Mostly I slept.
I've been trying to read Turtledove's Colonization: Down to Earth since Thursday morning. It's a continuation of his World at War series, in which he has sauroid aliens invade Earth during World War II.
I take some exception to his assumptions, here and there, but it's a pretty good read anyway.
I read the entirety of the first trilogy, but I'm jumping into the middle of the second one since I don't have the first book of the second trilogy. Turtledove has enough redundancy in the exposition such that that's possible, which is good, and most of the characters in this series come from the first one, which is also good. My only real complaint with this book is that I don't know what year in which it occurs, but that's really not very important since--at this point--his alternate history has very little to do with real history. (Okay, Nazi Europe in the 1960s, China still not entirely communist even then, humans making personal computers, etc.)
Anyway, between reading, sleeping, and playing WoW, I was too tired to stay up for Battlestar Galactica, so I taped it, and it's a pretty good episode. Things are falling apart, and with a bare handful of eps left--what, six? seven?--I fail to see how things can come to a good end from where they are now.
Next week I'll be at work while it's on, so I'll have to rely on the VCR again.
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PDB knocks one out of the park here.
"This is not the argument of an adult. This is the mindless shrieking of a panicky imbecile who has run out of arguments and has resorted to flinging his own feces."
LOL
The idea that Republicans opposed the Obama "stimulus" package because Obama is black completely ignores the possibility that the Republicans might have opposed the package due to long-held political principles that have nothing to do whatsoever with the race of the package's proponent(s).
The writer, Mr. Lind, also displays a stunning ignorance of history when he refers to "the neo-Confederate/Dixiecrat mentality". He attempts to paint this mentality as belonging to "Republiconfederate[s]".
One minor detail: The Dixiecrats were Democrats. The word "Dixiecrat" was an amalgam of the word "Dixie"--referring to former Confederate states--and "Democrat", because they were all Democrats.
In fact, every single major advance for civil rights has happened because Republicans championed it. The abolition of slavery was the entire reason for the formation of the Republican party; up until Lincoln's time, the Whig party opposed the Democrat party.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 would not--could not--have been enacted into law had it not been for Republicans. Many Democrats including all the Dixiecrats were against it. (Al Gore's father, for example, voted against it.)
But don't expect Mr. Lind to bother learning the history of the Republican party, not when the common myth about Republican racism fits his cause so well.
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Greetings from Flyover Country.
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The Curmudgeon Emeritus notes that a liberal who doesn't like the way Republicans voted apparently has an odd notion of what "tyranny" is.
House Republicans who voted against the stimulus bill, the liberal blogger at "Down With Tyranny" says, should be stripped of their offices and have a lot of other things happen to them.
Wow. Now, here, I guess I was under the impression that "tyranny" implied the stifling of debate and dissent....
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Yes, Democrats, do this. If you want to pass legislation, you don't need our help, anyway.
Of course, if the legislation turns out to blow chunks in your face, you can't blame anyone but yourselves for it--which is why you Democrats are so upset that Republicans won't help you.
Let Democrats take all the credit for nationalizing everything and raising taxes during a recession.
Heh.
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The unintended economic effects of legalized abortion. An interesting read. Not earth-shattering, not even surprising.
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I am finally getting to record The World's Fastest Indian. It's on at a reasonable time for once! I was going to watch it, but then decided I'd rather go online, and save the movie for later--maybe when my GF is here, so we can watch something other than anime for once.
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Although my propensity for hypoglycemia precludes me from eating a lot of candy, I bought a roll of strawberry Mentos, because that's the best flavor they come in. IMHO, of course.
Chronic hypoglycemia really sucks, because there are a bunch of candies that I really enjoy and can't eat. When your insulin-producing cells go berserk at the first sign of glucose, you have to be careful about how much sugar you ingest. So my candy intake is limited to a few pieces after meals.
This is probably better for my waistline, though.
But when I see someone--proclaiming that they haven't eaten anything for hours--have a donut or something sweet, it makes me feel envious, because I know what would happen to me if I tried that: I'd end up in a cold sweat with the shakes, and quite possibly seeing a "purple donut" in my vision--all signs that my blood glucose is perilously low.
In really severe cases you get dizzy and may suffer tunnel vision, or even partial blindness. That is the worst, because after that stage you can expect to lose consciousness.
And no, just eating candy won't fix it. Someone with chronic hypoglycemia can't keep his blood sugar elevated by eating more candy; it takes protein and fat to fix the problem.
Worst part is, this doesn't even guarantee that I won't become diabetic. Right now I have the opposite problem a diabetic has, but someone with chronic hypoglycemia can become a diabetic. They're both problems with the insulin-producing cells.
..so the roll of Mentos has lasted for several days as I've had one or two here and there. But man, they taste good.