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Thanks to TalkLeft readers for coming through once again. Wampum, the incredibly generous hosters of the Third Annual Liberal Blogging Awards, announced tonight that TalkLeft has won in the Best Single Issues blog category, making us the only "threepeat" winner.

This year is different though because there are two winners in our category ...TalkLeft and Grits for Breakfast, an excellent blog that specializes in Texas Criminal Justice Issues. Wampum reports:

Only one blog, Jeralyn Merritt’s Talk Left, has ever won a Koufax for Best Single Issue Blog. Jeralyn won in both 2002 and 2003. With the Daily Kos edging out Atrios for Best Blog this year, only Jeralyn has a chance for a threepeat.

Grits for Breakfast’s focus is on the Texas Criminal Justice system. ...GFB received a large number of votes in this category. If you go to the appropriate comment thread and count the votes, you will see that GFB has the most votes. A number of those votes per posted after I closed the voting for the awards. At the time I closed the voting, Talk Left, by virtue of a large number of email votes, held the lead by a very small margin. The votes for GFB coming in after the close of voting would erase that margin and swing the award, also by a very narrow margin.

Thanks to those of you who have hit our tip jar this week. I try to send out individual thank yous, but sometimes I get behind. I'll try to do better. The donations really help and are much appreciated.

Update: Mr. Hindraker has acknowledged writing the e-mail and apologized for it. I think his apology is genuine and I consider the matter closed. I am also going to send him an e-mail complimenting him on his swift and direct response, and I've updated the title to this post. Everyone has clicked the "send" button a little too fast at one time or another. One of the things I have always liked about AOL is that it has an "unsend" button where you can unsend your mail if it was directed to another AOL user. I've used it many times.

******************
Too funny...Powerline Blog is an uber-right blog by three lawyers. Time Magazine named it Blog of the Year, primarily for its coverage of the Dan Rather story. One of the authors is lawyer John Hindraker who blogs under the name Hindrocket. He went to Harvard Law School. You can sometimes see him punditing on cable news talk shows. Here's how he writes on Powerline. Want to know how he really talks when he thinks no one is listening except a liberal?

Check out this e-mail response Hindraker sent a blogger for Minnesota Politics, in response to an email which expressed a difference of opinion on the Jeff Gannon story, but had no profanity or name-calling.

Nice. I have no doubt that Mr. Hindraker is an intelligent man with a high IQ. All the more reason for him to use it. Time Magazine should be cringing right now along with the rest of us. [link via TBogg who has more.]

Update: MN Politics responds in the comments here that the e-mail he received was from "John H." at Powerline. Here is the copy of the heading from the email, which he just e-mailed me (I've substituted xxx for the IP addresses since I don't think they should be public):

While mainstream media has been paying lots of attention to bloggers this year, it's a welcome change to see it devote headlines to those who made it possible, like Ben and Mena Trott, the darlings of the blogosphere.

Movable Type, the blogging software used by more than 7 million bloggers, (including its simplified version, Typepad,) was created by Ben and Mena Trott in their bedroom. They named their little venture Six Apart, because they were born six days apart. Fast forward to the present, three years after they launched the company, and Six Apart has offices in San Francisco, Paris and Tokyo. Venture capitalist and blogger Joi Ito arranged for them to sell "a stake" in their company for $11.5 million. Mena is President, Ben is CTO, and neither has turned 30 yet.

Congratulations, Oliver. For three years he's wanted to be on tv, and he's finally getting his chance:

This Monday, February 21st - President's Day - I will be appearing on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, along with Patrick Ruffini (formerly of GeorgeWBush.com). Tune in to C-Span at 7:45AM...

Break a leg, Oliver.

Voting is scheduled to end today in the Third Annual Kaufax liberal blogging awards, hosted by Wampum . TalkLeft is proud to have been voted a finalist in two categories:

Best Single Issues Blog

and

Best Expert Blog.

It's a very tough race this year. If you'd like to vote for us, you can vote by scrolling down to the end of the comments section using the links above, or e-mail your votes directly to Wampum (If you vote by e-mail, be sure to mention the category, single issue or expert.)

Be sure to cast your vote in both categories. Your support in the final round of voting is greatly appreciated.

Origin and author unknown--somewhere in the Keys...

President Bush was invited to address a major gathering of the American Indian Nation last weekend in Arizona. He spoke for almost an hour on his future plans for increasing every Native American's present standard of living. He referred to his career as Governor of Texas, how he had signed "YES" 1,237 times - for every Indian issue that came to his desk for approval.

Although the President was vague on the details of his plan, he seemed most enthusiastic about his future ideas for helping his "red brothers." At the conclusion of his speech, the Tribes presented the President with a plaque inscribed with his new Indian name - Walking Eagle. The proud President then departed in his motorcade, waving to the crowds.

A news reporter later inquired to the group of chiefs of how they came to select the new name given to the President.

They explained that Walking Eagle is the name given to a bird so full of sh*t that it can no longer fly.

Please donate to Wampum who has done the extraordinary work of hosting the Koufax liberal blogging awards for three years. Their ISP shut them down today for excess use of bandwidth - voting was that heavy-- and Mary Beth and Dwight who run the site don't have the money to reinstate it and keep going. Nor should they have to foot the bill for the rest of us.

Julia at Sisyphus Shrugged has their paypal contribution page. Go, give.

[hat tip Digby.]

Now the right is going after Atrios by putting his photo in a gay singles online ad. As if he or Mrs. Atrios care.

But I care. I took the photo. And a user of Dating Tech Network and Gay Singles Online has appropriated my photo of Atrios and uploaded it to the network's server as their own.

I don't see a contact e-mail address for anyone other than members so maybe Dating Tech Network or Gay Singles Online will read this and remove the unauthorized use of my photograph of Atrios. Or they can credit TalkLeft.com for the photo.

Update: That was quick. It's an hour since I sent an emailto an address I found in the comments here and you can no longer access the page with the photo and false comments about Atrios. A registration page comes up instead. Mission accomplished. End of story. They must have banned my IP for overacessing the site. The photo and page on Atrios is still there.

[Also, I did not mean to suggest a conspiracy of right-leaning people were behind this attack on Atrios as opposed to one person with those views. It's just common sense that a liberal would not go after Atrios this way, if at all.]

Kevin Drum has a thoughtful piece on the politics of personal destruction ongoing in the blogosphere. I agree with his hope that scalp-collecting does not become the primary focus of blogs on either side, and I believe that it won't. It's already become tiresome and completely predictable. There's so much more to the blogosphere than "we got Eason" vs. "we got Gannon."

Yet, Digby makes a good point in noting that the left will never match the right when it comes to resources for causing destruction:

Janeane Garofolo and Sam Sedar of Majority Report and Air America Radio are blogging from Aspen and the HBO US Arts Comedy Festival over at ThinkProgress.

Eric Alterman is there too. From Altercation today:

I am staying in the St. Regis in Aspen for the HBO Festival of Comedy Arts, where I will be appearing on a Center for American Progress panel on punditry with Joe Scarborough, Joe Lockhart, Laura Ingraham, and Jeanine Garafolo on Saturday morning. I will also be doing a signing of When Presidents Lie and What Liberal Media at the Explorer Bookstore at noon on Saturday. It’s a really great place to be, even if you don’t bother with the slopes. ...