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.

TChris has graciously agreed to guest blog here this weekend. We look forward giving our wrist a rest, but will post sporadically as well. It will also give us a chance to read what everyone else is writing about, and do some linking.

Our congrats to How Appealing's Howard Bashman who is leaving his law firm today and establishing his own firm.

Effective at the close of business today, I have resigned from the law firm of Buchanan Ingersoll, where for the past three years I have served as chair of the Appellate Group, to open my own law firm focusing on appellate litigation. My new law firm will open for business on the morning of Monday, February 2, 2004. Early Monday morning, I will provide here at "How Appealing" my new office address, phone and fax numbers, and other contact information, and I will also link to a press release that explains the reasons for my move. For now, you have my word that this is a move that makes perfect sense from every conceivable perspective. Regular programming is scheduled to continue here today and into the foreseeable future.

For readers who use CrimeLynx to do their legal research, the site is back up after four days of downtime due to a server meltdown. The newsfeed will return over the weekend or Monday. We are going keep using different hosting companies for CrimeLynx and TalkLeft so they don't both go down at the same time.

Bump and Update: The voting won't go on much longer, so if you haven't voted on your favorite blogs, please take a minute now.

Update: We don't stand a chance in the best blog category, so no need to vote for us there. There's an outside chance for best single issue and best expert. You can vote at the site or by sending an email. Email Mary Beth or Email Dwight.

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Bump and Update: If you haven't voted, please do. In all the categories.

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The 2003 Koufax Awards. Made possible by Wampum Blog--Dwight Meredith and Mary Beth Williams. The semi-finalists have been winnowed down. The finalists have been announced. Thanks to your votes, TalkLeft is a finalist for three awards:

• Best Blog
• Best Single Issues Blog: Criminal Law Issues
• Best Expert Blog: Expertise in Criminal Law

Last year TalkLeft won for Best Single Issue blog. The competition is fiercer this year, with so many great blogs nominated. But that's the category we'd most like to win again. We hope you'll take a minute and go over and vote for your favorites in all the categories.

You can vote by leaving a comment at the above award category links--or by sending an email. Email Mary Beth or Email Dwight.

A huge thanks to Dwight and Mary Beth for devoting so many hours to make this project come together once again. Truly, it's an honor just to be nominated when all of the nominated blogs are winners.

Update: The links to the site and comments where you vote seem to be loading very slowly--probably due to the response. We suggest voting by e-mail.

CrimeLynx is still down, so our newsfeed cannot appear as it usually does on the left side of TalkLeft. We'll put it here instead:

Tuesday January 27, 2004

Primary Day Arrives in New Hampshire
CNN

Citing Free Speech, Judge Voids Part of Antiterror Act
New York Times

Limbaugh's Lawyer: Pill Use Not Extraordinary
Miami Herald

Charge Is Seen Against Officer in Roof Killing
New York Times

U.S. to Start Airline Background Checks
Associated Press

Lionel Tate Freed from Prison
Palm Beach Post

Working Women Dominate Martha Stewart's Jury
New York Times

Supreme Court to Revisit Juvenile Execution Issue
Legal Times

Former U.S. Judges Enter Fray Over Guantanamo Detentions
New Jersey Law Journal

Chief Justice Balks at Ethical Questions
Associated Press

Granted Asylum, Nun Held in Va. Jail
Washington Post

Consultant Works His Magic on Kerry
Washington Post

Free Heroin May Be Coming to Canada
Edmonton Journal

Opinion

Our sister site, Crimelynx is down today and for part of tomorrow while the hosting company does something or other to the servers. We purposefully use different hosting companies for CrimeLynx and TalkLeft so they can't both go down at once. Many TalkLeft images and our Newsfeed on the left side of the site are stored over on CrimeLynx to conserve bandwidth on TalkLeft. So, until CrimeLynx is restored, there will be no newsfeed, and if you hit on blank images from older posts, you know why.

Our good pal TChris will be back at TalkLeft tomorrow--fresh off a victory in a sex assault trial. After a week long trial, the jury came back at 11:00 last night with a not guilty verdict on two counts. He's attending a martini-tasting tonight, and unless he's too hung over, which we doubt, he'll be posting here tomorrow.

TChris is smart, articulate, writes really well and shares our views on just about every issue. Leave some comments to his posts, so he'll want to come back more often!

We'll be posting occasionally as well.

Mark Gisleson has penned his last column for Bush Wars--we're really sorry to see him move on. If you haven't been reading him regularly, go over now before his posts are all gone.

Drug War Rant reports that with just a few days until marijuana is downgraded from class B to class C in England, the attempts to scare people are getting silly.

Venezuela is moving to decriminalize marijuana.

Atrios finds some apparent plagerism in Bush's SOTU.

Matt Yglesias on SOTU:

What's the deal with this anti-drug stuff? I honestly don't have a problem with the idea that Dubya snorted a little coke in his youth, some of the finest people I know did the same, but isn't it a bit hypocritical for him to rag on like that about the evils of drugs? And also this business about abstinence. I can't believe I saw Democrats applauding that garbage. I'm going to go way out on a limb here and say that, personally speaking, I think sex is fun, and I'm guessing most members of congress (both parties!) feel the same way about it. Within or without the bonds of marriage.

Liberal Oasis on The Yawn of the Union.

Cursor has a terrific wrap-up of coverage on SOTU.

MadKane has her first interactive SOTU crossword puzzle.

Katherine of Obsidian Wings has put together a 16 part series on Maher Arar.

Skippy finds ShoptodropBush--commissions from every purchase go to MoveOn.

There's so much more great stuff going on around the bloggerhood this week. The blogrolls on the right side of TalkLeft are a great source of information and inspiration and we recommend them highly.

As for us, we'll be on Kobe duty today, you can catch us on CNN with Paula Zahn (8 pm ET) Thursday night.

Update: The New York Times has this article on googlebombing and "miserable failure", mentioning both The Horse and TalkLeft.