Monday Last Day: 2008 Weblog Awards
Update: We're way behind, progressive blogosphere. Today is the last day to make a push. You can vote again if it has been 24 hours. Let's at least try to pull closer.
Thanks to all the thousands who at least have so far prevented a rout!
Vote early and vote often in the 2008 Weblog awards for Informed Comment.
Thanks so much to Taylor Marsh, and A Very Public Sociologist, and Firedoglake, and Comments from Left Field, and Pharyngula and other kind friends who have my back.
/End
posted by Juan Cole @ 1/12/2009 12:15:00 AM
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18 Comments:
vote for your site because it is an excellent one
You've got my vote, Dr. Cole.
Thank you ever so much for your insights and devoted daily diligence on IC. I'm an everyday reader and you've helped me immensely in my overall knowledge of things Middle East and other heady topics.
Hope to see you on the PBS News Hour again sometime soon.
Best regards,
Bob Goddard
Prof. Cole:
This Michael J. Totten fellow is quite a piece of work! I don't normally care much for web votes, but voted for your excellent blog anyhow. 'Keep the faith' as Tavis Smiley says.
Regards,
David Trimmell
It is hard to beat lgf/freepers in online polls. They erase their cookies and information so they can vote repeatedly.
I just don't think online polling is very reliable.
Fairy tales are sometimes more appealing than the facts... But congratulations, you have the most votes from people who actually ARE interested in the facts!
Voted. However unreliable online polls are your site is still worthy of every vote.
Prof Cole,
Following is the text of my letter I sent to my network group in connection with your campaign. I am glad that it has worked. I have carried more than 70 votes in your favour.
Hey Folks,
There is something urgent I am going to ask you about.
Prof Juan Cole of University of Michigan is a very popular and effective blogger. He commands Urdu, Farsi, and Arabic among several other languages.He writes on Palestine, Iraq, and Middle Eastern issues. He sides with Palestinians against their persecution and dispossession. He also opposes American occupation on Iraq. There have been intellectuals and activists like Noam Chomsky, Eqbal Ahmed, Alexander Cockburn, and David Barsamian, etc., who held similar views. But they could not make much difference because they were marginalized from mainstream US media. Prof Cole's case is different. I am glad that, thanks in part to internet technology, he is not marginalized. Masses read him every day, and look up to him for understanding of various current developments. He is influencing public opinion to the direction of justice and truth. And he has made a difference in the public opinion to a positive diection.
Prof. Juan Cole is now one of the finalists in '2008 Best Bloggers Award' . He is losing against Michael Totten, who is surging ahead mainly by using smear tactics. He is a Righ-Wing blogger, supports neocon philosophy, and aways supports Israel in its occupation and persecution of Israelis.
But we are not going to let it happen. The polling is still open through Friday. Please vote for Prof Juan Cole . Please click here
http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-middle-east-or-africa-blog/
And vote for 'Informed Comment'. Hurry. Not much time is left. We are not going to give up. We can still turn it around. Also make your friends vote for him. It is important.
Regards,
Faheem Khan
Edmonton
Canada
"Vote early and vote often," now where have I heard that line from before?
My blog - that's where! Look, I don't mind you nicking my lines, but it would be very nice if you would also stick in a plug for Neil Clark who is fighting the same type of opponent as you are.
Perhaps Prof. Cole should point out that the poll rules allow daily voting, which is what Totten is openly encouraging his readers to do. Under polling rules designed to sell ad hits, a lead once established tends to carry forward. Totten's weblog site also continues to open with new attacks on Prof. Cole, decrying the 'stupidity' of seeing danger in US sponsorship of Israel's wars.
I was frustrated in not googling up more than the briefest bio on Totten, man or myth. But there are some rumors that he helped launch the good-news Fadhil brothers (of WH photo-op fame) and the 'Pajamas Media' Iraq war cheerleading site. He is also associated with the TCS neocon website founder, which points back to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and AIPAC neocon cabal.
Totten's famously popular home page features a compendium list of his published wisdom, along the left side, going back to 2003. Commentary Magazine (which SourceWatch calls a Jewish right necon mothership) dominates as his favored publisher. But scrolling thru the early half shows work almost exclusively featured on Tech Central Station. TCS a good place to go for the latest in Global Warming denials, and other news to cheer the conservative base.
