Monthly Archives: January 2004

How to Challenge Science

The Creationists arrived like clockwork in the comments thread in yesterday’s entry, dragging their usual tired armaments of Richard Behe and “Evolution is just a theory” with them because they’re apparently under the impression that I’m as ignorant and credulous as they are. I’m not, and I’ve got the entire corpus of evolutionary biology to […]

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Evolution! Evolution! Evo–(Sound of Being Tackled)

You know this proposal to delete the word “Evolution” from Georgia’s schools is neuron-jammingly idiotic when even creationists think it’s stupid: “If you’re teaching the concept without the word, what’s the point?” said Rep. Bobby Franklin, a Republican. “It’s stupid. It’s like teaching gravity without using the word gravity.” “Gravity,” which Georgia students will soon […]

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Mama Blogs

Here’s how I know blogs have reached that critical level of mass acceptance: My mother has just inaugurated her blog, Musings From Mexico. The title comes from the fact that my mother lives in Mexico, where she runs a mission dedicated to providing a safe home to at-risk Mexican children. She’s like Mother Teresa of […]

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IndieCrit is Back

A note to all you music-loving mad cats: After about five months off, I’ve reactivated IndieCrit and made a few changes to it. Basically, I’d abandoned it because I didn’t have time to write reviews for it, so now the reviews have gone pretty much to the wayside in favor of direct links to downloadable […]

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Oscar Predictions 2004

As I do every year, I’m offering my predictions on how the Oscars will play out by looking at the nominations today and picking my favorites now, and then checking in the day before the actual show and making any modifications, if necessary. Historically speaking — and we’re talking all the way back to 1991, […]

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The Backside

Been busy with pay copy, which is why rantage has been sparse here the last few days (remember there’s always By The Way, the daily methadone treatment for your Whatever withdrawal symptoms). Being busy with pay copy is a good thing — after several pokey months, business writing-wise, things seem to be back in the […]

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Note to Republicans: Dump This Loser

Regarding the State of the Union Address: We all know why Democrats won’t vote for Bush. But let me ask the Republicans: Why on earth would you vote for a guy who wants to expand the size of the federal government, increase deficit government spending, curtail personal liberties, bring the government into your homes and […]

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Quick Two Cents

Some quick thoughts on the Iowa caucuses: 1. I think this is interesting, as regards Dean’s basically pathetic showing in Iowa — the suggestion that Dean was sunk because his supporters largely had no freakin’ clue what they were doing in the caucus setting, whereas the Kerry and Edwards supporters apparently did (there are no […]

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Puzzling Attacks By Ignorant People

The fabulous Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune passed along to me this alt-weekly broadside on James Lileks, as Eric knows I’m a pal of James from a while back. So I read it and I have to say it’s got me terribly confused. It’s clear that the writer, Dennis Perrin, doesn’t share James’ politics, […]

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Technical Note

Through the help of a good friend who is rather better at that there InterWeb thingy than I am, I have made one minor upgrade to this page: If you look over at the links, you’ll note that recent entries in By The Way are now listed and clickable (you can also still get to […]

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Why I Breed

Yet another irritating “childfree” whine generator erupted biliously toward me in e-mail recently.* This is not an infrequent occurrence, as my trolling of said population in the Whatever is apparently of some passing infamy in their small and angry circles. I don’t mind at all, of course, since there’s very little I enjoy more than […]

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The Law of Internet Invocation

I made a comment on a discussion thread over at Teresa Nielsen Hayden’s Making Light blog which I feel like noting here as well, so here we go. First, a little background: writer Poppy Z. Brite was wandering the ‘Net, as many of us are prone to do, when she came across a LiveJournal community […]

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Copyright

If you really want me to think you’ve got the brain wattage of a garden snake, all you have to do is suggest that there’s something wrong with the concept of copyright. This is not the same thing as saying that there’s something wrong with the current execution of the copyright law in the United […]

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Clark For President

Let me come out of the political closet: First, I ain’t voting for Bush come November. This is not shocking news. Second, I want Wesley Clark to be the Democratic nominee for the President of the United States. I want him to be the nominee for two reasons: First, as an overall political package, he […]

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Spam Reduction?

It is, in fact, waaaaay early for this, but here’s a question for you: Have you noticed a reduction of spam mail since the turn of the New Year? I know we’re supposed to be blasé about the “Can Spam” law passed by Congress, but on the other hand the amount of spam I get […]

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The Rains! They Come!

It’s been unseasonably warm here in Ohio for the last few days — although since it’s supposed to get down to 6 degrees on Tuesday, that won’t last — and as a result the precipitation that would normally pile up knee high around our lawn is instead merely flooding the road in front of our […]

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