给科学blog评奖，对我来说是不重要的事情，因为我不相信投票机制在谈论科学问题上的作用（这也是为什么“大部分科学家的共识”对我来说不起作用）。

但是2007年最佳科学blog评奖的确值得记录一下，原因在于今年科学blog的投票由于被政治化而异常激烈，去年同样比赛的投票总量是22589（科学blog投票数较其他类别blog少），其中Pharyngula和Bad Astronomy分别以9417和9190票获得冠亚军。今年的投票总数则最后“调整”为53674（为什么调整后面会说到），是去年的两倍，前两名的得票数均为20000；并且有人利用程序漏洞投票作弊。作为一个跟进者，我目睹了最后一天的全部过程。

柿油派网站Think Progress在昨天（11月8日）美东时间下午2点发布了一条新闻，标题是：“Right Wing Campaigns To Get Climate Skeptic’s Blog Named ‘Best Science Blog’ In Weblog Awards”（类别是“Radical right-wing agenda”）。

boingboing的帖子叫做“Climate change denialists winning the race for `best science blog'”

Daily Kos: “Right wing bloggers are pushing a climate change denial site toward a webbie. Devilstower notes: `Climate Audit' is the site that distorts, ignores, and `refutes' climate change by spreading a layer of extra-crunchy brand right wing FUD.”

这里面提到的Climate skeptic's blog、climate change denail site…… 就是上次发现了NASA的Hansen博士数据错误的Climate audit。我常去并且认为那是一个不错的科学网站、一个能分清科学和政治的网站，至于对全球暖化的态度，在该网站的FAQ中有这么一条：

“Does your work disprove global warming?

We have not made such a claim. There is considerable evidence that in many locations the late 20th century was generally warmer than the mid-19th century. However, there is also considerable evidence that in parts of the Northern Hemisphere, the mid-19th century was exceptionally cold. We think that a more interesting issue is whether the late 20th century was warmer than periods of similar length in the 11th century. We ourselves do not opine on this matter, other than to say that the MBH results relied upon so heavily by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its 2001 report are invalid.”

很遗憾这远远不够，无论内容是否合理，只要有过不利于“进步”一方的文章，就会被订在柿油派的政治十字架上（上述三个网站均没有能力从专业角度批评climate audit的文章，扣帽子是一个看似粗鲁却是无奈的唯一选择）。

在上述柿油派的网站新闻中，似乎是右翼团体在做政治文章，但是对挑起这场投票政治化竞争的自己一头的角色却显得“观察不够细致”，比如去年最佳科学blog的获奖blog “Pharyngula”，主人是美国的生物教授PZ Myers，在11月5日的“A few suggestions for the Weblog Awards”中该教授写道：

“Best Science blog: I voted for Invasive Species, which I'd like to see win, but I may have to throw my support to Bad Astronomy（前面写了，是去年的亚军） just to keep the bad climate blogs from winning.”

“The bad climate blogs”有两个，一个是Junk science，得票很少，当时紧随Bad Astronomy位居第二的是Climate audit，所以可以确定他指的是后者。

这里，他建议别人为了打击某个blog而“战术支持”Bad Astronomy，显然他不觉得有什么问题，或许是接近真理途中的必要手段，并且他暗示自己相当重要，有点举足轻重的意思（“I may have to throw my support to ....”，我甚至想到了south park）。有意思的是，当他发现Junk science在三天后也如发炮制，让支持者把票投给Climate audit时，却显然被激怒了：

“... so get out there and vote for Bad Astronomy for best science blog. The forces of stupidity have been motivated and are pushing a denialist blog up in the rankings, and it would be good to consolidate our votes and make sure a decent blog wins. Tim Lambert agrees, and also informs us that Steve Milloy has endorsed the Climate Audit blog -- any doubt that it was an undeserving mouthpiece for right-wing hackery has now ended.”

