Blogrolls

I'm sure you've all heard the brou-ha-ha over the 'A-Listers' clearing out their blogrolls. Not that Kos or Atrios ever linked to us, nor do I care if they do or not, and I certainly have a grasp of reality to realize we don't hit the 'B-List' (according to Atrios' logic, by our Technorati ranking we're near the top of the 'C-List'), but just for your edification, we have one of the biggest blogrolls around and I like it that way. I link to blogs that don't link to us (if I like them), but I do put up a link to blogs who do, when I notice and if I like them (an email will get me to notice or you'll have to depend on me catching it when I go over site stats).

I realize people get traffic from us. While I don't think a link, or the loss of one, from us affects anybody's ad revenue, I believe the more information and opinion people are subjected to, the more intelligent decisions they can make. If I can introduce them to another voice, good for them and me. The only blogs I clear off the blogroll are ones where nothing new has been posted in months (might not seem like a long time to the average person, but a couple months is an eternity on the interwebs, especially in the politcal blogging world).

Atrios and Kos can do what they want. Their blogs and I don't care. But I don't sell advertising. Some people do to support their blogs and depend on links from bigger blogs to keep their traffic numbers up. Sorta seems to go against the values our side champions to pull the rug out from under a fellow blogger. Just sayin'.

And just to make sure we understand each other, my principles only extend to lefty and progressive blogs. If you have a conservative or right wing blog, you'll get a link from me when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Update:

Though not really related, I'm exploring the idea of setting up the Brain on its own server and getting away from Blogger and all the hosting services in general. I'm looking for information from people who've gone down this route regarding costs and technical issues I'd have to deal with as well as good reliable products I should consider. I figure if I have to lay out a couple grand for a server and domain name, it beats paying somebody a monthly fee and be subjected to bandwidth limitations and fees. Send me an email if you would.