Blogger reaction to the Columbia tragedy today:

Glenn Reynolds.com: Mourn and Move On--Glenn makes the case for not letting this roll back the space program, but rather, forging ahead.

Stephen Green of Vodkapundit: Bad Day for Bitterness --Eloquent, with similar thoughts to Glenn, including criticism of NASA.

Patrick Nielsen Haydenquotes the William Gibson weblog: "nobody ever said it would be risk-free. If it were, it wouldn’t be glorious. And it’s only with these losses that we best know that it really is."

Atrios: "To those who think it's inappropriate to mourn some lives more than others - well, it's the only way we can mourn at all."

Calpundit: "We learn from our mistakes, but we should never allow fear of failure to keep us from pushing the boundaries of what we can accomplish. Death — and recovery from death — are a fundamental part of the human condition, a lesson that we are re-learning rather more often than we'd like in the first few years of the 21st century."

This Washington Post article is really good too--"People who work on the program understand that failure is part of the enterprise. When he retired in 2001, Dan Goldin had a message for the assembled NASA staff at headquarters in Washington: "Be bold and don't fear failure. Treat failure as a blessing, because mediocre goals are poison."

It's that time of year again....Journalist and historian Eric Alterman, columnist for The Nation and author of MSNBC's Altercation and the brand new book What Liberal Media? is revising his bookmarked links on Altercation. Here's how it works:

       The Blogosphere is changing so rapidly that it’s easy to miss some of the best sites. That’s why I’m so lucky to have Jeralyn (www.talkleft.com) volunteering again, to take your nominations for who deserves the high-powered MSNBC.com-driven slots on the right. Send her (not me!) your nominations at alterlinks@aol.com. Don’t stuff ballot boxes. It’s merit driven, once she is aware of you. (Though if you really want extra credit, I’d consider a link to both Altercation and What Liberal Media.com. Did I mention there’s a pdf file with the first chapter of the book there?

Three additional rules Eric has to be listed: Your site must be a weblog; You must have a link to Altercation on your front page, and it's for progressive sites only. There is no 'other side.'

Again, mail your suggestions to us at alterlinks@aol.com.

Via How Appealing, who got it from Law.Com reporter Tony Mauro, we learn there's a new blog by the Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press. It's called Behind the Homefront, and is "a daily chronicle of news in homeland security and military operations affecting newsgathering, access to information and the public's right to know."

Here's an entry from January 24th we are interested in: (links omitted here, but contained in original):

THE STAGE HAS BEEN SET FOR SUPREME COURT ACTION on the question of whether the public has a right of access to the terrorism-related immigration proceedings, most of which, of course, are long over. On Wednesday, the Sixth Circuit rejected a government request for rehearing by the entire court, letting stand a decision holding that automatic closure of all post-September 11th immigration proceedings was unconstitutional. The Third Circuit last month decided not to rehear a case that reached the opposite conclusion, that the First Amendment does not guarantee a presumptive right of access. The split in the circuits can only be resolved by Supreme Court review. News coverage: Detroit Free Press; News Media Update (3rd Cir.); News Media Update (6rd Cir.)

We learned something new about Instapundit tonight. If he's not careful, we're going to blow his cover as being a conservative.

In responding to a post by Atrios on the connection between Reverand Moon and the conservative Washington Times, which post included criticism of Instapundit for writing articles for the paper, Instapundit responds:

"I think the only thing I ever wrote for the Wash. Times was a piece entitled "Greasing the Skids at the Start of Death Row," condemning the Habeas Corpus provision of the 1996 antiterrorism bill, which oped I coauthored with GWU professor Bob Cottrol and which was placed there through the efforts of that noted Moonie front group, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers."

We don't know much about Reverand Moon, although if Atrios says he's bad, he probably is, so we'll try and learn something about him, but in the meantime, we are very impressed that Instapundit opposed the Habeas provision of AEDPA (Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996--brought in by Clinton after the Oklahoma City bombing)--

The Habeas provision in that act is what makes it so difficult for those who are wrongfully convicted to get into court. It places a one year time limit on filing the claim. It can take years for inmates to get someone to review their case and try and track down DNA evidence to prove their innocence.

We are hereby extending Instapundit an offer to become a law professor member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. If he accepts, we'll pay his dues the first year.

We won't extend the same offer to Rev. Moon, the Bushes, Richard Mellon Scaife, Ted Olson, John Ashcroft, Judicial Watch, or any of the true conservatives.

Say hello to Balloon Juice who just got a bloglift. He's considered right-wing by most liberals, as he is somewhat hawkish, does not view Bush in an evil light and generally favors international intervention.

But he also matches up with us on a number of issues. Balloon Juice's author, John Cole, tells us,

"I am pro-choice, against the war on drugs and pro-legalization, against the death penalty and mandatory minimums as well as in favor of prison reform and increased rehabilitation, against faith-based initiatives, generally pro-environment while despising most of the environmental groups, and an avowed civil and individual rights supporter (I really appreciate the work you did on the Racine Rave issue). I hate guns but I support the right to own them, and against almost every tax ever proposed."

You can't get too much better than that if you are a liberal crime-related political blog. So you'll find a link to Balloon Juice on the right under "Best of the Other Side."

We're guest-blogging for Eric Alterman at MSNBC's Altercation today--and it's Slacker Friday. Hope you'll stop by.

Eric Alterman of MSNBC's Altercation is off to Brussels this afternoon. We'll be guest-hosting Altercation once again this Friday, which is a Slacker Friday edition. As Eric mentions in today's column, please send any responses to what he has written this week to us at Alterlinks@aol.com. Charles Pierce will be hosting Altercation tomorrow and Eric Boehlert will do Thursday.

The website for Eric's new book, What Liberal Media is up and running. You can pre-order the book there, it should be hitting the bookstore's shelves very soon. We haven't read it yet, Instapundit got an advance copy, but not us. Still, we can't wait to read it. You can also read about it and buy it here.

There's an Instapundit, Senior--what a great guy he sounds like!

Check out Body and Soul's Strange Brew of headlines--showing that truth definitely can be stranger than fiction.

Jay Caruso over at The Daily Rant explains how to post URL's in the comments. It's important, because as Jay says, when you just type the url, it messes up the column spacing of our blogs and we have to go in and rebuild all the entries not just the one you commented on. TalkLeft has 1900 + entries and it takes a while to rebuild them all, and time is a precious commodity around here. (We had to do this last night so we're very sensitive to it).

Jay lays out the instructions very nicely.

The Horse takes on Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post for his "smarmy column" on John Kerry (link Via Hamster)

All of MWO is great today--they hit everything from Affirmative Action to Korea to whether ABC censured booing of "Poppy Bush" when he delivered a taped message at the American Music Awards ceremony Monday night.

We are off to Court for the afternoon, we hope you will check in here anyway and also visit the sites on the right. And today is Slacker Friday over at Altercation, always a must-read for us.

Where he gets the time, we have no idea. In addition to law school teaching and the publishing obligations that go along with tenure, in addition to updating Instapundit almost all day long, and in between producing music, writing a TechNews column and a FoxNews column, and parenting and spousing, our pied piper of blogging, Glenn Reynolds, now has a new weblog called Glenn Reynolds. com at MSNBC. Its focus is Technology, Culture, Politics and Law.

Glenn's blog debuted tonight, so go give it a read. Tonight's episode features business decisions that result in dumb lawsuits and techno music. You can read what Glenn has to say about the new blog on Kausfiles.

Oh, and don't forget to check out the recommended links on GlennReynolds.com--we're very proud to be included.

Update: The New York Times profiles Reynolds as Instapundit here.