I hate being poor:

When the trial of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice opens next week, scores of journalists are expected to throng the federal courtroom in Washington, far too many for the 100 seats set aside for the media.

But for the first time in a federal court, two of these seats will be reserved for bloggers. After two years of negotiations with judicial officials across the country, the Media Bloggers Association, a nonpartisan group with about 1,000 members working to extend the powers of the press to bloggers, has won credentials to rotate among his members. The trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the highest-ranking Bush administration official to face criminal charges, could "catalyze" the association's efforts to win respect and access for bloggers in federal and state courthouses, said Robert Cox, the association's president.

If you have a lazy eye or wa-haay too much time on your hands, you may have noticed that I am a member of the Media Bloggers Association.  I’ve been sitting on the notification for this for about a week now, but among the woes of my latent expatriate obsession with U.S. Politics is that events like this are prohibitively expensive for me to participate in.  Unless some wealthy THF fan steps in with some mad moolah, I’m gonna have to sit this one out. 

Somebody explain to me why I agreed to work for karma again?  At least Earl has his lottery money.