My first Liberal Coalition-and-bonus-non-LC-posts blogaround of 2007! Let's get right to it, then:

• Andante catches us up at the turning of the year. Guy is sad and restless. Send mojo to both of them, won't you?

• Bryant notes the double-standard of reactionary pundits when discussing Democrats' financial status. Echidne finds that this seems to apply as well to radio hosts who advocate murder, but in a courteous manner of course. And Kenneth has way too much patience with a troll who insists on seeing liberal media bias where exactly the opposite can be empirically (not anecdotally) proven to exist.

• Charles2 saw a UFO!

• Horatio indulges in some grammar nitpicking.

• Keith reviews a book that sounds out-of-this-world fascinating, and Lilith unveils her 2007 reading list. Ah, I vaguely remember having the time to read them book thingies back when I was a young'un...

• Wow, you're right Moi, even I know those are some uuugly-ass shoes.

• Mustang Bobby takes a look at how well he did with his 2006 predictions. And Norbizness makes resolutions in a way only he could, whereas Steve B makes a new year's irresolution.

• And true New Yorker Steve G flips the bird to a CNN anchor who thinks a city-destroying hurricane in New York would be just dandy, less than a half-dozen years after the WTC attacks. Also good posts this week about sacrifice and how to treat soldiers.

Here's some more stuff I've found since yesterday, now that I've "finished the internet" again:

• Nominations are now open for the 2006 Koufax Awards given out annually to left-leaning political blogs. Here's the nominations boilerplate:

Best Blog
Best Blog -- Pro Division
Best Blog Community
Best Writing
Best Post
Best Series
Best Single Issue Blog
Best Group Blog
Most Humorous Blog
Most Humorous Post
Most Deserving of Wider Recognition
Best Consonent Level Blog
Best Expert Blog
Best New Blog
Best Human Equality Blog
Best Coverage of State or Local Issues
Best Commenter

Possible nominating categories for me might include Best Post (if you've enjoyed a particular essay of mine) or Best Series (for the Silly Sites) or Most Deserving of Wider Recognition, but the one for which I'd really like to be considered is a new category, Best Consonent Level Blog, which "seeks to recognize those moderate-sized blogs which have not yet, or perhaps are happy not to, reach the ranks of the 'A-listers'." And, considering the nature of this post, obviously I'd like to see the Liberal Coalition in the running for Best Blog Community.

• I've read two great food-for-thought posts today about rising above religion from Michael Bérubé and PZ Myers. Excerpts, first from Michael, about a conversation he had with a preacher-type a couple decades ago:

Right, here’s the way I look at it, I said. If you’re right about this and I’m wrong, then you and I agree that we have the obligation to treat others as we would have them treat us, but because I believe that we humans just made that up one day, I’m going to Hell for an eternity, and you’re pretty much in the clear. Whereas if I’m right about this and you’re wrong, my beliefs don’t visit any punishments on you. We live, we act as best we can, we die, end of story, except that we hope that maybe some of the good we do on earth will live after us for a little while. And that’s it.

Well, the Lawn Preacher said, I can’t say I’ve ever heard the argument for agnosticism put that way before.

Dang, that’s a shame, I said. Because lots of us agnostics have a coherent moral code. We just don’t feel the need to ascribe our moral code to a supernatural being. We don’t think that solves anything, honestly.

And from PZ, in response to an RJ Eskow challenge at HuffPo:

I think it's a fine idea to oppose the most malignant eruptions of religious thinking. However, I don't think it's enough to fight the nastiest symptoms while pretending the underlying disease is a beautiful thing. Sure, I'll join moderate Christians in arguing against the excess of fundamentalism, but that doesn't mean I have to retire from arguing against the inanity of faith; it's that lack of critical thought at the core of religious belief that allows fundamentalism to flourish.

It all reminds me a bit of how an atheist friend of mine recently explained his views, and I paraphrase: "There are people who do good, and people who are bad. Good people don't need incentive to do good things. Organized religion hasn't been proven to make bad people become good, but it's always served as a convenient excuse for otherwise good people to do bad things."

• Kevin Drum talks a bit more about the late Jasmine and about his hopes to become a 2-cat family again. Condolences also go out to DJW on the loss of Henry.

• He's rude, he's crude, he's a little bit lewd, but the Rude Pundit Lee Papa usually hits his mark, as he does with this review of the Bush-Merkel press gaggle on Friday.

• Kevin Hayden needs someone to take over the running of American Street come March, when he'll be stepping down due to financial and personal considerations.

• Christopher Tassava gives us goats in trees. The original blog post insists it's real and not PhotoShopped.

• Liza Sabater salutes School House Rock on its 34th anniversary.

Speaking of which, the American Dialect Society has just released its winners and runners-up in its 17th annual Words of the Year vote. Here's the PDF with all the finalists. Now back to tackling that comp box of unread DC comics!