Atrios thinks Jim Capozzola of The Rittenhouse Review should run for Senator against Arlen Spector. We do too. Jim's in great form today, go read. And Jim...hopefully you'll never need us, but we're here for you if you do, thanks for the vote of confidence.

Poor Man is back from hiatus and very funny as always.

Is anyone else having trouble pinging weblogs.com with MT version 2.63? Our posts are taking forever to "rebuild" when we hit "publish" and the activity log says that "One or more errors occurred when sending update or TrackBack pings. Check the Activity Log for the error." The activity log says that "Ping 'http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2' failed: HTTP error: 500 read timeout"

It is just so time consuming waiting for the "publish" to take effect. If you have any ideas, please post them here or email us at talkleft@aol.com. Thanks.

Jim Capozzola at Rittenhouse Review, just about the best writer we've encountered in the blogosphere, has outdone himself in a blogorama today--telling us who's got the goods on whom--he had to have been up all night to read that many blogs and then cleverly write up what they were writing about --we're going to try and read them all. We may use what he said about us as our blog anthem.

Thanks to (in alphabetical order) Atrios and Instapundit, TalkLeft received its most visits ever today--3600--and 5500 page views.

Thanks to the anonymous tipster who chipped in $25.00 today, our biggest tip yet. Even a few bucks helps us defray the increasing bandwith and news and other subscription costs and makes us feel appreciated. The Amazon tip jar means you stay anonymous. The Paypal donation link lets us know who gave.

And a special thanks to all of you for reading us. You keep us going.

Ernie the Attorney writes about the three stages of blogging awareness. Joi Ito has the 4th stage and a test to see if you're there:

4) Oh, no. I'm addicted to blogging...

You are addicted to blogging if you answer "yes" to at least 3 of the following questions:

Do you think about everything in terms of whether it will make a good blog entry?

Do you keep your computer in standby mode beside your bed and wake up at 2am to blog?

Do you skip lunch and blog instead?

Do you accept speaking engagements or make travel decisions based on whether they will make good blog material?

Do you have your RSS newsreader open during meetings and keep hitting "refresh"?

Do you sit around trying to figure out how you can redesign your job so you can blog more?

Do you think blogs will suddenly cause an emergent democracy and save the world?

How did you all do? No surprise, we're there.

Remember Bernadette Devlin? We sure do. Don't miss Lisa English of Ruminate This who today delves into Devlin's recent deportation, wondering if it has anything to do with her current criticism of the war with Iraq.

We're over at Altercation today, subbing for Eric Alterman, who's off promoting his book, What Liberal Media?

We're also in Cancun, for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers' spring meeting, with a dial-up modem and expensive internet access, so posting will be sporadic through the weekend. The newsfeed is taking a respite for a few days, but Cursor , Buzzflash, Hamster and Common Dreams will keep you up to date.

Michael Tomasky is really good today filling in for Eric Alterman on Altercation. Charles Pierce was there yesterday and Eric Boehlert is there tomorrow. We'll be the guest blogger Friday, which is Slacker Friday, so if you have some comments on what the gang has written this week (including Eric on Monday), send it to us at Alterlinks@aol.com.

TalkLeft made the National Journal's Hotline today (subsciption only) for it's interview last week with Gary Hart.

HART: TAKE THIS DEFENSE TO HART

The blogger, TalkLeft, "had the opportunity to sit down with" ex-Sen. Gary Hart (D-CO) "for thirty uninterrupted minutes" on 2/13 "and discuss his recent San Francisco foreign policy speech, and the concerns of some ... that one line of the speech might be construed to be anti-semitic." Hart "doesn't talk in code. If he had a problem with a particular group, he'd come out and say it."

The "focus" of Hart's speech "was not War with Iraq, although Hart certainly mentioned it. The speech was about American's foreign policy role in the 21st century. ... His point was that where there is a difference between what is in
America's best interest and what is in the best interests of the homeland or country of origin of another group, America's interest must come first in shaping foreign policy. "

Hart, a "strong supporter of Israel for over 30 years," was "not referring to Jewish Americans. ... He was talking about America's long-term foreign policy role in the 21st century. His comment applies equally to Cuban, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Greek and Turkish -American citizens. He was talking about all
Americans, wherever we come from" ( TalkLeft, 2/13).

Say hello to a new law blog (blawg), SOHO. It's for lawyers working out of small offices or home offices.

It will be a resource for students coming out of law school who wonder if there's an alternative to big firm practice as well as for "the new opportunities available to attorneys who have practiced in larger, more conventional firms, and have grown dissatisfied. Not that long ago, many such folks would have to choose between changing practice areas to move to a SOHO practice, and staying unhappily at a big firm. Now they can come over to the light side without the Hobson's choice."

It's gorgeous here in Denver today, too nice to sit at the computer or not take advantage of the holiday, so we're off to Boulder and will be back later this afternoon. In the meantime, we hope you will visit our friends listed in our blogrolls and browse through our weekend posts.

If you can spare a buck or too, we'd also welcome your hitting our honor box or paypal links. As we get more popular, the bandwidth costs increase. Many thanks to those of you who take us up on this.

Via A Moveable Beast , we came across Behind the Homefront, an excellent journalism weblog devoted to the newly formed Department of Homeland Security.

On Jan. 24, 2003, a new law enforcement and investigatory agency whose duties include functions taken from as many as 22 other federal agencies came into existence. The reorganization of these operations reportedly marks the biggest government bureaucratic shake-up since the creation of the Department of Defense half a century ago.

Even before the new Department of Homeland Security opened its doors, controversies arose over not just how it would operate and exercise its powers, but what level of access to information it would allow, and how it would respond to news media requests. Will new exemptions be carved out of the FOI Act, either by law or by practice? Will officials and agents feel free to tap phones of journalists, or subpoena their records during investigations? Will the new director consider procedural safeguards, like those adopted years ago by the Department of Justice, to ensure that freedom of the press will not be denied? And will those practices be followed?

But "homeland" security is not the only concern for journalists covering anti-terrorism initiatives; military actions abroad often present a greater challenge, as questions over disclosure of information, access to troops, and restraints on reporting seem to resurface anew with each conflict.

Questions and issues like these led the Reporters Committee to launch this "weblog," so that there will be a centralized site on the Internet for journalists who want to follow these issues and pass along information they learn while covering -- or worse, being covered by -- the new department and other anti-terrorism actions. Please submit comments and pass along tips to make this project as useful, thorough and up-to-date as possible.

The mainsteam media credits weblogs again, this time on the Howard Coble case and Law. Prof. Eric Mueller's Is That Legal?.

Eric has done a phenomenal job on this issue, much like Atrios did on Trent Lott.