I'm off to Aspen and the 2007 NORML legal seminar where I'll be speaking again on using the internet for free legal research and blogging.

Big Tent Democrat, TChris and hopefully, Last Night in Little Rock, will be posting in my stead.

One of the highlights is that we will again be able to spend Sunday afternoon at Hunter Thompson's Owl Farm. That's in addition to Tommy Chong and Tony Serra and food by Chris of Cache Cache. Not to mention my favorite Sheriff Bob Braudis who will be on scene. (One of Bob's sayings: You neither need a big stick nor a big gun to keep the peace in Aspen. Listen to Jimmy Ibbotson of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band singing Braudis is Our Man, His County Rocks.)

Check out my my videos of last year's Aspen conference and our day at Owl Farm. (My You Tube video of Owl Farm was my first video ever and has generated 23,137 views and been favorited 75 times.)

This year, Hunter's wife, Anita, has invited me to stay at Owl Farm, so that's where I'll be for the weekend. I'm bringing both my camera and video camera. Hopefully, if I haven't forgotten how to use them, when I get back, I'll have some new pix and video for you.

(The hard decision: Whether to sleep in Johnny Depps' bedroom downstairs in the basement or on the main floor. The former was very tempting, but I chose the latter.)

'Tis a privilege to live in Colorado. And yes, this is an open thread.

Congrats to the TL kid who graduates today from Cardozo Law School in New York City. His ambition: to be a public defender.

I never was a public defender, I've only been in private practice. But I've told the TL kid since he was a child that if he wanted to be a trial lawyer, he ought to spend a few years as a public defender, to master the skills of a litigator.

He's listening, and hoping for a job. Congrats, Nic, to a valiant effort and a great accomplishment. And I'm sorry you have spend the summer suffering through bar refresher to take the bar exam, but it's a rite of passage. I know you will do great.

If you have some words of encouragement for him today, I hope you will post them in the comments. TalkLeft is his home page so I know he'll read them.

I guess Ezra is trying to pay a compliment but I just found this condescending:

To step aside from the concerns about the content of the sites Klein dislikes (I'm a fan of Atrios, DailyKos, et al, but that argument has been had already), they also serve a secondary purpose in subsidizing "the smart stuff" Klein likes. In much the way that cover stories on back pain and, in this case, "the Science of Appetite," sustain the readership and subscription numbers necessary for Klein's wonkier work and the magazine's political and international reporting, the red meat provided by the sites Klein decries create the audience and infrastructure that sustains and, more to the point, publicizes, my health care writing, or Juan Cole's Iraq reporting.

I try to do an open thread on Tuesdays, but I ended up being online all day and night because of Scooter Libby's sentencing. So, I'm going to be at work today, and as a heads up, I'll be on the road starting Thursday until next week. We'll try to keep the site going, but here's a place for you to discuss what's of import to you, regardless of whether me, Big Tent, TChris or LNILR have mentioned it.

The New York Times has an article on Steve Gilliard's passing.

May he rest in peace.

It's Sunday and site traffic will be down today, so I'm going to go off-topic and self-indulgent.

With Steve Gillard's untimely passing and the 40 year anniversary of the release of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper, I've been contemplating today how fast life goes. And how much we change physically over time, but in many other respects, stay the same .

As my eye doctor would say when he's testing my vision, "Better now? Better then?" And just like I usually tell him, I can't tell.

I'd be curious to see how other bloggers and commenters have evolved over time. Here's me:

• 1967
• 1981
• 2002
• 2007

Now I'm off to see my mother (who at 84, has really changed over time) and will be back in time for the New Hampshire Democrats Debate and the Sopranos.

This is an open thread, feel free to discuss what you want.

The blogger and good friend to many of us, Steve Gilliard, has passed away.

Steve was an inspiration to many of us; one of the clearest thinking, biggesthearted, straight talking persons you could possibly run across.

Speaking personally, I often took my cues from how Steve did it. Telling the truth was what Steve was about. Always.

May he rest in peace. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.

Update (TL): Jane has a very moving tribute to Steve. I only got to meet him once, at the 2004 Republican convention in New York when we were all live-blogging at The Tank. We only chatted for a few minutes. My loss.

One of my favorite Steve Gilliard posts: Rudy and Judi Forever.

I'll be out the rest of the afternoon and we haven't had an open thread yet this week. So here you go.

Jason Leopold interviews fired New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias. You can read and watch here.

He fingers Harriet Miers and Karl Rove or others in the West Wing of the White House as being responsible for the firing list.

He advocates James Comey or someone like him to replace Alberto Gonzales.

He explains his role in the Office of Special Counsel investigation. They have subpoena power. He did not approach them, they approached him.

They were mostly interested in Hatch Act issues. He says Pat Rogers pressured him to file "bogus" voter fraud cases.

There's no smoking gun but he believes one exists:

More...

Huffington Post gets a blog-lift (y.i.c.t.p., as Skippy would say). And it's a good one.

And to organize it all we've created five new sections: Media, Business, Entertainment, a culture and lifestyle section called Living Now, and a Politics section that will feature our political editor Tom Edsall and a shared-content partnership with Josh Marshall and Talking Points Memo. Plus, we've improved the design, navigation, and search function to help you find what you want more easily.

The front page will continue to feature our signature group blog and breaking news stories, but it was clearly no longer big enough to contain all the great stories, blog posts, and features we wanted to share with you. So each new section will have its own "front page" with fresh editorial talent and a constantly growing list of bloggers.

I think it's a great progression, and I would have expected nothing less from Arianna and her crew. And yes, when I have something to say, I'll still be a guest poster there.

My all time favorite blogger is Digby. So it saddens me greatly to see these words come from Digby:

Glenn Greenwald's post from Saturday critiquing Jonathan Alter's piece in the latest Newsweek about the Iraq war vote. Glenn is correct that this false dichotomy of "support the troops" vs "support your constituents" is a GOP talking point that has become conventional wisdom largely because the Democrats conceded it. I can't answer for why they tend to do this, but it's one of the biggest problems we have --- and it isn't just the Democrats who do it, it's the netroots too. Every time we reinforce GOP memes about Democratic "cowardice" we help them make their case. Language is important and it's a big failure among the left that we fail to understand how our own words work against us. I'm guilty of it too.

It's too nice to stay inside today and blog. But, maybe it's raining where you are or maybe you're at work or otherwise logged on.

Here's a place for your thoughts.