Check out MSNBC's Altercation which we again guest-hosted today for Eric Alterman who returns tomorrow.

Our topics include the Democrats' need to take a sharp left turn (advice former President Clinton disagrees with;) cities passing anti-war resolutions on Iraq; a new study showing marijuana is not a gateway drug; a made for Court TV movie airing tonight on false confessions; and a final Shanghai update on technology.

Some corrections are in order to our guest blog on Altercation today, submitted from Shanghai.

First, in saving the html version of what we wrote to Word, so we could send it as an attachment to MSNBC, our computer (not MSNBC's, they are blameless) changed some dashes to underlines in the urls to two of the linked-to articles, and as a result those hot-links don't work.

Here is the correct link to the news story about China's about-face on AIDS .

And here is the correct link to the article, High Court To Review Race-Based Admissions

As to the Supreme Court review of the Texas sodomy law case, thanks to PG and KevDC for pointing out that the Supreme Court Monday agreed to hear the case (we incorrectly stated that arguments were held Monday)--and that Lawrence v. Texas is the name of the Texas case the Court agreed to hear Monday, not the name of the 1986 case previously decided by the court in a split ruling(we botched that one in our editing.)

So much for blogging from China before dawn and editing on airplanes....our apologies to all. We'll try to do better tomorrow when we are again filling in for Eric, this time from Denver.

Also, thanks to Instapundit for his warm compliment on our Altercation guest blog today (even though he, too, noticed our error but was kind enough not to mention it.) Instapundit thinks the Texas sodomy law is dumb and backs it up with a law review article he and Dave Koppel wrote in 2000 on state police powers in general with a particular focus on sodomy laws.

The article has many worth-reading quotes from actual cases striking down sodomy laws. Such as:

"The individual's right to freely exercise his or her liberty is not dependent upon whether the majority believes such exercise to be moral, dishonorable, or wrong. Simply because something is beyond the pale of "majoritarian morality" does not place it beyond the scope of constitutional protection. To allow the moral indignation of a majority (or, even worse, a loud and/or radical minority) to justify criminalizing private consensual conduct would be a strike against freedoms paid for and preserved by our forefathers. Majority opinion should never dictate a free society's willingness to battle for the protection of its citizens' liberties. To allow such a thing would, in and of itself, be an immoral and insulting affront to our constitutional democracy." Powell v. State, 510 S.E.2d 18, 27 (Ga. 1998) and

"Simply because the majority, speaking through the General Assembly, finds one type of extramarital intercourse more offensive than another, does not provide a rational basis for criminalizing the sexual preference of homosexuals." Commonwealth v. Wasson, 842 S.W.2d at 502 (Kentucky) and

"The usual justification for laws against such conduct is that, even though it does not injure any identifiable victim, it contributes to moral deterioration of society. One need not endorse wholesale repeal of all "victimless" crimes in order to recognize that legislating penal sanctions solely to maintain widely held concepts of morality and aesthetics is a costly enterprise. It sacrifices personal liberty, not because the actor's conduct results in harm to another citizen but only because it is inconsistent with the majoritarian notion of acceptable behavior." Wasson at 498.

Eric Alterman of MSNBC's Altercation has graciously asked us to fill in for him on Tuesday. Of course, we're delighted to do it. We're also flying home from China on Tuesday so this should be no small feat, but we're determined to make the column a worthy one. Since in one hour it will be Tuesday here (13 hours ahead of New York, 16 ahead of California) we're going to forego more posting on TalkLeft until we're back home.

China may be the most service-people friendly country we've ever been in. From the airport pickup which consists of a driver and a hotel staff person waiting at baggage claim to drive us to the hotel in a brand new Audi, to the reception people who showed us three rooms at check-in and gave us our choice, to the staff at the executive lounge who provide three meals a day and cocktails gratis along with big screen tv's tuned to CNN and every important newspaper and magazine we can think of, to the three 20-something year olds who just spent an hour in our room at 10 at night because the hotel's broadband server went down and they wanted to make sure we knew how to get dialup access in the interim--even though they don't speak English and we can't speak a word of Chinese--we are duly impressed.

Shanghai is rolling out every stop to get the 2010 World Expo--the papers here report that all the citizens, from the elderly to the working class to the college kids are in favor of it. It truly is a city of the future and wants badly to compete in every sense with New York, London and Hong Kong. In our book it already does. Business and the economy here are robust and China tends to build things with an eye towards what will be needed ten years from now. The streets are safe and so is the drinking water--parks are filled in the early morning with people doing T'ai Chi--the art museum is world class, Placido Domingo played here last night with two other famous tenors...we're even more impressed with Shanghai than we were last year on our first trip.

