Thursday Quick Hits - Blue Girl Made it to Austin!

Or did she??? Oh, I'm such a worrywart!

The rest of this week I'm joining 2000+ of my fellow bloggers, political workers, and technology addicts in Austin Texas at the annual Netroots Nation conference. As a Democracy for America Scholarship winner I was given the ultimate gift of a free ticket to the conference, free hotel room (shared with the unbelievable blogger BlueGirlRedState) and was graciously given a free airline ticket by kind soul/donor Denise.

This is good news--the train ride from hell is likely over. What do you want to bet she never, ever rides another train ever again, unless it's light rail with an escape hatch?

I'd do the quick hits, but I'm just so overwhelmed right now, I have to go sit down and genuflect with relief...I honestly thought we were going to have a broken arrow situation.

--WS

I did make it and i am in the scholarship winners caucus right now, and heading off to a Dean rally in a few. I'll keep you all posted and try to blog something this afternoon.

Thanks all - details will be forthcoming on the railcar to hell...

Status Update

Just a quick status update--no quick hits today, too much going on.

Our own Blue Girl was waylaid by downed power lines between St Louis and Austin--she will arrive sometime this evening, and our friend Elmo has been advised that he does not need to wait for her--she'll get a cab to the hotel.



From what I gather, lots of people are making their way to Austin today--if you're one of them, look for the dangerous girl all done in blue...

--WS

Status of Forces

We are one blogger down, due to a massive transformer explosion in a Kansas City neighborhood--can you guess what the pictures will look like?

Light blogging ahead for the Holiday weekend. Much fun to be had by all.

Remember--it's America's birthday, and she wants a pony.

Two Quick Updates

The Farm Bill is working its way through the system.

The chairmen of the agriculture committees in the House and Senate have agreed "on the major sticking points of the Farm Bill," reports Barbara Leach of My Rural America, channeling Jerry Hagstrom of CongressDaily, a subscription-only news outlet.

"Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus and House Ways & Means Committee Chair Barney Frank still have to agree on the offsets," Leach writes. "House and Senate conferees still need to vote on various other issues." And there's still a question about whether President Bush will sign the bill, veto it or allow it to become law without his signature.

Club-hopping, arms-dealing Eurotrash gets a reprieve from appearing before Congress:

For those of you waiting to hear from the senior executives behind AEY, Inc., you'll have to wait a little longer. The House oversight committee, which had set a hearing for 22 year-old AEY President Efraim Diveroli, his 25 year-old VP (and masseur) David Packouz, and the company's general manager, also 25, to testify, has indefinitely postponed the hearing.

Packouz's lawyer had informed the committee that his client would be pleading the Fifth unless he received immunity to testify -- something which seems unlikely. So that likely has something to do with the postponement. Diveroli and his boyz are under federal investigation for allegedly lying about the source of the ammunition he provided to the Afghan army.

Weekend Roundup

Just a status update. We are a blogging system with one workstation down. The Kansas City wing of the empire you see stretched before you--our leader, our founder, our cat blogger extraordinaire--is awaiting connectivity through working equipment.

This is the weekend before Super Tuesday, and there is furious campaigning out there. We will talk about that on Monday and Tuesday and give you our take on these things.

There are GAO reports stacked up for review--those will be on our plate as well.

Hang in there, stay warm wherever you are, and check the archives for some of our greatest hits.

Like this one.