If James Brown can be called “The Hardest Working Man in Show Business” Kevin Aylward at Wizbang deserves the title “The Hardest Working Man on the Blogosphere.”

Of course, the big difference between the two is that Kevin doesn’t get paid for his work.

His is a labor of love. More importantly, Kevin has a vision and a mission. His vision is a future where this new media becomes a dominant form of national discussion and information exchange. His mission: To scour the internet looking for, assisting, and nurturing the talent necessary to make that vision a reality.

Kevin does this in a variety of ways. As a top thirty blog Wizbang allows comments and trackbacks; something many of the larger blogs do not (I can imagine the problems associated with de-spamming comments when you have so many visitors a day). If you trackback to a post on Kevin’s site, the increase in traffic for a blog like mine is gratifying and encouraging.

Kevin also encourages new blogs by advertising “Bonfire of the Vanities” weekly…a linkfest that’s both fun and informative. Kevin’s philosophy appears to be that there’s room at the top for many…given the size and scope of the net and its potential for growth.

For the last few months, Kevin has worked hard to develop “The 2004 Weblog Awards.” With an extraordinary array of categories (including awards for every level in the ecosystem) Kevin has given generously of his time and effort to create a contest that kills two birds with one stone; it gives the satisfaction of recognition to many who ordinarily wouldn’t receive any while highlighting blogs that I’d venture to say most of us would never have heard of or visited otherwise.

Now, thanks to a few unworthies, the fun has gone out of that contest. It seems that some moonbats from Daily Kos and Eschaton have used a program to bypass Kevin’s minimal security (why have more, after all it’s just for fun, right?) and stuff the ballot box, as it were, in favor of their candidate. And according to Jay Tea, some of the LGF community have done the same. (Note: I just perused the comments over at LGF and find that the program code doesn’t appear on the LGF website…there is a link to Daily Kos where the code originated. Ed.)

The Capn’ has it about right:

“It’s the equivalent of bringing a marked deck to a poker game with matchsticks for stakes. It reveals Moulitsas’ character more than anything he writes for his site. Isn’t it odd that the same people who claim that Republicans and conservatives spend their time ginning up new and creative ways to cheat in elections have no qualms about screwing Kevin out of an opportunity to do something fun for the entire blogosphere? If not odd, their ease and pride in cheating is certainly instructive.”

Instructive, indeed.

Hindrocket weighs in support for Kevin that’s typical:

“This is sickening, but typical. Kevin Aylward of Wizbang goes to a lot of trouble to set up a competition that is intended to recognize as many blogs as possible and introduce people to blogs they don’t already know. It’s done in a spirit of fun, and relies on a modicum of good faith among the participants. But liberals don’t seem to be able to do anything honestly, to follow the most minimal standards of sportsmanship, or to do anything in a spirit of good will and good humor.”

If there is a just God, Wizbang would win in several categories. I confess to not knowing where or if the site is nominated (I was planning on taking a good look at the nominations tonight). And Kevin Aylward should receive, by acclamation, a special award for his efforts and have bestowed on him a new nickname:

“Godfather of Bloggers.”

UPDATE: TO THE LUBYANKA WITH THEM!

The Commissar links to this post with a few thoughts of his own about the “Kossacks:”

“What’s the only thing Kossacks don’t like about jerking off?
No way to cheat.”

“How do Kossacks play solitaire?
Deal the cards out face up.”

Da, Comrade Commissar. Forget about “show” trials…how about a real Soviet style, kangaroo court set up in the bowels of the Lubyanka where sentence was carried out 15 minutes after the trial was over and where the bodies were unceremoniously dumped in the garbage and carted off to Moscow’s “People’s Revolutionary Graveyard and Refuse Dump.”

