The Tank in New York City was home to Democratic bloggers, including us, during the Republican National Convention. If you're can make it to New York next weekend, the Tank is hosting a conference for online activists about the election:

The election is over. The campaign cannot end. What do we say after the mourning on the Morning After?

THE MORNING AFTER ­ A Symposium ­ November 13-14.

A day-and-a-half of conversations, panels, working groups and more.

Hosted by Cosmopolity at The Tank - 432 W 42nd St NYC.

Why? The 2004 election saw an explosion of grassroots activity, online organizing, voter registration initiatives, new forms of media and progressive unity. We fell short on November 2, but the movement, the organizations, their members and our progressive energy are as important as ever.

I'm very sorry to learn that Tristero is calling it quits.

It's become much too hard to be an American.

In my case, I took a break from the middle of a pretty decent career, to add my dissenting voice during what was - and remains - a national emergency. Although my career hit some major snags as a result, I will never regret what I've done. How could I be a decent father to my daughter, let alone a responsible citizen, and not have tried to do at least something to prevent the madness of the Bush/Iraq war?

...constant exposure to the toxic nature of George W. Bush and his world has taken a serious toll. In more ways than I care to remember, my health has suffered, as has my emotional well-being. In a nutshell, America is now asking too much of its citizens in order to save it from heading over a cliff. That is why we elect representatives, so that we can do our work and not have to run a government. We're supposed to have a responsible and free press, so that normal folks need not work 24/7 exposing the lies and crimes of our leaders. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to do my bit, but I've already done more than I reasonably could. Politics, political writing is not my field, never was, never will be. There is a limit to how much I can do, how much basic research I'm qualified to undertake. I tried to exceed that, but I am simply not capable of continuing to do more.

You know who you are. I just deleted 9 of B.B.'s comments--the first four stayed.

If you don't know if you're included in the group of chatterboxes who are limited to four comments a day, or why we are doing this, go here and here. If you still don't know, e-mail us.

The right will not take over this blog. It can visit and post in moderation, period.

Update: Forget the lectures on freedom of speech and censorship. TalkLeft is not the Government and this is a personal blog. Comments are allowed at my discretion and under the stated terms. No one has a right to comment on TalkLeft.

Yesterday afternoon, internet traffic was so massive that TalkLeft and other sites became almost impossible to access.

Hosting Matters, the company that hosts TalkLeft and hundreds or thousands of other blogs, was there to help. I don't know what they did, but beginning around 4pm yesterday afternoon, we were as fast and easy to access as ever. We never went down once, despite receiving double our normal traffic.

Thanks to Annette and Stacy, and everyone else at Hosting Matters, for realizing that E-day was the main event to bloggers, and for keeping us all up and running.

Happy first birthday to Ari Zunigas, heir to Daily Kos and still the cutest baby ever. Here's a year in the life....

November 6, 2003: Baby Kos Joins Us at Planet Earth

Mother's Day, May 9, 2004 at Casa Kos(with Tia Jeralyn):

November 1, 2004, First Birthday

Ok,maybe the second cutest baby ever:

Self-imposed break today. You can talk amongst yourselves here, you pick the topics. Some ideas:

Voting problems. As I wrote over at 5280 today, the TL kid and two of his friends in New York still have not received their Colorado absentee ballots . Three votes for Kerry down the tubes.

Or Rumsfeld and the draft. He insists there never were any talks to resume it. But members of his staff attended the Selective Service meeting where detailed plans were proposed.

Welcome readers of 5280--and thanks to Dan Brogan for that nice introduction. Fellow blogger Colorado Luis and I will keep the site updated on Colorado political issues several times a day through the election and its aftermath, before broadening to other topics. The RSS feed is here.

If you're interested in Colorado politics and news, I'm following it, and writing at the new blog at 5280, Denver's glossy, upscale monthly magazine. It went live today, but already there are several days of posts.

The politically astute blogger Colorado Luis (Luis Toro)and 5280 Editor Daniel Brogan are also contributing. The blog is non-partisan, so my views on the news will continue to be found here. And in the interest of full disclosure, yes, I'm being paid.

To Right wing repetitive commenters on TalkLeft (you know who you are, and if you're not sure, ask): You're limited to four comments a day --additional ones will be deleted.

Check out the posting policy at the conservative site RedState--and see how liberal we are for granting four a day.

This site is explicitly meant to serve as a conservative and Republican community. Postings, comments, etc., contrary to this purpose fall under the rubric of "disruptive behavior" and will result in banning. You may or may not get a warning -- it depends on how harried the moderators are. If you are coming from a non-conservative, non-Republican context, you are still welcome here, but you must respect the site's stated purpose.

The posting rules benefit everyone. By promoting civility even in disagreement, they help the site avoid the pitfalls of notorious dens of iniquity like....every unmoderated Usenet thread that has ever existed.

If you missed our prior announcement of the new limits or the reasons for it, you can read them here and here.

Also, off-topic comments are becoming a problem. We consider them an attempt to hijack the thread and will be deleting them.

TalkLeft hit four million visitors this month. Wow. Thanks to everyone for stopping by.

On a not so great note, TalkLeft picked up a little bug somewhere and we've got to move servers again tonight so that it can be isolated and removed. Don't worry, it's not catching. But if you get an empty page when you come to visit in the next 12 hours or so, just refresh the page or clear your cache.

Yeterday I announced a new comment policy on TalkLeft, in addition to that stated on the front of the site.

First casualty: Jeff Harrell, who has intentionally violated the policy by posting 8 comments so far today and 6 yesterday, after learning of the new rule. Any additional comments he makes today will be deleted. His last three comments have been deleted. If he persists, he'll be banned permanently.

I am also going to delete links to his weblog so that obtaining traffic from TalkLeft will not serve as a motivator for him to continue being a chatterbox here.

Update: Dr Ace posted 15 comments today. 11 have been deleted.

This is for advertisers....nine days for the price of seven--The TalkLeft premium spot on the left, under the logo, opens up tomorrow. Beginning Oct. 28, it is taken for a month. It's limited to one ad at a time, so the first person to take it for a week will have their ad run until the 28th.

Here's the ad signup page.