Worse Than Democrats?

I thought the Democratic Convention, whose facilities offered to non-moneybags journalists amounted to about 80 desk spaces and some ethernet jacks (to be fought over by desperate thousands), was a little on the frugal side. Especially compared to, say, any random business conference in Vegas, where you'll find entire filing rooms stuffed with enormous computers always connected to the Internet, plus as much Wi-Fi access as your standard Starbucks.

But the Republicans have the Democrats whupped: the same 80 or so workspaces and no computers, but also with no high-speed Internet access on offer at all, except for around 14 ethernet jacks in the hopelessly over-subscribed "Bloggers Corner."

Also, just to pre-emptively pile up the obnoxious complaints in one early post, the "media hospitality lounge" has been closed all opening day, and reporters who smoke have to go through two separate metal-detector scans for each fag.

Now back to our scheduled programming….