Netroots Nation Begins!

Netroots Nation kicks off today in Austin, and the partying and planning promises to be out of this world. Unfortunately I can't be on hand for the event, but Nat-Wu has generously offered to sacrifice a weekend of lounging by the pool and doing laundry to head on down to Austin and give us the up-to-the-minute lowdown on what's going on. Look for live-blog updates from him starting sometime tonight (most likely.) Netroots Nation, beyond being the yearly strategizing and planning conference for the liberal blogosphere in general, is also a chance for Texas liberal bloggers to shine and for the Texas Progressive Alliance to finally gain some of the recognition and notoriety it deserves. Dozens of members are traveling down to Austin to take part in the conference, so be sure to look for updates from them as well by clicking on any of the links to their blogs on our right-hand sidebar.

Unfortunately, not everybody is as happy about Netroots Nation as we are. The editors at the Austin-American Statesman try to rain on the parade with an editorial dismissing the significance of Texas bloggers, and liberal bloggers in general, and in general getting a lot of things wrong by not bothering to read the stories by their own reporters, as Phillip Martin at Burnt Orange Report details. Strangely, the editors at the Statesman did not bother to write an editorial dismissing the significance of right-wing bloggers gathering in Austin this weekend as well because...well, there's no need.