Endorsements and Such
OK, folks, you’ve only got a few days left to vote in the 2005 Weblog Awards. While these awards were originally intended to be the ultimate in right-wing circle jerkery, many lefty blogs are either in the lead or are close to leading in several of the major categories. [G-Love adds: In fact, we’re blowing the right-bloggers out of the water in category after category — but as we know, if the WingNet is good at one thing, it’s launching a coordinated, unified response to stuff just like this. It would only take one organized Freep to turn sweet victory into bitter ashes for many of our mutual pals here. (And the rules are that everyone can vote once per day, in all categories.) So we find ourselves in the unusual position of acting as a positive force in the blogosphere. Forgive us; we’re usually much worse than this, really. Let’s left-blogpile ’em, peepz!]
Here are my personal endorsements:
–Best Weblog: In an ideal world, I’d say to vote for Kevin Drum. But since he doesn’t stand a chance of winning, I gotta go with Kos, who is already kicking some serious ass. So por favor, send a vote his way, or else Michelle Malkin, a.k.a. the Most Despicable Person in America, will win. *shudder*
G-Love adds: I’m voting Atrios, because if we don’t suck up to him, he’ll keep linking to The Poor Man all the time, and not us. The pain of that is immeasurable.
–Best Group Blog: I’m actually a fan of Reason’s Hit & Run, but since I’m being a hack today, I’m gonna vote for our buddies over at Pandagon.
–Best Humor/Comics Blog: It’s gotta go to General JC Christian. Every day the General writes pants-pissingly funny letters to America’s most prominent right-wing kooks, and he deserves recognition for his valor in the War Against Wingnuttery. (Plus, I don’t want that creationist douchebag who draws Dilbert to win.)
G-Love adds: I’m down with Fafblog on this one. He doesn’t stand a chance of winning, but if he can beat the ‘conservative humor’ site IMAO, the world will be that much righter.
–Best Liberal Blog: World O’Crap, baby. S.Z. somehow summons the strength to read more hard-core wingnuttery every day than most of us do in a month. We salute her brilliant efforts.
G-Love adds: TBogg also deserves a prop, although he won a Koufax awhile back and it’s all been a swirl of red-carpet receptions and armored limousines since then. It’s not about the Benjamins for S.Z.
–Best Video Blog: Crooks and Liars. Is there any doubt?
–Best Canadian Blog: None of them. The winner should be Adam Yoshida.
–Best Religious Blog: Again, none of them. The winner should be Pastor Swank.
–Best of the Top 250 Blogs: There are some fine choices here, but Jane at FireDogLake deserves mad props for her work on the Plame affair.
G-Love adds: And Digby is rocking the totals as well — a tough decision, even Pyrrhic. Moving right along, we find ourselves at the…
–Best of the 501-1000 Blogs: Sadly, No! ally Roger Ailes.
G-Love adds: And also Needlenose, currently in second place — another tough decision since their styles are so different. I’m splitting daily votes between them, but it’s good to see Ailes with such a massive lead over the rest of the field (of thirteen right-wing blogs and one that’s apparently about optical illusions).
Best LGBT Blog is a much tighter race and a total must-win, with Pam’s House Blend in the lead and a right-wing tag-team of Gay Patriot and Brat Boy School close behind. (Thanks, D. Sidhe!)
One vote per-day, per-voter means a volatile field that could change at any time, so even in the categories where we’re romping on ’em, this is one occasion where it really is good to vote early and often.
Added: In the Best European Blog (non UK) category, we would strongly suggest voting for No Pasaran, for no other reason than to prevent the insufferable David’s Medienkritik (Germany’s equivalent of Brent Bozell) from winning. –Seb
I’m truly hurt that you didn’t suggest that the best religion blog should be mine.
PZ- You’re terrific, man, but ain’t no way you can compete with Pastor Swank. It’s like Lebron James playing one-on-one with Jesus.
Does Dr. BLT have a blog?
Cam’ron- Not really. His blog is his song.
Damn, that’s Elton John-y
Gav- Yeah, Digby’s an excellent choice too, as is Orcinus. From the right side, I’d go with Drezner and Balloon Juice. Unsurprisingly, all of ’em are on our blogroll.
G-Love?
Best LGBT? Pam’s House Blend.
Best Videoblog?
Crooks & Liars.
Frankly, there’s dozens better religious blogs than anything on their list, but I suppose it’s all in how you define “religious”.
I’ve split my votes between S.Z. and TBogg, but it’s a tough call. I mean, last year TBogg didn’t get that Koufax, and he swore to make his blog all-Jonah fanfic-all the time.
Since then it’s been a paltry smattering, though high quality badfic when it happens.
I’m hoping if he gets shut out this year, he’ll give us VBen/Jonah.
What? Is that so wrong, really?
Oh, okay. I guess it probably is.
fafblog is a genius blog. nobody can do what it does, but the General stays in character so well, and it’s the little things with him- like the fact that Ofjoshua cries and throws up when they have sex. Or when the demon possessed her and she wrenched Harry Potter away from him and he had to read it in the crawl space.
Yeah, I have a little crush on both of them.
Brad, have you read balloon juice lately? Ugh. UGH!
Pinko- yeah I have:
I don?t know if this is true, but I have every reason to believe it (*** Update *** The Carpetbagger reports the timeline). This administration has been insular, resentful and disrespectful of those who disagree with them, and arrogant since the get-go. In many regards, they remind me of the typical mob family, where fealty to the capo and loyalty are cherished over everything else.
Again, you can call Cole arrogant and rude (he’ll admit that himself), but he’s not a partisan hack.
