The good folks at Wampum are fielding your suggestions for the 2005 Koufax awards.  (This post
lists the categories.)  They field comments from visitors, put together
a list of official nominations, and there’s a vote.  After which, giant
naked blog party!  Whoo-hoo!

Actually, not so much.  Like any awards, these mean absolutely nothing,
other than a chance for a lot of bloggers and blog readers to find other blogs they like.  So use it that way.  Poke around the comments (and later, nominees) and see what else you might enjoy.

If you feel like mentioning the rants here at puduland while you’re
there, so people who haven’t been here might drop in, that would be
neat.  But really, that’s all this is for.  Last year, this site was
officially nominated for six Koufaxes.  I think these were Most
Amusing, Best Writing, and I dunno, Biggest Pudus or whatever.  This
was nice.  Everybody likes compliments, and I’d be lying to you if I
didn’t admit to some joy at seeing that someone has already suggested
our Poll Of The Day for Best Series this year.  But what I got out of last year was discovering The General and Juan Cole and Suburban Guerilla and a bunch of others among the other nominees.  Much reading pleasure since.

So like I said — awards aside, this is really just a great chance to
find other good stuff.  There must be 40 or 50 blogs I want to add to
the blogroll when I get the spare time.  Firedoglake is terrific, and I almost never visit, just out of bad habit.  Shakespeare’s Sister.  Michael Berube.  Dozens and dozens of others.

So go look through the suggestions. 
Click around.  You’ll love it.  And when you’re done, if you’d like to
mention this site, great.  But we’ve all already won, just from Wampum putting this together.

Am I excited about heading back to Oz for a while?  Oh, slightly.

This mother and child are pademelons (pic found on this Swedish site), tiny little wallabies that look to my eyes like nothing so much as antipodean nesting pudus, no larger than your average plush toy.

At nightfall on Bruny Island (home of the giant demon bunny), they come out so thickly that you can barely drive down the street.

This is even nicer than it sounds.

If you haven’t seen it yet (I’m late blogging today, as I was off getting X-rays and stuff; it’s just too bad doctors don’t give frequent flier miles), the NYT story is here.

I agree with this post over at Kevin’s site.  The contempt for the law from this administration is palpable. 

What does it take for this guy to get impeached?  Do Bush and Cheney have to start going door to door, spitting on the Constitution in individual demonstrations?

Hannity and his ilk would just say the Constitution needed shining.

Another bald-faced, intentional, absolute lie.

Oz v South Africa first cricket test, day one: Makyaha Ntini,
first black man to play for South Africa, bowler with an eccentric
delivery but the persistence of stone, takes five Aussie wickets on the
first day.  (This is something akin to a baseball pitcher mowing down a
dozen or more batters.)

If the South Africans could actually catch a batted ball occasionally, he would have had more.

I’m cheering for Oz, but I could watch this guy all day.

Day two is about to start, with the underdog South Africans in command, holding what this statistician considers about a 3-to-1 chance of winning the test.  If you’re curious, you can follow the match here.