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.

Watch out, this one's for real. Don't open emails that say "hi" in the subject line.

The "Bagle" or "Beagle" worm arrives in an e-mail with the subject "hi" and the word "test" in the message body. If the accompanying attachment is executed, the worm is unleashed and tries to send itself to all e-mails listed in the user's address book.

We've had several TalkLeft expenses come due at the same time, depleting our paypal reserves. If any of you would like to contribute, we'd sure appreciate it. Amazon is anonymous, paypal lets us know who you are and send a thank you note. Thanks much.

Say hello to the new group political blog The American Street, brainchild of Kevin Hayden of Reach M High Cowboy. Guest bloggers include David Neiwert of Orcinus, skippy the bush kangaroo, Dave Johnson of Seeing the Forest, Luis Toro of Colorado Luis, Mary Ratcliff of Pacific Views, the left coaster and others. We'll be an occasional contributor, our first post is here--in which we agree with those who say the burden of proof in a death penalty case should be raised to beyond all doubt.

Also say hello to left i on the news and angry bear.

We are off to Vail, before continuing on to Eagle for court on Monday afternoon. We'll be back here Monday night. In the meantime, if you've got something to say, be our guest. Small favor, watch the language and try to be civil. You catch more bees with honey than vinegar.

Three good news stories from LA Weekly:

LAPD wants to ban ski masks from demonstrators’ wardrobes reports that the Los Angeles Police Department is seeking the fast track for new laws to ban face coverings, gas masks or even goggles at public demonstrations.

Second and Long about the retrial set to begin Monday for the Inglewood California cop who was videotaped slamming a teenagrer's head into a car. The last jury deadlocked when the prosecution's witness went south on them.

Exiled by Love about how the immigration laws discriminate against gay partners.

We'll be adding to this thread with posts from bloggers and other alternative news sources as the weekend progresses. Feel free to add your favorites in the comments, just use the html formatting instructions provided. Long urls not in html code skew the site and aren't hot linked.

What we're reading today:

Agonist:

UK Government to scale back emergency laws under pressure from civil liberties groups. The United Kingdom's plans to give the police and the Army sweeping emergency powers to ban street demonstrations and seize property were diluted by the Government yesterday in the face of a civil liberties outcry. The Civil Contingencies Bill, the biggest shake-up of emergency laws since early last century, will cover terrorist attack, natural disasters and epidemics. But the Government backed off from an earlier proposal that the powers could be triggered by an event that threatened "political, administrative or economic stability", which critics claimed could have been used to outlaw marches against the Iraq war or to combat the fuel protests of 2000. The text of said bill, courtesy the UK government.

Warblogging:

Mr. Ashcroft belongs to a sect of religious extremists that believe that dancing is immoral. Mr. Ashcroft is scared of calico cats because he feels they are associated with the devil. Mr. Ashcroft feels that gambling is the height of immorality, and that sex outside of marriage is evil. Mr. Ashcroft truly stands as the polar opposite of Las Vegas.

Pandagon:

They are ex-felons. In that they are free. In that they have served their time. In that whatever transgression, they made, they have paid their debt to society, and as such their very basic rights as American citizens are due them.

One can argue that ex-felons who committed violent crimes shouldn't be able to own guns. But what is the argument that those who aren't imprisoned any longer should no longer be allowed the franchise?

We're glad to see that a lot more readers are commenting on TalkLeft. We read every one of the 300 + comments a day. We also pay a lot for the bandwidth. Tips are appreciated--see the Amazon and (paypal) donation buttons on the left side of the site. Amazon is anonymous and paypal lets us know your email address so we can send a thank you note.

Media Horse is back--go over and vote on Media Whor! of the Year.

Update: Jim at Rittenhouse Review dissects the nominees.

Update: The nominees for best single issue blog are now up and we've been included. So we're proud to be semi-finalists in both this category and best blog. We hope to make it to the finals in at least one, so we hope you'll go over and vote!

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The list of semi-finalists for nominees for best blog are up at Wampum for the 2003 Koufax awards. Last year, TalkLeft won for being the best single-issue blog. While the nominees for best single issue blog have not yet been announced, this year we are a semi-finalist for a nominee for best blog. The competition is awesome. What does best blog encompass? According to Wampum,

The category seeks to recognize the best overall work across the entire year, in writing, focus, relevance, accessibility, etc. In other word, who do you consider indispensable?

Wampum is taking votes from among the following list of semi-finalists:

A major thanks to TChris who posted some great stuff on TalkLeft yesterday while we gave our wrist a rest. If you haven't read his stuff, please scroll down and do so now. He's smart, articulate, writes really well and shares our views on just about every issue. Leave some comments, so he'll want to come back and post some more!