Since we are not journalists or writers by trade, even though we write plenty of legal briefs, we often get stuck trying to figure out grammar when writing for TalkLeft. Help is here at last. Via Making Light, we have found Copy Editing, Damnit. We have high hopes.

The indefatiguable Howard Bashman of How Appealing is on a much deserved vacation. Howard has the premier appellate law blog in the country, making note of noteworthy appellate decisions and news as they come down. Law Professor Jeff Cooper, who has his own great blog, Cooped Up, is going to try to stand in for Howard over at Cooped Up. We're glad...we thought of doing it here but it's way, way too much work. To make matters worse, John Wesley Hall, who updates on fourth amendment law daily over at FourthAmendment. com is in the Hague this week.

We can't even have a good laugh about it because Skippy, who always at least gets a smile out of us, also is on vacation--he took Mrs. Skippy on an Alaskan cruise.

There's a lesson in here somewhere, like maybe we should give it a rest for a while, but we have lots of law work to do and since we have to work, we may as well blog. Besides, there aren't many prettier, more laid back places to be than Colorado, especially around Labor Day and the month of September when the aspen change. We're staying put.

Update: As we typed this, Skippy blogged in from Alaska, go read.

Meanwhile, Say hello to Autopsy Report, a new blog about autopsies--written by a medical examiner. Lawyers will find it pretty helpful. The blog's author likes the site Virtual Autopsy. [link via lawsites]

And check out Lisa English of Ruminate This who has the latest on the Zogby poll commissioned by the folks at DraftWesleyClark. Very interesting results.

Remember the website "Turn Left", whose tag line was "the home of liberalism on the web"? Turns out it is no longer being updated and visitors are being directed to the daily blog of its webmaster, Mike Silverman. Silverman's blog, Red Letter Day, links to sites such as Little Green Footballs and U.S.S. Clueless. We couldn't identify any left-leaning blogs on its blogroll.

These were the issues addressed by the old Turn Left. We're sorry it's gone and feel somewhat cheated that it was maintained by someone who apparently did not believe in its core values.

Natasha of Pacific Views attended a public panel sponsored by Congressman Jay Inslee (D-WA) in Shoreline, WA, on the subject of the possible mishandling of the intelligence information that was used to lead America to war. Great quotes, and great reporting.

Eric at Hamster has Arianna's reply to Susan Estrich:

I assumed we were long past the argument over whether you could be a woman, a leader and a mother without having the powers that be shaking their heads and pulling out the slime. This kind of dirty politics is one reason more than 13 million Californians didn't vote in the last election. People are sick and tired of campaigns as demolition derbies, with candidates -- and their designated hatchet men and women -- attacking each other until there is only one candidate left standing.

Philadelphia bloggers make the Inquirer.

Jim Capozzola of Rittenhouse Review takes off on Ashcroft, and his dog and pony show to garner support for the Patriot Act.

Jesse of Pandagon has the latest on Bush's continued ratings slide, as measured by this new Zogby poll.

Matt Yglesias sends us over to the Clark Sphere for the daily meme.

Skippy details the unfair treatment accorded protesters at the Bush appearance in Portland.

Oliver Willis quotes the Constitution on the Alabama Ten Commandments Case....we agree, it seems simple to us, too. We're just not suprised the "homegrown fundamentalists" don't accept it. It's because they don't want to.

Markos of Daily Kos racks up the well-deserved compliments:

Christopher Lydon Interviews Markos Moulitsas Zuniga aka Daily Kos. [via Lisa English of Ruminate This]

Daily Kos also gets a great compliment from journalist and Salon and New York Observer columnist, Joe Conason, who also is the author of the hot new liberal book, Big Lies.

We had dinner with Kos and his very pregnant and beautiful wife Elisa (and New Yorker writer and CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin) last week at a vegetarian restaurant in the Mission District of San Francisco. We won't be surprised if Toobin decides to write about Kos too. For newer TalkLeft readers, Kos spent untold hours designing this site and we are forever indebted to him.

Eric Alterman's new Nation column Patriotic Gore invites the British media, particularly the Guardian which is exploring a stateside version of the paper, to "come over and deliver to our media the kick in the arse they have worked so hard to deserve."

Skippy is keeping track of our dying soldiers in Iraq, with words not numbers. He's also changed his endorsement for California Governor.

Pacific Views tells us the Bush Campaign is reaching out to Bloggers. "The site will feature canned e-mail."

Denver journalist Dave Cullen, author of Conclusive Evidence has become the blog of record on gay marriage.

Jeanne at Body and Soul has all the important links to the investigation into the Reuters cameraman's killing by U.S. troops in Iraq.

Politics in the Zeros tells us about the Petition to stop John Ashcroft--on Howard Dean's blog.

