Lots going on offline here today...here's a place for your thoughts.

Scary story of the day:

The Defense Department began working yesterday with a private marketing firm to create a database of high school students ages 16 to 18 and all college students to help the military identify potential recruits in a time of dwindling enlistment in some branches.

The program is provoking a furor among privacy advocates. The new database will include personal information including birth dates, Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, grade-point averages, ethnicity and what subjects the students are studying.

[Via Huffington Post.] Arthur at Light of Reason has a lot to say about this.

Many bloggers, TalkLeft included, ask for money from time to time. Not Skippy. He's asking for visits, so he can make 1 million visitors by his third blogiversary. Please go help him out.

Your turn. Your topics.

Electronic Frontier Foundation has published a free legal guide for bloggers.

Law Sites's Robert Ambrogi gives it high marks. Here's the index.

A weekend round-up - non-political edition

• This has to be one of the wierdest sites ever, Crying While Eating, and the LA Times says it's had 15 million visitors since late May, making it one of the most popular around.

• Suburban Guerilla on some strange problems the British are having with domestic cats

• Jim MacDonald over at Nielsen Hayden explores the history and variations of the game of chess.

• Paul Reiser at Huffington Post on Father's Day and driving in the car, made me laugh out loud with this line about making his kids listen to the Boss:

let me tell you something; until you’ve heard a 4 year-old belt out, "This town rips the bones from your back, it’s a death trap..." you have not been entertained.

Actually, real parents have their kids sing songs by Bob Dylan, like Subterranean Homesick Blues. The TL kid could belt out from the age of five,

Johnny's in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I'm on the pavement
Thinking about the government

...Twenty years of schoolin'
And they put you on the day shift

He hasn't been arrested yet, knock on wood.

Your turn....what's on your mind?

TalkLeft is now three years old. How the time flies...

Many, many thanks to the readers and bloggers who have visited, commented and linked to us.

With 6.5 million visits, almost 11 million page views and three Koufax awards for Best Single Issues blog, I'm proud to say the site is still going strong. I hope you'll all stick around, the best is yet to come, as TChris and I continue to focus on the politics of crime - and the crime in politics.

Update: A special thanks to Skippy for his very flattering birthday wishes. Whenever I need to smile, Skippy's always the first place I turn.

I'm sure there are topics besides Michael Jackson you'd like to discuss today, so here's a place for them. I'll be back this afternoon to join in.

I'm sad to report that TChris's father has died. He will be in California for the next week attending to funeral arrangements and being with family. If you'd like, you can post condolences in the comments. All of our parents are getting older. TL's dad died three years ago and it was very sad. It must be really hard a week before father's day. My thoughts and prayers are with TChris today.

Say Hello to Dr. Tom Cruise's Medical Forum. And another open thread.

An open thread again. I have to lay off typing today, to let the cortisone shot I got in my shoulder yesterday afternoon start working. Who said blogging isn't hazardous to your health? Also, Markos of Daily Kos and Jerome of My DD are in town today, conducting interviews for their book, and I'll be meeting them for lunch, along with the folks from Progress Now.org. Hopefully, I'll be back to blogging tonight, and I've sent out an S.O.S. to TChris, who if not in court, may take over today. In the meantime, here's a space for you.

Update: A big thanks to TChris who posted up a storm today. Lunch with Markos and Jermome was a working lunch - with Colorado Gubernatorial candidate Rutt Bridges, a Democrat, who announced his bid last Thursday. Markos and Jerome interviewed him for their book for over an hour, using an IPod with a recorder on it. No laptops, no notes. Just the four of us and Sarah, one of his staffers. Lunch was brought in from Quiznos, and we ate at his desk. Their book is going to be a best seller, I'm sure. Anyway it was great to see both of them and also nice to meet and hear the thoughts of Mr. Bridges in such a small setting.

I'm in court most of the day, so feel free to choose the topics and take over. The latest version of the potential bloglift is here, but it's only working in Firefox and Safari right now. The newsfeed will return Wednesday.

[link fixed]

[Comments now closed, there's a new open thread for Wednesday where you can continue the discussion. Thanks.]