The Halfway There Index

A guide for the perplexed

Welcome to the Halfway There index. As the name implies, it is a guide to the contents of this blog. This is the January 2007 edition.

Has Halfway There become such a vast compendium of insight and wisdom that it requires its own scholarly annotations? The reality is rather less dramatic. The list of my posts has grown to the point that I can't keep track of it myself, so this index is in significant part an exercise for your humble blogger. Of course, it's possible to simply use the built-in “Search this blog” feature of Blogger, but I wanted something a little more formal and organized than merely searching for words.

I have grouped my posts under major categories and appended to each title a brief description. The description is designed to contain some of the key words that could just as well have appeared in the post title (but didn't, for reasons of brevity or cutesiness—whatever personal tic I was indulging at the time). Some items appear under more than one category, for all of the obvious reasons. In keeping with the great tradition of on-line posts, the titles occur in reverse chronological order under each category, the most recent at the top.

Blogging

11/28/2006, Headless experiment. You can be a subject, too. Brains are not required for the research by Acephalous.
10/04/2006, A Halfway There milestone. The Site Meter reaches 25,000 cumulative hits. Is that a lot?
8/29/2006, One year old Halfway There is now a toddler.
7/04/2006, Blogito, ergo sum A self-conscious and self-referential interview that no one asked for.
6/24/2006, The care and feeding of trolls Tumbler loves Ann Coulter and trolling at Pharyngula—at great length—till he gets banned.
6/17/2006, Blogger sure is screwed That's a pretty self-explanatory title. Blogger was refusing to accept picture uploads. It turned out that using Firefox instead of Internet Explorer sufficed to resolve the main problem.
5/30/2006, Markos in Sacramento The old politics meets the new politics in the state capital—and doesn't really get it.
5/20/2006, The 101st Fighting Keyboarders get recognition The chicken hawks bravely fight the culture war from their mothers' basements. Guy & Rodd give them props in Brevity.
4/05/2006, Waking up with dKos The San Francisco Chronicle profiles Markos Moulitsas and runs with his line that bloggers must eventually get out of their jammies and get to work. Take that, Pajamas Media!
3/01/2006, A sip from the firehose You want more hits on your blog? A link from PZ Myers can make you popular. Mentioning sexy pin-up models isn't a bad idea either.
2/15/2006, Who is Zeno? There are lots of Zenos out there. How I picked my nom de blog. Long, long ago!
9/21/2005, Meme of the day I answer questions aimed at bloggers who are aspiring academics. Not very interesting, but it's an early post.
8/27/2005, Hello, world My opening post quotes the text string that used to characterize the first computer program that students would write. See how old I am?

Books

9/13/2006, Prometheus, proto-creationist Jasper Fforde's fictional character embraces fictional science.
7/19/2006, A creationist tells the truth Creationist astrophysicist Jason Lisle shows in Taking Back Astronomy that faith can twist anything.
6/08/2006, Phi: Good to the last decimal Applying a dollop of skepticism to the divinity of the Golden Ratio, despite what The Da Vinci Code says.
6/05/2006, Sir Isaac Newton, feminist? A lifelong celibate joined The Da Vinci Code cult of the Eternal Feminine? I don't think so.
6/02/2006, Alastair cracks a joke Alastair Reynolds mocks contemporary science fiction video conventions in some science fiction of his own.
5/23/2006, Danny Dunn, pseudoscientist Sound waves in space and flaming comets! My childhood reading was fraught with bad science!
4/18/2006, Climate of fear and loathing Yes, Michael Crichton is a hack and an anti-science propagandist. Alexei Panshin has known that for years, even before State of Fear!
1/03/2006, A walk in dairyland Circumstances change, but the family dairy farm goes on, an example of rugged independence (and government subsidies). I also comment on J. G. Boswell and his biography, The King of California.
9/21/2006, A classroom conversion Getting through to creationist students. I include a passage from Martin Gardner's The Flight of Peter Fromm.