这里的逻辑是：他主动“战术性”打击异己是正当的手段，climate audit被别人支持（注意是被动的），就成了是“an undeserving mouthpiece for right-wing hackery”的证据。作为教授，不太可能是真正的低智，但是显然不能说明他没有裸奔的爱好。

政治化的投票竞争异常激烈，不到最后一刻都不能确定鹿死谁手。我抄录climate audit一个网友对昨天部分时间的投票记录（CA: climate audit; BA： bad astronomy）：

EST…………………CA………………BA……Delta
3:59 PM …18828….17294…1534
4:16 PM …19259….17798…1461
4:44 PM …19735….18575…1160
4:53 PM …19783….18755…1028
5:03 PM …20131….18907…1224 （EST 5:00PM 投票停止）
5:17 PM …20242….18983…1259
5:31 PM …20247….19060…1187
5:54 PM …20555….19144…1411
6:22 PM …20613….19175…1438
6:34 PM …20615….19181…1434
8:20 PM …20634….20681….-47

可以看见，投票结束时，climate audit胜出，但是在投票结束数小时后，bad astronomy的票数突然增加了1400+票，反超climate audit，最后票数停止在BA 20683 : CA 20638（见下图）。在别的网站有人发现了作弊的方法，丢人的是，当其他blog比赛结果都公布后，技术类和科学类的却没有公布，因为要排除作弊票数（如果可能）。

现在，技术类仍然没结果，科学类的（折衷）结果是把BA和CA的票数都减到20000整，并列第一。

前面提到，柿油派的blog或者拥趸有个常见的毛病——一边给一点也不政治化的CA带上傻逼的帽子、斥其为右翼势力的同党，对自己、对明确表示要政治化投票的Myers教授只字不批。那么climate audit的看法如何？投票结束后，CA的Steve McIntyre写了一篇文章，表明了他对“政治化”的看法：

Why is this left and right?
By Steve McIntyre

OK, the voting is over. The vote (at closing) was CA 20,242; BA 18,993, but scrutinizing is still taking place. Thanks to everyone who supported Climate Audit. Both blogs obtained an incredible number of votes today and can walk away with both satisfaction and amazement. The volume in the Science blog today seems to have been far larger than any other race. Since mid-morning eastern, both Bad Astronomy and Climate Audit have amassed votes at almost exactly the same frenetic pace.

Prior to this vote, I (and doubtless many CA readers) had been unaware of the Bad Astronomy blog (and other interesting nominees who have undeservedly not attracted the attention that deserved) and I’m sure that this same holds in reverse. I hope that readers of each blog will take the opportunity of this introduction to visit the other site; I’ve added a link to Bad Astronomy in my very short blogroll.

Like many issues, the voting seems to have divided on left-right lines. While I realize that much of my support has come from right-wing sources, I don’t think that the analysis that’s done here is anything that should either comfort right-wing people or offend left-wing people. Sometimes the argument is made that, if Mann’s Hockey Stick were wrong, it means that the climate situation would be actually worse than people think. I ask “left-wing” readers to ponder this for moment: if the errors in Mann’s (and similar studies) result in a disguising of a problem, shouldn’t people concerned about AGW impact be on the cutting edge of attempts to analyze the Hockey Stick and see if there any defects in the analysis? Shouldn’t they be demanding that all the data used in these studies -even Lonnie Thompson’s - be available so that each one of them can be properly analysed?

Back when views on Iraq were more evenly divided, I sometimes compared what I do to being a CIA analyst arguing that sometimes an aluminum tube is just an aluminum tube and not evidence of WMD. That wouldn’t mean that proponents of the war couldn’t argue the matter using different arguments or that the war was or wasn’t justified, or that the subsequent occupation of Iraq was or wasn’t botched. All it means is that policy-makers shouldn’t be basing their decisions on questionable information about aluminum tubes. This was a line of argument that used to rub right-wing people who liked part of my message the wrong way, but I hope that it says something about me.

I’ve said on many occasions that, if I had a big policy job, I would be guided by the views expressed by large institutions. Unlike some “skeptics”, I don’t argue that decisions should be deferred pending perfect certainty. I have business experience and know that people make decisions all the time with uncertainty - you have to. At the same time, if you’re going to make effective decisions, you need to have the best possible information. And I vehemently disagree that scientists can use the “big picture” as a justification for being careless with their details. People should try their hardest to get the details right as well as the big picture.

So for any new readers, who have arrived because of this contest, welcome. To Bad Astronomy, it’s been an interesting way to meet. To Phil Plait, let’s have a beer some time.

PZ Myers at Pharyngula comments on the vote here and Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy here.

