What is up with GMAIL? I was locked out all day yesterday because...? I don't know. I usually have my e-mail program open on a couple of computers at the same time almost everyday and have been doing that ever since Gmail started, because I move around my house/office so much.
Why was I suddenly locked out? In their lockout notice, it says that might have caused it, even though they also listed a few other possible reasons that don't apply to me.

I'm working on a chapter for a book -- which is insane all by itself -- so I'm not posting as much this week, but not being able to at least scan my Inbox is a big problem and it feels like I'm partially blogospheric blind.

It's working now, but when you have no access to it I have to say it's very, very weird. And you can't get to GMAIL to find out why this stuff happens. It's like, well, it'll be back in the next 24 hours or so.

If I haven't responded to something I apologize. Now I'll be digging through a thousand emails to catch up. Has this happened to you?

Thanks, GMAIL guys.

Crooks and Liars turned five years old this past month. Wow, 5 years without a week off...LOL....I remember my best friend asking me when I first started C&L, why was I wasting my time "blogging?" I told him because I had to.

For those of you who want to send a little something to help pay the server costs, every buck counts. We do NOT get money from Soros or any other liberal grant. Thanks.

It's day three for the C&L Donation drive and so far it's going well. Almost 400 people have donated and I thank you.
I'd like to give a shout out to the grand poo bah of our website: Jamie Holly. He's been writing code like a man possessed this year to keep things progressing on C&L. He's one of the people that goes unnoticed on a website like this because he's doing all the back-end work. But he's the one who has crafted our own embed player, implemented the new sites and updated the comment section.

And I'd like to contribute more to his hard work. He's not finished yet and neither are we. Soon we are going to have diaries available for our readers and other very cool features so please, if you can--make a donation to C&L

You can also use snail mail to make your donation.

For Snail Mail:

Crooksandliars.com

P.O. Box 66310

Los Angeles, CA 90066

It's day two of our C&L '09 fundraiser. We're reaching out to our readers and asking for your help so that the MSM and Corporate media do not overrun the blogosphere with Villagers. With ad revenues way down and the corporate elites funneling in millions of dollars to compete with us, it's going to be hard for all blogs to thrive and survive.

David Neiwert, who is the best expert we have today on right wing hate talk radio and hate groups, has become the managing editor of C&L.

Jane Hamsher writes:

There are lot of people on TV saying irresponsible things about the shooting at the Holocaust museum (one mentioned the "Obama effect," as if this was something that Obama's election precipitated).

If any TV bookers are looking for someone knowledgeable to speak on the subject, they should call David Neiwert. David blogs at Orcinus, he's the managing editor of Crooks & Liars, he's an expert on the subject and the author the new book The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right.

David actually predicted something like this in the book. You can find more on the book here on David's book salon, which was hosted by Digby.

If any media folks need contact info for David, drop me a line.

Thanks, Jane, for your kind words about David. He'll be on the air this morning on MSNBC and has been a great addition to the site. Our initial goal is to reach at least $50,000, and the target is to get up to and beyond $100,000. Day I of the donation drive: C&L's Donation Drive '09: Please help save blogs before we're overrun by the corporate media was awesome. Yesterday we had over 200 people donate and hit the six thousand dollar mark, which was really a great start. I know this will take time and energy. I'd like to pay more money to the people that help make C&L a good blog and I do need to hire a few more bloggers and staffers because the workload is so tremendous.

I'll write more about this in the next posts, so please, donate if you can. You can also use snail mail to make your donation.

For Snail Mail:

Crooksandliars.com

P.O. Box 66310

Los Angeles, CA 90066

We're reaching out to our readers and asking for your help so that the MSM and Corporate media do not overrun the blogosphere with Villagers. They are funneling in millions of dollars to compete with and ultimately drive away independent bloggers so that they can rule the Internet. And the kind of cash they are pouring in is staggering.

It's hard to compete with that since the economy is way down, and I think what we've accomplished is in jeopardy if the Internet doesn't step up to help us all, including other blogs that you like. So please donate what you can.

As you've seen, C&L has been expanding and improving the site and we need your help to continue to make more improvements and add more bodies to keep it going. We've released a host of new sites, including our Supreme Court blog Third Branch, the excellent Video Cafe, an expanded LNMC that is breaking new music and bringing music stars to our pages and finallythe very cool Newstalgia--which is posting the most extensive historic audio and video content on the web today. We've also released our first embeddable video player that now lets you embed all videos you see on C&L. This has taken a lot of time, effort and money to do, but we're succeeding. The economy is way down and it's affecting the blogs as well.

Our initial goal is to reach at least 50,000 dollars and the target is to get up to and beyond 100,000. I know this will take time and energy. As you've seen we're also reaching into the blogosphere and hiring bloggers to make C&L an even better site and to reward some of our own. The workload is tremendous. David Neiwert is now the managing editor and Susy Madrak has become a valued front-pager. Max Bernstein is handing the Late Nite Music Club and Gordon Skene is digging into his amazing time vault to bring us historical content that is relevant to today's news and Heather is leading the charge at Video Cafe. Now we're looking to hire video bloggers, a researcher, extra site monitors and an investigative journalist, but we can't do it without your help.

The money is going to be poured right back into C&L and into the hands of our own. It's a daunting task to keep the content flowing, even the MSM has recognized our efforts:

It's wild knowing that we've had over 200 million visitors and growing, so won't you please help us? You can also use snail mail to make your donation.

