Another dream, this time relatively novel, for me. I was in some kind of combination asylum/police custody, in a place that strongly resembled a dentist's office's waiting room. Again, I had weird powers that I don't have in real life, and they were doing their best to keep me there, all the time knowing that I could escape if I really tried. I think they were attempting to appeal to my respect for law to keep me. For example, right as I was due to be released, I created some garlic salt to see what it would taste like, ate some, and offered the rest to the other inmates. Someone noticed, and said that I was guilty of famine, so I'd need to stay another month. I was indignant that such a brief act could lead to so long an additional stay. So, I charged up my power, made a blast near the door to indicate I would not be messed with, and ran out of the facility. As I went, the secretary told me I'd be back. So there I was, flying around the city... it apparently was a futuristic place, not at all like the dark sides of cities I sometimes see in my dreams. Flying cars, and lots of off-white architecture. I mumbled into my hand as a glowing electrical storm grew there -- I was writing a virus to go erase all record of me from the facility. And that's my dream.

The Taiwanese are making steps that are making the PRC rather nervous. From mentioning Taiwan on their plassports to talk of officially changing the name of their government from the Republic of China to Taiwan, the PRC is no doubt very *interested* in what'll happen next.

Oh, yes, Abbas has resigned. There goes the neighborhood. There's so much stupidity going on over there. Israel couldn't honor its own ceasefire, because it just had to keep assassinating people it didn't like whenever it saw them. Arafat wouldn't reign in people who were too keen on playing gunslinger. Abbas just had to wimp out. I've always found it weird that people would view resignation as being a good way to advance a cause. Lose your office, and at least on the surface, you've turned off your ability to enact your will. Am I missing something here? I guess things will probably go back to their usual violent arrangements. So much racism and nationalism, so little room.

Yum. Enjoying Saag Paneer with Basmati rice. I love my ricemaker.

Oh, finally, take a look at this. Some stupid kids were playing Grand Theft Auto (a game I found rather fun when I played it at a friends house a few years ago), went and got guns, and shot at cars on the highway. Someone died, and someone else got hurt. So, the families of the victims are suing the video game manufacturer. This makes me absolutely furious. It's a pity someone doesn't go and shoot them. If you're playing a video game, or reading a book, and you go off and hurt someone, it's your fucking fault, not the book or video game author's. The video game is not going to slither out of the console, jump through your nostril, and assimilate you. It's you. Cope. And you fucking families of victims, I know you're angry, but if you let your anger spray all over the place, or if you let your anger turn to greed, you're scum. That's it. Victims, in my book, don't magically get permission to do whatever the hell they feel like doing. It doesn't matter if your family was killed by gangsters, or if people made fun of you in school, or whatever. That is NOT an excuse to go hurt somebody else. I'll refrain from extending this into another area (although if you know me, you can probably guess what I'm not saying), and simply say that if you try to restrict the flow of information out of some stupid witchhunt, there are plenty of people like me who will do our damnest to frustrate your efforts, and we'll push things FAR beyond the natural balance just to piss you off. Want to ban smoking advertisements? We'll make our own, grassroots smoking advertisements, unconnected to the industry, saying that smoking is really really cool. Want to ban blasphemous books? We'll produce stuff that'll make the stuff you initially were banning look like the fricking bible (which is itself full of incest, violence, and stupidity, much of it on the hands of the character Yahweh itself). You don't get to censor. Verboten. Try it and you'll end off worse than you were before.

That said, how can we try to understand the violence? There's probably a certain rate of nutcases that are bound to be produced by a society, regardless of circumstance -- brains are complex, turbulent things. Can a country this big's rationing of loonies explain what we've been seeing? Maybe. There might also be structural problems in society that families arn't fighting against vigorously enough. There've been numerous studies indicating that Americans work longer than any other nation in the world. That's not a good thing -- less time for leisure, family, and nature. I'm not simply suggesting people find a new thing to blame. I'm saying that families need to spend more time with their kids, less time thinking about work, and that when problems do happen, some level of it is to be expected, and the rest of the fault belongs to the kids and the parents.

I'm irritated that the most recent bike crash seems to have injured me in ways that I have not completely recovered. I have a spot near one of my eyes where I occasionally bleed that hasn't yet completely gone away yet (although I expect it to soon -- it's getting better), and, much worse, my left hand has lost a bit of mobility and has some spots on it that are sore to the touch. That hasn't changed at all since the wound healed up, and I imagine it might not ever be the same. At least it looks normal.

Anyhow, I'd best go get the AP. Wireless cheers me up.