Bump and Update: The site improvements have been completed. The site loads much faster. The comments are now fixed to remember your name and the shortcut buttons in the comments now work in Internet Explorer and Firefox. The blogrolls now are permanent rather than part of Blogrolling. The extended entry feature (when you click more) now begins with the part you haven't read yet, instead of bringing you back to to the top.

Mike Ditto spent over 12 hours on the site and did it all for free. I'd like to send him some paypal money, so if you're a regular user of the comments feature on TalkLeft, please consider chipping in. I could also use some contributions to help with the cost of renewal of some site-related subscription services that are coming due.

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Original Post:

We've been making some improvements to TalkLeft this week, thanks to Mike Ditto. We're now upgraded to MT 3.15. Mike has also offered to fix our comment template so it remembers your user name and you don't have to retype it every time.

Several subscription services also have come up for renewal. Reader donations help a lot, so if you are able to contribute, we really appreciate it.

• PayPal
• Amazon

During the three days I was gone, the trolls and chatterers have taken advantage. Since I want to return to posting and not have to spend time monitoring comments, I'm liberally using the delete key and banning offending IP addresses. For those who are limited to four comments a day, please know I will be strictly enforcing the limit and deleting excess comments.

Update: Additional description of troll comments appear on Daily Kos today:

"Trolling" refers to the act of intentionally making incendiary or offensive comments, in hopes of provoking an indignant response. The term is also applied to outright attacks on a community that attempt to make it unusable.

Thanks to Ian at The Political Teen who put up the video from my Connected Communities appearance today on MSNBC's Connected Coast to Coast. It's a 90 second or so report on what stories the blogosphere is covering. Today the topics were (of course) Terri Schiavo, specifically, what to do with her remains. The featured blog was Civil Commotion; Prozac and the Red Lake Shootings and TalkLeft's take on it; and pharmacists who refuse to distribute contraceptives to women, featuring TBogg's post (permalink not working, but it's at the top of the page.)

Update: In the segment on Terri Schiavo, I used Civil Commotion as an example of a site that contained the allegations against Michael Schiavo and information related to the Catholic Church and burial. What I missed was that the blog was disagreeing with the Schiavo allegations and correcting the false impression that the Catholic Church does not allow cremation. In an e-mail, Mr. Felton from Civil Commotion states that he was ridiculing the allegations and correcting the false information about the Church. My mistake, I read it too fast, too close to airtime. My sincere apologies to Mr. Felton. He, like me, was pointing out the ugly accusations surrounding the case, and was not in any way endorsing them.

It's been a long week. Your turn.

I'm off to lecture to a lawyers' group on using the internet for legal research and investigation. TChris is on vacation in Napa Sonoma Valley. Here's a space for you, have fun.

Yes, there are jobs in blogging. Via Steve Rubel and Micro Persuasion:

Want to get paid for thinking about blogging? There are plenty of blogging related jobs available via indeed.com. And there's even a feed to keep track of them.

[hat tip Daily Pundit.]

Have you been wondering how to get a link on Eric Alterman's Altercation blogroll? Eric has announced the third Altercation links contest:

Alter-links: It's time for another Altercation links contest. The blogosphere keeps expanding and it's easy to miss some really good sites. I've drafted Jeralyn again to take your nominations for blogs that should get the coveted slots on the right in our high-powered MSNBC.com blogroll.

Send nominations to her, not me, at alterlinks@aol.com. There's no point in stuffing the ballot box because once she's aware of your blog, it's "Merritt" driven. (Hint: Without a link to Altercation, don’t bother. Judge Jeralyn would probably appreciate a link too.)

We're getting a great response, there's still time. We'll be taking a look at every submission. The mailbox again is alterlinks@aol.com.

We'll be moving servers again tonight to a really big one. It should make the site load faster. If you have trouble accessing us in the next day or so, hit your refresh button or clear your cache.

If you'd like to help us out with site expenses, or just show us some appreciation, our tip jar is here.

This may not last long, so I better publish it while I can. Technorati's Top 100 Blogs list tonight:

95. TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime 2,483 links from 1,923 sources
96. Blogs for Bush 3,282 links from 1,921 sources

[Note, the number of sources determines placement.]

I've got stuff to do, some MSNBC and then the jail, so here's a place for you to talk.

There has been quite a dust-up in the MSM and blogosphere about, depending on your perspective, the lack of, or plentitude of, women political columnists and bloggers. I can't remember who started it, but the first post I read about it was this one by Kevin Drum. Kevin, who certainly is no chauvinist, later somewhat sheepishly noted his post didn't go over very well with women. (See the comments to his post. Mine, which basically sums up my views on the topic, is here)

Jude Nagurney Camwell of Iddybud has compiled a lengthy list of women political bloggers. Michelle Malkin provides her list of women bloggers today (I'm flattered that TalkLeft is listed in the liberal category.)

If you missed the entire discussion, Culture Kat has catalogued it, from 2002 through the present, as part of her dissertation which she describes as "a feminist rhetorical analysis of gender and blogging practices."

New York Times Columnist Maureen Dowd weighed in yesterday. One line that struck me:

Male bloggers predominate, as do male TV shouters.

Congrats to bloggers Jeff Goldstein (Protein Wisdom) and Bill Ardolino (INDC Journal)who have gotten a gig as radio show hosts on RightTalk radio. The program is “The Citizen Journalist Report”, billed as "An irreverent weekly look at blogging, politics, culture, society and various potato heads in government and the media." March 24 is their first show, and I've agreed to provide some "irreverent" legal analysis of the Michael Jackson case and whatever else comes up.

These RightTalk folks are clever. They've co-opted the domain "lefttalk.com." Many people have written me to let me know that when they try to access talkleft, they get sent to righttalk.com. Not exactly. These readers have transposed talkleft into lefttalk by mistake, and when you go to lefttalk.com you get sent to righttalk.com.

Nonetheless, I'm trying to figure out a way to get even. Any suggestions?