One of the Australia Day events I didn’t catch up with until today was the announcement of the second (I think) annual Australian blog awards, run by Keks. Most of my favourites scored some kind of guernsey, including Barista (best Vic blog), Rob Corr’s Kick and Scream (best political and best WA), Troppo Armadillo (best NT and best group blog), Surfdom (best OS blog) and Gianna at She Sells Sanctuary (best personal blog). And this blog picked up the coveted “best blog in Queensland” award, beating off (sorry, couldn’t resist) Dawei’s House of Debauchery and Bee-yotching.
The left wing of Ozplogistan swept the awards, which is partly a reflection of who bothered to vote, but partly a reflection of the extent to which the left now dominates the virtual sphere in Australian politics, however poorly we may be doing In Real Life. When I started blogging in the distant days of 2002, right-wing bloggers dominated the scene. A year ago, I’d have said the balance was about the same as in the Australian electorate as a whole. Today, although there are some good right-wing and centre-right blogs, they are a distinct minority.
Anyway, thanks very much to Keks for taking the trouble to run this exercise. I know how much work goes into this kind of thing and I really appreciate it.
John Quiggin 
Well done, John!
Well I am demanding a recount, a swab, check the weights, a Royal Commission into bribery and corruption of the judges.
But seriously, congratulations to the winners, especially those from Queensland and Tasmania!
Indeed. And the new design is starting to look good. The (i.e. my) font size problem is fixed, and the new colour is great – a good, striking, optimistic, socialst, Uluru sort of colour. Preview has gone walkabout, but I expect it will return.
Congratulations – and thanks.
Preview is back !
Just had a look at Dawei, to see what sort of competition you had to overcome. I see now what a close run thing it must have been. I can’t even be sure how I would have voted myself. The blogs are almost identical, in fact. It’s impossible to tell who’s the copy cat: it’s possible you’re each inspiring the other to greater things. Maybe you should just merge and save us all a bit of time, if Gordon Samuel doesn’t mind.
Congrats, John
On your point about left & right wing blogs, I think some of the centre-right bloggers got disheartened over the Iraq fiasco. They gave up blogging rather than wear sackcloth and ashes. Unfortunately, reality doesn’t affect RWDBs – still plenty of them around.
Good one John.
PS: Enough site changes already.
James, have you ever wondered why Dawei and I are never seen together.
PS I think you mean Graeme Samuel, but my objections to a merger are entirely non-economic.
Thanks, CL. But talking of site changes, yours is in radical need of one. I’ve never been able to read it in Safari, and now IE has conniptions as well