John Lynch doesn’t have a Friday tradition of his own, so he’s trying to start one with a free association game…I’ll join in.
My answers are below the fold. They’re mostly predictable, I think.
Fewer open threads and more of this would make it clear why Atrios is popular.
I started this blog and adopted this style in part because I thought it was important to introduce a more combative and caustic discourse on our side. I’d be quite happy and comfortable in a world where politics more closely resembled an academic seminar – that is where I come from, after all – but we don’t live in that world and it’s a tragic mistake to pretend we do.
It’s a tragic mistake to think most creationists will be won over by kind and supportive conversation over a cup of coffee, too, or by any kind of smokescreen argument presented because we think it’s what they want to hear.
We’ve received word that there have been some behind-the-scenes improvements in spam filtering, and I’ve gotten enough complaints about that annoying typekey thingie, that I’ve gotten rid of it. This is provisional, and I’m hoping I don’t get a flood of spam now, but try it—commenting should be easier.
Only this one has a real prize. Invasive Species Weblog wants a title for an article—a strange story about those wretched starlings.
Regular commenter Ed Darrell has started a weblog of his own now, Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub, dedicated to knowing US History. And really, don’t you want to learn the story behind the name?
There have been these annoying glitches in TypeKey comment management in the past, and the source of the problem is inconsistency in how the different science blogs require valid email addresses in your comments. We’re about to enforce a uniform standard across all the science blogs—you will all be required to use a valid email address, although I don’t think it will be displayed—and that might cause a few hiccups here, at first. Give it a chance and it will all shake out, I hope.
Declan Butler has a short article in this week’s Nature on the “Top 5 Science Blogs”. This was determined by identifying blogs written by scientists and determining their rank on Technorati. The top five are:
Declan asked each of us to say a little bit about why we were succeeding in this medium, and that’s given in a short summary. It’s seriously edited down, though—I have no complaints at all about what he wrote, but he didn’t use one part I wrote to him. I can’t blame him, since it undercuts the premise of the article, but I wanted to mention it here, at least.
Hmmm, reasons for my “success”…well, first of all, I have to say that I don’t measure success in terms of Technorati rank or traffic. There are great science blogs out there (check out the list at scienceblogs.com) that are more focused than mine and certainly do a better job of more sharply elucidating the niche they occupy. I’d say I have wider popularity because I do tend to wander off into many different topics, so there is a more diffuse field of potential interest, tapping into the broader areas of liberal politics and atheism. I think, also, I’ve tapped into a fair amount of resentment against the reactionary religious nature of American culture—to some, I suspect I’m one representative of opposition to the excesses of our dominant political regime. This country is strongly polarized, and my position makes it easy for many to identify with me…and those who disagree find it easy to characterize me.
Nature has made available a list of the top 50 science blogs, which will make for a useful start for anyone trying to fill up a blogroll. As Sciencebase notes, though, it does have some omissions.
Coturnix turns up a publicly accessible copy of the article.
Butler D (2006) Top five science blogs. Nature 442(7098):9.
Reading some of my favorite blogs today, I can’t help but feel the looming hand of fate preparing to destroy us all.
Despite the horrible possibilities, though, I can’t help but hope that everyone keeps it up. Well, except for Diablo Cody—no one really needs to OD on fried fats in grease, do they?
I get lots of email from people—it’s not just creationists and wingnuts calling me nasty names, but also people on my side who just want to express their appreciation, or people passing along tips and links to interesting stories. I rarely reply. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that if I wrote back to everyone who was sending me stuff, I’d have to do nothing but write email replies all day long. I also can’t possibly post it all, either, unless you want to see 50 short articles a day consisting of nothing but a link (I have been tempted, I confess.)
So let me just say now, thanks! Keep it coming! I don’t mind that kind of email at all, even if the volume is sometimes a bit much.
One other thing: if you send me something, I’m happy to give all the credit you want. One thing that sometimes stops me from using a piece is that I don’t know exactly what the person submitting it would want me to do with attribution. This is a brutally godless, liberal blog, and I know that sometimes people are reluctant to have their name associated with those kinds of sentiments. It’s helpful if you say something like “please keep me anonymous!” or “refer to me as Jane” or “refer to me as Jane Smith of Tacoma, WA, and I have a blog at some-name.blogspot.com.” If you pass me something juicy, I am overjoyed to plug your website, so please don’t be shy. Besides, once you become a blogospheric bigshot, I’ll appreciate it when you link back to me once in a while.
Civilized Celts would send skillful bards to sing satires in great competitions. I applaud the idea of returning to such a literate tradition, but really…a skilled writer who knows something of meter and meaning vs. a clumsy, chattering hack who strings words together in lumpy, clattering arrhythmia? If this were a boxing match, it’d be like pitting Mohammed Ali in his prime against Steve Buscemi with a hangover. It’s Bambi sans charm vs. Godzilla with a keyboard. It’s the Philadelphia Philharmonic playing over a gurgling drainpipe. Who put together this embarrassing mismatch?