Creation/Evolution

12/17/2006, What the other hand is doing. A young creationist thinks life requires a miraculously pure distillation of left-handed amino acids. Why Josiah is so very wrong.
12/09/2006, Intelligently designed politics. A fringe presidential candidate employs a creationist teenager as intelligent design advisor.
12/03/2006, Spanking creationists. Home-schooled teenagers win Ken Ham's essay contest. The top three are quite painfully discussed.
12/02/2006, Ham endorses Dawkins. Ken Ham agrees with Dawkins that you can't pick and choose from the Bible. Ham chooses to accept all of it, Dawkins chooses none.
11/27/2006, The heretic sniffer. Inside the Vatican's interview of Coyne provokes a denunciatory letter.
11/25/2006, Claremont tussles over ID. If you're conservative, you have to be a creationist. Or maybe not quite. Watch them fight at the Claremont Institute.
11/11/2006, The creationists' secret weapon. Ken Ham pretends that a new book will finally refute evolution. It will fail, but it will raise lots of nice money for Answers in Genesis.
10/29/2006, A flip of the Coyne. Inside the Vatican reports on the controversy over criticism of intelligent design (and Cardinal Schönborn) by the director of the Vatican Observatory.
9/25/2006, Creation on campus Answers in Genesis publishes a letter from a future creationist biology teacher and one from the parent of a nicely brainwashed child.
9/23/2006, The Augean stables of creationism Pastor Melton cobbles together a farrago of anti-evolution arguments and I pull it apart.
9/21/2006, A classroom conversion Getting through to creationist students. I include a passage from Martin Gardner's The Flight of Peter Fromm.
9/13/2006, Prometheus, proto-creationist Jasper Fforde's fictional character embraces fictional science.
9/07/2006, Greenbacks and Ham Imagining the Darwinists on the run while begging for money.
8/20/2006, Liar, liar! Scholarship is easier when you just make up stuff—like Ann Coulter does for D. James Kennedy.
7/19/2006, A creationist tells the truth Creationist astrophysicist Jason Lisle shows in Taking Back Astronomy that faith can twist anything.
6/05/2006, Darwin in Davis A symposium at UC Davis features classroom-based research and effective lessons in teaching evolution in high school.
4/29/2006, Preaching down D. James Kennedy repeats the spurious Julian Huxley quote about evolution. Kennedy is either a liar or self-deceived. Maybe both!
4/24/2006, Clockwork creationism Fuzale Rana of Reasons to Believe tells Catholic Radio talk show host Al Kresta that Tiktaalik is not a transitional form from sea-dwelling to land-dwelling animals. His reasons are wrong, of course.
4/22/2006, Undercover creationists Don't we need more creationists with actual scientific credentials? The Institute for Creation Research holds a summer seminar on how to get a graduate education in science under false pretenses.
12/21/2005, Doing Darwin justice A celebration of the Kitzmiller decision in the Dover case, with links.
10/16/2005, Salting the creationist quote mine Paul P. Craig takes creationism too seriously in his San Francisco Chronicle opinion piece. His words are sure to be taken out of context.
9/11/2005, The Sign of the Fraud Sherlock Holmes says that the truth is what's left when you've eliminated everything else. Creationists pretend that Genesis is the only alternative to evolution, so that every shortcoming in evolutionary theory can be claimed as support for special creation.

