While this was a political statement in the context of the City of Sydney elections (in which I was a candidate), I’m quite happy with it in and of itself as it discussed a key argument in favour of wards which I hadn’t seen elsewhere. I’ll also say that IMHO my argument was much more substantial than those put forward by the election teams. (In the end a majority of people voted against introducing three wards each returning three councillors.)

The first post – Engagement not Intervention – uses a new book by Michael C. Dillon and Neil D. Westbury to review aspects of the NT intervention.http://homepage.mac.com/will_owen/iblog/C1693819711/E20081108120300/index.html

The second post – Redemption and Exile – is a film review: http://homepage.mac.com/will_owen/iblog/C876664502/E20081226120217/index.html

http://kevin79.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/vietnam-iraq/

Thankyou

If you have

(1) constructive suggestions to improve the process, please share them; and

(2) nominations of specific posts, please list them.

Note that this comments thread is not the only route for nominations. Most of the authors you mentioned have been nominated in emails.

1) the degree of self-promotion – this, of course, may well be a consequence of the rather crude process not simply issues of ego. Add the vagueness of judging criteria and you have an immediate but not insignificant evaluation problem! But c’est la vie!

2) however, of greater importance to me, is the lack of recognition that seems to have occurred of the more outstanding Oz bloggers out there. (Though this may well be the result of 1) above.) Under the broad umbrella of politico/socio/ economics the indisputably best Oz bloggers are Don Arthur, Andrew Norton, Harry Clarke, Nicholas Gruen, John Quiggin and possibly Robert Merkel (occasionally). Particularly Don Arthur and Andrew Norton – these are always the “must-read’posts – even more so if you are into substance and balance as distinct from glibness or ‘cuteness’!

I don’t understand why the Harry Clarkes (the post on ‘market fundamentalism’ was outstanding) and John Quiggins don’t rate even a mention in this scenario – it’s a bit like the Oscars being confined to films only made in the USA!

Perhaps it simply reflects the (limited) sample of bloggers who bother to get involved – and in regard to that limitation one can’t be too critical, just recognise those limitations. However, even though it is essentially a matter of fun, there is an element of seriousness inherent in the exercise – perhaps like social tennis being played with an unstated competitive edge?

Anyway to add to the nominations I’m torn between Don Arthur’s “Inequality” post early 2008 and Gummo Trotsky’s very interesting post “heritage bigotry” nominated at #3 – both well-written, thought provoking and provocative. In other words, excellant posts!

Also, a couple of shameless self promoting posts: Incentives to suicide
http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2008/11/17/garnauts-targets-and-the-simple-arithmetic/#more-60

Japanese media on Rudd; Australias Japan correspondent? by Peter Drysdale

and

How Americas economic crisis will change the world also by Peter Drysdale.

And since I can, here is a self nomination also from East Asia Forum.

EAF is about 7 month old and gets a lot of high profile contributors from around the region (for example, this series on 2008 in review and the year ahead).

Tim Howard on contemporary fiction:
http://sarsaparillablog.net/?p=702

Bernice on import restrictions on books sold in Australia
http://sarsaparillablog.net/?p=696

The election is over, so these posts are less relevant. Still, there is other good material. As an example see Fixing Australian cricket – http://deuslovult.wordpress.com/2008/12/29/fixing-australian-cricket/

There are many more that I could have selected. The judging committee might like to browse to see what I mean.

A lot of my posts are not suitable without editing because I write them in bits, adding interaction with others as I go along. I also use a fair bit of visual material. However, three very different possibilities are:
* Sunday Essay – The beliefs of a New England populist – http://belshaw.blogspot.com/2008/05/sunday-essay-beliefs-of-new-england.html
* Mr Rudd and a dreadful sense of deja vu – Managerialism and systemic failure – http://belshaw.blogspot.com/2008/04/mr-rudd-and-dreadful-sense-of-deja-vu_29.html
* John Button – a personal memoir – http://belshaw.blogspot.com/2008/04/john-button-personal-memoir.html

There has been some very good writing over 2008 on some of the blogs that i follow, but I know that the authors will not self-nominate. I will have a look and see if I can put some nominations forward.

* self-interest and public opinion; or

* whether a conservative argument makes someone a conservative; or

* why meritocracy is not necessarily a good idea.

Yes, I too miss ML, but also acknowledge the workload must have been enormous.