Congress is insufficiently air conditioned

So I spent most of yesterday sitting in the Rayburn Congressional office building listening to the partner that I'm working for this summer lecture the 10 members of the House Committee on Government Reform who showed up to hear him talk. It was a pretty impressive display, one that left the poor sap from the Cato Institute (who had the misfortune to be on the same panel as my boss) looking pretty stupid.

The topic was the recent Supreme Court decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos, which frankly was poorly thought out and generally foolish, which is not something that one can often get away with saying about the Supreme Court. It is not uncommon to disagree with the Supreme Court, since that is mostly a question of one well-reasoned interpretation of the law beating out another well-reasoned interpretation. It is something entirely different to accuse the Court of not thinking things through and basing their opinion on flawed legal reasoning.

Hrm, I will explain this in some depth a little later. For now, just smile and nod and be happy that I am enjoying my job. :-)

Something new

Ok, so very quickly:
I'm working here this summer and it is a fantastic job. I'm doing real lawyer work and working on the side of truth, justice, and stickin it to the man... which at present means writing vaugely threatening letters to very powerful people and then (because they don't take the hint) writing motions for the Court to show them just how much these very powerful people and their minions are in fact subject to the same rules as everyone else.

Oh, and the senior partner that I am working for thinks my writing is "excellent." Screw you Legal Rhetoric! (that's our research and writing class).

Other than that, I'm taking a class in criminal procedure (if a cop ever asks to search you or your home, remember that you can always say NO... though it's not always the best idea to piss off a cop; oh and never throw away evidence of a crime and then leave the garbage bag on the curb, the police can search that without a warrant) and doing my best to relax.

Yes, I have gotten my grades. No, we are not going to talk about them.

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Ye gods, I've completely lost track of where I am on my journey to Rivendell. Last thing I knew I was 255 miles along and somewhere in the thickets on the south side of the Great East Road. Where am I now? Who knows? There's nothing but wilderness for 100 miles!

Hrm, well I can say with certainty that I've walked at least a mile every day since starting work, and I went and did some actual hiking through the wilderness (complete with 30+ pound pack, walking stick, and sprained ankle) two weekends back that was about 6 miles (maybe I should count that double since my roleplaying was so good... wait, nevermind, forget I said anything) so we're gonna call it 25 miles, curse a few times, and start trudging again. Yay, 280 miles.