Culture

9/09/2006, Smoking or nonsmoking? Oh, sure, so now smokers want to be polite.
9/04/2006, Don't hate me because I'm smart The new generation of porn-star math professors.
8/14/2006, Motes and beams David Vroon has refinement and discernment. Too bad about everyone else.
8/03/2006, Math majors are cool How can you doubt it when Ross Dress for Less tells you so in a TV ad?
7/23/2006, Sometimes a heel is just a heel Subliminal comics in the Sunday installment of Curtis? I sure don't think so!
7/08/2006, The Lois Lane Protective Society Larry Niven tries to warn Lois Lane about sex with Superman.
6/05/2006, Sir Isaac Newton, feminist? A lifelong celibate joined the Da Vinci Code cult of the Eternal Feminine? I don't think so.
6/01/2006, Contextual Comics: Lío If you know both the Peanuts comic strip and its television incarnation, you can understand this cartoon.
5/19/2006, Different = Bad My nephew paints his toenails with glitter and his grandfather takes in it stride. I wish it were laudable.
4/29/2006, He said, she said, they said The privileged white boys of the Duke University lacrosse team hire some black girls to entertain them at a party. Who did what to whom? Some people can tell. Or so they say.
3/24/2006, Chef d'oeuvre South Park mocks Scientology and Chef (Isaac Hayes) bows out—but not for the first time.
3/18/2006, Shrill feminist A reminiscence on a friend's childhood as a Jewish girl. Why aren't women angry all the time? Includes a syllabus of male-chauvinist horrors.
1/21/2006, Lebewohl, Brünnhilde Dramatic Wagnerian soprano Birgit Nilsson exits the stage of life, but no one can ever forget her.
12/17/2005, Here's looking at you, kid! The surveillance society surrounds us. Do you feel safer yet?
12/11/2005, The time of red and green My high school P.E. class used to color code our clothes by physical ability. The good old days of Studies in State-Sponsored Terrorism (or gym class). Includes an excerpt from a Calvin cartoon.
11/25/2005, Richard Socarides is still gay Charles Socarides says he can cure homosexuality. So why is his son gay? I explain where reparative therapists get their “success” stories.
10/29/2005, Imaginary opera appreciation The opera Salammbô doesn't really exist, but this aria does. An appreciation of a math teacher's amateur translation.
10/08/2005, Let slip the sharks of love I endorse gay marriage, polygamy, and incest (within reason, of course). Bestiality misses the cut.
9/10/2005, You are the world What would the world be like if your tastes ruled supreme? Probably a lot different from my world.

Education

12/22/2006, The 98th Carnival of Education. The carnival has a conservative flavor, but Halfway There is included.
12/16/2006, The terrible math problem. Oops! I give a “Lucky Larry” problem to my calculus students and some seize the day.
12/15/2006, A well-earned F. And you thought F stood for “failure.” My stay-the-course student thinks otherwise.
11/04/2006, The template student. I expect students to know what present value means. Several disappoint me.
11/01/2006, Smarting students. My polite student's GPA falls. My clueless student flunks outright. How about some peremptory challenges?
10/26/2006, The absent mind. A student can't even fill in an absence slip, but he knows he'll be on a bus.
10/21/2006, Calculus for classroom defense. You can find safety in a fort built from calculus books.
10/01/2006, Welcome, godless skeptics! It's a double-header: Both Skeptics' Circle No. 44 and Carnival of the Godless No. 50 are now on-line—and Halfway There is included in both.
9/26/2006, A student stays the course Yes, she's failing, but please don't tell her!
8/24/2006, The more you know A considerate student informs me that he'll be napping during class. It's okay: he's smart!
7/11/2006, A is for Artificial Extra credit? I don't need no stinking extra credit!
6/14/2006, Time for an Education Carnival The 71st Carnival of Education is a raucous end-of-year staff party sponsored by the Science Goddess.
6/10/2006, The one-size-fits-all syllabus Dr. Zeno's late and lamented colleague created the ultimate one-page syllabus.
5/25/2006, Prechewed mathematics I don't blame Richard Feynman for disliking rote learning, but it has its place (especially if you're not a genius). A nice Calvin cartoon is included!
5/03/2006, A date with failure A student in dire straits must complete three tasks to pass a class. Naturally, he skips one.
4/20/2006, Calculation without concept Changing the variables in an integral requires changing the limits of integration. Students want to plug into a formula instead of thinking about the region.
3/17/2006, Cyborg students Calculator dependency is no joke. It's a crippling illness.
3/04/2006, The triage reflex You can tell which students are going to fail. Maybe.
2/27/2006, Algebra problem from hell Dramatically separating the weak students from the strong. And I didn't even mean to.
2/18/2006, Prestidigitation It's probably true: I couldn't lecture if I couldn't wave my hands.
2/17/2006, Lesson plans & pans Students explain my job to me. And boycott my class when I don't listen!
2/06/2006, The naked student No book, no pencil, no paper, no nothing. What is he thinking?
12/15/2005, The twelve o'clock scholar The late-adding student and the remoteness of success.

