I'm Trying Not to Pay Attention But Attention Must Be Paid

Getting deeper into the weeds with my NaNoWriMo challenge, and yet I can't ignore the current state of affairs in the political arena.

And so, without much comment, I present links to other news and blog articles of particular interest that I wanna share to the seven blog readers I'd like to keep maintaining an interest in this place.

Debate news: in the "finally happening" category, the next GOP debate THIS SATURDAY has weeded down two more names off the main stage - Huckabee and Christie - to the kids' table, and kicked off two other names - Graham and Pataki - from the debates altogether (which is weird because Graham has actually been scoring well in the prelim debate rounds and his polling isn't any worse than the other survivors).

Also: more attention getting paid to the down-ticket woes Democrats are suffering at the state elections level via Blog for Arizona.

Also wik: Pinku-Sensei came up with a debate drink for Lawrence Lessig just as Lessig dropped out of the Democratic primaries because he never had an invite to the debates in the first place.  Ah, well, it's a drink order peoples!

Considering how the Kentucky state election results turned out, Rude Pundit needs those drink orders from Pinku-Sensei...

Gerrymandering in Florida: The state legislature failed YET ANOTHER special session - costing taxpayers another hefty fee for NOTHING - to consider a new district map for the Florida Senate this 2016.  Senators refused to make appropriate changes because not enough of them were willing to relocate their "safe" seats into more challenging open districts. Straight up, Florida: these politicians' refusal to abide by YOUR state amendments for Fair Districts should disqualify ALL of them from any re-election effort. They are not doing ANYTHING to EARN those jobs.

And finally: WHAT THE HELL IS BEN CARSON DOING TALKING ABOUT THE ANCIENT PYRAMIDS?!  I mean, seriously, any X-Phile would tell you ALIENS, bro, ALIENS...

Now, I need to reach 15,000 words by Sunday afternoon or we are all DOOMED!  Well, that and I need to finish editing that superhero novella for pre-Christmas release and this short story for the writers group anthology and...