Sunday, November 30, 2008

Week in Review

This week started off sucking and then got better towards the weekend. I think I went back to work too soon and really suffered through my day Monday through Wednesday. I thought I’d be OK since my job isn’t physically taxing, but I overlooked the ability to lie down with some ginger tea when I felt bad. Luckily I had a nice four-day holiday weekend to spend recovering, which had me feeling 100% better by Saturday.

Last Sunday while Mira was in town Ke had to go into work for a while, so I ran home to get books and character sheets to role-play with Mira while Ke was gone. However, by the time I got back to Ke’s, Ke was already off work, so the three of us just hung out in Ke’s living room. Ke did homework, Mira wrote for NaNoWriMo, and I got distracted by the Internet journalled.

Monday I returned to work, which was probably a mistake. I felt like hell all day, and didn’t really get much done. After work I ran a TinyPlot on TFUMUX. It started late and ran far too long, but I had a lot of fun, and we accomplished our goal – rescuing Scarlett and Temera from the clutches of Cobra! It was cheesy 80s fun.

Tuesday was another bad day at work. Even though I wasn’t feeling all that well, and I’d had a really stressful day at work, I did have a nice evening with Nivagi. When I got home from work I had a little bit of time to unwind before Nivagi finally got a hold of me to tell me she was downstairs – I was having phone issues. The two of us went out to eat. I’ve been somewhat incommunicado since my energy level has been so low, so we had a lot to catch up on and talk about. After dinner we headed back to my apartment to snuggle and watch more Buffy.

Wednesday Ke was supposed to drive home to see her family for Thanksgiving, but she decided to postpone leaving until Thursday morning. I’d had another crappy day at work, and was planning to just hide out alone Wednesday night, but since Ke stayed in town we hung out and watched Family Guy on hulu.com. It was a good way to unwind after a bad work week.

Ke left town early Thursday morning, and I had much of the day to myself until Mika came by to visit. Mika and I wound up napping and then when she had to leave I headed over to Jero’s for Thanksgiving dinner. Jero made a fantastic meal with delicious turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, green beans, stuffed mushrooms, etc.

Friday I didn’t have any plans, so I got to enjoy the day off. Jero and I got to sleep in superbly late. Neither of us had to work -- Jero took off since I had the day as a holiday. We didn’t have any social obligations, so we both turned off our alarms and slept as late as we wanted. It was decadently sinful, and I enjoyed it very much. When at last we did wake up, we did some late Black Friday shopping and then hid away from the world.

Saturday Jero and I went to an open skate with the Circle City Socialites roller derby team, which was a lot of fun. Jero and I skated for two or three hours, which is the most exercise I’ve had since my surgery. When we got back to Jero’s, she set me up a profile on her Wii Fit, and I got in another half-hour of aerobic and balance-building exercises. When Ke got back into town, I went over to her house and we ate and watched TV until Ke conked out and I joined her in bed.

Today I got to sleep in late with Ke. When hunger drove us from her bed, we went to get Thai food, continuing my experimentation with how well I’ve recovered from my radiation treatments. The food was yummy, and after hanging out with Jero while Ke ran to work, I spent the evening with Ke, journaling while she did her nursing school homework. It was a pleasant end to a week start started off bad but finished well.


"You can count on my support for your efforts to revitalize the nuclear weapons infrastructure."
- Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, voicing his support in a memo for the nightmarishly Freudian "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator," or "bunker buster" bomb, which House Republicans had cut from the 2005 Omnibus Appropriations Bill
Source:
The Washington Post

Monday, November 24, 2008

Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'

From The Times:

Societies worse off 'when they have God on their
side'
By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing
towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according
to research published today.

According to the study, belief in and worship
of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society but may actually
contribute to social problems.

The study counters the view of believers that religion is necessary to
provide the moral and ethical foundations of a healthy society.

It compares the social peformance of relatively secular countries, such
as Britain, with the US, where the majority believes in a creator rather than
the theory of evolution. Many conservative evangelicals in the US consider
Darwinism to be a social evil, believing that it inspires atheism and amorality.

Many liberal Christians and believers of other faiths hold that
religious belief is socially beneficial, believing that it helps to lower rates
of violent crime, murder, suicide, sexual promiscuity and abortion. The benefits
of religious belief to a society have been described as its “spiritual capital”.
But the study claims that the devotion of many in the US may actually contribute
to its ills.


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Thursday, November 06, 2008

Vader Toaster


Vader Toaster, originally uploaded by bonniegrrl.

*snicker* Want!

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Paulson's Swindle Revealed

From The Nation --

The swindle of American taxpayers is proceeding more or less in broad
daylight, as the unwitting voters are preoccupied with the national election.
Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson agreed to invest $125 billion in the nine
largest banks, including $10 billion for Goldman Sachs, his old firm. But, if
you look more closely at Paulson's transaction, the taxpayers were taken for a
ride--a very expensive ride. They paid $125 billion for bank stock that a
private investor could purchase for $62.5 billion. That means half of the
public's money was a straight-out gift to Wall Street, for which taxpayers got
nothing in return.

These are dynamite facts that demand immediate action to halt the bailout
deal and correct its giveaway terms. Stop payment on the Treasury checks before
the bankers can cash them. Open an immediate Congressional investigation into
how Paulson and his staff determined such a sweetheart deal for leading players
in the financial sector and for their own former employer. Paulson's bailout
staff is heavily populated with Goldman Sachs veterans and individuals from
other Wall Street firms. Yet we do not know whether these financiers have fully
divested their own Wall Street holdings. Were they perhaps enriching themselves
as they engineered this generous distribution of public wealth to embattled
private banks and their shareholders?


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