It's Lonely at the Top

Last week, the Pottstown plagiarist was ecstatic.

"TONY PHYRILLAS is back at No. 1 in the Most Influential Political Blog in Pennsylvania rankings published by BlogNetNews.com, which bills itself as 'The Blogosphere's Front Page.'

"It's the 7th time TONY PHYRILLAS [caps please] has reached the No. 1 spot in 2008 and the blog continues its streak of 18 consecutive weeks as one of the five most influential blogs in Pennsylvania."

"Blah, blah, blah. I, TONY PHYRILLAS [reverential bow, please], will now be appearing on PCN and am the greatest blogger in the universe."

Tony's at home right now, crying in the extra large pillow he needs for that big head of his. TONY PHYRILLAS' (all caps, please) constantly reloading blog has slipped out of number 1, and has been replaced by a nasty left wing attack blog.

Moi.

See that, I even speak French. But it's lonely at the top. After noticing my #1 rating, I waited for the inevitable congratulatory calls, but my cell phone must be broken. There were probably thousands of nice emails, but they were probably just dumped in my spam folder.

In truth, these ratings mean nothing. But they do give me an excuse to talk about a few good poliblogs.

#2 Pawatercooler.com (This is a right wing attack blog. My buddy, Julian Stolz, is still there).

#5 Suburban Guerrilla (Susie is a Philly area ice-cream store owner turned midwife turned journalist turned salesman turned blogger. How could she be anything but interesting?)

#6 Comments From Left Field (a thoughtful left-leaning blog, but very immersed in national stuff)

#7 GrassrootsPA (a conservative-leaning news aggregator and terrific source for news, very much like a Drudge Report a la Pennsylvania).

#11 molovinsky on allentown (The e.e. cummings of the blogosphere - some of michael's posts are downright cryptic, especially with his idiosyncratic syntax. He is one of the blogosphere's most unpredictable and interesting voices).

#12 Keystone Politics (a LV-based news aggregator and blog, KP is a much more likely source of local stories than Grassroots).

#13 Pennsyltucky Politics (This is MSM, folks. I hate to say this, but it's really a toss up whether Brett Lieberman's Pennsyltucky Politics or John Micek's Capitol Ideas is the best poliblog for state politics. Maybe they can duke it out with a few five-year olds at that Allentown gym).

#14 AJ's Web Blog (AJ is a journalism major who decided to become a teacher. He's busy with school and a job, so he only posts now and then. His work is carefully written and he's one of the few local bloggers who actually knows how to link to a source. AJ is a harsh critic of The Morning Call and Sam Bennett.)

#17 Above Average Jane (Her blog was actually featured on C-Span last year. Need I say more? When I asked her to exchange links, she refused, claiming she only does Philly blogs. She apparently dislikes me, an obvious sign of good taste.)

#18 Mark Rauterkus ( a good, Pittsburg-based, blog).