TBogg takes on Powerline's pictures comparing Kerry to Bush with ones that cast the two in a far truer light.

Dave Johnson at Seeing the Forest says in the strongest possible terms that those under 30 should be worried enough to vote because they are going to be drafted. Go copy his post and email it to someone you care about who's in the target age group. They need to know how crucial it is that they vote in this election.

Democracy Now has a transcript of BBC investigative reporter Greag Palast's interview with Bill Burkett about Bush's National Guard service from his new documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" by Greg Palast. [link via Buzzflash.]

Mary Jacoby of Salon interviews Seymour Hersh who provides an "alternative history of Bush's war."

The crack investigative reporter tells Salon about a disastrous battle the U.S. brass hushed up, the frightening True Believers in the White House, and how Iran, not Israel, may have manipulated us into war.

Ben Wasserstein, writing in the LA Times, on why the conservative bloggers should get a pat on the back but not a standing ovation for their role in Rathergate.

Veteran political reporter Martin Nolan in the San Francisco Chronicle explains why Bush may lose the election, despite current opinion polls. Four reasons:

A huge thanks to Mike Ditto , a Denver blogger who volunteered to reinstall the comment spammer MT-Blacklist on TalkLeft. That was the last hurdle to our site upgrade. He also insisted on doing it for free.

So, this weekend's fund drive is over....We collected $140.00 and sent the excess to Mike even though he didn't want it. A big thanks to Jay Allen, creator of MT-Blacklist, who also offered to do the re-install for TalkLeft, but since he's visiting New York this week (his home is in Budapest, Hungary), I'm glad I didn't have to take him up on the offer.

If you're considering moving your blog to Movable Type, or upgrading to MT 3.11, I highly recommend letting them do the install. Sarah did our's and it works great. She was also very responsive to emails.

I also needed some help from TalkLeft's great hosting company, Hosting Matters, which responded right away(thanks, Stacy.)

The cool html buttons that now enable readers to post links in comments through the entry pages without typing html code were made possible a few months back by Helen and Jeff of Protein Wisdom, also from Denver, who graciously shared the code and spent hours helping me figure out how to incorporate it into TalkLeft. I met Mike, Jeff and Helen (and many others) at the Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash last May--it's really something how bloggers kick in to help when you need it--even when, like Jeff, they disagree with almost every word I write.

If you're looking for great free blog design tricks, like including quotes in a color lined box, TalkLeft's come from Mandarin Design. Meg even will help you via e-mail if you run into a snag.

I'm done playing techie for now. The concentration required over tiny details is exhausting. Much more so than blogging. Again, I really appreciate the financial contributions from you readers. I hope you like the changes. Let me know if you run across any bugs.

Bump and Update: The upgrade is complete. It has taken all of yesterday and this morning to restore the templates and the newer functions so many of you liked....a list of the five most recently commented-on entries and the category name being placed in each entry alongside the permalink.

I also was able to add the same "html" and "quote" buttons that you see when you click "comments" to a post to each post when you access it by permalink. This will help those of you who are html-challenged and haven't been able to figure out how to add urls in html format. Now, just type your comment, highlight the words where you want your link to be, and click on the "html button". Just put the url in the popup and Voila. Same for a short quote. Just highlight the part you want quoted and click the quote button. It will appear in your comment indented and inside a blue box.

Thanks to readers, TalkLeft collected $105.00, which paid for the upgrade and install. However, I need to hire someone to install an upgraded version of MT-Blacklist,the comment-spammer, as I have no clue (and I tried) and some other "plugins" that will improve the site. Apparently, only one version of MT-Blacklist will work with this latest edition of MT. So the collection effort is still ongoing at this point. I'll let you all know when it's over. And if you have experience installing the new version of MT Blacklist with MT 3.11, and would like to make some money installing it on TalkLeft, let me know.

You can contribute here via PayPal. If you'd like to donate anonymously, use Amazon. Both are secure.

