Skeptical Inquirer magazine published an article last year called "Cinema Fiction vs. Physics Reality: Ghosts, Vampires, and Zombies."  The article is by two physicists, and the section on vampires is a perfect example of how you can prove whatever you want as long as you make the right (or wrong) assumptions.

Here is their conclusion:

We conclude that vampires cannot exist, since their existence would contradict the existence of human beings. Incidently, the logical proof that we just presented is of a type known as reductio ad absurdum, that is, “reduction to the absurd.” Another philosophical principle related to our argument is the truism given the elaborate title, the anthropic principle. This states that if something is necessary for human existence then it must be true since we do exist. In the present case, the nonexistence of vampires is necessary for human existence. Apparently, whoever devised the vampire legend had failed his college algebra and philosophy courses.

How did they reach such a conclusion?  They made the following assumptions:

1. A vampire needs to feed once a month.  (They consider that a conservative assumption.)
2. When a vampire feeds, the human population decreases by one and the vampire population increases by one.
3. The first vampire appeared in the year 1600.

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In the Republican primary, Utah is a winner-takes-all state.  The winner-takes-all method has both advantages and disadvantages.  For a relatively small state like Utah, it has the advantage of increasing its importance in the race for delegates at the national convention.  However, in cases where a candidate has local ties or is otherwise an overwhelming favorite to win (like Mitt Romney in Utah), the winner-takes-all method gives other candidates no incentive to campaign there.  The only candidate who’s made any visible effort in Utah, as far as I can tell, is Ron Paul, and that’s just because the far right wing of the Republican Party (John Birch Society types) is rather vocal here.

So, might there be a way to make it worthwhile for candidates who know they cannot win to campaign in a winner-takes-all state?  I think there is: a variation on preferential voting.

Preferential voting allows voters to rank the candidates, rather than just voting for one.  There are various systems for implementing preferential voting to pick a winner, usually designed to find the closest thing to a consensus candidate.  But I’m not suggesting that preferential voting be used to pick the winner.  Let the winner be the person who got the most first-place votes in the primary election, and he takes all the delegates.

So now you’re asking, "Eric, how is that different from the current system?"

I’m glad you asked.  Let’s say the first-place candidate, who has won all the delegates from the state, doesn’t do very well elsewhere and drops out of the race before the convention.  There’s no need for those delegates to support him any more.  So who should they support?  Maybe the candidate will tell them, or they’ll engage in deals in smoke-filled rooms, but wouldn’t it be better for the voters to have their say?

Under my variation on the preferential voting plan, they can.  With the first-place candidate out of the race, you look at the second choices of the voters who ranked him first.  Add those to the first-place votes of the other candidates, and see who has the most votes.  The delegates now belong to that candidate, winner-takes-all.  If that candidate has dropped out, you take the next-ranked votes from all his voters, and so on.

(You don’t have to actually wait until a candidate has dropped out and then go back and count the votes again.  It can all be done automatically on voting day, so everyone will know who the replacement candidates are.)

Such a system would make campaigning to be the second place candidate worthwhile for other candidates, even when there’s an overwhelming favorite to win the state.

In Utah’s Republican primary today, Mitt Romney is probably going to win overwhelmingly.  People will chalk that up to Mormons voting for a Mormon candidate, and while there is probably some of that going on, I don’t think it’s quite so simple.

The Utah Republicans I know tend to be fairly orthodox in their positions on national issues–they tend to follow the party line.  (I’m sure there are various things things that could be said about such a trend: that it might be due to the LDS Church’s insistence on religious orthodoxy, etc., etc., but that’s not really relevant to the point I’m making.)

Of the major candidates throughout the Republican primary, only two campaigned as orthodox Republicans: Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson.  Giuliani is staunchly pro-choice on abortion, McCain loves his image as a maverick Republican, and Huckabee’s economic populism is clearly outside the Republican mainstream.

Granted, Romney’s positions during the Presidential campaign are different from positions he held in the past.  Many people see that as a sign of insincerity on his part, accusing him of shifting his positions in order to match up to the Republican mainstream.  Be that as it may, his current positions are, in fact, the orthodox Republican positions.

Although I’ve been supporting Romney’s candidacy for about a year, if Fred Thompson were still in the race and I felt he had a better chance of beating McCain to win the nomination, I would have voted for Thompson today.  I could have enthusiastically supported Thompson if he were the Republican nominee.  I cannot say that about McCain or Huckabee.  (More on Huckabee in a minute.)

Since Thompson exited the race, orthodox Republicans have only one candidate who matches up with them on the issues: Romney.  Now, I can understand how some orthodox Republicans might have doubts about the seriousness of his conversion to their principles, and that they might therefore go with other candidates.  I think it’s here that religion does come into play, with Mormons more likely to give Romney the benefit of the doubt because he is Mormon.  (Mormons believe in true conversions, after all–that’s why we send out missionaries.)

Ultimately, I think it’s the orthodoxy of Republican Mormons and the unorthodoxy of the alternative candidates that results Romney getting a higher percentage of the vote from Mormon Republicans than Obama is getting from black Democrats or Clinton is getting from female Democrats.