Language

12/26/2006, The mother tongue. I speak Portuguese like a little boy. Maturin's view of the language quoted.
12/23/2006, Word of the day. I call George W. Bush a “loss leader.”
8/26/2006, Step on it Sometimes Bizarro is ambiguous. I think that's the point.
7/14/2006, Recycling old words Jeffrey Kacirk's The Word Museum is a great opportunity to mock Ann Coulter.
4/22/2006, Just between you and I Dan Piraro has fun with grammatical conventions—or does he?
12/03/2005, When the truth is a lie The dictionary definition of estranged is not the vernacular usage. (Something similar is true for celibate.) How to use technically correct definitions to lie about the Terry Schiavo case.

Life

12/29/2006, Crime and punishment. A dark dairy farm is not a good place to develop your skills for thievery. A morality tale in which some crooks probably got the point.
12/26/2006, The mother tongue. I speak Portuguese like a little boy. Maturin's view of the language quoted.
12/19/2006, Death in Oregon. Despite technology, Oregon claims some lives: Kelly James and James Kim.
11/18/2006, Farm boy. I grew up on a dairy farm while corporations encroached on family operations. A rustic memoir.
10/16/2006, Dark, dark humor. Yes, it's time to bring out your dead. No, it's not really that funny.
8/17/2006, Stupid and dishonest, but polite Visiting a sick friend: First, do no harm.
8/01/2006, Are you being served? A curmudgeonly math prof doesn't like changes in his routine—as when a favored server decamps.
6/18/2006, Forgetting David Assuaging a terrible loss by creating a non-person; a little boy vanishes from history.
3/13/2006, Free is expensive I get a good deal on tires for my car. Or so I think.
3/06/2006, My life is a sham An aptitude test shows that I should have been a great writer. (You mean I'm not?)
2/24/2006, Sic transit People come and go while you're not paying attention. Pay attention!
2/09/2006, Boulder in the sky I look up at the moon. Damn, that's cool!
1/13/2006, The girl in the mirror My niece's identity gets borrowed and a crime wave follows. Not good.
1/03/2006, A walk in dairyland Circumstances change, but the family dairy farm goes on, an example of rugged independence (and government subsidies). I also comment on J. G. Boswell and his biography, The King of California.

Mathematics

12/23/2006, Thinking inside the box. My students work out the box of maximum volume in a hands-on classroom exercise.
12/22/2006, Creative math. A precalculus student reaches new heights in creative cancellation.
11/29/2006, I rorschach my colleagues. Is that a math joke in Cyanide and Happiness? I think it is. Others are not so sure.
6/08/2006, Phi: Good to the last decimal Applying a dollop of skepticism to the divinity of the Golden Ratio, despite what The Da Vinci Code says.
5/27/2006, Statistics: Math for self-defense The anniversary of Newsweek's absurd cover story on marriage brings an apologetic retrospective from the perpetrator and lots of links.
4/01/2006, So much smarter than you Pretentious pedant David Berlinski recounts how he dazzled professional mathematicians with a lecture right out of Calculus 1. A dream sequence—or a nightmare?
3/07/2006, David Berlinski vs. Goliath A philsopher/mathematician uses his knowledge to debunk evolution in a debate on Firing Line—at least for those who don't know his math is bogus.
11/19/2005, The Church of the Null Hypothesis It's the assumption that nothing special is going on, so stop sniffing around for miracles. Nick Barrowman of Log base 2 weighs in with useful observations in the comments.
9/24/2005, Who owns mathematics? There are people who are using math who don't actually know any—or they do, and hope that you don't! William Dembski, Samuel Huntington, and Claude Lévi-Strauss are featured. One of my friends shows up in the comments and spins out prose so fulsome he seems like a John Lott sock puppet, but it's all him.
9/12/2005, The counting numbers A lame joke about Arabic versus Roman numerals in Hollywood.

