TChris is off in wine country this weekend (lucky him) and I'm working at my day job and testing the new scoop site in my spare moments. It's also a spectacular fall day and I want to get outside.

So, for those of you with something to say, here's the place.

Some things I would blog about if I had the time today:

• Lenny Bruce would have turned 81 today if still alive.

• Pot guru Ed Rosenthal indicted by the feds again -- after an appeals court threw out his first conviction.

• A British coronor has ruled U.S. forces in Iraq killed British reporter Terry Lloyd in the beginning days of the war.

Ok, it's taken 5 weeks to build a Scoop site for TalkLeft. In case you missed my previous post, here's why in a nutshell: TalkLeft has become too big and cumbersome for Movable Type to process, and the continual rebuilding that goes on in the background has made the site way too slow. I chose Scoop over Wordpress and other systems because I wanted the site to have growing room and to allow more people to post (not just comment). I want the site to load quickly and commenting should be a breeze.

I'm also moving TalkLeft to a new hosting company which specializes in Scoop sites and it will be on it's own dedicated server. If you want to see some other Scoop sites, see Daily Kos or click on those at that link.

The site will look almost exactly like it does now. That's why it took 5 weeks and a few thousand dollars or more (I haven't gotten the final bill yet) to build. It's a modified Scoop site. My hosting costs are going to increase by more than $200 a month. I'm looking at the cost as a long-term investment in the site.

I hope you all like it and find it easier to use.

[George Harrison and Eric Claption, Live In Japan - 1991]

October 15, the last date for filing tax returns, is right around the corner. My accountant says tomorrow is my due date, so I'll be buried in paper until the wee hours.

For those of you smart enough to have filed on April 15, here's an open thread.

Update: It's 11:05 pm and I just found my accountant's "tax organizer" that I have to fill out by tomorrow. It was buried at the bottom of the 10th moving box I just unpacked. I hope this isn't an all-nighter, but it's looking that way. On the bright side, what did people do before Quicken?

I've had four wonderful days in Manhattan, with the TL kid and great colleagues, being treated, as usual, like royalty by Lexis.com. I haven't read a newspaper, seen a television show, listened to a radio or blogged. A huge thanks to TChris and Big Tent Democrat for all their great posts.

I'm on the way to the airport (blogging this from my laptop's WWAN) and will be back to regular blogging tonight.

In the meantime, here's one more open thread.

(Guest Post from Big Tent Democrat) (The opinions expressed are my own solely. They in no way reflect the opinion of any other TalkLeft blogger. Professor Reynolds is a very cordial intellectual adversary and we all admire his civility.)

Earlier this week, Glenn Reynolds took exception to my characterizing his linking to Howard Kurtz as endorsing Kurtz's blaming the kids in the Foley page scandal:

# Posted by Glenn Reynolds
October 3, 2006 11:27 AM

I "endorse" blaming young people? How, by quoting Kurtz as you did? I also quote Brendan Miniter blaming the Republican leadership.

This "you must endorse whatever you link" theory, which seems to be gaining ground in the blogosphere, strikes me as very silly.

Fair enough. But it seems worth considering what Professor Reynolds is linking to and what that means:

I'm on the road today, traveling to New York for the annual Lexis-Nexis/Martindale Legal Advisory Board meeting. Lexis and Martindale are my favorite companies and it's the best meeting I attend all year. Every year they take us to another spot, we've been to Bermuda, Canada and all over the U.S. It would be close to impossible for me to either practice law or blog without Lexis-Nexis. To serve on their legal advisory board, as I've done the last ten years, is really a privilege for me.

In addition, the TL kid is in NY, and whatever time I'm not with Lexis, I'll be with him. I'll have my laptop and will not be absent completely, and I hope TChris and Big Tent Democrat (and maybe even Last Night in Little Rock, if he's angry enough about something) will be keeping you updated.

But just in case, here's some space for you to comment and keep each other apprised of what's going on in the world.

I suspect Denny Hastert will resign his leadership post before I return to Denver Sunday night, but I've been wrong before. What do you think?

