VoteLaw is the latest to leave Blogger for MT. Ed Still has created a very nice design for the election-law related blog, so be sure to update your bookmarks.

We have received a few e-mails from readers who advise they cannot post comments. All use aol (as do we). We have found that if we access the site through Internet Explorer while on aol, there is no problem.

Also, posting comments is sometimes slow. You only need to click once. We tend to block urls that post the same comment three or more times. If you have been blocked and your multiple posting of comments was an accident, email us the name you used when posting the comment and we'll unblock your url.

We started a new category tonight at the request of a reader, Foreign Affairs, to address issues in the middle east. We are not particularly knowledgeable in this area, so we expect most of our posts will consist of news rather than commentary, but you are all free to add your thoughts. Only anti-semitic and nasty comments will be deleted.

Lisa English is back at Ruminate This. Mary from The Watch did a superb job of covering for Lisa while her allergy-stricken eye healed.

Say hello to the Guerilla News Network (found via Skippy who's celebrating his anniversary this weekend) and K Marx the Spot by the folks at Bear-Left.

Wampum has made the move to MT and its own home here so update your bookmarks.

For longer reads, check out the San Francisco Chronicle and how women are losing freedom in the chaos of Post-War Iraq and On the Roads of Ruin by Peter Oborne in the Sunday Oberserver. Oborne recently returned from an extensive tour of Afganistan to see if the U.S. and Britain were living up to their promise to fund a rebuilding effort. He found the country deserted by the West and left to fend for itself against massive thuggery. David Neiwert of Orcinus has written a moving tribute to a dear uncle who recently passed away.

Salon Readers respond to Andrew Sullivan on President Bush's "looming package of manhood." Here's one:

Since Chris Matthews and Gordon Liddy, the criminal, have stated that women will vote for Bush because of the bulge in his flight suit, the formerly private parts of Bush are now a subject open for questions and answers. Why did he have an erection upon seeing all those young men aboard the carrier? At our house we've been laughing about Bush's stuffing his flight suit with socks, à la male ballet dancers. I've been polling my girlfriends. None of us, not a single one, will vote for Bush, bulge or not.

Or maybe all of this is none of our business and we should attack him on more worthwhile grounds. I personally think his bulge is as worthless as his brain. And women are far too smart to trade their civil rights and future aspirations for a roll of socks.

Atrios reports that Neil Young is afraid of getting deported for his Dixie Chick-like criticism of George Bush.

The People's Republic of Seabrook got a major bloglift and is looking good.

Arthur at Light of Reason writes about a federal judge in Seattle who has struck down a law on first amendment grounds that made it illegal for anyone to disseminate personal information about law enforcement-related employees if it was being done for malicious reasons.

Update your bookmarks, the Volokh Conspiracy has left Blogger for Volokh.Com.

Happy wedding anniversary to Skippy. His weekend blogpicks:

go read talkleft or atrios or calpundit or little red cookbook or roger ailes or tom tomorrow or body and soul or eric alterman or wtf is it now? or the daily kos or the horse or ruminate this! or lean left or spadehammer or plucky punk or liberal oasis or cursor or blah3 or antiwar or the smirking chimp or the daily rant or madkane or gail davis or brad de long or the democratic veteran or the rittenhouse review or max sawicky...or any other fine blog on our blog roll.

Wired News has the latest on DARPA's proposed spy machine:

It's a memory aid! A robotic assistant! An epidemic detector! An all-seeing, ultra-intrusive spying program! The Pentagon is about to embark on a stunningly ambitious research project designed to gather every conceivable bit of information about a person's life, index all the information and make it searchable.

Wired also reports on the scary phenomenon of Political Control Technology :

The same technological revolution that is now accelerating the development of new medical products is also making it possible for coercive regimes to manipulate human beings by altering their psychological processes, controlling their behavior, interfering with reproduction or tampering with inheritance-- and even to do so without the knowledge of the victims. The International Red Cross, not usually alarmist, has taken the unusual step of issuing an urgent appeal to prevent the use of this technology as a weapon through hostile manipulation of fundamental life processes...."

Mad Kane is celebrating the two Bush appointee resignations with song: Christie Whitman Went To Town (to be sung to Yankee Doodle) and Ari, Ari (to be sung to Monday, Monday). The Christian Science Monitor has this analysis of the Bush team shuffle.

Mary, subbing for Lisa English of Ruminate This has the latest on the FCC media deregulation protests from MoveOn....the grass roots campaign is having an effect. Lisa has an eye problem, we wish for her speedy recovery.

Howard Bashman of How Appealing has a wrap-up of coverage on the Yale Law School bombing and a link to this article on leaks by law enforcement.

To be continued....

Many of you may have noticed we have not posted since Monday. That's because our server has been having problems with one of its hosted sites which gobbled up all its bandwidth, making other hosted sites load incredibly slowly. TalkLeft has been running so slowly since Monday night that it's been inaccessible to us -- it times out before we can save and publish a post. It took us almost an hour last night to get the newsfeed up.

The hosting company is working on it now, and if you are reading this, it means the problem is hopefully fixed. If any of you still are experiencing delays accessing TalkLeft, please let us know, either by email to talkleft@aol.com, or by posting in the comments section here.

Thanks for your patience, and we'll be back with some substantive posts tonight.