Miscellaneous

11/16/2006, O. J. Simpson and the path not taken. Why didn't Reagan appoint O.J. lieutenant governor when he had a chance?
10/26/2006, Nerd power. A cartoon palanquin violates the laws of physics!
10/07/2006, The knight errant. My friend and his woeful tale of three wives. Will there be a happy ending?
9/23/2006, The stupid little boy It's a joke.
9/19/2006, Read all about it! Create your own bogus newspaper clippings.

Politics

12/30/2006, I'm from the government... And I really am here to help you. Civil servants must pass qualifying exams. Tammy Bruce shoots off her mouth about the Food and Drug Administration.
12/30/2006, I am close-minded. Does political advertising sway you? Not me!
12/26/2006, An earlier model of Ford. Okay, at least he wasn't Richard Nixon. But he was the Republican minority leader who tried to impeach William O. Douglas.
12/21/2006, The liberals are back. It's the 28th Carnival of the Liberals.
12/09/2006, The anti-absquatulator. A blogger attacks our president, so I insincerely defend him. Some wonderful rhetorical devices are analyzed.
12/08/2006, You're no Jack Kennedy. My father tries to claim JFK as someone aligned with George W. Bush's policies. I address this insanity by looking at tax rates.
12/07/2006, An endangered species. The American Conservative Union is terrified of RINOs, despite their near extinction, and unpersuasively claims victory in the midterm elections.
12/06/2006, A little mind with a big mouth. Melanie Morgan attacks the Iraq Study group for its lack of military veterans. She thinks this disqualifies them from giving advice to a chickenhawk president.
12/02/2006, President Prevaricator. Bush lies to the press, but they don't want to call him on it. Mark Sandalow manages to do it somehow.
11/26/2006, The Republican legacy of cheating. When the election is dirty, expect a Republican victory a là Hayes, Harrison, and Bush.
11/20/2006, Bush the Lesser. How will history remember George W. Bush? Not well.
11/14/2006, The Pelosi Project. KSFO's Melanie Morgan thinks she can stop Pelosi from becoming Speaker of the House. I think Melanie is nuts.
11/13/2006, We supported our troops. My patriotic vote was cast just as my military friends would have wished: against the GOP.
11/06/2006, Lose weight now! It's the elephant diet! I belabor Don Hesse's post-Nixon political cartoon.
11/04/2006, Right-wing war heros. Melanie Morgan's Move America Forward creates publicity for her and bogus news in the so-called war on terror.
11/01/2006, The GOP as suicide bombers. Republican lamentations over Kerry's slightly botched joke demonstrate their desperation. Are you sure you want to remind everyone about Iraq?
10/28/2006, A polling postscript. A poll doesn't mean much if the questions are merely relative.
10/27/2006, A primer on polling. Why can a pollster get away with using so few respondents in a sample? It's probability theory!
10/15/2006, A surprising October. The evil Democrats are pulling October surprises to defeat the GOP, but alert right-wingers call them on it in a San Francisco Chronicle poll.
10/12/2006, The GOP's Ministry of Truth. The crystal ball says the Republicans will hold on to both the House and Senate in the midterm elections. Oh, oh. It's really an 8 ball!
10/08/2006, Rats and interns. In Pearls before Swine, Rat uses the Foley intern gambit to prove his psychic powers to Congress.
10/02/2006, The Foley Follies Roadshow. An actual scoop: My colleague's daughter had dinner with Mark Foley while serving as a capital page.
9/23/2006, Small town propaganda The college town of Davis is targeted—by Target; it's the “big box” controversy.
9/11/2006, Melanie Morgan, née Goebbels Sure I lie, but you're not patriotic!
9/01/2006, Osama's big chance Bin Laden can still save Bush, his great benefactor, with an October surprise.
8/26/2006, When liars figure If the Iraq casualty numbers are against your claim of victory, cook the numbers!
8/18/2006, Monkey see, monkey do Virginia Senator George Felix Allen lets the macaca out of the bag.
8/07/2006, World War Whatever John Varley is prescient about Republican war propaganda.
8/05/2006, Avast, ye Techers! Students at Caltech embrace piracy and reject Nixon. Arrgh!
7/01/2006, The Ann Coulter autopsy No, she's not really a Christian, but she plays one on TV.
6/26/2006, I am Al Gore's truth squad A great man (and our rightful 43rd president) uses the dreaded “dark side of the moon” expression.
6/17/2006, Rooting for the Enemy Repeating history from the Vietnam war era: We're all Art Hoppe now.
6/08/2006, Rehabilitating a lie The logic of propaganda and the supposed Iraq/Al Qaeda link: Zarqawi is killed in Iraq, so Saddam and Bin Laden are buddies.
6/03/2006, Cashing in on Jimmy Carter Right-winger Melanie Morgan loves Jimmy Carter—or at least the money she can raise by attacking him.
5/30/2006, Markos in Sacramento The old politics meets the new politics in the state capital—and doesn't really get it.
5/26/2006, I don't hate Bush I merely despise him—as I would any lying politician (especially when they're this incompetent).
5/14/2006, Innumeracy it's not Want to pretend that Bush's poll numbers are rebounding? Use the mathematics of apples and oranges!
4/12/2006, Carnival of the Liberals! PZ Myers picks Halfway There for inclusion in the 10th Carnival of the Liberals.
4/10/2006, Reality is liberal The Bush administration thinks it creates its own reality. Wrong! Indiana tries to legislate pi and how nonsense like that gets stopped.
4/07/2006, Pardon my president A scenario for the last day of the Bush administration. George, Dick, and Condi gather in the Oval Office for the final conspiracy.
3/29/2006, Son of Richard Nixon Nixon once said it's not illegal as long as the president does it. George Bush really believes that.
3/06/2006, Absentee-minded Bush and his people screw up on his absentee ballot. They lie about it, of course.
2/20/2006, Whoring for jr Brit Hume of Fox News is a big shill for George W. Bush. Why shouldn't he be? He used to love the IBM PCjr.
2/07/2006, War is money War is good for the bottom line, as long as you're a private contractor with Pentagon connections. A former student of mine spills the beans directly from the war zone in Iraq.
1/23/2006, The end of abortion Post-conception birth control is increasing under pharmaceutical control. What will the pro-lifers do when surgical abortion is superseded by medication?
11/26/2005, John Murtha the Bellwether Jack Murtha has been a sign of impending doom for Republicans ever since Nixon and Watergate.

