If you don't have to go to court or the jail after that, then you can stay here and thread. There's lots going on. You can read the winners of the bipartisan Weblog Awards here, and nominate your favorite blogs for the just liberal blogs' Koufax Awards here.

Then there's torture, spying on Americans, the Patriot Act and the immigration acts now being considered by Congress to rant about.

On a lighter note, a hairstylist in Aspen has been accused of stealing Kevin Costner's laptop. So, whatever strikes your fancy is fine here.

The Koufax Award Nominations are now open. Go on over and nominate your favorite blogs.

The Koufax Awards are named for Sandy Koufax, one of the greatest left handed pitchers of all time. They are intended to honor the best blogs and bloggers of the left. At the core, the Koufax Awards are meant to be an opportunity to say nice things about your favorite bloggers and to provide a bit of recognition for the folks who provide us with daily information, insight, and entertainment. The awards are supposed to be fun for us and fun for you.

Here's how they work.

You can nominate blogs in more than one category. TalkLeft has had the most success in the "Best Single Issues" category.

TalkLeft hit 10 million visitors today. And welcome, Denver Post readers who are finding us for the first time through David Harsanyi's column today. (And thanks to Crooks and Liars for mentioning it.)

For radio listeners, I'll be talking with Rachel Maddow on Air America today at 11:30 a.m. (MT) about Karl Rove and PlameGate. Is an Indictment looming, or has Robert Luskin pulled yet another rabbit out of his hat? You can listen live online here.

Also, TalkLeft will be getting a bloglift (y.i.c.t.p. as Skippy would say)over the weekend, it's first since Markos of Daily Kos so graciuosly designed TalkLeft in June, 2002.

It's the last day for voting in the Weblog Awards. TalkLeft is in second place for best liberal blog, so please vote so we can keep our spot - and for your other favorite blogs. The Koufax award nominations (for liberal blogs) opened today.

What are you thinking about today? If you feel like talking about it, here's some space.

I'll be out for the afternoon so I may miss the Tookie clemency announcement. Here's a place to discuss it, or anything else you want.

Kevin Drum has an interesting post up about our secret laws. Arthur covers torture. Avedon Carol of Sideshow has her usual excellent roundup of the blogoshpere, as does Memeorandum.

I've got miles to go before I blog...here's a space for you.

Check out the holiday gift guide from Saturday Night Magazine. If you scroll down, you will see they feature the TalkLeft 4th Amendment Subway Tote and Wonkette's tee-shirt.

You can get your tote here. (Click here for larger version). Let the 4th Amendment speak for you as you hand your bag over for a search by a subway or airline security guard. It's a silent protest and reminder to authorities that you consider searches without reasonable suspicion or probable cause to be an infringement of your privacy rights. They make great gifts.

• Bin Laden appears, at least as of three months ago, to be alive and well.
• Saddam refused to attend his trial today, which is now adjourned until December 21.
• Tookie Williams' lawyers will be meeting with Gov. Arnold S. tomorrow.
• Patrick Fitzerald was back at the grand jury this week.
• It's the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack.

I've got some work to do, so feel free to chat about these or your own topics.

And you can vote once a day in the weblogs awards. TalkLeft is coming in second to Americablog for now, so your votes really count.

Check out these postage stamps with your favorite liberal bloggers on them. They'd be great to send out your Holiday greeting cards.

The stamp created for me is here. (Click on the larger version to see it better.) Thanks to Bozartz for creating them.

Kevin at Wizbang is running his third annual weblog awards. (These are different from the Koufax awards in that there are many conservative blogs competing with liberal blogs.)

Kevin's got more categories this year and more liberal choices within the categories. Voting began today, and there is a real-time voting tally so you can see who's winning at any given point. Among the categories and finalists:

• Crooks and Liars is up for best video blog
• Raw Story is up for best media/journalist blog
• Firedoglake and Digby are up for Best of the Top 250 blogs
• Atrios, Daily Kos, HuffPo and Kevin Drum are up for best blog
• Think Progress is up for best group blog
• Jesus' General and Fafblog are up for Most Humorous blog
  
• Sentencing Law and Policy and How Appealing are up for best law blog
• and TalkLeft, TBogg and AmericaBlog are up for best liberal blog

So please, take a moment to go over and vote. You can vote once a day in each category. Voting ends December 15.

The day job beckons, so I will only be checking in sporadically until Tonight. The conversation is your's until then. Enjoy.

Say Hello to News Unfiltered, a project by Daou Report's Peter Daou and U.S. Newswire, bringing you the top press releases of the day in blog format. I love it, it's a "bookmark right now" type of site.