Thanks to all, and now, as soon as all the 8,000 individual entries are rebuilt (a few hours, I think) I will be back to regular posting. Please ignore any comment spam for online poker, viagra and the like which will go away once MT-Blacklist is reinstalled.

***************
Original Post

Yesterday I reported that TalkLeft has been running very slowly since we added category archives to each entry and a section with the five most recently commented-on posts, and as a result, I stripped down the home page until I could figure out what is causing the problem. Traffic to the site is also way up. Yesterday for example, there were 17,000 visitors and 27,000 page views.

Today, being fairly confident that upgrading to the newest version of Movable Type would solve the problem and allow me to reinstate the new features, I purchased the upgrade and an installation. The two cost $100.00. If any of you frequent readers or commenters want to help me recoup the money, it would be most appreciated.

You can contribute here via PayPal. If you'd like to donate anonymously, use Amazon. Both are secure.

Thanks to all, for reading and contributing.

Update: We're still short of our $100 reimbursement goal. Thanks to those who gave and if you were thinking about it but didn't get around to it, now would be a really good time.

Say hello to Secondary Screening, a new blog about Anti-Terrorism, Privacy and Data Mining. The author is Wired.com free-lance journalist Ryan Singal. A welcome addition to the blogoshere. [link via Hit and Run.]

And SKBubba tells us what we really should be talking about. He's right, of course.

TalkLeft has been running very slowly since we added category archives to each entry and a section with the five most recently commented on posts. We just stripped the template of these items and will experiment over the weekend with adding them back. Also, blogrolling is apparently down.

We're sorry for any delay you are experiencing.

Work beckons, so here's an open thread. Please don't feed the trolls.

Say hello to the New York State Progressives weblog. It a wordpress rather than an MT blog. Several MT blogs have converted lately, does anyone know what the advantages are over MT, if there are any?

NY Progressives is a group blog, with postings by Communication Services, John Maggoire, Long Island Progressive Coalition, Pinnacle Creative Services and USWA Local 9265. Nicely done, too.

Instapundit has been talking about "pajama blogging" which appears to be short-hand for the level of trust one should put in blogger accounts of news as opposed to those of the mainstream media. Glenn says,

JUST CAUGHT Jonathan Klein debating Stephen Hayes about the CBS forgery scandal. Klein says that "Bloggers have no checks and balances . . . [it's] a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas."

Non- "big media bloggers" may not have censors, bosses or editors, but that per se doesn't make them untrustworthy. As Glenn points out, bloggers use hyperlinks to source their posts--and generally are quick to admit a mistake and correct it. As I wrote in this recent op-ed about convention-blogging in the Denver Post:

Bloggers are not a substitute for the 5 o'clock news. We help complete the picture. We keep the media honest. If the media won't cover the real story, bloggers will. Just remember, a blog is only as credible as its author. With 3.5 million blogs now on the Web, choose carefully. It's read at your own risk.

First up is Jeff at Protein Wisdom, taking issue with TalkLeft and Pandagon.

Jesse Taylor at Pandagon responds.

Jeff Harrell at Shapes of Days has been all over the issue on the opposite side of TL...Kevin Drum is wavering. Mark Gisleson of Norwegianity is skeptical of the skeptics.

Add the blogs whose opinions you've agreed with in the comments section, just be sure to put any urls in html coding so the site doesn't get skewed. Instructions are inside the "post comment" box.

Update: Bill in DC has interviewed Dr. Bouffard who was interviewed by the Boston Globe. Bill says Dr. Bouffard is furious that the Boston Globe misrepresented his comments.

Two years ago we wrote:

What a day to have a birthday. Not fun, we bet. Both DailyKos and MadKane begin another year of life today, we hope you'll go over and extend good wishes.

Time heals, and I hope the specter of 9/11 is no longer casting a pall on the celebrations of those with 9/11 birthdays. "

Sad news to report. Aaron Hawkins, of Uppity Negro, has passed away. No details are available yet. He was a unique and talented voice in the blogosphere. You can leave your condolences here.