Update: We're told it's all fixed. The hosting company has been very responsive -- they called us three times today on the phone to discuss the issue with us, the last call being to let us know all is well again.

It's a travel day for us, so we won't be posting again until late tonight. In the meantime, check out our weekend additions, as well as the great sites on the right and our newsfeed on the left.

Don't Miss:

David Niewert on Bush's military record. "What we know about his record now should be considered a scandal, and should have been since it was uncovered during the campaign." Lots of factual and other detail.

Josh Marshall on the press not picking up on Katrina Leung's Repbublican activism (Our prior coverage of it, which includes a long quote from Atrios, is here. Matt Yglesias says the story is really about the screwups of the FBI.

Daily Kos on Orrin Hatch's hypocrisy regarding judicial nominations and the "blue slip" rule.

Archpundit on Ashcroft's use of SAMMS (Special Administrative Measures) to impinge on the attorney-client privilege and restrict counsel's ability to meet with clients and adequately prepare a defense.

Tapped on legalizing marijuana.

Media Horse on the Bush Jet Gimmick.

Avedon Carol on the showdown at the FCC.

Patriot Watch says "PATRIOTWATCHERS--In the coming months be on the look-out for attempts by the administration and Congressional leadership to introduce pieces of PATRIOT II as individual legislation. We will be watching and keep you informed of any efforts to do so."

Arthur Silber at Light of Reason on yesterday's Senate action on the Patriot Act and how we are losing the war at home.

Just a reminder....if you value reading TalkLeft, we hope you will contribute throught the paypal or amazon links on the left. Every little bit helps.

Howard Bashman's superb appellate law blog How Appealing turned one year old yesterday. Congratulations, Howard and a big thanks, for providing such a valuable resource.

Salem Pax, also known as Where is Raed, has surfaced and has new entries on his blog. [Via Instapundit]

We will be on the road today, en route to New York and the spring meeting and continuing legal education seminar of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL).

If you are a defense lawyer or law student and want to attend, registration is accepted at the door. It's being held at the New York Marriott Marquis. The program is "Trial Techiniques and Stategies: From the Masters." We're speaking Friday at 8:00 am. Our talk is titled "Oh, the Places You'll Go: Using the Internet for Legal Research and Investigation" and is based on our sister site, CrimeLynx, which we created in 1996 to bring criminal defense practitioners the best, not the most, of the law-related sites on the web.

Lynne Stewart and her attorney, renowned criminal defense attorney Michael Tigar (lead attorney for Terry Nichols in the OKC bombing case, former Dean of the University of Texas Law School, now Dean of American University Law School) will speak on "Claiming Justice for Your Client."

Gerry Goldstein of San Antonio, Past President of NACDL, and one of the highest ranked speakers in the nation, will speak on "The Legacy of 9/11: Giving Up Freedom to Protect Our Freedom."

Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree will speak on "Trickle Down: How the Supreme Court Impacts Our Work in Defending Our Clients." Renowned New York defense lawyer Benjamin Braufman (Sean Puffy Combs acquittal) will speak on "Summations That Beat All." Miami defense giant Albert Krieger (John Gotti's trial lawyer) will talk on "Story Telling From the Master."

Our favorite will probably be the panel Rikki Klieman is leading on "Must the Lawyer Broach Cooperation With the Client?" Rikki is one of the preeminent women defense lawyers in the country from Boston, who for the past several years has been an anchor at Court TV as well as an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Law School. She is leaving Court TV in June to move to LA to be with her husband, Bill Bratton, who became Los Angeles Police Chief last October (she has commuted every weekend since.) Her book, sure to be a best seller, "When Fairy Tales Come True: How a Driven Woman Changed Her Destiny," published by Judith Ragen books, will hit the stores May 8. We're in the process of writing a book review on her excellent memoir, and will be appearing as a guest on her Court TV show Thursday, May 1 at 1:00 p.m.

There are many more speakers and programs, and the NACDL board of directors meeting, open to the public, is on Saturday at 9:30 a.m. These meetings are filled with lively debate, sometimes friendly, sometimes not so friendly, proving that even defense attorneys are not always of the same mind. But the entire four days, being surrounded by other defenders we know and trust, who work in the trenches at home like we do (the bowels of the courtrooms aand jails) results in all of us having our batteries re-charged so that when we return home, it's with that fighting spirit.

On a more personal level, we will be moving "Talkleft, Jr." from his dorm at NYU to his first apartment in New York, as he completes his final exams for graduation and waits on pins and needles to see if he is accepted into law school for the fall. He has decided that he wants to be a public defender. If he doesn't get in, his fallback plan is his music (he plays lead guitar.) And to get a job. So if you know an employer who could use his kind of skills, let us know. He is one terrific kid. He was a member of the McVeigh defense team his junior year in high school and caught the bug. He spent this, his senior year at NYU, interning at Barry Scheck's Innocence Project at Cardozo Law School, and the bug grew into a frog and he now has the passion.

It will be a busy few days, but we will be blogging throughout, so please stop by TalkLeft for updates, and if you have the time and an interest in criminal defense, stop by the Marriott Marquis.

We're blogged out for the day, we probably have 15 entries and it's lunchtime and we have work to do, so we leave you with a little humor via these images.