Comment spamming by those promoting websites selling controlled substances and anatomical enhancements is getting out of control here at TalkLeft. We spend hours manually deleting them. The more time we spend deleting spam, the less time we have to blog. We have downloaded various scripts and read the instructions for closing comments on Movable Type blogs on posts older than 21 days and for installing MT Blacklist and we might as well be reading Greek. We've e-mailed a few web designers seeking to pay them to install both on TalkLeft, and gotten no response. So, we're putting out a call. We'll pay you through paypal. Just tell us how much and what info you need.

Say hello to Moving Ideas. Org, formerly known as the Electronic Policy Network. It is a project of American Prospect. From its "about page":

Our goal is to improve collaboration and dialogue between policy and grassroots organizations, and to promote their work to journalists and legislators. Moving Ideas posts the best ideas and resources from leading progressive research and advocacy institutions, as well as promotes high-quality websites and publishes original content. We hope to strengthen democratic participation by providing a more inclusive and intelligible debate about the issues that shape our world.

Here's one article of particular interest to us:

Congrats to Jesse of Pandagon who has gotten a job blogging for Ohio Senatorial Candidate Jerry Springer.

Oliver of Liquid List has an analysis of the Colorado redistricting case. He reminds us not to lose sight of the importance of our courts.

David Neiwert of Orcinus writes on Iraqi prisoners and war crimes.

Skippy reports on a New York Times poll that is not favorable to Bush.

Say hello to Memeorandum, which tracks the most popular news topics covered by bloggers, and links to the blogger's posts about them. Liberal bloggers are well-represented on the site.

Memeorandum presents a distinctly readable and relevant hourly synopsis of the latest online news and opinion, combining weblog commentary with traditional news reports.

For the second month in a row, we've exceeded our very generous 24,000 MB a month bandwidth allotment and there are two days left in the month. If any of you are able to chip in, we'd really appreciate it. Just click on one of the buttons below. Amazon is anonymous, paypal is not. Many thanks.

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Say hello to Volconvo, "a socially conscious group that wants to promote intelligent debate and activism."

Our sitemeter has been down almost all day. It's a pain, because TalkLeft takes forever to load when Sitemeter is not working. There's one way we can always tell if it's us or Sitemeter....We check Instapundit whose sitemeter is on the same server. His sitemeter is down now too. [This has nothing to do with our hosting company which is the great Hosting Matters--only with Sitemeter which uses its own servers to compute site stats.]

Thanks to Zombyboy at Resurrection Song , the 7th edition of the Rocky Mountain Blogger Roundup is up. There is some fine writing and humor in this edition, so go check it out.

Don't forget the Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash is May 28 at the Denver Press Club. We hear liberal Colorado bloggers will be in short supply, so if you are one, or support one, please come on down.

by TChris

Read my lips: no new taxes. Okay, wrong president, but the current President wants the Republican controlled Senate to read his lips, just this once.

As the President promises two chickens in every pot and a high speed internet connection for all but the homeless, the Senate is debating "whether to renew a lapsed ban that would permanently prevent state and local governments from levying additional taxes on dial-up, DSL (digital subscriber line), cable modem, wireless or satellite access to the Internet." John McCain (R-AZ) is trying to sell a compromise that would extend the moritorium while allowing states to tax voice-over Internet Protocol (using the internet in lieu of long distance), but Lamar Alexander (R-TN) worries that "state and local governments could lose billions in tax revenue if prevented from taxing Internet access."

Will Bush persuade his party to stand behind him? Let's hope he doesn't propose a tax on liberal bloggers.

We'll play this meme:

"Flashlights, in particular, piqued his curiosity, which sometimes landed him in trouble."

--American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing, Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, Regan Books, 2001.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

The Revealer, a blog about religion and the press, continues to provide a daily collage of religion news from the war in Iraq. Today's feature is on Muqtada Al-Sadr, about whom the Revealer says:

Sadr sounds here like a kind of trickster figure, practicing verbal rope-a-dope on American journalists who, after all, are coming to the conversation with a distinct disadvantage: Sadr may have been watching the Americans on CNN for years, while "60 Minutes II" is parachuting into a culture it doesn’t understand.

The world-class appellate law blog, How Appealing has moved to it's new home. Please update your bookmarks. And congrats to Howard Bashman for getting paid to blog!