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.

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.]