5 Blogs & 5 Blawgers

Today is the anniversary of King's lesser-known "I have a meme" speech.

Well, actually it's not. It is, however, the day the Blawg Review Editor chose to honor the recently-passed Blog Day with a meme: "The idea is to post links to five great blogs (other than law blogs) on your blawg and tag five of your favorite blawgers to do the same under the post title '5 Blogs & 5 Blawgers'."

In the sidebar of the main page, I maintain a blogroll of fifty different sites which I highly recommend. Although the list of feeds I read regularly has grown to more than three hundred, I've always kept that list to just fifty. For a new site to be added to the list, someone already on it has to rest on their laurels, give up their blog, or otherwise fall from "Fifty Recommendations" grace. That's a pretty tall order, frankly. As result, there are a number of other sites always waiting in the wings. In response to the Editor's call, here are five of those -- five blogs which are consistently great reads but for one reason or another haven't yet made that list of fifty:

• The House Next Door -- Dozens of contributors provide a running commentary with a focus on popular culture.
• Iowahawk -- David Burge regularly offers the best political satire available anywhere, as this past week's Homeric tribute to Obama's convention performance ably demonstrates.
• The Inquisitr -- Former TechCrunch writer Duncan Riley has struck out on his own and the result is anything but a strikeout.
• Pajiba -- QuizLaw scribes Dustin Rowles and Seth Freilich (and others) maintain this site, which bills itself as "Scathing Reviews for Bitchy People". It has those, certainly, but also offers some of the more to-the-point, insightful, and reliable assessments of current movies and shows, together with a number of thought- and argument-provoking "best of" and "worst of" lists.
• U.S.S. Mariner -- This site is not just the best web coverage of the Seattle Mariners, but probably the best coverage of any baseball team in any medium. That the site's writers have managed to unfailingly provide such deep insight for what is inarguably the worst team in baseball this season makes their achievement that much more remarkable.

I'll tag Ann Althouse, Anne Reed, Justin Patten, Jordan Furlong, and Ron Coleman to continue the meme.

UPDATE: Jordan Furlong has posted his "5 Blogs & 5 Blawgers" list at his Law21 blog. I've already added a couple of new links from his list to my own reading list.

UPDATE II: Anne Reed has her list posted at her Deliberations blog. Welcome back, Anne!