Society

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Happy New Year to all of our blog community from around the world. I get to celebrate both New Years and my anniversary on the 31st. Leslie and I eloped in Alexandria Virginia on New Year’s Eve in 1997. (We disagree on the number for celebrating since I count the 8 years that we dated — making this our 27th. Leslie takes a more technical approach in counting only those years after our marriage). As has been our tradition, with the start of 2017, I thought I would share a few of our annual statistics and successes on the blog.


It has been another banner year on the blog. Thanks to all of our regulars and particularly our our talented and popular weekend team of guest bloggers: Mike Appleton, Kimberly Dienes, Cara Gallagher, Larry Rafferty, and Darren Smith. We are closing in on 31 million views and we remained in the top legal blogs in the world. I can now give some figures on our last year.

In 2016, we had over 3 million hits. Our top regular commentators for the last 1000 comments were:

1. Paul C. Schulte
2. DesperatelySeekingSusan
3. Brooklin Bridge
4. Michael Aarethun
5. Po

In addition to the United States, our two leading contributing countries were again Canada and Great Britain among 226 other countries. Our top ten countries outside of the United States were:

1. Canada
2. United Kingdom
3. Germany
4. Australia
5. France
6. India
7. Netherlands
8. Ireland
9. Mexico
10. New Zealand

The most popular post in 2016 was The Clinton University Problem: Laureate Education Lawsuits Present Problem For Clintons [Updated]

That blog was followed in popularity by the following (including one of Darren’s posts):

2. Suspending Students For Odor Of Marijuana On Their Persons Problematic In Legal States (Darren Smith)

3. 10 Reasons The U.S. Is No Longer The Land Of The Free

4. Washington Post Issues Correction To “Fake News” Story

5. Texas Teachers and Police Launch Absurd Investigation After Eighth Grader Paid for Lunch With $2 Bill

We finished 2015 with over 650,000 comments.

Thanks again everyone for making this site and 2015 such a great success!

Best wishes for the New Year!

Jonathan Turley

42 thoughts on “HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!”

  1. Happy New Year to one and all and Happy Anniversary, Professor. Looking forward to a new year.

  3. Happy New Year everyone! Thanks to Professor Turley and Darren Smith for all their posts and effort in maintaining this blog!

    1. I’m a little confused on dates regarding the most popular posts of 2016. Number 3, 10 Reasons The U.S. Is No Longer The Land Of The Free links to a 2012 article (with comments date stamped 2014???). Granted, it’s a real pip of an article, but not one posted in 2016 – at least not based on that link.

      Could there be another updated post in 2016 on the subject?
      The same article appears in a 2015 post with the same comments (cursory glance).

      Perhaps only the first post is specifically of 2016 and the others are from a larger part of the total archive?

      I know, I know, nit picky at best.

  4. Happy New Year to everyone. I’m extremely pleased to put 2016 in the rear-view mirror and anticipate 2017 to be truly unique in so many ways.

  7. Happy New Year and Happy Anniversary, Professor Turley!

    I, too, count the years my husband and I dated. You have a lovely family (the World Series goat story was excellent).

  9. Happy New Year !

    As an interesting note, you all might have not noticed but you were blessed with a longer year in 2016.

    2016 added a Leap Second at the end of the year to align UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) with UT1 (Mean Solar Time.)

    Twenty-seven leap seconds have been added since 1972.

    It is estimated that 2017 will not have a leap second added, so you might want to adjust your busy work schedules to compensate.

    You can see and hear the new year leap second on the below video. The videographer merged two internationally recognized atomic clock time references–WWV radio in Ft. Collins, Colorado, and CHU in Canada. At the lower left of the screen the time clock is from WWV’s website, which will show the leap second as 23:59:60 ! If you are very familiar with WWV, you can hear the leap second between the tones.

    WWV will be heard on the left stereo channel and CHU on the right.

    Be sure to advance the time slider, as the video begins about 40 minutes prior to the zero hour.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqWP4GXVQ-g

    Another interesting tidbit: in the film The Empire Strikes Back, the makers utilized numerous sounds found on short wave radio as background noises. Note the CHU signal at time interval :31 to 40 on the above video. You can hear this CHU element, which sounds like a high-pitched fluttering whistle, in the Hoth Rebel Command Center of the movie. Listen at 02:15 for this effect.

    1. Darren – first thing I noticed when I woke up was that I had slept a second longer. I felt so much more refreshed. They should do this every year.

  10. Happy New Year to all. I say my gratiudes every day –
    1. I am grateful for my health
    2. I am grateful for my family and friends
    3. I am grateful for nature – sunsets & sunrises, rainbows, rain, lightening, snow, etc
    4. I am grateful for my comfort level
    5. I am grateful for my Ambien

  11. I am on the East Coast and the fireworks are over with and have been for a half hour. The wildlife is upset with the noise and particularly with the duck hunters blasting away at them. Last year was good. This year will be better. We have a new future based on our decision at the election. Go with the flow. I hope to get out of the swamp as it is drained. I just want my medical care not to be taken away. I am not in favor of monopoly medical capitalism where the doctors, pharmacists and Indian chiefs steal all our money. Other than that issue the Trumpster should go at it.

  12. Happy New Year and Happy Anniversary, JT.
    THANKS for your columns.
    Also, Happy New Year in a few minutes for those on Pacific and Mountain Time…those who live in the ” best part” of the country.

  17. Objectively speaking it’s been a good year in the one hour 53 minutes left for my time zone. This makes you a year older than me. I’ll be asleep when the ball doesn’t drop but then you get to celebrate again first in line on the 20th. Not fair? Well A is A.

    Cheers and Happy New Year.

    Michael Aarethun

    1. You’re like a blog celebrity, Michael! Happy New Year from a fellow sailor…

      Happy New Year JT and all!

      1. Thanks for that compliment and enjoy all the days and nights, sunsets and sunrises we get to enjoy that others miss.

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