Religion

10/13/2006, B.C. is funny. Johnny Hart explains that President Bush would be popular if the poll questions weren't rigged. And if Republicans weren't such dainty doilies.
10/11/2006, The B.C. help feature. Johnny Hart smites pollsters again by means of a burning bush. A cartoon fraught with religious symbolism!
10/07/2006, More divine inspiration. I may not know poetry, but I'm pretty sure I can tell when it reeks. This pro-life poem has soaring eagles!
9/16/2006, Our Lady of Whatever The Virgin Mary is always on the job.
8/27/2006, Once upon a time Miracles are real—in Johnny Hart's comic strip, anyway.
8/08/2006, Jesus H. Christ, Ed.D. Is your calculus class Christian enough?
7/30/2006, Religion is good If you play along, you can win gifts and prizes!
6/23/2006, The fumbling finger of God Catholic Radio's Barbara McGuigan lionizes Colorado anti-abortionist Ted Harvey and his stunt attacking Planned Parenthood.
5/30/2006, The truth about atheists! A Fresno State student discourses on unbelief, disgracing himself and his school.
5/24/2006, Anti-Catholicism revisited Yes, the RCs take a lot of unfair hits, but Benedict XVI needs to own up to the reality of the scandals.
5/21/2006, Getting on God's case Lee Strobel is just a Christian apologist now, but he can still pretend to be a journalist.
5/08/2006, Bell, book, and candle Cardinal Arinze takes a phone call. No, the Catholic church isn't promoting The Da Vinci Code. Not on purpose, anyway.
4/29/2006, Preaching down D. James Kennedy repeats the spurious Julian Huxley quote about evolution. Kennedy is either a liar or self-deceived. Maybe both!
4/18/2006, Climate of fear and loathing Yes, Michael Crichton is a hack and an anti-science propagandist. Alexei Panshin has known that for years!
2/11/2006, Divine inspiration A kitschy ceramic Jesus playing football with little boys? Forgive them, for they know not what they do!
1/15/2006, Holy homicide Abraham was so religious that he was willing to kill his son Isaac at God's command. I hope you aren't that religious!
12/19/2005, Why do you feel bad, whore? A woman in pain calls Catholic Radio's Barbara McGuigan. It's not her first mistake.
12/10/2005, Anti-Catholicism The Catholic League and Bill Donohue, its president, epitomize the kind of Catholics we should oppose.
12/01/2005, Pox vobiscum Clutch the pearls! The Vatican discovers queers in the priesthood!
11/05/2005, Axiomatic Catholicism It really is the one true religion—provided you accept certain starting assumptions. Why Protestantism is an also-ran. (I demonstrate how my upbringing has left me still partially programmed.)

