Tiny baby clouded leopards.

This summer just got more crazy. I had thought K-Bug's two classes would take her through July and we would be doing the big drive, moving her to Colorado, in August. Nope, her last day of class is June 29th and she would like to be here for Forth of July. So, looks like I'm hoping a plane right after the F2F to help her drive back. Want to get the drive over before the holiday weekend traffic begins.

So, April - she comes here for Spring Break, May - I spend a week in California to see peeps and for her Graduation, June - F2F and move her from CA to CO. Yowza. I think I'm sleeping through July.

McDonald's is going to have Angry Birds Happy Meals associated with the movie Rio.

No problem, Vortex. I got just as rage-y about it and I had to do some digging.

For those that are wondering, The Washington Post lists agency-by-agency details of shutdown plans: [link]

When I was in consulting, the worst jobs were always the ones with private companies involved, because they didn't understand the process and had utterly ridiculous deadlines.

It took me more than five years to get the company I work for to understand that payment within ten days of invoicing wasn't going to EVER happen. Prompt Payment Act only requires net 30 payments. And let's not even get into the Anti-Deficiency Act and Federal Tort Claims Act. It's a whole different universe doing business with the government.

even with the Fubar, Medicare works better than most private insurance. Government contracting with all of its screwups manages to get roads built.

In some cases, it's the certainty of business. Example -- a lot of hotels accept government rate for government travel, even if government rate is a lot less than the hotel's regular rate, just because so many government employees are likely to be traveling at any one time. And government rate for a room is better than nothing. Or with Medicare, the Medicare rate is a lot better than the nothing that the doctor might otherwise recieve for the patient (or for not seeing the patient and having nobody in that time slot).

It sounds like the shutdown is coming down to banning federal funds to planned parenthood and preventing EPA regulation of greenhouse gases.

Really? REALLY?!? That fills me with rage. I am so damn sick of the hateful attitude of elected Repubs. I mean really? Is it so damn awful if some woman gets a partially government-funded pap smear? So bad that it's better to just shut down the government?

*****

Ugh. I think I should chew on a chill pill.

My bag went to Ft. Lauderdale. My brother and SIL are headed to Tampa. So my luggage got closer to their destination last night than they are now. Um.

Really? REALLY?!?

Depends on who you talk to apparently.

[link]

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Democrats and Republicans in Congress have essentially agreed on spending levels for the rest of the year, but a budget deal is being held up by a split over policy measures related to Planned Parenthood funding and clean-air regulation.

House Speaker John Boehner, speaking with reporters later, said no agreement had been reached. He denied that the so-called "riders" were driving the stalemate — saying he was committed to fighting for the most spending cuts possible.

When is the deadline - do we know for sure that the Feds are shutting down?

We had an extra long staff meeting this morning and I missed the news of the new quake until now. Glad the tsunami warning was cancelled.

I'm guessing that part of Japan doesn't have much left to come down.

Deadline is Friday midnight.