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How amazing is this? It may not look like much at first sight, but this is the first step towards a far more open and accountable government. That link is to the Sunlight Report of Representative Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, stating what she did on Jan 9th.

* Floor Votes on 9/11 Commission recommendations (H.R. 1) (See Congressional Record).
* Steering Committee meeting where Rep. Gillibrand won an appointment to the Agriculture Committee.
* House Armed Services Committee meeting to discuss Secretary of Defense Robert Gates committee appearance later this week.
* Blue Dog Caucus meeting to discuss organizational issues for the 110th Congress.
* Attended a reception held by Women’s Policy INC. to welcome the new Members of Congress and discuss women’s issues.

I tried to get Jerry McNerney to do this, but they weren’t interested, unfortunately. I hope this gets fleshed out more and hopefully adopted by more Congresspeople.

I was listening in my nerdy way to the podcast of KCRW’s Left, Right and Center today and Matt Miller mentioned the Barenaked Ladies holiday song “Elf’s Lament” at the end of the show, and I have to say, I found it really amusing. I’m adding this to my Christmasy musical magazine next year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qixiv080feg

Lyrics here.

My hosting provider, Planet Argon, had a major, major screwup this past week. Their server that was running this blog got hosed and they apparently had no backups or anything, so it not only took days to get back up and running, but I’m missing the last few months worth of blog posts. I have backups, but it’s going to take me a while to get them all imported again. I apologize – I’m thinking of moving the blog to Vox or possibly just another hosting provider, but I haven’t made up my mind yet.