Rocky Mountain News columnist Dave Koppel (also the research director for the Independence Institute and a National Review columnist) announces the winners of the best Colorado weblogs in 2003. Our hearty congratulations to Walter in Denver, who is number one.

Here in Colorado, Web logs haven't reshaped the media landscape - yet. Even so, Colorado's best Web logs provide a very useful supplement to your media diet, providing you with news you may never find in the Denver dailies. So it's time to announce the winners of Colorado Best Web Logs, 2003.

At the top of the heap is Walter in Denver .

We're proud to be the runner-up:

Runner-up for best Colorado blog is the aptly named TalkLeft.com, run by criminal defense lawyer Jeralyn Merritt. TalkLeft provides excellent summaries and links to national news stories about the criminal justice system - from the perspective of people who believe that we need more civil liberties and fewer people in prison.

The site provides a consistent critique of the War on Terror, particularly the civil liberties infringements such as the Patriot Act.

The award is particularly meaningful to us since Mr. Koppel is a devout Libertarian, whose political views sometimes, but certainly not always, match our more liberal ones.

Mark Gisleson of BushWars has a good wrap up of New Year's blog offerings.

Atrios has a New Year's resolution.

Lisa English of Ruminate This has an activist agenda up with a cheat-sheet.

Damn Foreigner has the latest Maher Arar updates, including a possible new smear campaign against him. Arar is the Canadian who was seized by the U.S. at JFK and shipped off to Syria where he was imprisoned for a year during which incarceration he says he was tortured.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden of Electrolite and David Neiwert of Orcinus are onto the U.S. neglect of domestic terrorists. David says,

If anyone wanted evidence that the "war on terror" is primarily a political marketing campaign -- in which war itself is mostly a device for garnering support -- they need look no farther than the startling non-response to domestic terrorism by the Bush administration.

He offers the Texas cyanide bomb plot up as an example. More here, including this quote from Daniel Levitas, author of The Terrorist Next Door: The Militia Movement and the Radical Right:

"Excuse me, a chemical weapon was found in the home state of George Bush," says Levitas. "I'm not saying the Justice Department deliberately decided to downplay the story because they thought it might be embarrassing to the US government if weapons of mass destruction were found in America before they were found in Iraq. But I am saying it was a mistake not to give this higher profile."

Oliver Willis makes it into Discover Magazine. We hope it's MSNBC next for Oliver.

Ezra Klein at Pandagon is angry over a Dean supporter referring to Josh Marshall and Matt Yglesias as "Heathers." We have to agree that labeling Josh and Matt as conservative media is off-base.

Josh Marshall provides some possible explanations for why Ashcroft recused himself in the Plame investigation. We still think the most likely one is to avoid claims of whitewash and conflict of interest when it turns out that a certain high level White House official is found to be the leak but the Justice Department announces it will not prosecute because it cannot prove a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Instapundit has a variation of this view: "Instead, it seems that his recusal would make more sense if people were likely to scream "whitewash" because Rove wasn't involved."

Skippy gives thanks for the New Year. We'd like to thank Skippy back, for bringing us so many smiles over the past year.

South Knox Bubba has the Freepers on Parade: the best of 2003. Here's a sample:

Constitution? What is that? Oh I remember. That is the document that protects pornography and the media.

Avedon Carol of Sideshow has this from Media Free America:

Found over at Lucas Doolin's Deer Camp:

Hope everyone is prepared for the coming year with the proper survival gear:

• Five rolls of colored duct tape (red, orange, yellow, green, blue)
• One copy of the "World Almanac" to keep in your car
• One copy of Edward Abbey's "Hayduke Lives" to put in your carry-on baggage when you fly
• Piggy bank, for saving your new Reagan dimes
• Ann Coulter action figure
• A good supply of Oxycontin, to take while you listen to the Rush Limbaugh Excellence in Broadcasting Network

We're off to a wedding tonight. It's a tale of cyberfriends making real friends. Those of you who read Eric Alterman's Altercation undoubtedly are familiar with one of his guest Altercators--Eric Rauchway. We occasionally altercate for Eric A. as well. About a year ago, Eric R. emailed us that his brother Jon and fiance Cleo were moving to Denver and suggested we get together. We did, and we've become great friends and their wedding is tonight. Eric R. and his wife and kids are in town for it (we all spent Christmas evening together as well) and we're very much looking forward to the celebration. What a fun night to get married.

Whatever your plans tonight, whether going out to celebrate or staying in with friends or even just reading the blogs and watching tv, we wish you a happy and safe New Year.

Update: The wedding was awesome--beautiful--what a happy night it was!

A blogger named Michael Douglas, MD has a blog called Dr. Pundit where he verbatim reprints the work of other bloggers (like us) without linking to the original blogger's work. He sometimes mentions where he gets it, but with no link, what good is that? Other times, he's wrong about where he found the work. In all cases, he reprints the original work under his own logo. We're angry about it and have been telling him so, but no response.

Go send him emails and tell him what he's doing isn't right. His email address is
**** (Ed. deleted, see update below)

Update: We heard back from Dr. Pundit. He has apologized and will refrain in the future from reprinting our material without linking to us. It was an oversight by some of his staff who are new to the world of blogging. His apology is graciously accepted.