作为反例，投票结束后，当Myers教授和所有人一样都觉得CA胜利了的时候，估计是气疯了，他崩溃一样地喊政治口号、批判神创论者——因为他没有能力批评CA的内容，只能拿熟悉的神创论作比喻。AL Fin的评论恰如其分：

McIntyre has always displayed an abundance of class, and his post above is a good example. Blait displays only the mildest of "sour grapes", although he does give in to that sentiment a bit more than is seemly. Myers, on the other hand, has come absolutely unglued in his invective and non-sequitur filled posting and comments. To make it worse, he goes over to Bad Astronomy and displays the same lack of class and good sense there. Someone obviously took this silly little blog award a bit too seriously.

的确是的，Myers教授太当真了点，在他的投票建议一文中，他决战前夕般写到：“Best online community: LGF （指little green football） must be destroyed, so I vote for Daily Kos”——也许当他发现CA获胜时，也有自己被destroyed的感觉。

Update:

看来早在11月2日，Myers教授就来了政治劲：

2007 Weblog Awards?

Category: Weblogs
Posted on: November 2, 2007 11:04 AM, by PZ Myers

I'm surprised to see Pharyngula has been nominated for Best Science Blog in The 2007 Weblog Awards — I hadn't been paying attention at all. I am a bit disturbed by the company I'm keeping over there, though: I'm in the running with a couple of conservative junk science blogs. Go vote for one of the other people: I like In the Pipeline, Invasive Species is terrific, bootstrap analysis ought to do well, and they've even got that space-case, Bad Astronomy in there…sure, you can give him one or two votes (this is the one where you get to vote every day).

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The 2007 Weblog Awards.

My God!!

I didn't just lose in the Funniest Blog category, I lost and by a HUGE landslide. In total, 33, 080 votes were cast and I managed to net 241 That translated into a whopping .o7 percent of the vote.

Pathetic.

I mean, it was the same caliber as Mondale's humiliating defeat by Reagan in 1984.

This is so going to look bad in my someday-to-be-filmed, E! True Hollywood Story.

And leave it out of my damn Wikipedia write up, too!

Yes, I lost and frankly, I'm not sure what happened.

• It could be because my blog is a newbie; it just turned seven months old on Halloween.

• It could be because I didn't campaign, I didn't send out mass mailers or ask my Aunt Margie's Craft's Club to vote. I didn't place ads in high visibility places nor did I ask bloggers to pimp me out on their sites. A few did on their own and I'm most appreciative. Thank you all.

• And it could be because my blog just isn't funny.

Hey!! Come on now!! Who put that there?????

Ah, really...it's no biggie. Nothing but a thang.

It's just a contest.

It simply wasn't my year. It was enough to have been nominated and then from that, I was selected as a finalist.

I'm honored and flattered and really, that's more than enough!!!

.

But I'm hardly alone when it comes to very public losses. Humiliation loves company.

Here, I'll show you:

Thomas Dewey lost to Truman in 1948:

.

.

Hirohito's rule couldn't save Japan from defeat in the Big One, WWII.

.

We all know what happened to this diminutive Frenchman at Waterloo:

.

John F. Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon by the narrowest of margins back in the presidential race in 1960.

.

Can we forget that for 18 years in a row (save for her ONLY win in 1999) Susan "Erica Kane" Lucci of ABC's oh so long-in-the-tooth soap opera, All My Children, never won the Daytime Emmy for Best Leading Actress????

.

And then of course, there was the Buffalo Bills 1971 season:

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Look, losing the competition for the Funniest Blog in the 2007 Weblog Awards doesn't bother me. Really, it doesn't bother me at all.

I'm fine. I kind of wear it like a badge of honor.

And I want to take this time to thank everyone who voted for me. I appreciate your support.

Your votes were real.

Your votes were organic.

Thank you.

And to the nine blogs in my category who beat me soundly?

What can I say other than congrats on your much better showing.

You have more readers.

You campaigned far more effectively.

Your blogs are older and more established.

In the simplest of terms, your blogs are just funnier than mine**.

Now, cut that out!!!!!!!

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**EDITORIAL

I have one bullshit exception.

The funniest blog didn't win.

The funniest blog didn't even make the top five.

