We hope you all like our new text box. We've been wanting to make one for a long time, but every time we tried, we got stumped by the coding. We owe a huge thanks to Meg of Mandarin Design for helping us out. Their site has more good blogging tricks and tips than any other we've come across and they are all free. We'll be tweaking it some more in the coming days, but so far we are very happy with it. For some reason, we don't see it in AOL, only in Internet Explorer, so if you're using the AOL browser, you may not get it.

We've gotten some e-mails that after our rebuild, commenters are having to re-type their user info with each comment. Let us know in the comments or by email if that's happened to you recently--or if you are getting popup ads for video surveillance cameras when you open TL, and we'll try to get it fixed.

Enough about us. Check out Mad Kane who's got an ombudsman fact-checking her anti-Dubya work.

Hesiod at Counterspin has the latest on the arrest of former Congressional staffer and journalist Susan Lindauer. We've read elsewhere that she's waiting for a lawyer to be appointed for her, which would indicate she's indigent, but heard on the news that she was released on a $500,000.00 bond. Seems a little inconsistent.

Instapundit suggests sending flowers to the Spanish embassy at 2375 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. - Washington, D.C. 20037. The Embassy phone number, which you'll need to enter for Internet orders is 202.452.0100. Glenn used 1-800-Flowers.com. We'd like to see an address for sending money for blood, supplies, funerals, family aid, etc., so if you come across such info, please leave it in the comments. Also per Glenn, here's a list of all the Spanish consulates in the U.S. so you can see if there's one in your area.

Finally, if you're going to be in Washington, DC, tomorrow:

The Embassy of Spain convenes a silent demonstration tomorrow, Friday, March 12th, to express its outrage for today's terrorist attack perpetrated in Madrid, in which approximately 200 people have died and 900 have been injured. The demonstration will take place at the Washington Circle (Pennsylvania Ave and 23rd St NW) at 12 pm.

Here's our final surgery update--about our wrist, not Ashcroft. We got the stitches out this morning. It was a success. Dr. In Sok Yi is our hero. We don't need any more therapy. We can resume all activities, using common sense. The area is still tender, and will be for a while, but the pain is gone. Thanks to all of you for your good wishes, they really felt good to read.

The hand-selected newsfeed on the left side of TalkLeft will resume next week. We're using common sense which tells us to wait until then.

Congratulations are due Kevin Drum, the blogger of the hugely popular blog Calpundit. The Washington Monthly magazine has just hired him to blog for the magazine. Kevin is a terrific writer and expounds on a variety of topics. We look forward to reading the new blog, and suggest you bookmark it as soon as it comes out, which should be in a day or two. Way to go, Kevin!

As we said yesterday:

We can't thank TChris enough--he did such an outstanding job of blogging here this week, what a great writer he is. TChris, thanks, and check your mail in a few days for a nice present from us.

We're just about ready to resume blogging. Today is our first "outing" since our wrist surgery--we're going to Colorado Springs to visit a client in jail. Thankfully, we're not driving. Then we will rest our wrist, watch the Sopranos and log back in here.

We can't thank TChris enough--he did such an outstanding job of blogging here this week, what a great writer he is. TChris, thanks, and check your mail in a few days for a nice present from us.

A note regarding our newsfeed: We can't resume it just yet, it requires too many short wrist movements, so we're going to an automated news feed for a few weeks. We figure it's better than no newsfeed. So the article selection won't be quite as relevant as it is when we manually pick them, but it'll have to do for now.

We get our stitches out Wednesday, and then we should have an idea as to whether the surgery was successful. Thanks to all of you for making your comments pleasant this week--it takes a lot of wrist movement to go in and delete words and comments and then rebuild, and even to read 400 comments a day.

Here's an open thread, choose your own topics, just remember to put urls in html format as per the instructions in the comments box.

Thanks for all your good wishes. We can't type much yet, but the surgeon said a little is ok. We have to keep our arm above our heart (like on top of our head or in a position where it looks like we are taking an oath or pretending to be the Statue of Liberty) for the next week. And we're not allowed to go to work or drive.

