Announcing the 2011 Stinque Awards!

How about Best (or Worst) Method for Dispersing Hippies?

The Perennial Head Cold award, for being the biggest snot? I’m talking to you, Newtie. Or, stealing from Al Franken, we could nominate Newt for the Ten Pounds Of Shit In A Five Pound Bag Award.

For the Lifetime Achievement Award, I hereby nominate Grover Norquist, who has cowed the legislative branch of this country by a meaningless pledge that apparently has trumped the oath of office for a lot of members of Congress.

How about the Anosognosia* Award for excellence in the field of consummately oblivious stupidity? Inspiration comes from Bloggie’s Victoria Jackson post, but the field is wide open.

*Per Wikipedia, “a condition in which a person who suffers disability seems unaware of the existence of his or her disability.”

@mellbell: Yeah, that would be a big field of competitors, Mell.

@Dodgerblue: Start with a bracket of 64 . . .

The Platinum Pen For Pertinacious Procrastination and Purple Prose in the Pursuit of Posting Perfection.

Submissions must include your favorite comment.

Le Prix Trudeau (accomplishments in non-U.S. American activity) is going to have a CROWDED field. Leaders of at least 3 leaders in Yurp, plus Putin. But spare a word for Toyko Electric.

@chicago bureau:
The Glowing Chernobyl Award should go to Tokyo Electric

@Dodgerblue: I think one might call that the Blivit Award. Very appropriate for that sack-o-shit.

This could be the year to give the lifetime achievement to Rupert Murdoch. It was entertaining to see him in the dock over phone hacking. However, the true basis for the nomination is his spawning of Fox “News”. That contribution to lowering the level of our discourse gets enormous credit for our dysfunctional polity.

BTW, we may not have much longer to give him the award unless it can be awarded posthumously.

@Walking Still: Interesting point — posthumous awards would have to be limited, just so we’re not stuck with Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and [Insert Republican Gag Here].

@nojo: On the other hand, if posthumous awards are banned, some candidates could take the easy way out to avoid the ignominy of the Crystal Douchebag or the Anal Pear.

I’d suggest a Craziest Eyes category, but it’s kind of a cakewalk for one particular Congresscritter.

@IanJ: We may have to revive the Golden Helmet for Best Hair, come to think of it. And maybe a Bronze Batshit would be a competitive Crazy Eyes category.

@nojo: Can we have a Crystal Propeller Beanie for the person with the stupidest ideas presented as completely rational arguments? Might also be a Crystal Dunce Cap, I’m not sure on the presentation here.

@IanJ: I’m partial to the propeller beanie.

Possible nominees? I want to end up with categories with three to five competitors, just to keep it interesting.

“The Sgt Pepper Award for Pepper Spraying Peaceful Protesters”

@nojo: Stupid ideas presented as rational arguments pretty much sums up the entire Republican platform.

@Tommmcatt Be Fat, And That Be That: That’s my problem with Anosognosia, although it would make a great trophy nickname.

@nojo: Howzabout the “Molybdenum Moonbat (achievements in Crazee)” – in politics alone we have Crazy Eyes, Newt! and 999ain as front runners, not to mention that short-fingered vulgarian with all the buildings named after him.

@Dodgerblue: @redmanlaw: @nojo: Y’all are missing a critical distinction: I’m talking about unaffected stupidity. The only Republican presidential candidates this cycle who qualify are Cain and maybe Perry, though he has moments of lucidity. Gingrich is not incidentally a dumb person’s idea of a smart one. Romney has his gaffes, but at times he’s a well-oiled machine. Bachmann is eerily canny (she knew exactly what fears would be stoked by her bullshit HPV vaccine claims). Santorum is hapless, but he’s no idiot. Huntsman is obviously bright. And Paul is, well, Paul.

@mellbell: Celibabe might then be a candidate for your award. However, despite recent efforts to resurface (as documented by Lefty), her time seems irretrievably past.

The truly dumb don’t have that long a shelf life – see Glenn Beck.

I think my Propeller Beanie and mellbell’s Anosognosia award are two sides of the same coin, and could easily be combined into one. I’m more interested in malicious, actively malevolent stupidity, and Anosognosia is more about unaffected stupidity, but they’re both fundamentally about utter stupidity.

Of course, there’s a wide field (indeed, most of the GOP, half the 1%ers/corporations, most Wall Street types) eligible for the Beanie, and a relatively small field (Victoria Jackson, Perry, Cain!, Dubya, etc.) who’ve got the anosognosis going on.

@IanJ: For the Propeller Beanie, I nominate Rep. Peter King for his work in radicalizing Islam and Rep. Paul Ryan for his “budget proposal.”

I’d like to suggest a new category: The Marie Antoinette Severed Head for Worst Behavior or Statement by a One-Percenter, and I nominate Newt Gingrich for oh so many things as well as Mike Bloomberg.

Would Berium Bone for the Farthest-Fetched Idea cover the idiot category?

@nojo: No, I think it needs to be parsed. Perhaps all flavors of idiocy voted upon on the same day.

My reasoning is that I fear there would be too many nominees with one all-encompassing idiot category, that it’d end up like an Italian parliamentary election, and someone would “win” with 14% of the vote. Sorta like how the GOP presidential nomination is going to end up at this rate.

@SanFranLefty: Let us not forget poor Mitt “I’ll bet you $10,000” Romney.

@SanFranLefty: Well, there’s the challenge: Something broad enough to collect five nominees, but not too broad to collect fifty.

That, plus a catchy name.