A trip down my blogroll:

Ace has some thoughts about Lori Benson who, thinking she was just helping those “agrarian reformers” in Peru ended up in the hoosegow for 20 years. You remember Lori. She was the lefty who felt that being incarcerated in Peru’s Yanamayo prison at 12,500 feet above sea level in solitary confinement eating bad food and sleeping with smelly Peruvians was a raw deal.

OH FER CRISSAKES…IT’S PERU! What the hell does she expect? The Ritz? Or maybe she’d like to be transferred to some US prison…like, say the Lincoln Correctional Center in Lincoln, Ill. I hear they need a lead for “Evita.”

Allah is still on hiatus…or still depressed over his beloved pin stripers’ loss in the playoffs to Boston. Come back, little Allah, come back. (Note: According to Ace Allah is pulling more votes than anyone in his category at Wizbang’s “Weblog Awards” even though he hasn’t blogged a word since October 21. What does that say about the intelligence of bloggers? I dunno…I keep visiting his website every day thinking that picture of Derek Jeter (“Pony Boy”) will start to talk.

UPDATE: The Commissar was kind enough to point out that Allah is, in fact, a RED SOX FAN! Well, that explains it. He’s died and gone to heaven (and joined those 72 virgins for a little slap and tickle…)

Jeff Quinton is blogging the Ohio recount. The suspense is killing me. Will Diebold be brought to justice for its part in the conspiracy to rig the Ohio vote count? Will Republican thugs who prevented blacks from voting be exposed as the agents of Karl Rove? Will they find all those missing votes so that John Kerry can be declared the rightful winner of Ohio and hence the election…?

NNNNNNNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!

Greg at Belgravia Dispatch fisks some moonbats at the NYRB right smartly. As targets, these guys are just too easy. If they were clay pidgeons, they’d be as big as pie plates.

Mike at Cold Fury is also on a short hiatus. What is it with these big shot bloggers that feel they can take off any time they want to with not so much as a by your leave to the rest of us? Well, at least he’s giving us free ice cream (make mine Ben and Jerry’s Chunkey Monkey, please.)

Frank J. I back on his meds and doing well. This post should remind one and all of the efficacy of unilateralism and the very reason America came into existence:

FOREIGNERS ARE WEIRD AND SHOULD BE AVOIDED WHENEVER POSSIBLE. BEST TO CONTACT THEM VIA F-15 OR, BETTER YET, B-2 STEALTH BOMBER.

Related note: If you haven’t seen “Team America,” here’s the theme song. As a former actor and musical theater buff, I can tell a hit Broadway tune when I hear it. Link via Vodkapundit…another one of those big time bloggers who took about a month off after the election while the rest of us slaved away making the world safe for democracy, women, children, and stuffed animals named “Alfredo the Great.”

The Professor blogs the growing scandal re: bogus newspaper circulation figures. Do you mean to tell me that newspapers lie to advertisers about how many people read their product? I don’t know who’s more at fault here…newspaper execs or the suckers who believe that advertising in newspapers actually works.

PRINT IS DEAD!

Kerry Haters (Yes, they’re still thriving) has one of several posts I’ve read today about the group therapy session for Kerry supporters who’ve become unhinged as a result of the election. Instead of therapy, can I recommend some good old fashioned self-flagellation instruments? Say, some whips and chains? Also fun to try with a willing, adult partner. May I suggest Mistress Mona? She’s in the book.

Jeff Goldstein is a very funny fellow. Looks like besides discovering the joys of lesbian sex, Martha Stewart has begun her descent into the 4th level of hell.

The South American Horse Slaughterers have a link to a contest that I’ve just GOT to enter. It’s a dead pool. Whose gonna die in the next year? My landlord? My lawyer? The workers’ comp nurse whose countenance and attitude is reminisecent of Nurse Cratchett?

