Finally, It's Friday! For days now, we have hinted that we wanted some time to just MAKE some vacation plans for ourselves. We've dropped clues through photo captions. But, we NEVER had the AP tell the President we'd like an invite to his ranch during HIS working-vacation. But you-know-who did. We have some other ideas for her vacation time but we've got manners. We have to wonder though, since it is Friday after-all, what's this really all about and who will be around to report it? Here's the NYPost's front page headline: HILL'S DIRTY MONEY. Follow da money.

Extremely e-mail unfriendly: Many congressional offices have turned off their direct e-mail addresses and have implemented filters to lower the amount of e-mail they receive from non-constituents. The headline of this article says it better though - 'Congress Diverts Unwanted E-Mail'.

McAwful does Las Vegas: Terry McAuliffe Thursday called Republican efforts to court Hispanic voters "a joke". He even accused President Bush of 'pandering to Hispanics' because of the influential voting bloc that they represent. My, my, the language he picked up while in Vegas. Wonder what else he's picked up while out West.

Keeping up with it all: You may have noted that Short Cuts is ummmm.. 'shorter' this morning. Well.....it's that time of the year when the LComStaff and management are in dire need of a few extra hours a week to catch up on our correspondence and other stuff like a cat-nap or two, so that we may remain your staff with manners, non-filtered-email and remain your up-to-date source for all the day's news and views. We'll be updating 'Must Reads' throughout the day and the ever-popular Weekend Roundtable will return at midnight. 'Snap-Shots' will have your first look at the overnight news Saturday morning as well.

-For your-always-working-and-remaining-pleasant-LComStaff, Amy Sheehan