Liberal bloggers all know The Hamster. Eric Hananoki started the Hamster as a freshman at George Washington. We were early linkers to each other and got to know each other through e-mails. Now, Eric is graduating (already!) from GW and moving on....to Air America Radio and Al Franken's blog.

Congratulations, Eric. I'll miss The Hamster. Air America Radio is lucky to have you and I'm sure all your loyal readers will follow you over there.

Another shout-out today, this time to Democracy Rising, an anti-war site dedicated to finding an exit strategy from Iraq. Founding member Kevin Zeese (also President of Common Sense Drug Policy) writes today about the conscientious objector trial of Keith Benderman.

Last week, Kevin wrote about the problems in the Lynndie England guilty plea:

Now the prosecution of Private England may undo the damage control done by DoD to protect its officers and hold only a handful of scapegoats responsible.

Also say hello to our new advertiser, Raw Story Q and author Nancy Goldstein, who recently wrote Break Them Down on Abu Ghraib.

The Huffington Post is off and running. It's a winner, and going right on our "blogwire" roll. In addition to the home page, there's a blog page and a newswire page. The blog and newswire pages have a clean and crisp look - no clutter. There are a lot of blog entries on a variety of topics. If it wasn't a work day, I would spend hours there. I will later, I'm sure.

A nice touch is that some posts have a "bio" link and/or a picture next to the authors' names. This helps with those you've heard of but don't remember why, and those you are clueless about. Others, of course, are household names.

It's not just about politics. Some of those posting have never blogged before but gamely are giving it a try. It will be interesting to see who becomes hooked.

A few blog posts that have grabbed my attention so far:

John Cusak on Hunter Thompson. He describes a t-shirt Hunter sent him a few months before he died. Hunter had written on it:

'Politics is the art of controlling your environment.' That is one of the key things I learned in these years, and I learned it the hard way. Anybody who thinks that 'it doesn't matter who's President' has never been Drafted and sent off to fight and die in a vicious, stupid War on the other side of the World -- or been beaten and gassed by Police for trespassing on public property -- or been hounded by the IRS for purely political reasons -- or locked up in the Cook County Jail with a broken nose and no phone access and twelve perverts wanting to stomp your ass in the shower. That is when it matters who is President or Governor or Police Chief. That is when you will wish you had voted.

I'm taking the day off from blogging to make lunch for my mother and my sister. The only people missing are the TL kid, who's in New York, and my father, who passed away a few years ago, but they will be with us in spirit. Happy Mother's Day to all of our readers, and here's an open thread for those of you who are online.

Order Your's Today

This is the first "Informed Citizen Guide" published by William, James & Co. It's called Untidy: The Blogs on Rumsfeld, and it tells the story of Donald Rumsfeld through the eyes of his blogging critics. The posts were collected by editor and former teacher Tom Sumner.

THE INFORMED CITIZEN SERIES looks at American issues through the viewpoint of political bloggers, the Internet’s informed—and informing—citizens.

Via Suburban Guerilla who got a great looking bloglift (y.w.c.t.p.) when she migrated to Wordpress and a new home, so update your bookmarks.

Thanks to those who have hit our tip jar the past few days. As you can see, we have not had a big response to our ad sale, so it is very much appreciated. I'm sharing the tips with our webmaster Mike Ditto, who has spent untold hours upgrading the site the past few weeks at no charge. So please, keep them coming.

For those who want to pick the topics....this space is for you.

We've hogged the discussion the past few days, it's now your turn.

A few people have remarked that they have to re-log in every time. TalkLeft's webmaster Mike Ditto has provided this suggestion:

In the Firefox preferences under Privacy, make sure that it is set to accept cookies and to keep them until they expire. You can also add talkleft.com and typekey.com to the cookie exception list, setting them to "always allow".

The login cookie will still expire after 20 minutes of inactivity, that's just how Typekey works. But the username and password will always be put in automatically if you have Firefox set to remember passwords.

Other suggestions are welcome.

TalkLeft readers were credited today as a "Newsroom Pick" in AOL's Blog Zone.

This Is a No-Win Situation'

L.G., the pregnant 13-year-old foster child caught in a legal battle
over abortion in Florida has received permission to have the abortion
she sought. As a ward of the state, Florida argued she could not make
that decision. [Read Full Story]

· Foster Care Support Blog recaps the events, too.
· The decision was a no-brainer, say readers at Talk Left.
· Kudos to the Judge, says Feministing.
· But Challies says this judge now has blood on his hands.
· And Say Anything wonders how a child not old enough to vote or drink is trusted with this decision.

Congrats to all of you.

If you haven't visited TalkLeft since Friday morning, there's been a big change. You now have to register with TypeKey to post comments. Here's why and how it works.

TalkLeft owes a huge thanks to Mike Ditto for working all weekend to change our templates and other internal mechanisms to make the switch.

All registrations are subject to my approval. Obviously, I have to be online to get notice of your registration, so don't be upset if it takes a few hours. It helps if you use a name you've used before so I recognize you. This is not a political move, it was caused by someone repeatedly posting obscenities in my name. In other words, commenters who disagree with TalkLeft are welcome to register. Out of 100 registrations, only one, whom I suspect of being an imposter, has been rejected. One other is on hold because I have some doubts.

I apologize for the inconvenience, but I'm not unhappy with the change. Already, the comments are far more civil, although just as contentious. And I'm glad that annoying, annonymous commenters are a thing of the past.