Skepticism

12/20/2006, Ten years without Carl Sagan. Sagan's life is remembered and celebrated with a blog-a-thon.
12/10/2006, The Unknown Sagan. My boss doesn't know who Carl Sagan is, so Carl sweetly sends his best.
11/24/2006, Quackery fact & fiction. My sister-in-law falls prey to a nice natural healer and iridology. It's like a page out of an Aubrey-Maturin novel.
11/24/2006, Last skeptical will and doubtful testament. Halfway There has two entries in the new Skeptics' Circle (No. 48).
11/12/2006, Science envy. Sorry, but you're not the best there is. And neither is Hynek, Dembski, Gish, Fleischmann, or Pons. The topics are UFOs, information theory, creationism, and cold fusion.
10/08/2006, Water witching for fun and profit. It's time for credulous reporting when the San Francisco Chronicle interviews a dowser. It's a gift from God, and the Bible proves it!
9/03/2006, The etiquette lesson Telling them they're wrong is not considered a favor, you bastard!
6/28/2006, The boot heel of Snopes The urban legend debunking site takes all the fun out of being deluded. How dare they!
6/24/2006, The witch behind me A self-deluded man calmly discusses his curses and killings.
6/22/2006, Lost & found in the Bermuda Triangle It's the 37th installment of Skeptics' Circle.
6/06/2006, The Law of Small Numbers If the data are sparse enough, you can prove anything: the exaggerated impossibility of second runs at the presidency.
5/24/2006, The Skeptics' Circle again Halfway There is included in the 35th Skeptics' Circle.
5/11/2006, Garbage in, garbage out! Have you had your Christian enema today? Danny Vierra will sell you one to promote colon health.
5/05/2006, It's all relatives My family is part of the spam ecosystem. My niece sends me a long error-ridden tract on how we need to get back to God and Bible reading (in schools, too!). Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Benjamin Spock, and Spiro Agnew all play a part.
4/26/2006, It's time for the Skeptics' Circle Halfway There is part of the 33rd Skeptic's Circle, sponsored by Science and Politics.
4/21/2006, Miracles on Interstate 80 A tractor vanishes and a car flies into space. No kidding!
3/04/2006, UFOs, Unicorns, and POWs The POW/MIA flag is a mute witness to false and foolish hopes. It's sad.
1/11/2006, False proportionalities Lots of specious arguments are based on the assumption of inelasticity. Why this is wrong.
1/05/2006, What if everyone...? Over-generalization is a fun way to float a specious argument. I take pot-shots at it.
1/04/2006, People who know Absolute knowledge tends to corrupt absolutely. Of course, they just think their knowledge is absolute.
11/12/2005, The myth of #1 The notion of “best” is intimately tied up with the evaluation metric. Guess why my nephew thinks GPA is a better measure than SAT?
10/31/2005, Teela Brown does not exist I explain to Larry Niven that you can't inherit good luck—not even on Ringworld.