For Snail Mail:

Crooksandliars.com

P.O. Box 66310

Los Angeles, CA 90066

Continue reading »

We've finally (Jamie) finished the code work on C&L's embed player. Every video you see in one of our flash players can be embedded on your own websites of forums.
Just click on the title of a post and look to the right.

You'll see the code you need. You will also be able to change the color and size of the player to match the site design that you use. Anyway, we've been upgrading the C&L as fast as we can.

We've just added "Third Branch," our new Supreme Court blog to go along with Video Cafe, Newstalgia, Blue America and the LNMC.
We have more changes coming out soon...
And we will need your help to continue to expand and grow C&L. Thanks...
JA

I just wanted to remind all C&L readers that we've really expanded our new "sister sites" and there is a ton of new stories, videos, historical events and excellent music to choose from while you visit the site. We do front page many posts that appear on them, but there just isn't enough room so make sure you check them out. Click on the graphic located on the top right hand column to easily connect with them.

Video Cafe

Newstalgia

Late Night Music Club or the LNMC

The Blue America site will be reloading new progressive choices for upcoming elections soon and we'll have live chats with candidates conducted there as well.

I'll be writing more about other improvements and new sites that I will be unveiling as soon as I can.

Thanks for all your help.

As you've seen, we made major improvements on C&L the last few months with more to come. The Video Cafe being run by Heather and David and all the rest of the team have posted a ton of videos for your enjoyment. We don't always front page them, but don't forget to check it out every day.

Video Cafe is growing at an incredible rate. We'll have our own embed player finished very shortly too...

I'll be in DC, hanging for the inauguration and I'll be co-hosting the Netroots Nation "Yes We Can" gala event. It should be a blast.

Netroots Nation Yes We Can Party
An evening of celebration, carousing, eating and drinking with fellow members of the progressive community, with music by Chopteeth Afrofunk Big Band

Monday, January 19, 2009
7 p.m. to midnight
The Clarendon Ballroom
3185 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington VA
Just 3 miles from downtown DC // Accessible by the Metro (Orange line)

Tickets are $90 (includes hors d'oeuvres and four drink tickets). Get yours at netrootsnation.com/yeswecanparty.

And I'll be joined by my pals too:

An evening of celebrating, carousing, eating and drinking with the progressive community, with live music by Chopteeth Afrofunk Big Band!

Blog co-hosts: AmericaBlog, Blue Commonwealth, Congress Matters, Crooks & Liars, Democratic GAIN, Firedoglake, Fivethirtyeight.com, Frameshop, The Great Schlep, Jack & Jill Politics, Living Liberally and myDD

A few quick notes.

As you've noticed I've used the donations from the last C&L fundraiser to help fund all the updates we've done to C&L so far. We're going to develop the new LNMC website into a full on music blog with music reviews, interviews, exclusive releases and more cool tunes after the election.

But I wanted to highlight that we've just gone live with our "Video Cafe." There is so much news breaking around us and so little time to write it all up that I decided to set up a new site to try and keep you on top of it as much as possible and add as much video as I could.

Everything is still a work in progress, but the massive importing of C&L to a new software platform and the many updates that we've done have gone tremendously well so far. Major kudos to Jamie, our webmaster and Klos, our computer engineer. There are plenty more thanks to go around...That's it for now.

UPDATE:

We have noticed people having problems with the YouTubes. There are actually a couple of problems contributing to this. The first one is YouTube has been having a lot of slow loading problems lately. Another problem, where the video plays then stops, is actually a problem with the Flash Player inside of Firefox. Adobe and Mozilla are working on this problem.

We just got it up and running. It's going to take a few days to make sure everything is working correctly. We'll slowly add some cool features as we go along so it's not complete by any means. It's going to just sit here tonight for the most part and run for a few hours.

In the upper left hand corner you will see some links to other websites. Click on our new "Late Night Music Club" page or click here. We will be bringing on some music bloggers in the future to bring us new music and reviews and see where it leads us.

Anyway, welcome aboard.

Susy Madrak was the first blogger that was kind enough to give me some much needed advice when I first started C&L. I had no idea what I was doing back in '04 and I was emailing every blog out there a few times a day---trying to get a little traction for my video style. She explained a few things to me. What not to do so to speak. We've been friends ever since.

If you can donate a few bucks for her surgery that would be very cool.

We're getting closer to going live with our new site. The test server is ready so we can finally start practicing. I'll slowly add some new web pages on as we go along too like a dedicated page for the LNMC and more videos for your viewing pleasure at the 'Video Cafe,' along with Murray Waas' blog. He's got a new piece called:

"President Bush asserts executive privilege rather than turn over Cheney's FBI interview regarding Valerie Plame."

It will probably have a few bumps along the way as the servers get used to the new software platform, but that's standard fare. And we'll be adding some very cool bells and whistles like diaries and polls after we make sure everything is stable. Thanks to all our readers that donated to help make this happen. People power, baby....

I hope you'll donate a few bucks to help C&L work on our upcoming improvements to the site. I'll run it just a few more days next week...

We're using paypal and CC through them...Snail Mail checks to: Crooksandliars.com, PO Box 66310, Los Angeles, CA 90066. You can also buy C&L hats and coffee mugs here.

Do what you can.

Snail Mail checks to:

Crooksandliars.com, PO Box 66310, Los Angeles, CA 90066

You can also buy C&L hats and coffee mugs here.