Thanks readers! You put Grits in Wampum's Koufax final!

Wow, that's cool. Grits has made the finals of Wampum's Best-of-the-Left "Koufax Award" for the category of Best Single Issue blog (the Texas Justice System). Charles Kuffner nominated me, so thanks both to him and to readers who voted. Go here to vote for Grits using the comments section at the end of the post, and check out the other fine blogs listed there, too. The finals list is filled with real heavy hitters. Having only been up and running for a little over four months, it's quite an honor to be listed on the same chart with folks I read and respect like Jeralyn and Juan Cole.

I've gotten a lot of nice compliments recently on the blawg, all of which I appreciate a lot. And I'm gratified to note that Grits had its 20,000th visitor sometime yesterday (since I added the site meter on 10-28). But perhaps the best compliment Grits received this week, after making Wampum's finals, was from Doc Berman of the Sentencing Law and Policy blog, who called my coverage of Texas' sentencing issues "masterful" (even if he did alter the quote he chose to omit the honorific Grits has playfully adopted for him -- he's not really a Ph.D., he protests). I appreciate that. I'm sometimes writing about some very obscure stuff, and often wonder how many people really care about the ins and outs of the prison budget or how proposed probation legislaton would work. It's nice to know somebody with some chops on the issue thinks what I'm doing is valuable.

Anyway, blogging will be light today, so head over to Wampum to vote for Grits to be Best Single Issue Blog on the Left, then come back and check out the good stuff I put up for you over the weekend. And thanks for stopping by.

UPDATE: Wampum's site was down for a bit and the links didn't work. It's back up now, though, so if you tried to vote and couldn't, please give it another shot. Thanks, sh