New Political / Commentary Winner

After spending a good portion of my afternoon yesterday finally getting the category pages redesigned and promoting each of the winners in the 2011 Blogger's Choice awards, I came to realize that the blog for the crowned champion of the Political / Commentary section was no longer loading. After contacting the owner, I was told that due to her now being employed by Liberal Party of Newfoundland Labrador, that she was ordered ('as standard practice': read more here on Geoff Meeker's blog) to delete her blog entirely. I'm honestly shocked over this and deeply saddened. Not only did we lose a dedicated blogger from our wonderful community here, but all her thoughts and words were also willingly completely purged from the internet. Why would anyone agree to do that? Furthermore, what exactly did the Liberal Party not want anyone to read now that she is employed with them? Morso, why in the heck would it be 'standard practice' for any open honest political party to do this? It looks incredibly terrible in my opinion, not only for the person who agreed to delete her personal thoughts, but mostly to the party who demanded it happen.

Regardless, I'm trying not to speak too politically within this space as I am more saddened about losing this voice from our community over the disturbing politics involved. What I'm mainly here to do today is to announce a new winner in the Politics / Commentary category for the 2011 Blogger's choice Awards. There is no point in promoting a deleted blog after all. What's sad is that I'm not sure how special the runner up is going to feel, now that they are being rewarded due to these circumstances. As much as I can assure the new winner (and any visitor reading this) that the battle in this category was a very close one, there's something a little defeating I would assume about being awarded under this situation. None the less, it is something I feel that should be done, and I hope the new winner feels as special as they should feel in the meantime.

So without further ado, please take the time to visit and congratulate the new winner in the Political / Commentary section... The Rural Lens. All related sections around the site have been updated accordingly. Congrats to the winner! Now get visiting...