Monthly Report – 2/1/2010

Politics Plus returned to the Internet on September 5, 2009 as a brand new blog.  Our first five months show an excellent  increase in activity after a great start..  As of Midnight we have had 33, 612 visitors.  Last month, we had 8,410 visitors, up 1,180 from December, an increase of 14.7%.  We also has 10, 134 page views, up 1,476 from December, an increase of  17.0%.  This averages to 271/327 visits/views per day, up 35/48 from December.  I’m most pleased.  After the normal December slowdown we’re forging ahead much faster than I had imagined.  Here’s a graph of February visits and views.

Here’s a graph of visits and views since we reopened.

Here’s a graph of how long people are staying while they’re here.  It covers only the last five hundred visitors.

And here is our most recent ClustrMap, last updated 1/17, showing our readers from all over the world:

Our 26,000th through 33,000th visitors, respectively, were Lisa G, Kay in Maine, Mark, Hillblogger, Stimpson, Jolly Roger, Hill and Mark.  You’ll find a special section in our sidebar honoring them and linking to their blogs.
We still have a Technorati Authority of 1, which means they have not updated us since the day they recognized our existence.  I applied five months ago.  How frustrating!  Although I have emailed them on several occasions, the only response I received is a automatically generated email saying that they will get to us whenever they get to us.  Someday (sigh).  According to Google Webmaster Tools, there are currently 5,065  external links to Politics Plus.  There are 169 external links to just our top five articles in January.   I think we are well within the B list range for popularity, but since that term is unique to Technorati, so to have that recognition, we’ll just have to wait for them to get off their imperial arses.  So please keep linking the articles you like here to your blogs, facebook pages, stumble upon pages, etc.  When you see material you like here, the operative commandment is: “Thou shalt steal!!”  Please do link back though.  Hat-tips are much appreciated.
I use the terms “we” and “our” while referring to Politics Plus. Since this is a one-person blog.  I assure you, I’m not doing so in the royal sense.  The we in Politics Plus includes all of you. Without your presence and comments, this blog would be pointless.  Newcomers repeatedly praise the quality of the comments here.  Whatever success this blog does and will enjoy is because of you, so please congratulate yourself.  Thank you all for another fantastic month.

Bill Maher: To Pass Health Care, Dems Should Be Against It

I don’t always agree with Bill, but he makes a good point.

President Obama made a point the other day in speaking at the Republican retreat to say he wasn't an ideologue, and while there was skepticism in his audience about whether that was true, there was agreement in both parties that not being an ideologue is a good thing.

Is it? Maybe the problem is that neither party has any ideology anymore -- its just all about getting the money you need to run commercials at election time, and being against whatever the other party is for. For example, why is the decision to have the trial of Khalid "Shake Shake Shake" Mohammed in New York a Democratic position, and not having it in New York a Republican position? Republicans are usually the 24 loving macho warriors. Isn't it the more macho position to be saying, "Damn right we're going to try them at the scene of the crime! We're going to make that bastard look at Ground Zero right out the window of the courtroom every day -- we're going to stick his nose in it like a dog who's made a mess on the rug: 'Look what you did! Bad dog! Bad!!'"? I can much more easily imagine Bill O'Reilly making that case than Obama.

And yet, because its the Democrats who suggested it, the Republicans automatically piss all over it and find themselves backing the opposite approach, then make up a bunch of stupid reasons why: it'll fuck up traffic in Manhattan; it'll be a platform for Mohammed to "mock" us… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Huffington Post>

If memory serves, ChickenHawk Cheney said that the way we tried Moussaoui in federal court was the way to do it, and Rudy 9/11 said the US system of Justice is awesome when the shoe bomber’s federal trial took place in New York.  What hypocrites!  Of course the GOP has only one agenda item, as the graphic illustrates.