Hillary Swank looks like she put her dress on backwards. It's up to her throat in the front and down to her a** in the back.

Halle Berry looks perfect. Goregous dress and simple hair and makeup.

Kate Blanchett looks great in yellow, really nice dress.

Leonard DiCaprio in Prada, good choice. Salma Hayak too, excellent.

Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayak both looked beautiful presenting together. Cruz was in Oscar de la Renta yellow, Hayak in black Prada.

Feel free to chime in here.

Update: The Oscars are starting. You can live blog in the comments if you'd like. Things to talk about: Chris Rock, the speeches, the performances...I've started a separate thread for the fashion.

Chris Rock: Very non-offensive, likable, occasionally funny. Pulls off praising Fahrenheit 9/11 while giving Bush and the war a friendly hit. Then sends out good wishes to the fighting troops. May be a quiet night.

Best Supporting Actor: Morgan Freeman for Million Dollar Baby. His first award. Gracious short speech.

Robin Williams: Great impersonations, particularly of Brando and Nicholson. He starts off with white tape over his mouth to acknowledge how he'd been gagged.

Robin Williams....censored tonight at the Oscars. ABC has refused to let him sing a cartoon ditty that made fun of Rev. James Dobson and his SpongeBob SquarePants criticism. Then it refused his proposed changes. [link corrected]Here's what happened:

Overnight, Mr. Shaiman and his partner, Scott Wittman, dashed off a mock exposé of the dark underbelly of cartoonland for Mr. Williams to deliver, over a gospel-music groove, as if he were a full-throated preacher inveighing against other newly-discovered sinners in the nation's midst:

"Pinocchio's had his nose done! Sleeping Beauty is popping pills!/ The Three Little Pigs ain't kosher! Betty Boop works Beverly Hills!"

The she-pundit with long blond hair has been censored by her own publishing syndicate.

Writing in her February 23 column for Universal Press Syndicate, Coulter observed, among other things, that Guckert/Gannon was a better reporter than The New York Times' Maureen Dowd and his "only offense is that he may be gay." Nothing unexpected there, but Coulter also wrote: "Press passes can't be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president."

Scott at Grits for Breakfast, the blog devoted to Texas criminal (in)justice, which also won a well-deserved Koufax award this year for Best Single Issues blog, provides a breakdown and analysis of the new report released this week on profiling during Texas traffic stops.

by TChris

Federal prosecutors are trial lawyers. Insurance defense lawyers are trial lawyers. The corporations that overwhelm federal courts with commercial litigation are represented by trial lawyers. Even the lawyers who represented Bush in his lawsuit against Gore to decide which Florida ballots would (or would not) be counted are trial lawyers.

With so many trial lawyers helping the interests of the wealthy and powerful, why is it true (as today's New York Times reminds us) that "within conservative circles and inside the White House, the term 'trial lawyer' is an epithet"?

by TChris

The New York Times wonders whether Bernard Ebbers should testify.

There is no hard rule for lawyers in these cases. Martha Stewart, the entrepreneur, did not take the stand and was convicted. Frank P. Quattrone, the former Credit Suisse First Boston banker, did testify in his defense and was convicted, too. John Walker, an executive at Qwest Communications, took the stand last year and was acquitted.

The case against Ebbers rests largely upon the testimony of Scott Sullivan, WorldCom's former CFO. Sullivan is cooperating with the government's prosecution of Ebbers with the hope of avoiding a lengthy sentence of his own. Witnesses who point a finger at others to benefit themselves are notoriously unreliable, but juries often believe self-interested testimony. When the case comes down to "he said-he said," the jury will want to hear from the other "he."

Clara Harris is the Houston dentist who was convicted of running down her husband with her car. She is serving 20 years.

The Houston Chronicle has a long interview today, notable for the descriptions both of life inside a Texas women's prison and the pain of separation prisons impose upon children of the incarcerated.

[link fixed]

All eyes should be on the Monday print edition of the Boulder Daily Camera. 200 professors have paid $1600.00 for a full-page ad demanding the University cease its investigation into Professor Ward Churchill's writings:

The ad says the review of the professor, expected to complete by the middle of March, should be stopped immediately. The ad says the inquiry is the result of political pressure and not based on "any prior formal complaint of specific professional or academic misconduct on his part."

The 200 faculty members' statement defends Churchill's "right to speak what he believes to be the truth" based on academic freedom rules designed to prevent faculty members from being fired for unpopular views.

American- born Abu Ali sits in a U.S. jail cell, indicted on terrorism charges. The Government claims he confessed to treatening to kill President Bush. (Background here, here and here.)

Law enforcement agents have told Newsweek they think he'll walk. The confession was obtained while he was imprisoned in a Saudi jail, and no American agents were present.

NEWSWEEK has learned that his confession, which occurred shortly after his arrest in June 2003, was videotaped by the Saudis and immediately turned over to the FBI. The tape became the chief piece of evidence against him. But back in Washington, the case presented an agonizing dilemma for top Justice Department officials, sources said.

• Crooks and Liars has a 7 minute video of Hunter being interviewed by Tim Russert

• Hunter's widow, Anita Thompson, describes their last day together

• Hunter's Legacy's in the Works

• Former Rolling Stone writer Lucian Truscott IV recalls his early days with Hunter

• The Nation republishes a 1965 article by Hunter, The Motorcycle Gangs: Losers and Outsiders, that later became his Hells Angels book

• The Hunter S. Thompson Foundation: "...dedicated to helping people in the prison system ``who don't belong there.''

Our server move went off without a hitch, another big thanks to the folks at Hosting Matters. We'll be back posting tomorrow.

TalkLeft's comment policy has been updated. A permanent link to the policy is provided on the front page under the word "More."

In the meantime, here's some news of interest:

• Private Health Car in Jails Can Be a Death Sentence in the New York Times

• CIA Agents Fear Prosecution over Interrogation of Detainees, also in the New York Times

And a feel-good story:

• Who is Gary and why are people saying such nice things to him

And some Oscars' Coverage:

• The Two Johnnys, excellent in-depth profile and interview with Johnny Depp, that originally appeared in Rolling Stone

• The Girls With Grit, LA Times

• Superstars Rehearse for the Oscars

• Drudge on a rejected Robin Williams skit lampooning evangelist James Dobson. The deleted lines which Williams intended to lisp: