A big thanks to Skippy and Tacitus for their support, even when they disagree with our positions. Disagreement is fine, personal attacks cheapen the commenter and feed the opposition.

Damn Foreigner has moved so please update your bookmarks. Mark Kleiman too.

Congrats to Atrios and Daily Kos who have had 1 million unique visitors for the month of September--records for both sites. We always begin our blog day by reading both of them--it's no surprise that the rest of the politically-oriented news world does too.

TalkLeft had its one millionth unique visitor early this morning. We began stat counting on June 22, 2002. There have been 1,611,409 page views in that time.

Unique visitors are not the same as hits. For example, for the month of September, 2003, we've had 89, 111 unique visitors who have made 204,720 visits and viewed 431,961 pages. Hits just for September, 2003 so far number 865, 506.

The blogs and internet news sites referring us the most visitors for the month of September are Atrios, Warblogs.cc, Instapundit, Daily Kos, Buzzflash and Cursor. Thanks, guys!

According to Blogstreet, today we are the 11th most influential blog and the 66th most popular blog.

Most importantly, thanks to all of you who have read and supported this site with words of encouragement, links and donations. Tommorrow is our (the author's) birthday so we feel like hitting one million today is an extra present.

One of our stat programs gave these meanings to the various terms:

It's Bill O'Reilly Day around the blogosphere with many bloggers writing as O'Reilly today. Atrios has outdone himself. Don't miss it.

Congratulations to Atrios. Eschaton recorded its 5 millionth visitor today.

Atrios asks you to express your congratulations by donating to the DNC.

We'll do the same. We're small potatoes by comparison, but TalkLeft will hit the 1 million visitor mark sometime tomorrow morning (And 1,700,000 page views. Since June, 2002.) Boot Bush in 2004, give early and give often.

Our Altercation column is up. A big thanks to Eric for asking us to fill in for him today.

We'll be altercating over at MSNBC's Altercation Wednesday, filling in for the moving Eric Alterman. Don't forget to stop by. Charles Pierce fills in today--taking on John Ashcroft and his fervor for the death penalty, among other topics. Charles is a tough act to follow, but we'll give it our best. As he points out, altercating is a far better job than moving Eric's boxes.

Atrios is a prince. Our prince.

My laptop is on its last leg. I spend so much time blogging, I really can't afford to buy a new one. I know from TalkLeft's stats that we have many readers at major computer companies. If one of them would like to send me a new, light-weight laptop (so I can keep blogging when I travel), I'll be glad to write a review and feature it on TalkLeft and give the company a free ad for several months.

Private donations, anonymous or not, also accepted--just click on our wishlist to see -- although any brand will be just fine.

Update: I'm speechless. Absolutely speechless. And that's pretty rare for me. My wish list is showing that someone has bought me the laptop I wanted. I am very, very grateful. Whoever you are, thank you. If you included a note with the order, I will thank you properly as soon as Amazon lets me know who you are. If you sent it anonymously, please know I am in awe of your generosity (and hoping you don't change your mind!)

Don't forget to check out the new DNC blog, Kicking Ass. And donate to the Carville & Begalla Challenge.

Say hello to the DNC's new blog, Kicking Ass. This entry from yesterday is on Ashcroft's assault on librarians. [link via Atrios.]

And to The Drug War Rant, where you can stay up to date on the Government's latest follies in the War on Drugs.

Update: The site has moved here.

We love this website called Nobody Died: When Clinton Lied. It has pictures of road signs spotted across California by camera-equipped drivers. You can send your submissions to them to post. Just send the picture, the date and the intersection.

Reader Scarlet Pimpernel emails us that the signs appear to be the work of one group, and he spotted one today, about 10'X10', over the Santa Monica Freeway that read:

"Dear America, Thanks for all the money, sorry about your kids. - Halliburton Oil"

on one side,

and "Nobody Died when Clinton Lied" on the other.