No, no, not our longstanding ally and trust-em-with-the-baby friend, France. No need to blush, like yourself, France takes cutsies to the fore of our thoughts whenever grand words like friend, trust, comity, honor, courage, and humility come up. It is the oxymoronic impulse.

Our friends came to mind because several have been nominated for the WizBang! 2004 Weblog Awards. The site uses a "captcha" (scil., “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”). So unlike the main link given above, to access the voting pages you are required to type in a string of displayed characters.

Best Overall Blog, please give it up for LGF. Charles Johnson works it hard and goes at it every single day.
Currently in third place.

(Regrettably the excellent Belmont Club appears here and not in the Best Military Blog category, which it should own.)

Best Group Blog, The Command Post, vote their good work up.
Currently third place.

Best Humor Blog, OK, Scrappleface is funny, but Iowahawk, he's funny weird, he's our pick.
Currently fifth place.

Best European (Non UK) Blog, the Dissident Frogman rousted an America asleep to the pervasive French perfidy back in the day when our biggest complaint with France was the Corton Clos de la Vigne au Saint 1995.
Currently first place.

Best Conservative Blog, many good blogs in contention, but we vote our friends, The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, well, because they're best.
Currently sixth place.

Best UK Blog, Samizdata stacks The Future and Its Enemies, Karl Popper, and an automatic on its entry page. Yeah, ideas are dangerous. (Site design by the Dissident Frogman.)
Currently second place.

Elsewhere, in the Best of the Top 250-500 Blogs is Watcher of Weasels.
Currently sixth place.

And my pal Jane at Armies of Liberation for Best New Blog (though I might vote for Bill at INDC Journal if she wasn't).