The second Rocky Mountain Blog Roundup is up, courtesy of Andrew Olmsted. There's lots of good reading.

Gary Farber of Amydgala is doing Rush this week. Soundbitten has been as well.

Mad Kane has been nominated in two categories of the About.com Political Humor Awards--go over and vote for her.

Juan Cole reports on a member of the Interim Governing Council who says that Saddam's trial might be held in secret.

Oliver Willis is trying something new for 2004. Go over and give him some constructive comments.

Update: Gary Farber could use some money if you've got some extra.

The lists are starting to come in....check out South Knox Bubba's who has these gems among many more:

• President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft call press conference to announce enactment of Patriot Act III by Executive Order. Law enforcement officials and legal scholars puzzled by bewildering list of new regulations, such as national registration of gas-powered lawn trimmers and edgers, restrictions on the sale of Kaboom brand household cleaning products, and mandatory tracking and reporting of National Hebrew Kosher All-Beef Frank sales.

• After winning the Democratic presidential nomination from James Carville in a poker game, Hunter S. Thompson stuns the nation by winning 92% of the popular vote and the electoral votes of every state except Alabama running on a platform of free guns, free dope and whisky, and free cable TV porn for every American. Bush demands a recount. No paper trail can be produced. John Ashcroft calls for an investigation of Diebold.

• On the day he is released from prison, Tommy Chong purchases the winning Power Ball lottery ticket, claims a $260 million prize, and hires a crack team of cyber-sleuths to investigate John Ashcroft. They discover a huge cache of bizarre and disturbing child porn involving altar boys, Crisco, and twelve swarthy men dressed as the Apostles on Ashcroft's personal home computer.

Update: Don't miss Vodkapundit's predictions either.

Via Atrios, we're joining in on Tip a Blogger day--his pick, and our's, is James Capozzola of The Rittenhouse Review. As Atrios says,

No one really expects to make substantial money blogging, but it nonetheless does take a lot of time and the occasional tip for all the free pie is much appreciated.

Politics in the Zeros has the latest Ashcroft memo--

From: John Ashcroft, US Attorney General

To: Tom Ridge: Department of Homeland Security

Subject: Santa Claus: Threat to the nation

This Santa character. We need to keep an eye on him. He dresses in red and appears to be a ringleader for wealth distribution across the planet, with this giving-away-toys-for-free ploy of his. Seems like a damn Socialist to me. And I find those talking reindeer flying through the sky to be highly suspect. Witchcraft, that's what it is!

However Santa does have a potentially highly useful list of who's been good and who's been naughty. If we could gain control of this list, it could prove useful in our fight against terrorism - and against our political enemies too!

I propose we preemptively arrest this Santa character on some pretext, cruelty to reindeer or violating labor laws by making the elves work without overtime pay. Yes, we will have to arrest him based on those noxious liberal animal cruelty and labor laws, painful as this may be to us - however, hear me out.

We arrest Santa, then lean on him. Sleep deprivation, etc. Let's get that naughty/nice list! Feed it into Department of Homeland Security computers, and I'll bet we'll be able to indict, prosecute and jail tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands!

Have a blessed Christmas!

John Ashcroft

There's more about the Santa Conspiracy, go read. Also, Hessiod at Counterspin has some news of investigations related to Ashcroft.

MaxSpeak has moved to MT and a new home, update your bookmarks!

Say hello to Lotus...Surviving a Dark Time and Donkey Rising.

Blogrunner tracks weblog conversations and has the most frequently referenced weblog posts published in the previous 24 Hours.

Skippy has the link to Michael Moore's letters from the troops.

Walter in Denver will be blogging through the holidays. If you will be too, let us know in the comments section.

Dave at Seeing the Forest says the news of mad cow disease in the U.S. will kill the beef industry

Things are going to happen fast now. By the time we wake up tomorrow there will be no beef industry in the US. This is because we have no real inspection system -- the corporations have bought off the government -- and our Agriculture Secretary is corporate lobbyist Ann Veneman.

Greg at Soundbitten points out some inconsistencies in Rush's various statements over the past few months, concluding:

Supposedly cured after 30 days of self-examination and hard reckoning, Limbaugh seems like he's still pretty much thinking like a junkie: he didn't do anything wrong, except for all the wrong stuff that he did, but that stuff wasn't really his fault…

Hey, here's a Monday joke that we picked up from Pandagon who got it from The Corner:

Why was Saddam checked for lice and tongue-depressed? Because, unlike us, he gets free medical care.

Beautiful Horizons, Randy Paul's excellent blog on Latin America, has its first blogiversary.

Jay Caruso of Classless Warfare writes about a victim of the drug war. Don't forget to update your bookmarks for what used to be the Daily Rant. Jay and Jane are still together, just under the new name.

Mark Kleiman writes about the fake Dallas drug story. He's surprised at the lack of media coverage. We've written about it a few times--here

Pacific Views on Joe Lieberman: "A sanctimonious whiner who perpetually carries himself as though he's smelled something unpleasant doesn't stand a chance."

Lisa English of Ruminate This is back today with some good stuff on Bush and compassionate conservatism.