As you may or may not know we bloggers are, for the most part, member's of a unique invention called the Blogosphere Ecosystem, created and maintained by one N.Z. Bear. The Ecosystem is a ranking of blogs on the internet based on the number of other blogs which link to any one blog. Basically, the more links out there leading to your page the higher your ranking.

Each week Mr. Bear also hosts the New Blog Showcase. There are two categories, political and non-political. New bloggers (within the last three months) submit what they consider to be their best entry to date into the showcase under the appropriate category. Established bloggers then vote on the best entry by linking to that entry from their blogs. The links are then counted up by Mr. Bear who then announces the winner.

This will be my first week voting in the showcase. Unfortunately, the Bear had a little snafu with his voting system so the entries being voted on this week are actually last week's entries. N.Z. Bear has decided to extend the voting a week to allow time to sort out the voting problems and we'll start fresh next week.

In the political category I'm casting my vote for The Politics of the Lord of the Rings from My World. In the post the author explores the political leanings of two of the cast members from recent Lord of the Rings movies as well as those of J.R.R. Tolkien himself.

For my vote in the non-political category I chose No Man Here from Gasoline Suit. In this post, the author makes some good points about the negative effects feminism has had on today's male-female relationships.

I will be posting votes weekly for the New Blog Showcase, usually around the end of the week. Look for the links and visit them.