wish me luck

Every two weeks, I go and get an allergy shot. Every time I take the elevator up to the floor with my allergist's office, I notice the button next to all the floor selection buttons that says:

EARTH
QUAKE

Every time I see that, I wonder who would want to take an elevator to an earthquake, and also, how they managed to build an elevator that'd go there.

I lost some record keeping, so I can't remember how many miles I went last week. So all I've got are yesterday and Sunday. I need to pay more attention to this, I guess.

Sunday's miles: 2.7
Tuesday's miles: 2.5
Miles out of Hobbiton: 508.3
Miles out of Rivendell: 48.5
Miles to Lothlórien: 417.9

Off to the testing centre. Wish me luck, or something.

preliminary scoring

I think I did okay. I didn't do as well on the verbal as I did on the practice test (where I got a perfect score), but I did better on the math than I did in either practice, which doesn't suck any. I got my raw scores, but I don't know what percentile those are, but I'm pretty sure they'll be competitive. No 99th percentile for me, clearly it's been too long since I've taken any of these things. I am sad. (I was so nervous. After finishing the section, I was convinced I'd blown the whole thing horribly.)

Hopefully the scores will be good enough for the school. I think it will, but, well, gah.

I'm disappointed that I dropped off 800 on the verbal, but I'm glad I managed to recover enough ancient math sk1lz to kick that score back up. And, of course, I don't know about the written portion yet.

Also, the bus back was fine. It turns out Community Transit doesn't take Metro passes (unlike Sound Transit), but the driver let me use it anyway, even though I offered dollars instead. (Probably because I showed it to him and when he didn't react, put it in the fare box, and then he said they don't take those.)

Political post to come.

Today's miles: 1.8
Miles out of Hobbiton: 510.1
Miles out of Rivendell: 50.3
Miles to Lothlórien: 416.1

Today's Cultural Warfare Update

The Vatican: Creationism is stupid, stop it;

IRS investigates liberal church - acknowledges no explicit endorsements were made, but attempts to act against "implicit endorsements" involved in criticising the Iraq war and Bush's tax cuts - yet somehow, the last 20+ years of fundamentalist political activism including 100%/0% "voter's guides" handed out in the church bulletins is okay and this isn't;

Fundamentalist story on Texas's anti-marriage amendment passage - also, failure of parental-notification in California, failure to defeat research funding in Ohio (fought because it didn't specifically ban embryonic stem-cell research), and FAILURE to overturn Maine's civil rights law;

Focus on the Family supports Kansas redefinition of science to include the supernatural, claims the media have "gotten the story wrong";

FotF: attempts to impose broadcast-style "indecency" regulations on cable television continue - Senator Stevens (R-Alaska) is the main force behind it;

Wisconsin legislature passes "fetal pain" bill; governor promises veto;

Alliance Defense Fund wants to intervene in the religious harassment cases in the Air Force, on the side of the evangelical fundamentalists;

Sweden's hate-speech laws invoked against fundamentalist minister - FotF says, "it'll be here next!!!!11!!," which I suppose makes sense if you hold the first amendment in as little regard as they do;

FotF promotes the FCC's new indecency-complaint filing website, notes Kevin Martin has "gone out of his way" to make sure indecency complaints get attention; "He's very welcoming to these complaints";

U. Wisconsin-Eau Claire prohibits RAs from leading Bible-study classes on the floors where they have authority over students; as RAs, they're considered state employees; Focus on the Family ACTION ITEM against this policy;

Concerned Women for America letter of support for anti-civil-rights campaigners in Maine, who failed to overturn Maine's civil rights laws via the initiative process;

CWA congratulates Texas for passing anti-marriage constitutional amendment;

Traditional Values Coalition ACTION ITEM to confirm Alito to the Supreme Court;

Christianity Today: Bush Administration Backs Withholding of Union Dues on Religious Grounds;

Catholic League launches Wal-Mart boycott over use of "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" by door greeters and a redirect on the web page for "Christmas" searches that produces a "Holiday" page;

Washington Times/Bruce Fein: Alito would be a "genuine turning point" for the court, ending "nonsense" like Griswold v. Connecticut, Roe v. Wade, and Lawrence v. Texas;

Traditional Values Coalition tells John Danforth: yeah, we own the Republican party now; get used to it;

Kansas redefines science to include non-"natural" phenomena as science.

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