The absolutely brilliant The Nose On Your Face, in my opinion, was robbed of the title of "Funniest Blog" in in this year's competition. It is smart, issue-oriented satire. It's legitimate humor for the intelligent reader. And sadly, that means it's probably over many readers' heads.

I applaud it, not only for it's sheer comedic genius, but because of the class it exuded. TNOYF didn't obsess over winning, it didn't trash other blogs, then pout and whine about it for days. It spent "contest" time being what legitimate humor blogs are SUPPOSED to be...it was funny.

It's great to be nominated and in such good company, regardless of the outcome! Blogs in the Best Literature Blog category include Bookgasm (which reviewed my book, Portraits in the Dark, in September), Diary of a Heretic, Classical Bookworm, Neil Gaiman's Journal, McSweeney's and other popular nominees/finalists. You can vote once every 24 hours in each category, so if you've voted already for The Writers' Block - thank you! If not, consider using one of your votes for us as well.

Also, consider voting for great blogs in other categories, like "Jon Swift" for Funniest Blog.

Polls close tomorrow (11/08/07) at 5:00 p.m. EST (2:00 p.m. PST, 10:00 p.m. GMT).

http://2007.weblogawards.org/polls/best-literature-blog-1.php

Thanks!
Nancy O. Greene
http://www.portraits.bravehost.com
http://www.writersgrouplog.wordpress.com

Not many blogs caught my eye, prominently because a considerable amount of them are political and US-centric. They even have THREE categories just for politics. Guess that says much about the importance put on what bloggers have to say in the political landscape.

Best Blog award so far is dominated by the indomitable PostSecret. I can't blame the voters, PostSecret was a social breakthrough, and they somehow confirm our fears that inside all of us, we're all a bunch of psychos. I, however, was rooting for Boing Boing, which in my opinion is more off-beat—with its daily coverage of oddities and intriguing arts.

Best New Blog: deputydog, surely. Go there, now! You'll find it is very worth your time,

Other categories in the awards that caught my attention are Best Technology Blog (I voted for the seemingly underdog Lifehacker), Best Music Blog (I voted for Stereogum. I wonder why Pitchfork is not in?) and Best Comic Strip (I have to vote for xkcd although my favourite has always been Achewood).

After scrolling down a few lines, I realised that there was a category for Best Asian Blog. Surprise, surprise! A Malaysian blog is one of the finalist: Footsteps in the Mirror.

Clicking on the link, I was impressed by the swish layout, though a bit plugin & script-heavy. The last time I was impressed was by Wan Zafran's The Idiot Behind the Iron Mask.

I never got around the reading many of the posts though, it does seem to be a personal and reflective blog, maybe a tad too personal. But here you go, Kamigoroshi: a sincere plug from a fellow citizen.

So ladies & gentlemen, if you would like to vote for a fellow Malaysian for the Best Asian Blog Award, go here!

The other competitors are (by rank):

1. IZ Reloaded: a Singaporean blog, covering the weird and fascinating, ala-Boing Boing (currently leading the votes).
2. Marina's Bloggariffic: a personal and photography Singaporean blog.
3. Terra Byte: personal blog of a queer Asian Australian.
4. Pinoy Urge: personal blog of a.... um, queer Filipino.
5. Webbed Feet, Web Log: an "amateur web monk living in Siem Reap Cambodia."
6. Agam's Gecko: an observative blog on politics and conditions in Southeast Asia, centered in Bangkok.
7. withlove, me: a personal blog of a Singaporean girl.
8. ko htike's prosaic collection: a blog chronicling the politics in Burma.
9. without giving the movie away...: a Hindi movie review site! w00t!

The thing that struck me straight away was HOW THE HELL DO THESE BLOGS GET TO BE FINALISTS?

After a search in the FAQ, the answer was these blogs were nominated by the public. Hence, it was more of a popularity contest. But if it's popular it must be good, right? Right?

I'll leave that question to linger with you.

Meanwhile, if you think other blogs are definitely better (note: better is very subjective) than the finalists above, perhaps you shouldn't forget to nominate them for next year's Weblog Awards.

So be nice to me, and I might even consider nominating (and voting for) your blog next year.

Vote For Wonderland or Not Here

daily thru the 8th.