Thanks to Lisa English of Ruminate This for spreading the word on our take of the China AIDS epidemic--we have been a big follower of Lisa's since she began Ruminate This--she always has a new take on the topic of the day, and her writing ability is second to none in our opinion.

We'll be back here Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, and don't forget to check out Altercation Tuesday.

TalkLeft is blogging from Shanghai today. It is Saturday morning here, while it is dinnertime Friday in Colorado.

We were going to take a respite from blogging until our return on Tuesday, but watching the Asian edition of CNN on television provides an interesting perspective on world events and China itself is so fascinating that we have decided to report from here.

This is our second visit to this incredibly modern and technologically advanced city. We'll be back this afternoon, hopefully with some fresh insights. Our newsfeed will resume Saturday, U.S. time.

We last gave thanks on July 4th to those we've learned from and those who have encouraged and praised us. We're doing it again for Thanksgiving. We hope that if these blogs are not already on your daily reading list, they will be soon.

Some of our favorite bloggers have made especially nice comments about TalkLeft in their blogs the last few weeks. We'd like to thank them, and share some of their comments with you. These are blogs whose opinions we value highly.

Jeanne D'Arc of Body and Soul :

"I hope you already know that when legal issues are in the news (and, lately, that would be every day, wouldn't it?), the one site you must visit is the indispensable Talk Left . But if you haven't read Jeralyn's analysis of the case, you should."

Jim Capozzola of The Rittenhouse Review:

"If Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft knows so much about crime and criminal law, how come she’s not a ten-most-wanted criminal mastermind by now? Or is she? Just kidding. I’ve learned more about the law from Merritt, online and off, than I have from any other resource I’ve met, or encountered rather, online or off."

Daily Kos "Update: TalkLeft, the ultimate authority for all matters regarding crime policy, has her own extended analysis...." Kos is our arbiter of truth on all matters political--and he designed TalkLeft.

Jeff Cooper of Cooped Up: "I am deeply flattered to be included in the company of sites mentioned in the post. TalkLeft does a superb job of discussing criminal law issues from a left-liberal perspective."

Eric Alterman, who has praised us often, allowed us to help create the Altercation links list, and best of all, guest-blog for him while he was on vacation.

A very special thanks to Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit who mentions us far more often than we deserve.

Atrios, Cursor, The Hamster, Ruminate This, CalPundit and, of course, Skippy who mention and link to us more times than we can print here.

Buzzflash and Tapped for their permanent links to us.

Long Story, Short Pier , who just found us today and wrote:

"...a new favorite: Jeralyn Merritt’s TalkLeft, an excellent argosy of "crime-related political and injustice news," whether it’s riffing on what it was that Law & Order guy said, or contemplating the appalling microcosm found within Tabitha Pollack’s terribly contingent release."

And to those with differing points of view:

Vodkapundit, to whom we still owe a drink (if he would ever drive the 60 miles north to Denver) for being one of the first blogs to give us a link, and for having such panache in his own posts;

Jay Caruso of Daily Rant who said initially, "Check out her blog. I don't agree with much of what she says, but her blog is informative and contains links to very valuable resources, especially in the area of the law" and then a few days ago: "Another reason to read Talkleft. You may not agree with Jeralyn Merritt. She proudly proclaims to be a progressive (ie liberal) Democrat. But she's fair."

Tom of Just One Minute, who rarely agrees with us but reads, analyzes and contributes nonetheless;

Finally, and most important of all, thanks to all of you who read TalkLeft--you make it all worthwhile.

Have a great holiday. We'll be back in a few days.

Skippy has been carrying on a dialogue critical of bloggers who have tipboxes or paypal links on their blogs asking for donations. Skippy believes we should be asking people to contribute to charity instead. Many people have agreed with him in the comments sections of his various posts on the matter. Skippy's original and much more opinionated post on tipping is here.

Skippy says that he had trepidations about posting his "rant" as he calls it--in part because he was concerned that we, TalkLeft, would be angry with him since we accept contributions and he stresses what a fine blog we are:

"we try to have no regrets as we go through life, but we must admit that we are sorry if our little diatribe upset talkleft in any way, for she has not responded to our email. talkleft is a fine blog, even with a paypal link on it [ed. note: it is actually an amazon honor system link], and we highly recommend it to all."

So, we respond as follows:

"Skippy, we agree with SK Bubba too, when he says:

"This blogging stuff does cost money for hosting, bandwidth, software, and so forth, not to mention the time. I don't blame them for trying to offset the cost a little. So if you enjoy reading a blog on a regular basis and appreciate the blogger's efforts you should support them if you can. "

For those of us with paying day jobs, time is money and the time we spend blogging costs us money. Especially if we spend hours a day doing it. Contrary to your first post on the subject, many of us are published writers, not frustrated writers who can't get published elsewhere.