UPDATE: It seems the dead person must be a person of some eminence. In which case, I nominate Jacque Chirac. Why? First off, he’s a ferner. And I just can’t stand ferners. Second, if he talks one more time about the application of international law to the US as it relates to our defending ourselves without mentioning the French, he’s gonna find himself hoisted on his own pitard (I’m not sure what that means, but I always wanted to use that bon mot in a sentence…like, “Johnny hoisted Janie on her own pitard. Johnny is a VERY bad boy. Johnny went to prison where he was raped repeatedly by someone named Big Al…”)

Finally, Pat over at Brainsters blogs about Jeff George’s return to my beloved Bears. Blessed with a first class arm, a second class mind, and a no class attitude, George has been on every pro football team in existence, including the Hebrew Oilers (Oh wait…they’re a baseball team). The sad fact is that my beloved Bears are at least two years away (for the third time in 6 years) of being in contention for anything besides the first pick in the NFL draft.

I give George one quarter playing at soldier field before the boo birds come out.

The American revolution was, according to historian Page Smith a “logical extension” of the European Enlightenment. This was a period encompassing the mid 17th century to the late 18th century that resulted in an explosion of thought that radically transformed government, society, and the way people looked at the world around them. Writers like John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote brilliant treatises on the natural rights of man and the worth of individuals in society. These were the ideas that so affected people like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and resulted in western civilization’s most important experiment in self-government; the United States of America.

The American constitution was written, according to Smith, at “the last possible moment in history” that such a document was possible. Thomas Paine’s “Age of Reason” was to soon be supplanted by Rationalism. Smith argues (most compellingly) that the tug of war between the rationalists and supporters of the enlightenment at the constitutional convention brought to fruition a document that melded the best of both worlds; individual rights were protected by a strong central government that was itself restrained by carefully enumerating those powers granted by the people.

As Ronald Reagan pointed out on numerous occasions, the government’s powers are defined by what the people cede to it, not by what rights the government decides to give to the people. Reagan also made clear that this was the basis of “American Exceptionalism;” a concept that has fallen into disfavor amongst the left over the past quarter century. More than anything else, it is this philosophy of government that separates us from other democracies in the world.

And that’s what makes the Groningen Protocols an object lesson in why our founders were right. The protocols have sparked outrage in the blogosphere even though nary a peep has been heard from the MSM about the Dutch preparing to expand the notion of euthanasia to include killing children deemed to be a “burden” to their parents and society. What’s so astonishing, worrying, and frightening to me is that because the Dutch believe that parents are “too involved (?)” in their own childs welfare, such a decision on killing the child should be left to a committee of doctors.

The fact that this is monstrous should go without saying. What’s truly frightening however is the lack of reaction by media in the US and Europe to this rebirth of the worst of Nazi euthanasia policies.

In William L. Schirer’s classic “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” the author points out that while Nazis encouraged “Aryan” women to have as many babies as possible, (even out of wedlock) non-Aryans such as Jews, gypsies, Slavs, and others were the victims of forced abortions and sterilization. It was but a short jump from those policies to the euthanasia practiced against the deformed, the retarded, and all who, in the opinion of the doctor, would be a burden on the Reich.

The Groningen Protocols eerily echo these policies and call into question the very nature of man’s relationship to government in a free society. When the most important right of all—the right to life—is put in the hands of a committee, it’s time for the Dutch people and indeed the entire euthanasia movement to rethink and reevaluate what they’re trying to accomplish.

How did we go from the idea that terminally ill people should decide for themselves whether to live with their suffering or end it with the assistance of their family doctor to this nightmare scenario of faceless bureaucrats deciding who lives, who dies, and on what basis those decisions are made? Is this the “slippery slope” opponents of assisted suicide have been talking about for years?

Hugh Hewitt links to a post by Mark Roberts where in the comments section. someone left this thought provoking note:

“I have a 14 y.o. daughter with the severe form of epidermolysis bullosa (EB) mentioned in this article. I’m devastated. I can’t believe that someone could decide to kill a child with any disorder. Yes, life is extremely difficult and painful for my daughter. And the amount of time that is spent on keeping her alive is astronomical, but I’m glad she’s mine…”

This courageous man would be denied any meaningful say in his own daughter’s life and death. How can that possibly be right? What insanity has gripped the minds of proponents of these protocols that would allow them the conceit to believe that their judgment was better than the child’s own family.

