine- he snatches it up and takes a gander. To him this crap is new, but to us it looks a tad... familiar.


Page 260-261, Line 260: 29-31, 261: 1-12:

molly-
spread the word --- stay away from las vegas monday
FBI sting op --> * exigent *
be safe
xoxo
db

* FYI ONLY DO NOT FORWARD DELETE AFTER READING *
Big mtg today, Monday PM, southern
Nevada. If you don't hear from me by
Wednesday I'm probably dead*, and this is
where to hunt for the body:
Lat 37[degrees]39'54.34"N Long 116[degrees]56'31.48"W
> S T A Y A W A Y from Nevada TFN <
db

* I wish I was kidding [formatting original. Yes, really. And yes, I am too lazy to look up how to make the symbol for "degrees"]

Now, for those of you without amazingly good memories, this is, in fact, the message that Danny sent waaaay back in Chapter 29 (Page 195, Line 7-15). What's weird is that, at the time, it was described as a message to his staff in Chicago, with a copy to Molly and some other unnamed folk (Page 195, Line 3-6). Given the text we're now being shown, we're forced to conclude that (a) Danny refers to his staff as "molly" (b) while hurrying to send his illicit e-mail while Agent Kearns was dropping the deuce in the trailer bathroom Danny decided to send two different nearly identical messages solely so that he could personalize Molly's message or (c) the authors are freaking morons. I leave it to you to identify the most parsimonious explanation. Anyway, Noah manages to read through this message while only moving his lips a little bit and reacts as only a passive-aggressive stalker douchebag can react.


Page 261, Line 13-17:

"Unbelievable."

She glanced over at him, but only for a second before she got her eyes back on the road. When he looked down he found he'd crumpled the paper in his hand so hard that it might never come unfolded.

"I can't believe it," Noah said. "You people got me again."

What the f-ing crap is this shit? You can't believe what now? You can't believe that the woman who seduced you, then drugged your ass into unconsciousness and, likely, incontinence in order to steal information from your workplace would further take advantage of you in order to get what she wants? Yeah, man, that sounds totally freaking implausible. She must be some kind of master of deceit to pull this one over on you. Bloody hell, you ass, Molly hasn't even apologized for what she did. She's pretty much told you her agenda, and she's explained very clearly that she's a total lunatic, so why on earth are you surprised? What? What was that? Because your intelligence verges on sub-human? Why yes, I think that must be it! And are we supposed to be impressed when a grown man is so strong that he can crumple paper so hard that it "might never come unfolded"? Bloody hell, my daughter can do that, and she can't even control her bowels yet!

Alas, sub-human or not, Noah is just going to have to wait because we've reached the end of the chapter. Yes, seriously: this entire chapter was nothing but Noah bitching about feeling bad, bitching about Molly not talking to him, getting verbally slapped by Molly, and then reading an e-mail. It's like the anti-Ludlum. Come back next time when we return to Danny and Stuart, who are about to become the luckiest characters in the entire book.

See you then.