I know everyone is frustrated with the comments. I've been saying for the last month the site is moving from Movable Type to Scoop (see Daily Kos as an example of modified Scoop) and it really is happening. The new site is built, it looks almost exactly like the current site, commenting problems should be eliminated, and there will be the opportunity for those of you who want to blog but don't want your own site to create your own posts.

I'm not sure how reader posting and comment rating will work yet, since unlike Daily Kos, there are conservatives (PPJ and others, are you listening?) who comment regularly on TL. While I have no intention of letting TalkLeft become a free-for-all, it's also not fair to bash conservative commenters just because of their point of view. It will remain a partisan, liberal site, especially on crime and political issues, but some accomodation will be made to allow conservatives to comment without fear of being trashed solely because of their point of view.

As for a launch date: We're in the debugging mode. We should be live next week.

We've been doing a lot of the talking lately, here's a place for you.

The TL mom fell at her skilled nursing facility last night and fractured her hip. At 83 with Parkinson's and dementia, it's difficult. But, she just came through surgery and they said it went well. They've put a pin in her hip and were able to do it with a spinal anaesthetic instead of general. So I'll be hospital blogging on and off through the weekend, as my wireless connection holds up.

I'm sure I'll miss some news, so here's a place for you to comment away.

Update: Eric Muller posts an apology and acknowledgment that he was mistaken about the photo. I'll just say this. Lawyers, myself included, generally are left-brain. We don't know when a photo is photo-shopped or real-- we don't have the artistic ability to discern between the two. I honestly believe Eric thought the photo was real. He is to be credited for apologizing once its falsity was called to his attention.

UPDATE, 3:00 p.m.: It appears that I was mistaken when I linked to the picture on flickr below, which I believed to be a picture of Michelle Malkin. I regret my error, and I apologize to Michelle Malkin for it. She has asked that I leave the post up -- indeed, she has reprinted it -- and so I will do as she wishes.

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It's not even noon and we already have our Friday night blog fight that promises to go all weekend. It's Michelle Malkin vs. Eric Muller of Is that Legal , with a little Wonkette thrown in for good measure..

UNC Law Prof Eric Muller and Wonkette posted a picture he found on a Flickr site allegedly of Michelle Malkin on their websites. Eric wanted to show her hypocrisy for trashing a woman scantily dressed in her latest column.

Only the picture was photo-shopped by someone and is not Michelle. Now, Michelle is filing a complaint with UNC about Eric, saying it's gone too far. And she's asking for help identifying the flickr poster. Allah at Hot Air (another Malkin site) has more on the photo-shopping aspect.

Rudy Giuliani's friends may be his undoing. First, Bernie Kerik, the subject of a federal wiretap investigation who has already pleaded guilty to a minor charge. Then Bernie surfaces in the Jeanine Pirro bugging investigation, and now, according to the New York Times:

The politics of the Pirro investigation, which was disclosed on Wednesday, seemed more tangled yesterday. Two lawyers with knowledge of the inquiry said that subpoenas had been issued to one current and one former employee of Giuliani Security and Safety, a division of the consulting firm founded by former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.

A third man, who works at the company, has been interviewed by F.B.I. agents as part of the inquiry, the lawyers said. All three men were very close to Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, whom Ms. Pirro consulted in the summer of 2005 about secretly taping her husband, Albert. In the conversations, which were recorded by authorities and detailed in reports on WNBC-TV, Mr. Kerik indicated at one point that he had asked a contact at Mr. Giuliani's firm to find him a recording device.

Mr. Giuliani, who appointed Mr. Kerik police commissioner and has been close to him, is in the midst of deliberations about whether to run for president in 2008.

Naturally, Rudy dumps on Jeanine:

Update: Never mind, they didn't move the site tonight after all. Comment away.

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TalkLeft's hosting company advises that it is moving the site to a faster server tonight. This means that once the move begins, your comments will go down the comment hole until the move is complete and your browsers are redirected to the new site. I will put an update here when the move is complete.

Tomorrow, and after that, you should clear your caches and make sure you are redirected to the new server, or your comments will still go down the comment hole.

I will have no way of retrieving comments posted on the old server after the move. Again, this is separate from the move to Scoop from Movable Type. That is progressing, and we're at the point of testing the pages. When enough bugs are ironed out, we'll make that switch and the commenting problems will be forever gone.

I apologize for the inconvenience.