My Blogroll is Lame

When I switched awhile back to the current template on the free Blogger software I use to run Grits, the by-hand html in which I'd previously coded all my links didn't transfer easily into the new template's format, and as a result it's become a pain in the butt to manage the blogroll; over the last year or so I've virtually quit doing it.

As a result, quite a few links in Grits' sidebar are outdated, some good new sites I enjoy have not been added, and sites that ceased publishing or changed focus were never excised. In several cases, because I failed to promptly update my blogroll, I lost URLs from folks who notified me by email of excellent new blogs after an egregious computer crash. (My apologies to all thus snubbed.)

One of my goals for the summer will be to clean up this mess and update the blogroll in a systematic way. Before I get around to that, however let me point out several sites that merit Grits readers attention:

TYC employees have begun a bulletin board to discuss issues related to facilities and personnel. I'd encourage them to use it and hope it becomes a robust alterative to using Grits comments section for the same purpose.

Michael Landauer at the Dallas Morning News has launched an exclusively death penalty focused blog, to which I can only say, "Better you than me, amigo." He joins the Stand Down Project blog covering that beat.

I've linked to a few posts from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals blog but have neglected to add it to the sidebar; it'll be among the excellent blogs added in this summer's overhaul.

Bobby Frederick's South Carolina Criminal Defense Blog needs to make it onto the out of state list. I've been reading his stuff fairly frequently.

Steven Hirsch's Courthouse Confessions undertakes an especially cool project, interviewing defendants at a New York City courthouse. This one published Monday quoting a student arrested for graffiti struck me as interesting because in Texas he'd be charged with a felony (the tagging episode was at a university). Another adamantly maintained innocence in the face of what he said were false eyewitness reports.

The Crime Report, by Ted Gest and Co., is another site that needs to make it onto the list.

Finally, though off topic from the subjects Grits covers, since the financial meltdown began I've been reading a couple of good economic blogs pretty regularly: Calculated Risk and Naked Captialism.

Before too long I'll be adding these and other excellent blogs to Grits' sidebar and updating links in the blogroll. Be sure to let me know any other additions you think merit consideration.