Welcome aboard, Anna

Yes, I got sucked into the maelstrom as well.

Was watching the live Ustream well after midnight. Oddly enough, could find no mention of the TX shenanigans on the self-proclaimed 24hr news networks at that time. Guess that's why TV news has become obsolete. I rarely bother watching it, except for the weather on occasion.

And yet, Perry will declare another special session and the bill will pass the second time around. Love me some good political theater too, but it's no substitute for the hard work of building party infrastructure...the tx dem party has withered on the vine these past decades, and here's the result...

if anyone complains about a left wing media bias in the aftermath of the filibuster i will only say this:

muffins

Welcome to Twitter.

It was frustrating to get up to date information out of Austin last night. Other than the twitter feed it just didn't exist. Some of the early feeds I had been following through the day suddenly stopped when Davis was challenged that she went off topic. What???? Like it was no longer news worthy at that point?

About the Twitter feed, I too was resistant. How could undisciplined tweets provide an accurate portrayal of what was happening... but somehow that collective crowd gave a great narrative in real time that rivaled anything else out in the ether last night. The major news feeds, including the AP, seemed to be running in circles, snapping up each others little tidbits without any confirmation, but still hesitant to offer any direct observation to what was occurring in that chamber.

Last night was truly great political theater. And I, too, would have missed the party had twitter not reminded me.

And, yes, CNN was talking about muffin during the entire throwdown. Like it or not, twitter as breaking news is the new model.

I don't know the circumstances under which this special session was called. Was it just to pass bills like this, or did they have some real crisis justifying it (and grafted this on for no good reason)? Will Perry really call another special session just for this? Texas political watchers, please enlighten me.

Regarding twitter, I tried it once and just found that it's too overwhelming. Even if you limit who you follow, they're just constantly retweeting shit all day long. Is there a trick to it - do you just not bother with anything older than an hour, say, when you check it? Is it about the hashtags? I couldn't find a way to find more than a handful of the hottest ones - how was someone supposed to find good hashtags to follow without knowing about them already? Just wait for them to start filling up your feed from the people you're following?

Wish we could get that kind of reporting about our own legislature in Olympia. If only somebody worked for some kind of media...

Matt that is exactly what I do, I never go back to read my feeds history. If I need more info, read another users history or a hashtag to get just the info you are looking for.

90% of my twitter feed is dealing with the mighty Sounders FC. Last night, even the Sounders fans were only tweeting about Wendy.

Texas has never updated its tradition of part time legislators who meet only every two years and get paid squat. This results in one or more "special" sessions being called for almost every legislature. I see Perry will call another session, so say goodbye to legal abortion in Texas, folks.

Twitter is the quickest news source these days.

It has been hard to explain how incredible that was to anyone that wasn't there. A bunch of my friends and I were tweeting about it and it was crazy interesting and fun. Those who weren't there just kinda shrug and say "okay...?"

Also...Favorite joke of the night was:

"This is what happens when people who think the Earth is 6,000 years old are in charge of timekeeping."

To be fair, most of the time Twitter is a major nuisance and a ginormous timesuck. What went down the other night was the exception rather than the rule.

That said, I was right there with you. Twitter was there for me when Slog and so many other places were not.

"11 hours of nonstop, on-topic speaking about the bill, without resting, leaning, eating, or drinking"

Wow. Wonder if she'll do it again.