I'm still looking for a more complete bio on Totten. He strikes me as the neo-teflon sort of opinion maker, like Bill Kristol. No amount of being wrong will alienate the conservative base, or bankrupt their journals. I wonder if Tottne of Kristol are aware that most of their fans believe that unsaved Jews are doomed to burn in hell, once teh righteous are safely raptured away from Armegeddon.
Well, almost time to vote for Prof Cole again.
Voted! I'll make a note to pay them another visit tomorrow :)
thanks for everything you do,
GD Kitty
Hamilton, Canada
I have voted for you and wish you well in what appears to be a real dumb popularity contest. My family has problems voting since we are all on the same server.
To be frank, the vote so far to date does not reflect the quality and overall contribution of the sites chosen for the vote.
I must say that I had not visited the Totten website until today. I found it, sadly, to be a ranting, ant-intellectual and profoundly fascist site. Why it should be in the poll at all beats me. That it should be top of the polls suggests nothing much more than an organized voting machine at work.
I would not worry, thinking people will have already made their judgements as to the validity of the poll and the quality of the Totten site. Yours is the best site in truth.
I have often thought that it would be a nice project to collect all of Professor Cole's blog postings and use them to construct a history and online encyclopedia of the Iraq debacle. Can anyone say the same for Trotten's drivel on any subject? I thought not, though it would make a nice project to collect all his and other wingnuts' phony prognostications to use as a study of neocon misinformation.
I would encourage anyone following the weblog horserace to read Totten, or sample the publications that carry his opinions and other pieces masquerading as in depth reporting.
The neocon movement is not dead, just because a Democrat Congress and the Obama administration is assuming leadership of a country careening out of control.
Totten quite correctly points out that Democrats in Congress tend to vote his (neo-AIPAC) line. Note that Obama was quite vocal in campaign support of Israeli retailiation rights, and Biden's blindspot for Palestinian rights was a major selling point aimed at Lieberman Democrats and independants.
Th problem is not that Prof Cole is losing a flaky internet poll. It is that the distortions peddled by Totten, whether on the web at Tech Central Station or Wall Street Opinion Journal are very close to mainstream dogma for the network press and congressional Democrats.
Let's not make the error of living in an echo chamber where progressive views are assumed to be in evidence.
You now have votes from me and myself. In two days, I will vote for you.
Voted! Have bookmarked the site to vote every day.
Professor Cole.
We have been campaigning assiduously for Informed Comment. With your success, each one of us wins, and vice versa. There is something vicarious for us in this effort of yours. Following is the message I am spreading to my net-work group in the last day of the polls.
Hey Folks,
There is something important I am going to ask you about.
In spite of our efforts, we are feeling hard pressed to close the gap of Informed Comment with Michael Totten on '2008 Weblog Award'. Michael Totten, you know, is a Zionist, who supports Israeli expansionism and its atrocities against Palestinians. Informed Comment is the blog of our own Prof juan Cole, the most prominent liberal voice in blogosphere that is progressive, and speaks for palestinian side too. Informed Comment is trailing behind Michael Totten by some 3000 votes. In spite of our effort, we are not managing to close the gap. Now is the time for last desperate push. Last 24 hours remain before the polling closes. Vote from your home computer and from your work computer. You can vote from one computer once in 24 hours. So if you vote now, you can vote again tomorrow before the time polling closes which is 5:00 PM eastern time, or 3:00 Alberta time. Go to the liberaries, and vote from each computer. Go to internet cafes, and to Best Buy, and vote there. Reach out to anywhere you can go and vote for Informed Comment. Spread the word to your friends and family and make them vote too for Informed Comment.
In order to vote, just click at this link, and click on Informed Comment. It does not take more than 2 seconds, believe me.
Act now. Please
Regards,
Faheem Khan
Edmonton, Canada
So much for slippery, slimy Michael Totten. Originally, when Informed Comment was lagging far behnd at 20% and he around 50%, he boasted, "I dont care who wins this award. Just dont vote for Juan Cole. If you want to vote for a professor, vote for Martin Kramer. Or else you can vote for My Marrakesh. It is a beautiful blog by a woman."
But now, when Informed Comment has surged ahead from 20% to 32%, he lost his nerves. Now he says, " Vote for me. Dont forget. I am the right candidate (where are Martin Kramer and My Marrakesh now?. Dont let Juan Cole win.
So much is the integrity of the poor guy. Folks, how can you look upto him for guidance and understanding who has no integrity and principles?
"Vote early and vote often"
That's Philadelphia political science for you!!! :-D
Michel
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