Say Hello to the first official Daily Kos spin-off site, Street Prophets, about faith and politics. Markos of Daily Kos explains more about the site.

Instapundit and NZ Bear have come up with a non-partisan way for bloggers to help their states cut the fat in their budgets to fund the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

In a million years, I wouldn't have thought that a 9 month old computer would have a hard drive failure. But, my Dell desktop, which I love, did just that early this morning. After hours of trying to figure out the problem with Dell Tech support, being told to give up, they'll have a tech come over with a new hard drive covered by warranty next week, I had to face the issue of lost data - mostly Quicken stuff and billing - which is pretty critical. Not to mention, all my saved passwords to news sites, subscription services and software programs are gone. There's no solution, until I can bring the old, corrupted hard drive (a Maxtor) with its "code 7 failure" to a data recovery service next week, and decide whether it's worth the $500 to$1,000. they will charge to try and recover the old files.

In the meantime, I've hooked up the the Sony desktop that I used before the Dell, but it has not been updated in 9 months, so it's been many more hours updating Windows and virus and other software - and I have none of my current files.

Bottom line: I haven't felt like blogging, particularly since there's nothing in the news besides FEMA and Judge Roberts, both of which I'm kind of OD'd on... so feel free to take over.

Summer is definitely over. I have court at 8:30 and again at 2:00 and yet again at 3:30. On the plus-side, the weather in Denver is perfect, even driving from court to court is a pleasure and I have the best day job in the world. Also, my latest post is up on Huffington Post, and maybe TChris or Last Night in Little Rock will be around.

On the minus-side, I don't have a Blackberry or other means of posting when I'm away from my desk, so feel free to keep each other up-to-the-minute with news and your views. I'll be back tonight.

If you need something to get you started, check out Bill Maher, speaking to President Bush:

"On Your Watch, We've Lost Almost All Of Our Allies, The Surplus, Four Airliners, Two Trade Centers, A Piece Of The Pentagon And The City Of New Orleans”...

I'll be offline most of the day, if you'd like to take over, be my guest.

Time for a laugh:

Q: What is Bush's position on Roe vs. Wade?

A: He doesn't really care how people get out of New Orleans.

And, Via Crooks and Liars, President Bush writes a note to Condi Rice advising of his need for a potty break.

Several people have e-mailed me this week to let me know the site is loading so slowly it's become a source of frustration. If you are having the same problem, please add a comment here. I am going to contact my hosting company to see if there is something they can do, but I'd like to get a handle on the size of the problem. Please be patient.

Say hello to CBS's new blog, The Public Eye. One of the bloggers there is Brian Montopoli, formerly of the Columbia Journalism Review. Brian was one of the bloggers with press credentials for the Democratic convention - and even though he hung out with us liberals, he strived to provide non-partisan coverage. He is an excellent choice for CBS, and I bet it's not long before we see him on the CBS evening news.

Memeorandum, which is a daily stop for bloggers who want to know what other bloggers are reporting on, has gotten a major bloglift (y.i.c.t.p.)

It's a big change. I had some advance notice having had the opportunity to view the Beta months ago. I'm liking the final version better than the beta, but it will still take some getting used to.

I'm not a big fan of change, it upsets my equilibrium, but I think once I get used to the new Memeorandum, I'll realize it's a big advance.

If TalkLeft's blog traffic the past ten days is typical of other left-leaning blogs, there can be no doubt that the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe is the blogger story of the year - and that the Bush Administration is in big trouble.

by TChris

Comment at your leisure.

Update: (TalkLeft) I'm back now. TChris and Last Night in Little Rock did a great job while I was gone, I can't believe how much time they spent updating the site. I am very grateful to them.

I'm also so glad to be back at my desktop with a big monitor and mouse. I made peace with my Powerbook after 2 days, and actually like it now, and used many of your suggestions from the other day. Particularly helpful was Paul in LA's info that the apple key functions like a control key on the PC when it comes to cut, copy and paste. Anyway, it's good to be home.

As promised, here's another open thread. I'll be back Saturday night to resume regular posting. Major thanks to LNILR and TChris for helping out yesterday. I only brought a powerbook G4 with me on this trip, since my regular laptop seems to have died, and I can barely operate a Mac. That's another reason I'll be really glad to get home. Linking on this machine is beyond tedious, there's no right-click button for cut, copy and paste and the delete key works like a backspace instead of a delete key. On the plus side...does anyone have one?