Self-Imposed Deadline

I want to aim for August 10th as the date I have the early draft done on Confirmation. I will then try to get revisions done sometime in September on The Proxy Senator so I can get it published and on Amazon.com before the end of the year.

Just thought I'd let you know. I also have as many as 5 different projects that are likely to follow, depending on time availability and the interest of potential co-authors.

Nick's Big Week

For the first time in some 11 years, Nick Capezza is making a visit to the District of Columbia. Nick, a graduate of Indiana University Law School, and a fellow undergraduate alum of the University of Florida, will be in town next week doing some interviews and trying to figure out logistics of making a permanent move here. If he moves, he'll be the 3rd UF alum to join the District after I moved that I know personally.

Care to know more about him? Visit his website. But in general, he is an Italian-American Republican who has a more practical sense of politics than I do, albeit a more partisan one. Heh.

On another note, one of his exploits in SG politics was fictionalized in Reunion at University Avenue, so check the book out!

Filibusters & Smokers

Trust me, the pairing in the title will make sense in a second.

I don't blog much for the simple reason that I don't like repeating what's being said elsewhere, and don't have the time to post links all the time. But I do want to comment on the recent filibuster fight.

Apparently, not satisified with getting 97% approval on their judges, Republicans are threatening to grind the Senate to halt with partisan bickering to end supposed filibusters blocking the remaining 3%. Never mind they blocked plenty of Clinton's nominees and blocking judges isn't that recent of a tactic by the party not in the White House.

Never mind that 3% denial rate is excessively strong. Out of 2,200 applications for pensions at the UMWA, I've denied about 550 - about 25% denial rate - and that's perfectly acceptable.

Never mind that we have a budget and spending bills and a huge deficit and a whole list of other issues to talk about instead of focusing on 3% of all judicial nominees.

What really irks me about this is that none of the filibusters are filibusters, just the threat of one. So, the Republicans didn't call a cloture vote on most of the nominees and the ones they did, they lost on. No one took to the floor to read, no one halted Senate business. They just said they intended to do so.

It's a lazy way of taking a stand. Dislike these 3% for being too damned conservative? Then filibuster by talking about nothing else for hours and days on end. And Republicans? If you want to break these filibusters, rather than mucking up the Constitution, why don't you actually force them to filibuster?

All this whining and posturing and bickering is over nothing.

Senators too lazy to actually filibuster are kind of like cigarette smokers. When they're doing making their point, they just toss the junk on the sidewalk without a second thought to the nearby trash can.

God I hate lazy polluters... I mean politicians.

Don't you?

Welcome Tabitha

Tabitha is the newest addition to my budding family of sorts - although her adoption is still on a trial run.

Tabitha is a stray cat that a coworker, JoAnn, took into her home but found herself too allergic to keep "Muffy". I agreed to take the cat in and see if I and Ashley (my other cat) can give her a home.

So far, I adore the brown/black/white tabby kitten, and the two cats are testy but not combative. So, hopefully everything will work out.

And yes, if you think about it - the name is perfect. Tabitha lends itself to a nickname of Tabby. Get it?

Updates

1) The new job is going well, although my split duties between old and new makes it difficult to accomplish as much as I want to in any given day.

2) My final evaluation went better than expected with my former manager, Jane Ann. Others, apparently, weren't so lucky. We'll see how much the evals matter later in the year when the reorganization of the Funds happens.

3) I just received word from Nick Capezza - congrats on the law degree from Indiana, Nick! A friend from UF, Nick is thinking of making a move to D.C., and I'm trying to help him with logistics and the job search.

4) Work is far from over on the Adams trilogy, but I am already trying to convince James Argento, a UF grad finishing his first year of FSU Law, to help me write a prequel. We'll see if it works or I finish the trilogy and move on to other projects.