We ended up doing a local anesthetic block with a sedative-type drug that put us to sleep rather than a general anesthetic so we woke up just fine. No way to tell if the surgery was a success yet, we'll keep you posted.

We are so lucky to have TChris here for another day.

We'll be taking a few days off to have surgery on our wrist for DeQuervain's Tenosynovitis.

Surgical management involves incising the skin, identifying and cutting the diseased tendon sheath under local anesthesia, and applying a compression bandage. Patients can usually return to their normal activities within 2-3 weeks after surgery. This procedure is successful 90% of the time.

Actually, we're opting for general anesthesia, and we're told our entire arm will be bandaged. That's our right arm, and we're right-handed. Nonetheless, we're pleased to report that our wonderful guest blogger TChris has agreed to take over for Wednesday and Thursday, so TalkLeft won't be going dark. We expect to be back by Friday, but if that's not possible, keep checking in as we'll be back as soon as we can resume typing.

Mary Beth Williams of Wampum Blog is running for a seat in the Maine House of Representatatives. She will be blogging about the process as she goes along.

Walter in Denver hosts the new edition of the Rocky Mountain Blog Roundup.

The Dreyfuss Report says Richard Perle didn't quit, he was pushed, from his position on the Defense Policy Board--by Rumsfeld.

Skippy is all things awol, all the time. He kept track of who made political comments at the Oscars last night--and says he's not tired of Lord of the Rings. He also writes about the many official government websites that are still "proffering the untrue version of what awol did in the 70's, ie, they say he served with distinction."

Randy of Beautiful Horizens takes on the issue of whether Aristede was pushed.

Daily Kos reports and comments on the Sierra Club's request that Justice Scalia recuse himself from the Cheney Energy case pending in the Supreme Court.

Dave Cullen of Conclusive Evidence has been in Seattle judging the Dart Awards which will be handed out in New York in April. The Dart Center is "a global resource for journalists who cover violence."

Digby is covering Haiti.

We've got a busy morning surrendering an out of state client to the federal court. Meetings with pre-trial services who then recommends a bond amount; then meeting the FBI agent who will walk our client across the street to the U.S Marshals' office where he will be fingerprinted and mugshots taken, and then he stays in the nice, warm lockup until 2 or 3 when the duty judge can hear his case and set bail. We won't have much time to blog, so here's an open thread for you to talk about the news of the day that you find interesnting.

Terry Nichols, Scott Peterson and Kobe Bryant are all in court. The Tuesday primaries are a day away. Haiti is on the brink of disaster with U.S. Marines flying in to restore order. A lot to talk about. Have fun.

TalkLeft is now restored. It took almost 24 hours. We caused the meltdown late last night when we tried to back up all the files. We exceeded our site limit (500 mg.) and it corrupted the MT database.

Thank goodness for our hosting company, Hosting Matters. Starting early this morning, they began restoring the files--they had to create an entirely new database and then import each of our 5,000 plus entries --everytime there was a hyphen in an entry or a comment, they had to do it manually. They just finished. We can't thank them, and Stacy in particular, enough. If you are considering hosting companies, we can't recommend them highly enough.

There may be 20 or so entries of the 5,000 that didn't make the cross-over. If you come across a post that doesn't open, please let us know which one so we can restore it.

We'll resume in the morning. What a long day!

Update: Comments should be working now.

Atrios is profiled in a news article--we learn a lot about him, but of course, not his name.

At the bar of Marathon on the Square, a quiet man in a gray turtleneck sweater sips a martini. It's the night of the Iowa caucuses, and a gaggle of Philly media and political types is watching the returns on a large TV screen. By Philadelphia standards, it's a solid B-list party -- reporters, mayoral spinners, admen. But the most powerful person in the room may be the man in the turtleneck sweater. And no one knows who the hell he is.

....So here's what I can tell you about Atrios. He's a college-educated white man of average height and build. He looks about 30, maybe 35. He lives in Center City Philadelphia with his wife (no kids), and he works in the suburbs. Atrios describes his parents as "idiosyncratic socialists," and smiles. None of this is really surprising, given the smart chunklets of anti-GOP rhetoric that Atrios uploads to his site several times a day.

We've got court this afternoon--if you feel like talking, you can do it here. We'll be back this evening.