True, some bloggers are putting out only personal diaries, or tend to mostly recap what other blogs say, at little or no cost to them other than bandwidth, if that. But there are other blogs that are, for example, news resources shelling out real dollars for various subscription costs and for expensive news syndication software programs, with which they put out their own individualized daily newsfeeds that are a cut above free but more generalized news services like Moreover.com. Many blogs pay for advanced search engines; for linkchecker services that enable them to locate and repair broken links so their readers don't log on to dead webspace; subscribe to lexis or nexis or other paid financial or political services that they use in part for their blogs--to research topics, chronicle events, fact-check their statements and provide analysis that is more in-depth than what you get from an AP wire story--thereby gaining a reputation as a trusted resource--even to those who disagree with their conclusions or point of view.

As SK Bubba points out, contributions, are a way for regular readers of a blog to say, "Hey, thanks for what you are doing, we stop in here often and we appreciate you." Just as you tip for good service in a restaurant, why not tip for good service on the web? It's a way of saying, thanks for keeping us informed and we appreciate the effort you put into your blog.

We donate to blogs we read frequently either because they ask us to or because something they write on a particular day touches us or otherwise strikes a chord. Tipping is a sign of respect and appreciation.

Among blogs we highly respect who ask for contributions are Atrios, Daily Kos, and Instapundit.

We also give to charities and hope everyone does too. Why make giving to charity and tipping a few bucks to a blog an either/or proposition?

Skippy, we're not mad at you and we still read you every single day. That said, we now must return to our day job.

Welcome Back to Jim Capozzola of the Rittenhouse Review who was on blogging hiatus last week but has returned. As always, he provides a unique perspective that is easy to read yet thought-provoking - sometimes serious, sometimes entertaining, and sometimes caustic --on a variety of current issues.

We will resume blogging later tonight. In the meantime, we hope you will browse our recent posts, comment on a few and read the excellent blogs on the right.

There's been a lot of discussion this week about financial contributions to bloggers, starting with small-l Libertarian William Quick of Daily Pundit threatening to quit if he doesn't get donations, and Instapundit's agreement with Arthur Silber's article encouraging readers to contribute to bloggers they read regularly.

We agree that when you find a blog that you check in with frequently, either to see what's new or what they are saying, or because you appreciate their point of view and like the way they express it, donations are appropriate.

Our "tip jar" on the left asks for donations. We encourage them. We also really do need a new, lightweight laptop for the road so we can continue to blog and update our newsfeed when we're traveling, which we do quite frequently. So if you're a regular reader or browser of TalkLeft, we hope you will throw in a few bucks. [Or, if you are with IBM or Sony or other computer company, we'll be happy to accept a new laptop and in exchange, we will proudly display your company logo with a hotlink, here and on CrimeLynx.]

We are in the process of upgrading to MT 2.51 and experiencing some technical difficulties. We'll be back as soon as possible, so keep checking back.

Update: All seems to be working now except the search engine which we've taken off line until we can iron out the bugs.

A special thanks to Jim Capozzola at Rittenhouse Review for these very kind words about us today. (His permalink isn't working or we'd just send you there instead of reprinting.)

~~~~~
"If Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft knows so much about crime and criminal law, how come she’s not a ten-most-wanted criminal mastermind by now? Or is she? Just kidding. I’ve learned more about the law from Merritt, online and off, than I have from any other resource I’ve met, or encountered rather, online or off."

Thanks, Jim!

Martin Wisse has started Progressive Gold, a weblog reprinting the best of us leftist bloggers' posts on a daily basis. He got the idea from Nathan Newman's post on Why Blogs Matter, modified it a bit, and says:

"This new weblog is a first attempt at realising his vision, though somewhat differently from what he intended (for now). What I intend to do and will invite others to join me in, is to create a daily "Best of the Progressive Blogosphere" linklist. Each entry will consist of a single paragraph from the story linked to and a link to the story. That's all. There won't be any commentary, no expounding on what's happening in the world, no big thesises. Just links to the progressive blogposts you need to read today."

We like it. Martin would like Progressive Gold to be a cooperative effort, in the spirit of Blogcritics, or more like a e-magazine. If you'd like to participate, email him at proggold.cloggie.org.

We are pleased to be a recent addition to Stand Down, the NoWar Blog. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it's a blog with contributions from those on the right as well as the left who oppose an Invasion of Iraq.

As soon as we can catch our breath from the elections, we'll be contributing our two cents on why this war is a bad idea.