This afternoon, the blog passed 12,000,000 all-time hits. While still smaller than some of other sites in the top ten legal blogs, we just passed 11,000,000 not long ago and we have continued to grow. I am very proud of our community and our attempt to offer a place for civil and responsible conversation. I encourage our regulars and visitors to continue to avoid the personal attacks and name calling common elsewhere on the Internet.
The continued growth of the site shows that our approach to blogging resonates with a good number of people. I continue to be concerned in reading comments that take personal shots and use insulting language. I hope that the recent debate over civility in legal blogging will reaffirm the need of our regulars to avoid insults and personal jabs. If you do not like a person’s take on a story, there is no need to characterize the writer or the writer’s motivations. Let’s deal with the ideas and leave the ad hominem attacks to other sites.
Thanks again for making the site such a great success.
Here are the list of countries represented by viewers and commentators on the blog with the first being obviously the most prevalent:
Country Views
United States
Canada
United Kingdom
Germany
Sweden
France
Australia
India
Philippines
Ireland
Singapore
Jonathan Turley
GeneH,
Re your comment to pete.
As Scali claimed, interrogated combatants are not sentenced (yet), and thus their treatment is not controlled by the “cruel and unuaual punishment” clause. Scali finds a way to defend torture in interview on public media linked from here.
gbk,
let’s do it in the spirit the Professor encourages.
You challenged my way of posting. I will re-post your challenge and then will give you a short tactual reply without the usual crap that is thrown aroung. Spirit: tho help you undersatan only.
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idealist707, (YOU QUOTE ME) (MY REPLIES)
“But how many assistants will he need, none of whom are involved here at the blog, and otherwise not have to recuse themselves? (who is that honest, not many at the Sct.)
His time is Congress’s time, and others wait in the queue.
I’d nominate him for president, he stands firmly for freedom of speech, as opposed to many who post here enjoying his largesse. However, I believe he lacks the killer instinct necessary to the job.”
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What job does JT lack the “killer instinct” for, idealist707?
(PRESIDENT OF THE USA, SEE MY TEXT BEFORE IT)
I’m working backwards through your post, as I’ve learned that they read better this way.
(NO QUESTION FOUND.)
Are you not one of the many who post here enjoying JT’s largesse?
( YES, AND I PRAISED JT FOR SUPPORTING FREEDOM OF SPEECH. SOMEONE ELSE HAD JUST SPOKEN IN FAVOR OF CENSOR. I THEREFORE SPOKE NEGATIVELY TO THAT PERSON’S USING FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND DENYING IT TO OTHERS IN THE SOLUTION THEY PROPOSED.
AND THAT IS WHY I AM HERE. TO HOPEFULLY HEAR FREE, UNTRAMMELED SPEECH, NOT CHILLED BY THE ATMOSPHERE WHICH HAS DEVELOPED HERE— SOME PLAY POLICE HERE.
CONSIERING THE NUMEBER OF UNIQUE VISITORS 12 MILLION, THEN THE NUMBER OF SIGNATURES HERE ARE VERY FEW, I FEEL)
Writing in rhymes and riddles that are indecipherable to me.
(CAN NOT HELP YOU IF SPECIFIC ITEMS TO HELP WITH ARE NOT GIVEN, BUT YOU ARE WELCOME ANY TIME AGAIN.)
Posting to your own postings, digging the hole of your own myopia.
(DON’T SEE HOW THE TWO SENTENCE PARTS RELATE.
MY POSTING OF PARTIAL REPEATS OF INTRO IS DUE TO SYSTEM FAILURE AT WORD PRESS WHERE TWO “RETURN” KEYINGS ARE TAKEN AS A “POST” COMMAND, THUS DISPATCHING AN INCOMPLETE COMMENT. I THEN MENTION THE FACT IN THE NEXT POST INTRO AND CONTINUE THE ORIGINAL COMMENT UNTIL IT IS COMPLETE. I PRESUME THIS IS THE PROBLEM YOU ARE EXPERIENCING. IF YOU CAN FIX THE SYS PROBLEM, IT WOULD BE MUCH APPRECIATED)
A case in point: “His time is Congress’s time, and others wait in the queue.”
What does that mean, idealist707?