I was over there for a little bit and he was in false analogy mode so it kind of pissed me off. They did have a thread about the first record you actually bought yourself, and Pinko did pipe up with some incredibly embarrassing tidbits.
Brad- I have a song for you- it is the ultimate hack song in the history of songs. It reminds me of cynical corporate propaganda. I know you will love it- based on who sings it (not BLT!!!!!!!)
PP- are you on Instant Messanger? Shoot me an e-mail with your screen name. I’m at work now, so I can’t download songs onto the computer I’m using, but I’d love to hear it when I get home.
Best religion blog has to be The Raving Atheist.
Allow *me* to be a hack for a moment.
Is it cool to support this context? Obviously, the creators of it hope to trump the Koufaxes, which is fine, but..
It’s plainly weighted to favor wingnut blogs, but include just enough lefty blogs to present a veneer of fairness and bi partisanship.
I think Roger Ailes had the right idea: just vote for misha and make it look as bad as possible.
these contests should be upfront about their partisanship. this one is not, especially with so many lefty quasi-endorsements giving the contest legitmacy.
just my two cents.
context=contest. oops.
It’s plainly weighted to favor wingnut blogs, but include just enough lefty blogs to present a veneer of fairness and bi partisanship.
I think Roger Ailes had the right idea: just vote for misha and make it look as bad as possible.
Actually, the fact that it’s weighted to wingnut blogs makes it easier for the lefty blogs to win, since we have less choices to vote for. I say, piss ’em off and vote for the left-wing blogs. It’ll be fun, esp. when they have to announce that Kos has won for Best Blog.
RETARDO- but they f*cked up, they only included some token lefties, that means they don’t split the lefty vote.
oh yeah, what brad just said. maybe I shouldn’t take so long to lovingly craft my comments
PP- I’ve been getting into Sigur Ros big-time lately. If you like lush, melodic soundscapes, you should check ’em out.
I’m all over those bad boys. Although I only own an album and an EP. Saw them at Berklee, accoustics were great, less legroom than Fenway and no air circulation, I was borderline unconscious the whole show.
Just for the record, here are some of my picks:
New Blog – Orac’s Respectful Insolence
Group Blog – Think Progress, a slightly random pick
Humor/Comics – Fafblog! As much as I like JC, it is the world’s only source for Fafblog! – and the General seem to be getting plenty of votes, anyway.
Liberal – So far I’ve split my votes evenly between s.z. and TBogg.
Media/Journalist – James Wolcott, naturally.
Culture/Gossip – Go Fug Yourself, another no-brainer.
LGBT – Pam’s House Blend
Military – Intel Dump – don’t read them that often, or agree with them for that matter, but it’s a decent place.
Video – C&L, of course.
European – As European Tribune wasn’t nominated, I had been sticking with Fistful of Euros, although they’re a bit too libertarian for my tastes. Hadn’t noticed how far the dreadful Medienkritik had pulled ahead, though. No Pasar?n it is.
Top 250 – I’ve been splitting my votes between Digby and Jane something like 2:1. If neither of them had been nominated, Dan Drezner and Orcinus would be good choices, too.
Top 251-500 – Three viable candidates here, both S,N!, B?rub?, and Harry Hutton are on my daily reading list.
Top 501-1000 – Roger Ailes
Top 1001-1750 – Language Log, if only because it appeals to my particular brand of nerdiness.
And then again, skimming through their site, I find that I had mercifully forgotten just how vapid those No Pasar?n-people are. I don’t think I can vote for them with a clean conscience, even if it serves the higher purpose of annoying David Kaspar. I’ll stick to AFoE.
Let us not forget to vote in “Best New Blog”. I don’t care who, just anyone but our dear friend “Atlas”…
Unless you kids want the insufferable Tim Blair to romp home in the Oz category, you might want to throw a vote in the direction of Deltoid or John Quiggin. Assuming you care – I’m not sure I do.
Some picks in the categories less well travelled:
Law: Law Dork
Canadian: CanConv
UK: Bloggerheads
Australia and NZ: John Quiggin
6751 – 8750: D Flat Chime Bar (like a couple of other selections, this category has all right-wingers except this apolitical blog)
GG: That’s where Orac comes in. Check it out, he’s fun.
And I say again:
G-Love?
Or do I just not want to know. You boys have been taunting the Limp Bizkit fans again, haven’t you.
D- it’s G-Love and Special Sauce. “I like cold beverages”
Orac is great he leans a little conservative but in the old school sense, probably fiscally, but he is completely honest and he does a great “skeptical blog” and he is very informative.
I also love Tim Lambert (Deltoid)- he takes on conservative quacks like Michael Fumento, John Lott and John Brugnell. He also deals with conservative anti-environmentalism and global warming. basically the shitty science that they trot out. And he always catches them using sock puppets and lying about it.
That’s funny, Andy Partridge of XTC just said what I was going to say.
I have a lot of respect for old-style conservatives at this point, to be honest.
I’ll take a peek at Tim Lambert, despite the fact that the last thing I need right now is another blog to read.
Ah, well. What good is an information society if you don’t have information overload?
I’m *absolutely* not asking for clarification on the special sauce thing. Apparently there are hidden threads around here I miss completely, or else I just abandon old ones too soon.
is hategun nominated for anything?
What the fuck is with that guy in the Best of the Rest who has thousands of votes?
Can I just point out that, while the General has a healthy lead of three thousand and a bit over the Adams the ID apologist, Fafblog is currently only nine votes ahead of IMAO?
Thanks for the tips, I like the blog, I’ll be back.
I’m pulling a Nader on the Best Comedy blog and voting for Achewood.
Isn’t there a category for Most Persecuted Troll?
Boy, I really must have crashed the party over here with that last post. Hello! Is anybody out there?