And the winner is...finally announced!

Before delving into this week's entries, now seems as good a time as any to discuss some of the loosely defined and mostly unwritten rules of the Friday Challenge. When reviewing entries, several of you wondered whether Vidad's entry was eligible or not, primarily because it wasn't really responding to the challenge. (Vidad was actually responding to the inspiration to the challenge, in case anyone was still wondering about that.) From the point of view of the Elders of the Site, it's up to each of you to decide eligibility for yourself. Give as much or as little weight to "Responded properly to the challenge" as you wish and vote accordingly.

Now, on to the entries!

Giraffe had me laughing with his entry concerning the threat posed by Di-Hydrogen Oxide. Somehow, despite being a big follower of junk science, I had managed to miss the various sites associated with this. Giraffe took things a bit further, though, when he extrapolated life on the moon from di-hydrogen oxide being essential to life. Very good stuff!

Practical Mystic kept referring the group as "Greenpeace" rather than "Greenspace," but I had the same problem writing the challenge lead-in. The brilliance of the entry came from the wonderful video of "loonius penguinuis" offered as proof of life on the moon. That, as the wonderful Stone-Baker hypothesis, which states, “Dude...if you like...drill on the moon...that's bad karma man. Gaia will be like...so...not cool with that and totally like...rain on everyone's parade man.” A very nice multimedia entry!

Vidad, as so often is the case, had an entry totally different than anyone else. The original inspiration for the challenge came from a comment to an online petition against NASA sending a bomb to the moon in hopes of finding water deep beneath the surface. Vidad's entry is all about the bombing and the response of the actual lunar citizens. It's an excellent cautionary tale showing how different cultures -- different species, in the story -- may react totally differently than you might expect. Great stuff, Vidad, and I agree that it ought to be published somewhere!

Ben-El entry wasn't a press conference rather than a press release. The sarcasm in the entry was great, carefully wording factual information to make it appear to have some meaning combined with sentences that seem as if they were created by the article generator Bruce linked to a week or two ago. Excellent!

miko shows us why we don't want him involved in any eco-freak activities. What's most sad is, based on what I've read, there are current members on the eco fringe who would be quite happy to see mankind wiped out. A very frightening, very convincing entry, miko!

torainfor goes Feng Shui on us while also educating us on the five natural elements from the Chinese point of view. Leaping from there to cultivating a forest in the Sea of Tranquility is wonderful, as is the idea of astral projecting your support of Greenspace's proposed ban to your senator. Short but sweet!

The three fan-favorite entries were from Vidad, miko and Giraffe. I thought all of the entries were quite good, but agree that those three were just a bit better than the other three. From those three, I'm going to go with the entry that made me laugh. So, Giraffe, you're our winner this week! Come on down and select your prize from behind Door #3.

Great work, everyone! Remember, there's no challenge next week as the current challenge isn't due until just before Halloween. Think spooky thoughts and write scary stories!