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[Updated by Liza: This will be sent out to all our registered users. Please check our nominations in the comments].

The Koufax Awards are now soliciting nominations for its annual awards. The Koufax Awards recognize outstanding writing among left-leaning blogs. (That means this blog would be eligible. Just sayin')

There are a passel (see? You thought I was going to use the word "shitload." I just wanted to prove I have a large vocabulary.) of categories, and we here at Culture Kitchen invite you to peruse them. In the coming days, you may see our individual recommendations for blogs or writers to recognize.

You, however, should feel free to nominate the blog/writer/community that you think deserving of recognition.

And no, there is no money involved in the award. It's all about the recognition.

More questions? Here's more information about the purpose of the awards. Feel free to take a look at the rest of the site.

Oh, and while you're there? Take a look at Wampum. It's a damn good site in its own right, and we are ever so grateful that it goes out of its way each year to bring the blog communities together in recognition of their own.

From the FAQ

4) What is the purpose of the Awards?

There are three purposes of the Koufax Awards. First, as I wrote last year:

At its core, the Koufax Awards are meant to be an opportunity to say nice things about your favorite bloggers and to provide a bit of recognition for the folks who provide us with information, insight, and entertainment usually for little or no renumeration. The awards are supposed to be fun for us and fun for you.
The second purpose of the awards is to provide some exposure for blogs that you may have overlooked for some reason or another. There are lots of good blogs out there (more everyday) and no one can keep track of them all. We hope to call your attention to new blogs or blogs that deserve a chance to capture your attention. That is the reason for our policy of providing a link to every blog mentioned in the nomination process (despite the fact that assembling such links is an incredible amount of work). Please use those links to visit the blogs you have not previously read. You will not often regret it.
The most important purpose of the awards is to help build a sense of community between and among lefty bloggers and readers of lefty blogs. The awards provide an opportunity to say something nice about bloggers you like and to have something nice said about you. Please try not to take the idea of winning and losing too seriously. The primary rules of the contest are be nice and have fun.

While I will note the procedures of the awards in some detail below, the rules of "be nice and have fun" have seen us through three years of the awards. Things that are nice and are fun are encouraged while actions that violate those rules not allowed. Thus, it is completely appropriate to leave a comment extolling the virtue of your favorite blog. A comment trashing a blog you dislike is not nice and it is not fun for us or for the recipient of the abuse. Take that as fair warning. Comments that cut against the purposes of the awards will be dealt with ruthlessly. If you have to say something that is not nice, use private email, not a public comment.