At least every few months, we write that Jeanne D'Arc of Body and Soul has outdone herself with another outstanding piece of writing. She's done it again, this time on understanding the spiral of poverty, please go read.

Speaking of poverty, please, if you can, go and give some aid to Jim Capozzola of Rittenhouse Review. He writes a fabulous blog and he's nearly homeless.

Wherever anything happens these days, it seems a blogger is covering it. Two bloggers writing from Haiti and covering the conflict are Haiti Pundit and John Engel.

We haven't had time to read them in depth and don't even know if they take sides, but Instapundit says:

One observation: "The conflict is incredibly complex. The rebels for the most part, are baddies. In my opinion, Aristide and his regime are also baddies."

Daily Kos endorses John Edwards for President.

It's Comedy Monday over at Hamster.

Thinking of seeing Mel Gibson's film, Passion of Christ? Get the low-down from Dave Neiwert at Orcinus.

Jesse and Ezra over at Pandagon are not impressed with the start-up of the Bush re-election campaign.

Join the movement and send flowers to a random same-sex couple getting married at city hall in San Francisco.

Atrios says be sure to buy girl scout cookies--they are being boycotted for their support of Planned Parenthood. We like the thin mints the best.

Skippy's gone all awol all the time.

Demagogue makes the case that Bush's recess appointment of William Pryor to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals is unconsitutional.

Don't forget to bookmark The Dreyfuss Report, Tom Paine's new blog on Iraq and national security issues.

Oliver Willis has an original take on Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Rock.

SKBubba has the last word on Nader's run:

We're in San Antonio, a great city, for a meeting of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL). We have a great two track program going on for the next few days--Responding to the Ashcroft Agenda (Capital Litigation and Corporate Investigation.) The white collar speakers are among the best in the country. Abbe Lowell from D.C., John Keker from San Francisco, Barry Tarlow from LA; Jerry Lefcourt from New York; Hal Haddon from Denver; Gerry Goldstein from San Antonio. We just ran into Judge Edward Prado, recently appointed to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals (and the only Bush judicial nominee we championed, see why, here).

There are a host of stellar defense lawyers here, some of our favorites from arouind the country. Many that we consider to be personal heroes. Given the Bush/Ashcroft agenda that is permeating our criminal justice system, it's great to be among like minds who fear for the future as much as we do.

Today the rights that are being taken away belong to the disenfranchised, the poor and the non-citizens among us. Tomorrow it could be us. Boot Bush.

TChris will be back guest blogging at TalkLeft this weekend--we'll be checking in periodically. Be sure also to check out the great blogs on our blogroll--this is a community we feel privileged to be a part of.

CrimeLynx, which hosts the TalkLeft Newsfeed, is moving to a new server today. Until the changeover is complete, the newsfeed may not appear and TalkLeft may load a little slower. Thanks for your patience.

We're shocked. And delighted. We just got back from a great dinner with a friend of 30 years that we hadn't seen in the last six months. What a great suprise to learn via Atrios that the 2003 lefty blog winners, courtesy of Wampum Blog, have been announced.

For the second year in a row, TalkLeft has won the best single issues blog!

Thanks to all of you who voted for us. We were sure we had no chance given the excellence of the other blogs nominated in the category, and we are thrilled. This is the way to cap off a great night. Our congrats to all the 2003 Koufax Award winners and nominees.

Best Single Issue Blog

The voting for Best Single Issue Blog was the closest of any category. This was the Florida of the Koufax Awards. Our first count resulted a an absolute dead heat between Bob Somerby’s incomparable Daily Howler for coverage of the media and Jeralyn Merritt’s Talk Left for coverage of Criminal Law Issues. Those two blogs could not be any more different but they are both excellent.

After scouring the three different email accounts where votes were sent, the tie was broken and a winner decided by almost the smallest of margins.

For the second year in a row, the Koufax Award for Best Single Issue Blog goes to Talk Left by Jeralyn Merritt. Congratulations, Jeralyn, and thanks for all your great work. Nobody does it better.

Here's a list of all the winners (via Hamster):

Bump and Update: CrimeLynx went down today and is being moved to a new server. The newsfeed will return when CrimeLynx is settled in its new home.

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We are grateful for the numerous blogads TalkLeft has received. But we don't want our blogroll and favorite sites lists to be at the bottom of the site. So, we've moved the blogrolls to the left side of TalkLeft, right under the newsfeed. Hopefully, that will make them more visible. If you think it was better the other way, let us know.

Quite a few readers have written us tonight to say they are unable to post comments. We've been banning IPs of spammers, and may have banned too broad a group so we'll try to fix it. If you didn't post an ad for a diet pill or other medication, you haven't been banned. We haven't banned anyone for content in weeks. Thanks for your patience.

[Looks like we banned a blank number--which blocked everyone. If you are still having problems, send us an email.]

We're reading:

Saved by a Hair in LA Weekly--Kevin Cooper gets another month at life.

Lou Dubose, also writing for LA Weekly, says the real question about Bush's military service is how did he get into the Guard in the first place?

Hesiod of Counterspin reports on Drudge's Kerry reports and says it's not true that the media was investigating the story. Here's one article backing up Hesiod's claim

Drudge claimed that half a dozen news outlets were investigating the allegations against Mr Kerry, but most of them denied doing so last night. Leonard Downie, executive editor of The Washington Post, mentioned by Drudge, said: "This is the first we've heard that we're working on a story that we're not working on." A reporter with Time magazine, also cited by Drudge,
said that the weekly magazine was as puzzled by the story as the rest of the world."

John Edwards will be on the Tonight Show tonight. Last night on the show, Dennis Kucinich played "The Dating Game" and won a date with actress Meg Tilly.

TChris is back this weekend. We got a third shot of cortisone in our wrist yesterday for our DeQuervain's Tenosynovitis --it's the last and final one before it either gets better or we have to do the surgery--so we are very grateful that TChris has been so generous with his weekend time. We are going to snowshoe in the mountains instead of type, but we'll check in and write a little over the weekend.

TChris says it's not necessary, but we'd like to share some paypal donations with him anyway--so any donations this weekend that end in $.11 will be passed on to TChris. In lieu of contributions, comments are fine.

If any of you have any experience with DeQuervain's or the surgery for it, please share your info in the comments. Thanks.

Calpundit does Friday cat blogging, we thought we'd try something along those lines--a little humor on Fridays. Here's today's entry, courtesy of Deb in Chicago:

John Aschroft was visiting an elementary school. After 15 minutes of speaking, he asked the class if they had any questions.

Robert stood up and said, "Mr. Ashcroft, I have four questions:

1) How did President Bush win the election with fewer votes than Al Gore?
2) Why are you using the Patriot Act to limit civil liberties?
3) Why haven't you caught Osama Bin Laden?
4) Where are the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?"

Just then, the bell rang. The kids ran out to play.

Upon their return, Mr. Ashcroft said, "I'm sorry we were interrupted. I will answer any questions you have."

A little girl named Julie stood up and said, "I only have two questions:

1) Why did the bell ring twenty minutes early?
2) Where's Robert?"

A big thanks to our guest blogger TChris who filled in for us this weekend. He wrote some great stuff, we hope you will scroll down and read it. We have court this morning and will return this afternoon.