Today, John Ashcroft begins a national tour promoting an extension of the USA Patriot Act. Sign the petition to stop Ashcroft's erosion of our civil rights. Add your name to the Stop Ashcroft petition, and pass it on to your friends, family, and co-workers. We will deliver your names and your comments to the Attorney General.

Now that's a good sign. Go read and add your e-signature.

We've completed our blog move to another hosting company's servers. The site is working well and much faster. We've also got court in the mountains today, so we won't be back here until tonight. Feel free to read our weekend posts --and the great sites on the right. If you get a cached page from the old site, just clear your browser and the new page should come up.

Update: Three days later, we're thrilled with our new hosting company.

Say hello to new blog Public Defender Dude, which as the title implies, is written by a public defender. It's very good. We like that PDdude includes both his thoughts on being a public defender and on the criminal justice system, as well as some details of his cases and workdays.

The rantings of a Public Defender constantly fighting against society's pervasive Police Industrial Complex. Enjoy the unique perspective of one who's life's work is to fight the system through the system....

This blog is not only about the criminal justice system. Us Public Defenders tend to be anti-establishment and have strong views on a variety of subjects, most of these views would be at odds with much of the rest of society, but they would tend to be very logical and well thought out views.

New to us, but not blogtopia (yes, Skippy coined that word,) is Chief Wiggles, who writes from Iraq. The Chief is in the Army National Guard, currently stationed in Iraq. Scott Evensoen, the blog's administrator says,

When the war began, the Chief would send his journal entries to family and friends via email. This got to be quite cumbersome, so while he was back here on hardship leave over his mother’s death, I talked to him about setting up a blog. He agreed if I would administer it for him and thus, Chief Wiggles—Straight from Iraq began.

We especially like the pictures from Iraq. Here's a news article about the blog.

Our blog move to a new hosting company is complete. Some comments from yesterday may not appear as they are still on the old server. Also, from time to time the old version shows up instead of the new because the files are currently on both servers. Once we make sure nothing is missing, we will have the files removed from the first server.

A note about comments: Sometimes they take a long time to post to the servers and we're not sure why. We'll try to figure it out. Also, if you put a url in your comment, you have to use the html code as set out in the comment box. Otherwise it skews the site and we will delete it. Your comment remains, just not the url.

Thanks for your patience.

Okay, we're changing hosting companies again. Supposedly there will not be downtime but it's never gone that smoothly before, so we're a little skeptical. The most frequent upset in the past has been that the newest posts get lost. So if you log on in the next few days and the site shows older posts, it's a temporary glitch and we'll be back.

Our hosting cost is doubling, we use a lot of bandwidth (12 - 15 GB a month) probably because we write ten or more entries a day. If you can chip in, it's much appreciated, the amazon and paypal buttons are on the left.

If we go down entirely over the weekend, just know we'll be back.

Lots of computers are getting the worm. In fact, both the LA Times and the Chicago Tribune websites are down as we write this, and have "we'll be back soon" type notices on their sites. It's probably due to the worm. If it hits you next, here's how to deworm your computer.

[LA Times link corrected]

We're having server problems. The site works fine to read from, but we can't use our MT files to post without great difficulty. Something to do with a server load failure, whatever that means. We'll be back with new stuff as soon as we get this straightened out.

We're up to 15 GB. a month of bandwidth or data transfer --most hosting companies limit you to 2 or 5 except at a very increased cost. If you're in the mood, and can spare a few bucks, please, jump right up to the top left of TalkLeft and hit the tip jar. Amazon is anonymous, Paypal lets us know your email address so we can send you a personal thank you email.

In solidarity with Al Franken, being sued by Fox News for using their trademarked "Fair and Balanced" tagline, bloggers are adding the words to their blog titles: See, Atrios, vaara, Maxspeak, Jesse at Pandagon, and Blah3 --all are now Fair and Balanced weblogs. Atrios says "Join the fun!"

We can't join because we are not a neutral or fair and balanced weblog . We proudly promote one side. But what fun to see hundreds of blogs suddenly declare themselves "fair and balanced" webzones.

Update: Instapundit calls the Fox suit "asinine" and gives himself a new tag line. Law Prof Eugene Volokh weighs in against the suit as well.

We're off to the ABA Criminal Justice Section Council meeting --being held in conjunction with the annual ABA meeting--in San Francisco. We're especially looking forward to the presentation and debate Saturday morning on military tribunal rules. Stay tuned, as we'll report here on any significant developments. But posting may be lighter than usual throughout the weekend. As always, we recommend you visit the excellent blogs and news sources listed on the right.

Update: It's now 4pm and we're still at the Denver airport. The plane was delayed then cancelled due to a broken winshield. We won't leave now until 6pm...but we found some good company to compare justice notes with while we're waiting...CNN's legal analyst Jeff Toobin, freshly back from Eagle and on his way to the ABA meeting in San Francisco, is on the same flight.