I don't know a thing about fish, but the local Thai restaurant has a big puffer - he's almost the size of a football - and he lives with a whole bunch of other fish (including a couple of blue tangs [Dory from Finding Nemo - the reason I know what it is]). I never see him do anything but stare at people as they walk…

Reading a similar article on Scientific American, the cause seems to be the low level of antibiotics that's fed to livestock constantly in order to keep them from getting sick. That's the "selective pressure" they talk about. It's a constant threat that weeds out non-resistant strains and selects for those resistant…

So I'm not wrong in thinking most of the fossils of plants I see are ferns? Good. I was beginning to think it was in my head.

Your response raises the same question it attempts to answer. On the one hand, you're saying scientists have to be better-than-average in order to be afforded any credibility... but then in your last sentence you dismiss them all as catastrophists seeking funds. Which implies none of them are credible, no matter what…

I always think, "Man, was the earth 90% covered in ferns?" Maybe they just fossilize really well... or I don't know how to tell what's a fern and what isn't.

Ah, but apparently it doesn't matter. It's the lying that's important. It's wrong to get information through misrepresentation - according to the article - and such a categorical imperative means that anything gained through such misrepresentation is tainted fruit... except that we know this isn't the case. We know…

I don't remember anyone getting bent out of shape that some conservative misrepresented himself as a pimp in order to get damning video of ACORN employees... is this, perhaps, a double standard?

Yes. Oh yes. It's like the Climategate emails... only hopefully less contentious... but I expect to be hearing about FTL neutrinos for the rest of my life.

I know what a merkin is (and that was a disappointing UD definition - the real definition? really? I was expecting something weird and hilarious)... I just didn't realize you were making a joke... but knowing what a merkin is is the only reason I know there's a writer for the Simpsons named David Mirkin. ;-)

One of the writers on the Simpsons is named David Mirkin...

That sound you heard? It was the joke, flying over your head.

You're just saying that because you hate French-y things. You're an anti-francophonabastard, and therefore I'm going to pretend you're neither clever nor funny.

It's sad... I love having my ideas challenged by an intelligent debater. It helps me to think things through and make sure my position is logically consistant and reflects the way I truly feel. Now, it seems like any attempt to discuss issues just comes down to a 6th grade name fight with "libtards" and "rethuglicans"…

Actually, I may not have actually said she made a mistake before, so I apologize. I'd been trying to keep the focus on the people I feel most responsible, which are the creepy adults, but I at least alluded to it when saying "if the worst thing she does is take a picture of her ass she's doing great" - it's not…

I'm fine with saying she made a mistake - in fact, I've said that already. I'm just not okay with the attention being on her mistake, which seems relatively minor on the list of mistakes common to teenage girls. Why is it that people feel the need to point out that she made a mistake? Does it absolve the adults in the…

And yet, what I actually said was that this problem is rampant on both sides. So I'm unclear on where I was a hypocrite. I never expressed an opinion about conservatives or liberals... you did, Cleese did, I didn't.

What do you call the disease where you boil down the positions and concepts of a person down to a single dimension like politics and then assume you know something about them? Because I think that one's running rampant through political commenters of every stripe.

I'm not really sure why the bodybuilding.com incident is a big deal. Sure, she trolled them... they got trolled by a 17-year-old... this is a big deal, why? The pictures she posted there were all fully clothed, holding up signs telling them to fuck off, and in response to people claiming she wasn't who she said. I'd…

The jury isn't supposed to have any contact with the defendant outside the court room, in order to prevent jury tampering. So, having contact with the defendant was the reason he was dismissed. That's not the reason he went to jail. He went to jail for bragging about how friending the defendant got him dismissed and…

He did something stupid for his own benefit, then bragged about it... why, exactly, can't I blame him?