It's that time of year again for the dreadfully misnamed 2004 Weblog Awards—the self-congratulatory self-aggrandizing but broadly named beauty contest for the right wing. It's very predictable: you know that drecky scum like Little Green Footballs will always bubble its way to the top, and that it will be so incompetently managed and designed that any clown who can write a perl script will bomb the vote, giving the winger nutcases a thousand opportunities to whine that the lefties are cheating again. As I mentioned on Norbizness, it really ought to be renamed the Wizbang Wacky Winger Awards so that there is no illusion that it is at all comprehensive. But do go vote there; they always include a few token progressives so they can pretend they are diverse. But don't be fooled. Last year, Michael Totten won the award for "Best Liberal Blog", which gives you an idea of how things work.

A better award system is the The EduBlog Awards, which recognizes the contributions of academic and educational blogs, and at least has the sense of perspective to limit their scope a little bit. They are also wise enough to have nominated Pharyngula in the Best Individual Blog category.

I'd tell you to go over there and vote for me, but gee, looking over the competition, there are a heck of a lot of really good sites listed there—many quality blogs, with no outrageous clinkers that I've found so far (unlike that other award site). So I'm going to suggest instead that everyone go over to The EduBlog Awards, browse around, check out all these interesting sites that aren't the usual boring blather, and vote for whoever you damn well please. I can tell my already excessive blogroll is going to have to bloat up a bit more.