And Hindrocket from Powerline, in one of the most powerful and moving posts on this subject I’ve read on the net, weighs in with some extraordinary personal admissions:

“For most of my life, I thought that philosophers could generate intellectual systems, independent of religious belief, that would, on a strictly rational basis, reproduce all of the essentials of the 20th century system that has worked well for this country. I no longer believe that to be the case. It seems appallingly clear, now, that the secular path—the road that has been taken by the Netherlands and almost all of western Europe—leads inexorably to the view that men and women are cattle, and the only reasonable approach is to appoint a committee of wise men to decide when it is time for them to die.”

Compare Hindrocket’s views with this article that appeared in Skeptical Inquirer magazine, the bible of secular humanists:

“Can science and reason be used to develop ethical judgments? Many theists claim that without religious foundations, “anything goes,” and social chaos will ensue. Scientific naturalists believe that secular societies already have developed responsible ethical norms and that science and reason have helped us to solve moral dilemmas.”

This is revealing of a mindset that places rationality above reason. It may be rational to kill children for the good of all, but reason (which historically is based on a belief in some kind of deity) would restrain such a notion based on the idea that there are limits placed on man to interfere with another’s liberty; and that fundamental liberty—given by a deity to ALL men—trumps any and all efforts to deny such basic rights.

Captain Ed has some thoughts on why this story isn’t getting more play in the media:

“The lack of widespread horror following Groningen’s announcement betrays a world where human life only matters for its commercial value, not as a sacred or unique gift. Even the revelation that Groningen proposes to kill children it deems too inconvenient to live despite their parents’ wishes, up to age 12, fails to shock a world desensitized to humanity and wrapped up in its so-called secular “humanism”.”

The Capn’ also has some strong thoughts about the “greased chute” we’ve fallen into:

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have not just reached a slippery slope—we have hit a greased chute, which is what depresses me more than anything else. Now that Groningen has commenced killing the undesirables and the world has answered with a shrug, we will now hear from the chorus of statists telling us that in an era of limited resources, we need to make these hard decisions for the benefit of the families involved and the greater good of society. That child who may never walk or talk will be such a burden on his family, they’ll say; the parents are too close to the situation to make an informed decision, so we’ll make it for them—for their own good, of course.”

Is there a way we can alert people to this travesty? So far, only a few conservative magazines and right of center blogs have been talking about this issue. It may take an effort as Herculean as that which brought down Dan Rather…but it must be done.

It seems incredible but for some in the west, the goings on in the Ukraine are looked upon as nothing more than a CIA sponsored coup d’etat—an effort using slick marketing and western media manipulation to deny the “legitimate” winner of the election, Viktor Yanukovych, his rightful place as President. This column by the aptly named John Laughland is one example of how the moonbats (especially in Europe) have come to hate the idea of freedom:

“Whether it is Albania in 1997, Serbia in 2000, Georgia last November or Ukraine now, our media regularly peddle the same fairytale about how youthful demonstrators manage to bring down an authoritarian regime simply by attending a rock concert in a central square.”

“Two million anti-war demonstrators can stream though the streets of London and be politically ignored, but a few tens of thousands in Kiev are proclaimed to be “the people”, while the Ukrainian police, courts and governmental institutions are discounted as instruments of oppression.”

To me it’s Laughable (pun intended) to compare 2,000,000 citizens exercising their right of free speech in a free country with a “few tens of thousands” (try several HUNDRED thousand) who are taking their lives in their hands by defying the police and governmental institutions which are not only “instruments of oppression” as Mr. Laughingstock mockingly puts it, but wholly owned and managed subsidiaries of a foreign power (Russia).

