Last night's batch of updates included hal, once I installed that update everything seems to be fixed. I'm not sure about anyone else who chimed in, but the bug can be closed for me.
-- Hald won't start after latest updates https://launchpad.net/bugs/43962 -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs
