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.

Our reading suggestions for the rest of the day:

We highly recommend Avedon Carol on war stuff over at The Sideshow, Jim Capozzola's Rittenhouse Review tribute to Paul Wellstone, and Atrios and Lisa English's Ruminate This on just about everything.

Eric at The Hamster quotes the best of the progressive web today (as he does everyday), especially Ralph Neas on the Bush judicial nominees, Eric Alterman who is back from Europe, and Joe Conasen. My DD is doing a great job with election coverage and Skippy has the links to the pros and cons on ballistic fingerprinting.

Congrats to Daily Kos who has made his site meter public and had over 4,000 hits yesterday, and has started a second weblog chronicling his wife's pregnancy.

We are on our way home and will resume posting late tonight or tomorrow. LA was wonderful after our experience in Minn./Saint Paul last Friday. The only downside was lack of dsl or wireless so we couldn't post, surf around or even update our newsfeed as we would have liked.

We'll post on the swearing in of LA Police Chief Bill Bratton and the celebratory reception later, just wanted you all to know we have missed reading our favorite blogs, and thanks to Skippy for sticking up for us on the "editorial we" in the comments to our Wellstone post and thanks also to Eric Alterman for linking to it. We've had a lot of referrals from Liberal Oasis and Atrios, too.

We didn't disappear--we're in Minneapolis about to give a talk to criminal defense lawyers on....Representing the Despised Defendant in the Post-9/11 World. Could anything be more apt today given yesterday's arrests in the sniper case?

We're also over at Altercation today, guest-hosting Slacker Friday. Hope you enjoy it, Eric's back Monday. We'll be back here tonight. And on Fox News discussing the Sniper arrests Saturday at 5:30 p.m. ET.

In case you were wondering what the blogs covering the upcoming elections were going to do after the November 5 elections, here is Daily Kos's plan:

"After the election I will also be launching a collaborative blog called the Political State Report, featuring "correspondents" writing about political developments in their home states. My goal is to get writers from both the left and the right to cover all 50 states. If you might be interested in participating, please let me know."