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Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Around the Blogroll and Elsewhere: Special 2008 Weblog Awards Endorsements Edition
Posted by Jill | 2:43 PM
Well, I didn't get nominated for a Weblog award this year. Not that I expected to, our readership is too small and I don't have the time to self-promote; not with a real job with deadlines and expectations and actual work to do that requires brainpower -- something I haven't had for a very long time.

I don't set a lot of stock in these things because the extent to which one gets nominated has more to do with your critical mass, how much you can get your readers to do, and how much you're willing/able to cross-promote. This is how the nominees for "Best Blog" are predominantly moneymakers like Gawker and HuffPo and Daily Kos and Politico, while others who slave away every day for little or no reward show up -- if they are lucky -- in the smaller categories.

But there are a few gems sprinkled in there, so here are some endorsements for those of you inclined to help out the little guys 'n' gals.

For Best Individual Blogger, it's no contest: Vote Driftglass or die. Drifty is a national treasure. He has a huge reader base, more respect than just about anyone blogging today, but he stubbornly sticks to the individual blogger model -- and there isn't a better writer on the Web.

For Best Humor Blogger, well, I enjoy The Comics Curmudgeon as well as anyone, but for sheer "Is it for real or is it satire" bloggy goodness, you can't beat the inimitable Jon Swift.

The Best Liberal Blog category is crowded with many excellent choices, and a few "WTF?" choices (Wonkette, Taylor Marsh). It's hard to vote against blogs like Hullabaloo and Talking Points Memo, especially since they are both invaluable resources for me. There are other choices, like Glenn Greenwald's Unclaimed Territory and Dave Neiwert's Orcinus that are THE places to go for commentary on Constitutional law and civil rights issues, respectively. But since just about everything that these guys write about comes down to who's in office at any given time, I have to go with Brad Friedman's Bradblog on this one, because no one covers the pathetic state of our electoral apparatus better.

For Best Political Coverage, you have a bunch of hold-your-nose choices, from the lunatic No Quarter on the left, where Larry Johnson is still scratching his head and asking himself, "Where DID I put that 'whitey' tape, anyway?", and the lunatic wingnuts over at Townhall on the right. But in this category, there is only one logical choice, and that is Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight. For in a year in which all the other pollsters were often wrong, Nate Silver was always there. James Wolcott put it best in his column in the current Vanity Fair:
No shiny arrow shot swifter and loftier from obscurity to quotable authority than Nate Silver, whose FiveThirtyEight.com site became the expert sensation of the election season. (Five hundred thirty-eight is the sum of electoral-college votes up for contention.) Crunching poll numbers until they sang with clarity, Silver, a managing partner and sabermetrician at Baseball Prospectus and a former Daily Kos diarist, made many of the old pros look as if they were stuck in the previous century, milking cows. Not only did his disciplined models and microfine data mining command respect, his prognostications hit the Zen mark on Election Day. “This uncanny accuracy is the equivalent of dropping a penny from the top of a 50 story building and landing it in a shot glass,” John Cole wrote at Balloon Juice. “This is sick accurate.” Silver also became an instant cable-news savant, his geek-genius glasses and owlish mien worthy of a Starfleet sub-adjutant whose quadratic equations coolly foil an attack from a Romulan vessel while the senior officers are frantically poking at their touch screens.

(Unfortunately, James Wolcott isn't nominated in any category.)

In the category of Best Sports Blog, please go show our own favorite, Metsgrrl, some love. After all, she is a Mets season ticket holder who has been screwed over by the Wilpons in their quest for luxury box income and she deserves a hug. But she's also a damn smart writer. But don't take my word for it, see for yourself.

If you're fond of military blogs, my favorite among the nominees is Army of Dude, which has nothing whatsoever to do with Todd Palin, so you're safe going over and voting for it.

My favorite Business Blog, New Jersey Real Estate Report, isn't even nominated. So do what you like for this one.

For Best GLBT Blog, well, since ModFab isn't nominated, he recommends a vote for JoeMyGod or Towleroad. My personal pick is Pam's House Blend.

For Best Science Blog, there's only one logical choice: Pharyngula (PZ Myers), who gets bonus bloggy love for this.

Best Pet Blog is a tough category, for how do you choose between Cute Overload and I Can Has Cheezburger? But while I'm always a sucker for Teh Cute, only I Can Has Cheezburger inspired a flock of Obama-related imitators. So I have to go with inspiration (and Ceiling Cat) this year.

For Best Major Blog (Authority over 1001), it's a toss-up between Balloon Juice and Tbogg. John Cole is a recent convert to our side and deserves some love, but Tbogg has basset hounds. It's a tough choice.

For Best Large Blog, I have to go with our good friend Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo, without whom we wouldn't be able to talk about Blogtopia, because yes, he coined that phrase.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, there are many more categories in which I didn't make an endorsement. In some cases, it's because I'm not familiar with any of them. In others, it's because there were too many excellent choices to pick just one. But if you're so inclined, check out our picks, and if you like them, click on the categories and cast your votes for them.

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Blogger Jon Swift said...
Thanks for your support. Alas, Wonkette has endorsed Comics Curmudgeon, which is winning by a landslide, and I've slid into sixth place. So I'm going with "it's an honor just to be nominated." An award that has overlooked your fine work can't be that important anyway.
1/8/09, 12:00 AM  
Blogger driftglass said...
Many thanks for the kindnesses. I too am looking ahead towards being mooshed like jelly, so I'm deliberating whether to go out like a gentleman Jon Swift-style, or in a more Jimmy-Cagney-in-White-Heat fashion.

Decisions, decisions.
1/9/09, 12:52 AM  
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