The fact that Laughingboy can’t tell the difference is revealing of a moonbat mindset that yearns for authoritarianism. These are the very same people who opposed overthrowing Saddam, embraced the now deceased Arafat, and coddle the socialist Venezuelan dictator Chavez who recently received a prize that Mr. Laughoutloud would appreciate; the (I kid you not) Gaddafi International Human Rights Prize, presented by that Champion of liberty, justice, and brown-shirted, jack-booted thugs everywhere, Daniel Ortega.

So what’s Laughaminute’s problem? Orange clothing!

“The demonstrations in favour of Viktor Yushchenko have laser lights, plasma screens, sophisticated sound systems, rock concerts, tents to camp in and huge quantities of orange clothing; yet we happily dupe ourselves that they are spontaneous.”

The only “duping” going on here is one of self-delusion on the part of Mr. Laughtrack and his fellow tin foil beanie wearers. Is the opposition organized? Yes, and that’s what makes them so effective. The spontaneity of several hundred thousand people braving winter weather (in Kiev, no less) and living from minute to minute with the idea that soldiers and/or police will start in on them with truncheons and rubber bullets should prove the point to even moonbats like Mr. Laughoff.

Is the west assisting and encouraging the dissenters? Gawd I hope so! Standing up and being counted with people who desire freedom used to be what the left was all about. And even though Mr. Yushchenko is not the ideal democratic vessel, there’s no doubt he represents a truly independent Ukraine; not the toady to anyone, be it Moscow or Washington.

Here’s Jesse Walker writing in “Reason” magazine:

“Thousands of Ukrainians establish enormous tent cities in Kiev, braving the cold to protest an election they say was stolen. Volunteers distribute stew and coffee, warm clothes and medical care, balloons for children. Students seize government buildings; the workers there feed them. The staffers at UT1, the state TV station, declare that they’re tired of “telling the government’s lies” and announce, live, that they’re going to join the protests. Outside the presidential administration building, demonstrators put flowers in the shields of the riot cops—an echo, surely deliberate, of one of the most famous images of the ‘60s. Members of the central resistance group, Pora, urge the police to disobey if the authorities tell them to crack down. Thus far, the order hasn’t come—in part, Pora suspects, because the government is worried it will be refused.”

Walker points out that Pora has received assistance from some western financed organizations;

“Otpor, the group that overthrew Milosevic, received some funds from the U.S. government via the National Endowment for Democracy and the Agency for International Development. Veterans of Otpor helped train the Kmara movement in Georgia, the Zubr movement in Belarus, and the Pora movement in Ukraine. The revolutions they inspired—part Yippie street theater, part Gandhian resistance—got a hand from some of the same financial sources, including George Soros’s Open Society Institute. Washington has endorsed them warmly.”

The fact that the NED and AID receive money from Congress does not, by a long shot, make them tools of the American government. And anyone who thinks George Soros has any connection to the CIA or American intelligence doesn’t know anything about Mr. Soros’ megalomania. Soros has his own axe to grind in that part of the world and it doesn’t include letting America share in his dream of empire.

Besides, according to the Capn’, the Ukrainian Rada has now voted to oust the government:

“The vote also demanded that a new interim government be formed, one of national “trust” to shepherd the political crisis to an end. That means Kuchma will have to name a new PM, one that the inflamed Rada will accept, for the transition to either a recast second round of elections, which is what Yushchenko wants, or a rerun of the entire election, which is what Kuchma holds as his fallback position. It’s rather doubtful that anything except the former will convince the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians on the streets to disband.”

Unless you want to believe that the entire Rada has been bought off by the CIA, Mr. Laughriot and his cadre of barking moonbats are going to have to admit that using seed money to help organize an opposition is a long way from planning and executing a coup.

For my part, you couldn’t pay me ENOUGH to stand outside in the cold waiting to get bashed over the head for ANY politician in this country…but then, I don’t have to worry about being thrown in jail for what I believe, do I?