Curmudgeonly Blog Awards 2004 3 - The Dirty Batch

Random Pile of Shit Award
And the winner is the following random comment picked from a random post at Little Green Footballs:
The correct answer is to have a trial to determine if someone is involved, in any manner, with a terrorist group. If so kill them. The Royal Navy never had a trial as to which pirate fired the guns, because it was futile. Whether pirates, brigands or terrorists, simply belonging to the organization makes them a permanent problem, a problem that is only eliminated by their death. BTW, this is what we Americans should do to all those in Gitmo, and any other terrorist we capture. I, for one, would like a nice, public and messy execution (firing squad) to let the koranimals know that we mean business.

Periodic Shit Shower Award
And the winner is Glenn Reynolds. Every now and then the famed (in his own mind, at least) Instapundit stalwart links to Harry and provides a rush of comments demonstrating what war mongering shitheads are really like.

Do We Give a Shit if They Know it's Christmas Award
And the winners are those Samizdata boys for their every word on free trade and how those thin people deserve everything they don't get.

Curmudgeonly Blog Awards 2004 2 - The Next Batch

Arguing With Yourself Award
And the Winner is the Kid Cuthbertson, with his flexible attitude to human nature, depending on which side of the political divide it is being attacked from:
..the criticism is that Younge objects to the normal human impulse to see mothers as playing a unique role in their kids' upbringing, and to see heterosexuality as the normal standard, not one 'lifestyle choice' among many. That's what I mean by the Left's war on human nature.

...or did it give you a darker view of human nature, making you realise that, given the absence of a natural desire to be kind and considerate, maybe a shared sense of right and wrong can be an important thing, that stringent penalties for wrongdoers can be a good idea?

Whore's Knickers Award
And the winner is the comments section at Harry's Place. Caught between the strong desire to attract visitors with lively debate and the equally strong desire to keep quiet the fuckers who disagree with them, the proprietors of Harry's just don't know what to do with those pesky comments.

The Man They Couldn't Could Gag Award
And the winner is Tom Watson, incorrigible backbencher and blogger whose pioneering site stuttered to a halt when he joined The New Labour Whip's Office.

Curmudgeonly Blog Awards 2004

I'm getting mine in before the rush starts.

Voice of Reason Award
And the winner is Morgoth, Wiccan and vacuous commenter at Harry's Place with this little gem, which went virtually unchallenged:
Well, confirmation of what I have been saying for a long time - the so-called "anti-war" left hate the West so much that they have thrown their lot in with the islamic head-choppers. They are nothing but dhimmi binladenist useful idiots.

Libertarian of the Year

And the winner is Paul Coulam, commenter over at the Kid's, with this poignant reminder of what it is like to be so much better than everyone else:
When I did stand for Parliamnet in the 1992 General election I got a magnificent 125 votes. That was before I had fully realised the futility of democracy.

Onanist of the Year

And the winner is Stephen, pass the pies, Pollard:

...First, have a look at the url: stephenpollard.net It's a site, you'll notice, written by me. And it is focused on pieces wrtiten by me, of which my book is the largest I have ever undertaken. So guess what? I'm linking to pieces about the book.

Here's the second suggestion. If you don't like that - go somewhere else. There's a good few million other sites from which you can choose.

Yes, I'll be covering some other subjects soon, but at the moment my days are somewhat dominated by the fall out from my book, and that's all I've time to cover.

There. Got that off my chest.

The Guardian has a piece by Martin Kettle prompted by my book, which argues that...

Oliver Kamm Virtual Temazepam Award

And the winner, as ever, is our eponymous hero himself:
I turn ineluctably to the subject of the admirers of Professor Noam Chomsky. Members of that community spend much time and expend much effort in reassuring each other that when, a quarter-century ago, their hero intervened in support of the Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson he was disinterestedly and even heroically defending the principle of free expression. Readers who have followed the story from my earlier posts will know that that is nonsense. Chomsky defended the political legitimacy of Faurisson’s beliefs, and not merely the right to express those beliefs. He did this - inexcusably speculating that Faurisson was “a relatively apolitical liberal of some sort” – despite being fully aware that he was speaking of an antisemite and an apologist for Nazi Germany.

In the course of this discussion, I commented on a source of a type I would not normally discuss at all, viz. the weblog of a member of the community of Chomsky’s admirers. I made an exception in this case first because the blog in question was illustrative of a point I wished to make about the character of Chomsky's following (see below), and secondly because, to my perplexity, it cited me in Chomsky’s defence, by the seasoned expedient of quoting me out of context. Writers quite as obscure as I am have found themselves unwittingly transmuted into exhibits in the self-reinforcing mythology that Chomsky’s admirers construct for each other, and I was disinclined to acquiesce in a similar hoax through the excess of taciturnity for which my friends know me.

Because I described this blogger as a soft and hapless target, I feel it is only fair to refer my readers to his rejoinder, which I reproduce in full and as it is written...

More awards to follow, perhaps.

Arsiness and Old Politics

Despite the shaming daily occurrance of this little blog showing up un-updated on my RSS reader while everyone else posts effortlessly in a logorrhoeic orgy, I have - self evidently - not blogged for a while. I think this is because I am slowly sinking back into that apolitical state the majority of proper people inhabit. I still surf about in Bloggo Bloggo land, commenting occasionally, but the sheer arsiness of the politically active, even the virtual variety, is turning me off, just as it does everyone else. The new politics of the technological age is the same toxic blend of vitriol, arrogance and ignorance as the old and even less appealing because anyone can participate.

I need something to re-activate my interest, but all I can think of at the moment is a general slagging off of the arsiness of the usual suspects.

Watch this space. Or not. Whatever.