I do want to say something about Huckabee as a candidate.  Huckabee is a Southern Baptist, and I have no problem voting for a Southern Baptist, despite the fact that many Southern Baptists consider Mormonism a cult.  I could easily support a Southern Baptist (or a Catholic, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Sikh, a Jew, or an atheist) with whom I agreed on most policy issues.

I have several disagreements with Huckabee on the issues, just as I do with McCain.

If McCain is the Republican nominee, I will vote for him in November (with one exception.)  Despite my policy disagreements with him, I prefer him to the Democrats.

If Huckabee were to gain the nomination, however, I would not vote for him.  Nor will I vote for McCain if Huckabee is on the ticket with him.  I’d be willing to overlook my policy disagreements with Huckabee, just as I am willing to do with McCain, but Huckabee’s deliberate use of anti-Mormon bigotry in this campaign is something I will not support in any way.

My refusal to vote for Huckabee is unlikely to affect the election.  It is merely a symbolic gesture on my part.

On the Codex Writers forum, we’re in the fourth of five weeks of a flash-fiction writing contest.  Each Saturday morning the contestant are given three prompts and must use at least one of them to write a story of less than 750 words by Sunday evening.

One of today’s prompts was the following:

Choose an element (fire, earth, thunderstorm, oxygen, rubidium, etc.) and write about someone whose control of that element is threatened.

In thinking about this prompt, I came up with an idea that doesn’t really fit it, so I’ll be writing something different for the contest.  But the following is a fable I wrote that I may include as part of a larger story someday:

Long ago, the original god of war decided to retire.  He called his three sons to him and said, "Only one of you can take my place.  To prove your worthiness, you will lead armies to battle against each other, and whoever wins will be my successor.  In order to make things more interesting, I will grant each of you complete control over one element."

The eldest son spoke quickly, saying, "Father, grant me control over the element of Iron."

"Granted," said the war god.

The eldest son turned to his brothers and said, "Since I control Iron, the weapons of your armies will not stand against mine.  Surrender to me now, and I will spare your lives."

The middle son said, "Father, grant me control over the element of Gold."

"Granted," said the war god.

The middle son looked to his brothers and said, "Since I control Gold, I will be able to bribe your armies away from you.  Surrender to me now, and I will spare your lives."

Then the youngest son spoke.  "Father, grant me control over the element of Surprise."

"Granted," said the war god.

And the elder brothers immediately surrendered to the youngest so he would spare their lives.

I began my serious weight loss efforts in January of 2006, so December of 2005 was when I was at my highest weight, about 235 pounds.  The "Before" picture(me in the blue shirt) is from the luau I went to at the Polynesian Cultural Center that month.

The "After" picture (me in the white shirt) is from the luau I went to two years later, December 2007, weighing about 190.

You can see the difference in how pudgy my face looks.

(Those who are not reading this at the blog on my site may not be able to see the animation.)

Edmund Schubert, editor of Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, asked me to pass this news along:

To Readers of Science Fiction and Fantasy everywhere,

When you have something great, you want everyone to know. So you tell people about it. You share it. You pass it along to friends everywhere. Well, that’s what we’re doing with InterGalactic Medicine Show. We want to make sure everyone has had a chance to check out what we’re doing, so we’re offering up a sampling of our stories – for free.

During the month of February we are going to make one story from each of our first four issues available at no charge. Two stories will be set free on February 1st, and two more on February 15th. Just visit www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com and explore the table of contents; the free stories will be clearly marked.

Issue one’s free story will be “Trill and The Beanstalk” by Edmund R. Schubert, issue two’s will be “Yazoo Queen” by Orson Scott Card (from his Alvin Maker series), issue three’s “Xoco’s Fire” by Oliver Dale, and issue four’s “Tabloid Reporter To The Stars” by Eric James Stone. Each story is fully illustrated by artists who were commissioned to create artwork to accompany that tale — as is every story published in IGMS.

“Tabloid Reporter To The Stars” will also be featured in the upcoming InterGalactic Medicine Show anthology from Tor, which will be out this August (we wanted you to get a sneak peek of the anthology, too). However, the other three stories aren’t available anywhere except the online version of IGMS.

It’s really quite simple. Great stories. Custom illustrations. Free. We’re pleased with and proud of the magazine we’re publishing; now we’re passing it along to our friends and telling them about it. We hope you’ll enjoy it and do the same.

Edmund R. Schubert
Editor, Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show
www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com

I’m particularly pleased that "Tabloid Reporter to the Stars" was chosen as one of the preview stories, because I had a lot of fun writing it.

My short story "Premature Emergence" is now available in the February 2008 issue of Jim Baen’s Universe.  You can read the beginning of the story here.

I wrote the first draft of this story in less than 24 hours while at the Writers of the Future workshop in 2005.  Our stories needed to be based on an object we were given at the workshop and a stranger we interviewed on the street.

The object I was given was a pair of K.D. Wentworth’s glasses:

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