I recently found out that our blog was nominated for Best Literature Blog (http://2007.weblogawards.org/polls/best-literature-blog-1.php) and is now one of the finalists in that category for the 2007 Weblog Awards! Thanks so much for the nomination! You can cast your vote and find out more about the awards and all of the finalists in the various categories by visiting http://2007.weblogawards.org. Voting ends on November 8, 2007.

Here is the list of finalists in the Best Literature Blog category:

Finalist Links

Pepys' Diary
Avon Romance Blog
Maud Newton
Classical Bookworm
Writer's Block
Erik Hare
Diary of a Heretic
Bookgasm
Neil Gaiman's journal
McSweeney's

Also, www.jonswift.blogspot.com is a finalist in the Funniest Blog category. Some of you may remember that "Jon Swift" won The Writers' Block contest a while back. He lists various categories on his blog as well. Check out the "Jon Swift" blog and cast you vote.

Here are the other finalists in that category:

Jon Swift
Boobs, Injuries and Dr. Pepper
DUmmie FUnnies
Sadly, No!
The Lawsons Do Dallas!
i am bossy
Laurie Kendrick
The Nose On Your Face
The Sneeze
The Hatemonger's Quarterly

Thanks again!

Off The Broiler has been selected as a finalist for the 2007 Weblog Awards for Best Food Blog, along with the following blogs:

Cooking For Engineers

Men In Aprons

Coconut and Lime

Mom's Best Recipes

Off The Broiler

The Expatriate's Kitchen

Epicurious

Pinch My Salt

101 Cookbooks

Serious Eats

Congratulations to all the other sites who were nominated -- All of these sites represent some of the very best food blogging on the web, and are very strong and established competition.

Please vote for Off The Broiler by November 8! (Click here to vote)

He faces some stiff competition, but hopefully we can all help a fellow Malaysian succeed in something that doesn't require him being blasted into space.

So go and vote for Edrei - note you can vote once every 24 hours, so vote every day till the deadline which falls on Nov 8.

Malaysian Blogger Boleh!

The only blogs that we nominated that are in the finals are those in the Best Food Blog Category.

Out friend PJ over at DUmmie FUnnies is a finalist and is currently winning in the Funniest Blog category.

You can vote for him at this link:

I really don't want to do this, but some prodding from a man with whom I've been intimate and my own need to avoid all of Ralph Nader's electoral pitfalls, compels me.

A few weeks ago, my little old blog was nominated for Funniest Blog in the 2007 Weblog Awards. I was touched, flattered and honored and until I was nominated, had never even heard of this competition.

But somehow, through the muck and mire of my mind, through my tears and frustration as a peri-menopausal woman battling shriveling ovaries and through months of abject unemployment and countless temper tantrums, I find my blog has made it to the finals.

The finals.

You can see the voting process right here.

My friends at the Nose On Your Face, a very funny blog, has also been nominated. With them, I am definitely in good company.

I'd also like to show my support (and so should you!!) for Nicole at Pinch My Salt, an absolutely lovely food blog. Beautifully done! Click here to vote for Pinch My Salt.

And also, please vote my mi amiga, Fausta for her category.

To be honest, I was very disappointed in learning that results from this competition are politically based. The process to determine actual finalists is far more meticulously done than the actual voting itself. A special committee does that. Voting however, is based on how much campaigning you do. I won't do that.

My blog either wins on it's own merits....or it doesn't.

In the vast configuration of things my friends, popularity is nice----I would know----I was a cheerleader. But the strength of this blog especially IS NOT fueled by votes, a title or a certificate. It is a combination of my warped mind, how pissed off I am about a particular issue and of course, you----the reader. That you read this blog is enough. It is JUST seven months old as of Halloween. Not that many people have heard of me.

Yet.

Even so, I am lucky and I am grateful to have the readership I have.

Seriously.

Without you, I am doo doo.

Please, please, please, please, please, VOTE FOR ME, in the Best of the Top 1001-1750 Blogs category of the 2007 Weblog Awards.

Thank you!

(And remember that you can vote every day until the balloting is over.)