((HIS, JT’S, TIME MUST BE PRIORITIZED. CONGRESS I SUPPOSED HAD THE HIGHEST PRIORITY. AND OTHER SUPPLICANTS MUST WAIT.)
FEEL FREE TO RETURN WITH FURTHER QUESTIONS.
PS AM NOT SCREAMING, JUST TRYING TO DISTINGUISH MY TEXT FROM YOURS. DON’T KNOW ANY HTML TRICKS TO CHANGE FONTS OR COLORS, ETC.
Wisest damn thing said here in months.
Thank you, sir.
And note: nobody excepted. Including gueast bloggers.
I am sorry for dropping out of circulation but I was working on a brief all night and I am running to due this morning’s commentary on the Court. We have traced the ghost JT and found that it was a glitch on an iphone by one of our regulars and nothing more. That is a relief. Given the bizarre debate over whether civility is a good thing recently, the faux message worried many of us. I do want to reaffirm what has been said here; we need to resist the temptation to name call and engage in uncivil attacks by newbies, regulars, or guest bloggers. There is no good excuse. Let it go. Don’t feed the trolls and don’t engage in tit for tat discussions. It drags down the dialogue for all of us. Not responding does not mean that the other person wins.
I am off for the Court coverage. This should be interesting!
Yes, the blog regulars are encouraged to avoid name-calling and to carry on with their more subtle forms of condescention and self-righteousness…
Lotta,
Sure.
GBK, ’cause that’s the meme: “Don’t be that guy” as in picture of some guy being derpy captioned “That guy” or the admonition on social media “Dude, don’t be that guy” or “He’s just being that guy”.
Lotta,
“Generally I ignore ‘that guy’. ‘That guy’ in the blawg variation of the humorous internet meme context- the guy that just doesn’t get it; the guy that is ignorant and aggressive about it; the guy that just looks for a sore spot and picks at it, the guy that is passive aggressive and directs it at various targets then says he’s being picked on; the guy that will write a generally well spoken and reasoned comment then throw in a sentence that is grossly and plainly insulting to the blawg in general and shockingly uncivil; that guy.”
Why is it only a “guy”?
LK,
It might be the spam filter catching you. It acts capriciously sometimes but I was just in it earlier today and didn’t see any posts from you, just the usual spammers selling something. Or it could just be a WordPress glitch. I’d suggest clearing out your cache files and seeing if that helps. It may also be a browser issue. If that doesn’t fix it, say something the next time a post vanishes on you and I’ll look to see if a filter caught it or if you simply vanished in to the WordPress fog.
Computer problems: I posted a comment this morning regarding Althouse’s postings, on a different thread. It was there briefly then disappeared. I didn’t break any rules but it was not a complimentary posting. Was it not civil enough?
I have ongoing trouble posting on Turleyblawg for a few months now. It may be an incompatibility with my system. Sometimes I can post easily though and comment a lot, and other times posting won’t “take”, I hit “submit” and the posting disappears.
The posting I made above I had a problem with. I was signed in, typed the comment and hit “submit” and was told to sign in. I did and the comment posted. Generally under those circumstances they are lost, I get re-directed back to the Turleyblawg home page.
This doesn’t happen to me on other blawgs.
The civility thing now has me concerned because the list of banned words is short and IMO arbitrary to the point of whimsy but I’ll abide with it, I only used a couple of them anyway. But It’s troubling to me that civility is now a hot issue. I agree with a posting on another thread that poked at the concept on the basis that it, in my understanding anyway, could enforce a veneer of legitimacy on ideas and ugly, insulting or accusatory comments by discouraging posters from confronting them directly. That is an issue.
Generally I ignore ‘that guy’. ‘That guy’ in the blawg variation of the humorous internet meme context- the guy that just doesn’t get it; the guy that is ignorant and aggressive about it; the guy that just looks for a sore spot and picks at it, the guy that is passive aggressive and directs it at various targets then says he’s being picked on; the guy that will write a generally well spoken and reasoned comment then throw in a sentence that is grossly and plainly insulting to the blawg in general and shockingly uncivil; that guy.
