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. ...

This is the brief from hell. Not because of the writing or research, but because of Tenth Circuit requirements on things like appendice, and this labor-intensive, highly technical mandatory electronic filing rule. I could be here all night. All of which means another open thread for you. Here's some things I would talk about, but the choice is your's.

• Jeff Gannon updates and Democrats demanding investigations. Americablog is all over it, and says: " The issue here is whether we might have a male prostitute (or pimp) asking questions of the president and being leaked internal CIA documents." Cable news will feature it as well.

• Congress' debating of the awful Real ID Act today

• LAPD's need for a new shooting policy in the wake of killing of 13 year old.

• The depraved scalping of the Idaho woman

I have a brief due today, so you're on your own. What's on your mind?

[Update. This thread has degenerated, it's being closed. Try the new one, and please, try a little harder to say something others might care to read.]

Congratulations to Peter Daou, of the excellent blogwire Daou Report. It's part of Salon now. Peter was the online communications advisor to John Kerry's presidential campaign. I always appreciated receiving his e-mail updates.

Maybe someone will pick up Memeorandum next, they deserve wider reading as well.

Say hello to The Next Left...it has great photos accompanying the entries. [via TBogg]

Scotus Blog got a bloglift and a new address, update your bookmarks.

There's a ton of stuff I'd like to write about today, some are subjects of the articles listed on the newsfeed on the left, like the prisoner killed on the prison bus while it was going back to the jail from court; Chertoff and Gonzales'; new torture documents; Martha Stewart starring in the Apprentice when she gets on home detention; and not listed, five CT death row inmates have begun a hunger strike and Colorado's Governor Owens has called for the resignation of Professor Ward Churchill due to his remarks about 9/11.

But I'm juggling too many things at work right now to write about any of them, so you go ahead, and no need to stick to what I would have written about--pick your own topics if you'd like.

Go ahead, live blog or comment, - your turn. Here's a segment of the speech:

Thirteen years from now, in 2018, Social Security will be paying out more than it takes in. And every year afterward will bring a new shortfall, bigger than the year before. For example, in the year 2027, the government will somehow have to come up with an extra 200 billion dollars to keep the system afloat - and by 2033, the annual shortfall would be more than 300 billion dollars. By the year 2042, the entire system would be exhausted and bankrupt. If steps are not taken to avert that outcome, the only solutions would be drastically higher taxes, massive new borrowing, or sudden and severe cuts in Social Security benefits or other government programs.

And one more:

Because marriage is a sacred institution and the foundation of society, it should not be re-defined by activist judges. For the good of families, children, and society, I support a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage.

Don't miss this article in the Weekly Standard on Markos and the Daily Kos, and why politicans need to take him seriously.

The Daily Kos is the most popular and important force in the blogosphere; it's a fact with which Democrats are just now coming to grips.

It recaps the history of Daily Kos, Markos' shrewd instincts, his up front acknowledgment that he is an activist, his at times in-your-face style and the undeniable fact that his is the most influential voice in the blogosphere.

And in the spirit of full disclosure, Markos designed TalkLeft in its current incarnation.

We've been blogging like crazy the past few weeks, and could use some help with donations, particularly from our most frequent readers and commenters. If you can throw in a few bucks, it would be most appreciated. Many thanks.

• PayPal
• Amazon (anonymous)

Related Note: Superbowl spammers are out in force. MT-Blacklist does a great job with comments, but the spam is getting through the trackbacks. There were 30 today I had to delete. So I've turned off trackbacks until next week. If you don't have a weblog, no need to even wonder about what this means. If you do, you might want to block strings with "super-bowl" to save your sanity.