UPDATE: I got so excited about being nominated, I forgot to tell you about the others running in my category. They're good, very good, which actually makes me happy. Winning in a walkaway isn't fun, because you know you haven't deserved your victory. (I know this to be true, because I did very well in undergrad, something that was no credit to me, but merely a sad reflection on how inadequately prepared my classmates were for college. Most, I assume, went on to do very well.) As it is, whether I win, place, show or lie moribund on the bottom, I'll know that I really was competing with my peers. Anyway, here's a list of competitors for you to review:

Obsidian Wings
Agent Bedhead
Merri Musings
The Sundries Shack
Thoughts of a Regular Guy
Slacktivist
Dispatches from the Culture Wars
Echidne of the Snakes
Newshoggers

If you go here, you'll see a list of all the categories. As the polls open for each category, the link will become active. My category, which is a subset of the TLLB Ecosystem Based Categories, is "Best of the Top 1751 - 2500 Blogs." You'll find it at the bottom of the post.

I suspect that I'll have a more permanent link to give you tomorrow morning, but I wanted to get something going now, since the voting falls into the "vote early, vote often" category. And for those of you not on California time, my morning is already your afternoon. That is, by the time I finally get a good link going at my blog, you're already half way through your day!

Here are the voting rules:

• Polls close November 8, 2007.
• You may vote once every 24 hours in each poll.
• After voting in an individual poll you will be locked out from voting again in that poll (on the computer you voted from) for 24 hours.
• Each poll has its own separate 24 hour lockout control. Voting in, for example, Best Blog will not lock you out of voting in other categories.
• Vote totals are not final until certified.
• Vote totals are subject to periodic correction for identified cheating.
• Cheaters will be banned from the site.
• We reserve the right to close some or all polls earlier than the posted end date.

Any help you can give me with this one will be very much appreciated.

Oh, Sally....Sally....Sally!!! What an arse you made of yourself that day.

You win your second Academy Award for Best Actress, a feat rarely ever achieved in Hollywood and you blew it in front of a global audience by allowing your rampant insecurity to protrude like a giant hernia.

Look at you now---relegated to a weekly series on ABC and forced to co-star wth Calista Flockhart, no less!!! Oh nubile Gidget and sweet, sweet air worthy Sister Bertrille--how the mighty have fallen.

And lo these many years later, we look at the term, "SAG membership". It's not just an affiliation; it's an adjective too, isn't it Sally???

Tragic, cursed gravity!!!

But in a way, I know how you felt that night at the Oscar telecast, Sal.

Sort of.

You see, this sad, little threadbare blog of mine has been nominated for "The Funniest Blog" in the 2007 Weblog Awards. And for that, I have to thank the brilliant R.H. Potfry, co-author of one of the smartest, most cleverestest blogs on this Big Blue Marble, The Nose On Your Face.

TNOYF is also nominated for Funniest Blog, by the way.

I am honored that this 6.5 month old effort has been recognized. A nomination is extremely flattering. I had no idea a contest like this even existed.

I'm not a competitive sort, well, not any longer anyway. These days, I write for myself more than anything else. If readers like my stuff--fabulous. If a reader doesn't like my stuff--fabulous. If your writing elicits ANY kind of emotion from your readers, well, then that's the real prize.

There's no way I'll win, but I'm very flattered. Honest!

If you'd like to nominate a blog, you can. There are several different categories from Best Overall Blog to Best Political Blog. There's also Best Dressed, Best Dancer and of course, Most Likely To Succeed. Go relive your traumatic, acne riddled, teen angst inspired High School days by clicking here to be taken to the nominations page.

You only need one nomination to be considered so NOOOOO, this is not a solicitation for one, but if you want to nominate a blog, you need to do it today (Monday 10-15/07). Today is the deadline for nominations. But you can continue to vote for the next several months. You can do that by clicking the little green circle with a "+" sign in the middle of it. The circle is located in the lower right hand corner of the on-line ballot.

You can even nominate yourself. Al Gore, the self-promoting global messiah certainly would!.

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Aw, look at them. Al and Leonardo DiCaprio sure make a dashing couple but I gotta tell ya, Leo is certainly looking very "ancient Judean" these days, is he not???

Come on, be like Al. Maybe you too can one day win a Nobel Piece prize. As for those pesky Burmese monks??? They'd have no place to put it anyway. Besides, what did they do? Oh, they just risked their lives to break the Myanmarese junta's draconian laws to prove the power of peace.

But Al Gore went the distance. He threw a few melting ice cubes at some polar bears. Huge...HUGE!!!

Yep, nothing fallacious about that one, kids.

Nothing at all.