I'm off to D.C. this morning for the Scooter Libby trial. Until I get my internet access back, here's another open thread for you.

A very young Neil Young.

How do you know when you visit a business' web site that glowing blog comments aren't written by the business and passed off as coming from a consumer? You don't. Britain is set to do something about it.

Hotels, restaurants and online shops that post glowing reviews about themselves under false identities could face criminal prosecution under new rules that come into force next year.

Businesses which write fake blog entries or create whole wesbites purporting to be from customers will fall foul of a European directive banning them from “falsely representing oneself as a consumer”. From December 31, when the change becomes law in the UK, they can be named and shamed by trading standards or taken to court.

Naming and shaming will also be used.

How about an open thread to get the weekend off and rolling? Some things I'm reading:

• A report by the Pentagon's Inspector General says Administration manipulated intel in linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida in run-up to Iraq war. Attention is focused on the Office of Special Plans. Scarecrow at Firedoglake has more.

• Fired Seattle U.S. Attorney John McKay disputes DOJ allegations about his office's performance.

• CREW releases a report on the 25 most corrupt officials in the Bush Administration

• Arianna on the two trials going on in the Libby courtroom.

It's time for the Tuesday open thread where you pick the topics. Have fun and stay warm. I'll check in later in the day.

Some stuff I'm reading:

• Media Matters challenges Chris Matthews' statements on Hardball yesterday touting Rudy Giuliani. I happened to catch that segment and just shook my head. Thanks to MM for the real facts.

• Judi Nathan Giuliani touts Rudy's testosterone and his loving side (gag reflex inducing) (hat tip Raw Story)

• Ted Haggard says he's completely heterosexual, he never was gay, just acting out.

Both Balkanization and Beltway Blogroll today discuss a rash of proposed state bills that would hold bloggers liable for defamatory content posted by others on their website -- and why they seemed doomed to fail.

Note that there is nothing wrong with holding bloggers responsible for defamatory content that they themselves produce, as long as the states' rules are consistent with the constitutional rules of New York Times v. Sullivan and later cases. Section 230 only affects state laws that try to hold a blogger liable for content posted by someone else.

I try to delete what I consider defamatory content once it's called to my attention. But sometimes, people don't tell me about it, they e-mail me when I'm too busy to read e-mail and I don't see it in the comments because I can't read every comment on this site. And TalkLeft isn't one of the highest-trafficked blogs out there -- certainly not in the sense of a Daily Kos, Atrios or their right-wing counterparts.

There's no question it's a drag to read something disgusting about yourself on the Internet. But the remedy it seems to me is to go after the person who wrote it or who further disseminates it, not the person whose site it got posted on. And I think we already have laws on the books for that.

I'm heading back to Denver today after three days at the Scooter Libby trial. As always, a huge thanks to TChris and Big Tent for posting in my absence and on other topics.

I'll be popping in and out here as I have internet access, but here's a place for you to talk about what's on your mind.

I'm sitting in the media room at the courthouse in D.C., laptop set up on the table in front of me, my Starbucks in hand. Judith Miller is today's big witness, but first we have to finish David Addington, Cheney's former counsel and current chief of staff. I'm going to watch Addington from here, and then go in the courtroom for Miller.

Marcy will be live-blogging the testimony at Firedoglake.

Here's a place for you to discuss the news of day or whatever else is on your mindws.

One reader has reported the site is not loading properly for him and that the sidebars are loading very slowly and the comments are skewed. I am not having the problem. Is anyone else experiencing this?

Jane Hamsher is back to posting after her surgery, which thankfully, she says went really well. She'll be recovered enough to travel to D.C. to cover the Libby trial beginning Feb. 5th.

What great news, it's great to have her back. Go on over and tell her yourselves.

It's rare for TalkLeft to have open threads two days in a row. But my cable modem crashed today leaving me without internet access except the slowest kind. Comcast is coming to fix it between 10 and 12 Thursday morning, right before I leave for my appontments of the day. So, until I get it all squared away, I won't be blogging.

Has anyone tried having both cable and dsl working in their house? I'm thinking about it, because then when one goes down at least the other would work. The Cingular WWAN on my laptop moves at the speed of dialup, making it impossible to blog enjoyably...I think of blogging as the Internet on speed, or as the difference between skiing and snowboarding, and when I have two desktops and three laptops in my house and all are working at the speed of dialup, it's just no fun.

So, I'll be back as soon as Comcast fixes the problem , which should be 10 to noon tomorrow morning. In the meantime, here's another open thread for you.

With the Scooter Libby trial beginning yesterday, I forgot to put up the Tuesday open thread. So here's a Wednesday open thread.

If you've got something to report or talk about besides Libby and SOTU, here's the spot.

I know that PPJ is just dying to talk about whether Joseph Wilson was right or wrong in his criticism of Cheney and the Administration, which really has no bearing on the Libby trial, so that topic is fair game here.

I've got the dentist in the morning followed by court in the afternoon, so check in with Firedoglake and Media Bloggers if you're looking for up to the minute Libby trial coverage.