Hey! Wha' Happen'????

In the immortal words of former-child-actor Mike LaFontaine, "Hey! Wha Happen??!!!"

Well, it's been a long month. Ever since I got back from Morocco, things have just gotten busier and busier. I know, a blog is only as good or as relevant as the Blogger-in-Chief makes it, and the BIC has to update it frequently to make it's readership worthwhile.

Anyhow, lots to discuss. I've gotten involved in some local political issues - this may or may not be a good thing. I know that there's a tremendous time commitment here. Understand, I try not to spend any more time than absolutely necessary away from my family, and tend to budget one late night per week. And when I am home, I want to be as engaged as possible.

So, what happened?

I helped a neighbor run for Town Council. She lost, largely through a failure of imagination (it was textbook - many of her supporters just assumed she was going to win, so they didn't turn out). But it opened up these other issues - a citizen's initiative which I will discuss later this week. Working on these issues is taking several nights per week - the town council meets in public every other week, there are near-constant conversations. But I think it's important to get this town on the right track.

We fought the TRI battle in the House once again, which was a surprise to just about all involved - very intense couple of days as we hashed very complicated regulatory issues out.

And I spent the first part of last week in Colorado, attending an energy and environmental policy summit designed to bring leaders from various points along the political spectrum together to talk about the issues. There were 25 of us at this secluded location - well, I'm planning on republishing the Independence Institute's John Caldara's account. Suffice it to say - I was there with some of my fellow free-marketeers (Fred, John, Ken Chilton), along with some traditional statist, big-government types (Al Gore, Carl Pope, Joan Blades from MoveOn, etc).
It was a fascinating experience -I learned a great deal, they learned a great deal.

And it all capped off with a speech at IJ's Castle Coaltion Activist Conference yesterday.
So, up this week:

- Horace Cooper's analysis of the pre-midterm Special Elections;
- John Caldara's piece about the Energy Summit
- CQ's Discussion of the TRI debate in the Senate
- My opinion piece on the expansion of the Centreville Town Council

Onward and upward!

Oh, and if I'm not mistaken - it has now been over a year since I've written anything on Usenet. So, I'm sure it would surprise just about anyone if I were being written about over there.

I know it would surprise me.

- Andrew Langer