by Patrick Appel
Malkin Award: In what has traditionally been our most competitive award, Roger Ailes has an early lead for calling NPR executives Nazis, but South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer is currently in second for comparing government aid recipients to stray animals. And don't count out Bryan Fisher, who's in third for his nutty comment about gay Nazis. Bill Donahue and Glenn Reynolds are fourth and fifth, respectively.
Yglesias Award: With more than a quarter of the votes, Joe Scarborough is leading the pack for taking on Newt Gingrich. Jim Manzi - who called out Mark Levin's climate change nonsense - and Col. David Hunt - who took a courageous stand on DADT - are tied at 15 percent.
Moore Award: Keith Olbermann has nearly a third of the vote for smearing Scott Brown. Sean Penn - who said that journalists should go to prison for calling Hugo Chavez a dictator - and TBogg - who had some vile rhetoric for Bill Kristol - are in a dead heat for second place. Kos, Ed Schultz, and Congressman Steve Cohen are hovering around 10 percent each.
Hewitt Award: Dinesh D'Souza - nominated for his widely criticized Forbes article on Obama - is crushing the competition with almost half the vote. Tom Tancredo, who called Obama the greatest threat to our nation today, is a distant second at 15 percent.
Von Hoffmann Award: Clifford Stoll has almost 40 percent of the vote for underestimating the internet. Hugh Hewitt is tied for second with our own Andrew Sullivan at 20 percent. Hugh earned his nomination for predicting Tom DeLay's exoneration while Andrew got his for declaring health care reform dead.
Mental Health Break Of The Year: Radiolab's Visual Poem and Five Minutes Of Awesome - both incredible videos - are in a close race for first. Dogs Are Awesome Too is just a few points behind at 16 percent. And Star Trek Tik Tok and AT-AT-aboy - the sci-fi nominations - are are in fourth and fifth place. If you have a couple minutes to waste, all the videos are worth a look.
Chart Of The Year: At 19 percent, Kamel Makhloufi's visually stunning depiction of deaths in Iraq is neck-in-neck with Aaron Carroll's chart showing just how few Canadians use the US health care system each year. Just a few percentage points behind those charts, at 16 percent, is a depiction of the incarceration rate by The Center for Economic and Policy Research. Technipol/Mark Shea's chart on Muslims, Al Qaeda, And Qu’ran Burners is also in the running with 15 percent.
Face Of The Year: Frederika, Sacha Goldberger's super-hero grandmother, is ahead with almost a quarter of the vote. A striking picture of a Palestinian girl at a beach by Getty's Uriel Sinai is in second place with 15 percent. Moses, a gay Ugandan fleeing his country because of its laws against homosexuality, photographed as he talked at a press conference with a bag over his head to hide his identity, is currently in third. Suzanne Opton's image of a soldier in an unguarded moment and Daniel Berehulak's photo of a Pakistani girl after the floods are vying for fourth as of this writing.
Shut Up And Sing: "Ebony & Ivory" by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder is in first with almost a quarter of the vote, but Justin Bieber's "Pray" is making a move from behind. "This One's for the Children" by New Kids On The Block is in third with 14 percent. Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Sting are currently trailing, but each has around 10 percent of the vote and could stage a comeback.
Hathos Alert: Bristol Palin and The Situation's teen sex discussion is hard to beat, but Mark Levin's interview with Sarah Palin - if you have the stomach to make it all the way through - is a strong second at 34 percent. For those readers who don't know, hathos is "the attraction to something you really can't stand; it's the compulsion of revulsion." I.e. a "pleasurable sense of loathing."
We're giving readers a week to pick the winners for these prestigious prizes. The polls will close on the first of the year. You picked many of the entries; we just marshalled the very best/worst for your selection.
Award glossary here. Vote early. Vote often.