(no subject)

Hot damn.

When was the last time I woke up to GOOD news in a national election? This feeling... what could it be?

EDIT: And man, my votes for the ballot measures carried, too!

Sounds like there were some unfortunate victories on several "protect us from the gays" measures, though.

EDIT: And I like Alison Bechdel's take:

Phew. Out of the fire, into the frying pan.

ALSO: Interesting. Month or two I'd've said hurray, but I'm just a tad stunned right now. Give me a moment.

MORE: SD overturned their abortion ban? Nice.

(no subject)

Huh, and they're making headway on a non-hormonal male Pill. What gets me there is the part about no detectable side-effects. Less disruptive and irritating than the female Pill? That's pretty exciting for couples.

(no subject)

Oh, so I finished The Wizard Hunters last night, and started in on The Ships of Air. These books are... Um, how do I say it? They're kind of everything I want in a fantasy novel.

The main plot engine is that you've got three different worlds colliding, all of which have different levels of technology and magic. One of them has technology equivalent to somewhere between Earth's 1910's and 1940's, and a highly-developed tradition of scholarly and applied sorcery, which is very math-heavy. They've also had occasional nasty run-ins with the fayre (faerie) realms. Another world has technology more around the Conan the Barbarian level, and suffers occasional outbreaks of Lord Voldemort-style evil wizardry / mad pseudoscience. (They also have benevolent godlike entities that occasionally take up residence in heroic types and render them immune to curses.) Your third world, which is all set to obliterate all of the above, has a massive military-industrial complex, plus magic-driven superweapons that can instantly demolish any of the first world's electrical, petrol-driven, or mechanical devices and nullify all of their magical assaults and wards.

So it's two worlds outnumbered against one, except that these otherwise-unlucky sods happen to be armed with a hack playwright who is belatedly starting to realize what a ruthless bastard she can be ("You know, we could solve this problem with eleven bullets..."), a semi-autonomous device that seems able to counter all of the enemy's superweapons, and a pack of sword-slingers, calculator-punchers, soldiers and spies just motley enough to make an evil overlord wonder if maybe he should have checked his horoscope before leaving the house.

The first book was like Blitz-era England meets Star Wars meets selected scenes from Harry Potter, except they happened to build the Death Star on the Island of Doctor Moreau. The second one has suddenly turned into Battlestar Galactica. This series is kind of the best thing ever.

(no subject)

Sounds like Virginia MIGHT be in the can. Couple that with Montana's win earlier today, and like wow.