Yes, it's finally arrived - the Young Democrats of America National Convention 2007 is getting underway today, and your intrepid (well, as intrepid as hobbits get, at least) host will live blog the whole thing. Things will be getting started early this afternoon, but for those of you (like me) who are up early, let the blogging begin!

8:22 A.M. Those AJC articles about how bad things are getting at Hartsfield-Jackson are pretty accurate, unfortunately. At 7:30 - not exactly peak time yet - here's what the lines looked like...



Notice that the lines are way back beyond where they usually are. Fortunately the line moved fast for me, and I was out in 30 minutes. My confidence in America's air travel safety was bolstered by one of those bomb- (or drug- or donut-) sniffing dogs homing in on a cop drinking a cup of coffee - clearly we're doing ok if that's all the dogs can find. Flight leaves in 50...

1:21 P.M. Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away from the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, there was the Remote South parking lot:



I have a few entries in the "Dallas for Dumbasses" guide book...

• The airport is possibly the only one where there isn't one central baggage claim location, but rather lots of little baggage claims sprinkled about. Bonus points if you somehow figure this out before you follow the wrong baggage claim sign...


• Find out what "Premium/Two Zones" actually means before trying to ride the light rail, because the ticket machine gives you a lot of choices that don't ever mention the word "premium". Also try to figure out what to do when the ticket machines just don't read your credit card...


• Take the airport shuttle - it's worth $12 bucks not to have to worry about the hassle of figuring this stuff out!!!

No, I'm not bitter, I just need a drink. Am I there yet? (No, I'm on the light rail, I may get to the hotel today.) Sorry to rant folks, I'm sure the fun is going to start just as soon as I get to the hotel!

2:42 P.M.



Yay! I arrived! I'm at the hotel, checked in, and ready to rock! Yay! Did I say yay? Yes! Um, right. So I'm at the hotel, and the IFLRY (International Federation of Liberal Radical Youth) is about to do a session on civil liberties and global security - look for updates on that shortly - but here are some images from the hotel:



Yup, we're in Texas...



Not much of a view from the 31st floor, huh? Oh well.



This place is *huge*, and we're not even the only con here...

2:54 P.M. We have someone from the ACLU (contituency outreach or something - his laptop desktop is Colbert!) beginning the discussion with a video about how individuals have gotten caught in the government's reponse to the 9/11 attacks...



We're hearing (via the video) about an innocent German citizen who got rendited (is that a word?) to our posh CIA secret prisons in God knows what countries. Go to hell, Dubya!

3:06 P.M. Ah, secret government searches, how we loathe thee. Just a glimpse of some of our (YDG) members listening intently...



(No, Jason is not trying to avoid being "it"!)

3:23 P.M. Wow, this is a telling statistic. Out of 143,000 national security letters (basically super BS subpoenas) demanding information, how many led to any kind of conviction? Wait for it... one. That's pathetic.

4:14 P.M. *sigh* Well, all good things must come to an end, and the suck of Platform must begin. Your host has been suckered into being secretary of this thing (surprise!) and will be here for the duration, pending alcohol consumption ;-)



6:01 P.M. Yowza. Two hours of platform down... more than I want to go. They did let us out of our cage for a bit though...



At least Timmeh is here to make this more bearable :-)

6:59 P.M. C'mon people, learn from the pros - DON'T CALL FOR QUORUM!!! (Oy, I think I need a replacement!)

7:04 P.M. Holy schnikes, the Mary Kay chicks next door are REALLY LOUD... I mean, party on, party on, but we're about the people's business here!