But, a less disingenuous and more direct response to that guy is easily considered as uncivil. Dredd’s posting up stream about umpires being likely to sanction the respondent of a foul is a good one. Obviously, at some point a response is so harsh or displays such an overbearing level of ‘talent’ in wordsmithing that it is unnecessarily ‘brutal’ but, in for a penny- in for a pound. A healthy dose of restraint in a direct confrontation is a good thing. I grant that. A failure to directly confront ‘that guy’ though in the name of some vague social convention, civility, allows ‘that guy’ to control the dialogue. That’s not right.
I’m going to have to struggle with the call to civility. I will probably use my Thanksgiving Day Behaviour rules, If your family members were arguing that way at Thanksgiving dinner would you want to be at the dining table with them? I’ll give that a try.
On a more personal note: You banned F***? !!! Really? I love that word, it’s the most versatile, nuanced, all purpose word in the English language. It even works as punctuation! Man, I’m gonna’ miss it. Srsly. 🙂
“A failure to directly confront ‘that guy’ though in the name of some vague social convention, civility, allows ‘that guy’ to control the dialogue.”
LK,
Well put and I agree. I admit that I’m intemperate in my responses at time, but it is for just that reason. I try hard to be civil at all times, but sometimes people really are purposely provocative. One of the tricks used is by characterizing a certain point of view while making a point:
i.e. “Obamabots” will approve anything he does no matter how unconstitutional.
Conservatives all don’t care about the Constitution
Phrases such as this get tucked into rather reasonable comments i a particular discussion on the thread. To me unchallenged statements like these
subtly change the tenor of the discussion.
There is also a tendency among certain regular commenters to use subtle attacks, disguised by their verbiage and then claim victim-hood when they are responded to vigorously.
All of this and more is part of the “warp and woof” of what has become the phenomenon of blogs and their attendant comments. I’ve said in the past that I wound up here after being deemed a reactionary at Democrats.com because I support Israel’s existence. With all the rancor here, I think that this blog is exceptional due to the overall quality of the discussions, quirky humor and yes even its’ civility.
Congrats! I like this blog. Good topics.
Usually good comments – I really dislike the nasty back and forth that sometimes happens. I find that when someone attacks me, if I don’t have a nice way to diffuse it, I ignore it. Attackers generally are looking for attention. Responding in kind just encourages more of the same and there you go. I’d say “we” go, but I generally don’t stick around for more of the same.
Professor, congratulations on the 12,000,000 hits. That’s an impressive number and well deserved.
Dredd,
“You did it … no I didn’t … you did it … no I didn’t … what did I do? …
At last — a referential post from Dredd without links!!!”
—————————————–
I meant “self-referential post.”
Oh well, at least there weren’t any links and lectures on how none of us understand the basic concept of threading data.
pete,
As much as I like the original L&O and L&O:CI, even I would think 12,000,000 hours of it would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
Congrats Professor Turley! 12 Million is an amazing number! Thanks for the opportunity to speak my mind!
Keep on rockin’ …
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDzL_WU3mmE&w=640&h=360]
gbk 1, June 27, 2012 at 8:09 pm
Dredd,
“You did it … no I didn’t … you did it … no I didn’t … what did I do? …”
At last — a referential post from Dredd without links!!!
============================================
Yeah, but who dunnit?
Professor Turley:
I don’t have the information in front of me so I am just speculating. You could look somewhere in the metadata or header of the email or post info and look for something to the effect of “Originating IP” it might look something like 72.233.2.58 (generally 4 sets of integers from 1-255) You might compare this IP address with some of the more recent posts and seed if there is an identical match with anyone who has posted using a more standard name. There is however the possiblity that two users, one legit and the other the spoofer and this would be because they are using the same gateway or firewall but it is not very likely.
You can also Trace Route the IP address to see where the origin might be. Generally from a windows CMD prompt you would type >>>
tracert 72.233.2.58 // where the IP address is the one you are interested.
The return will resemble the path the route took from you to the destination IP you provided. The numbers at the left will be the time each packet took to reflect back. This command is used in locating network bottlenecks among other things.
Dredd,
“You did it … no I didn’t … you did it … no I didn’t … what did I do? …”
At last — a referential post from Dredd without links!!!
You did it … no I didn’t … you did it … no I didn’t … what did I do? …