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.