No one cares, but for the record (which will never be consulted), this is our humble blog’s 3,500th post. This was Number 3,000, and before that Number 2,500, and before that Number 2,000, and before that Number 1,500, and before that Number 1,000, and before that Number 500 (approximately), and before that, this was Post Number One — Clarke’s First Law and Intelligent Design.
None of that is important, so feel free to use the comments section as an Intellectual Free Fire Zone. You know the rules. But before we leave you, we’re going to toss in some other irrelevant stuff.
Probably no one pays attention to Technorati any more, but they rank this humble blog among the top 100 science blogs on the internet. A few weeks ago they had us around number 25 or so; this week we’re in the 40s. The ranking bounces around, often wildly, and there are times when they ignore us for months at a stretch. We don’t think any of that means very much, but we take a look every now and then.
We have some other housekeeping news. In about a week or so, the cumulative total for our humble blog will go over 1.8 million page-views. “Hits” are greater than page-views, because that figure (which we don’t know) includes loading graphics and such. “Visitors” is lower than page-views, because the typical visitor looks at more than one page. A couple of months ago, WordPress started reporting the number of visitors on a daily basis. We get over 3,000 per week, and once more than 6,000. As with all blogs, only a small fraction of visitors leave comments, and those who do are the greatest part of this place.
There’s no pretense of accuracy about those numbers because we also have RSS subscribers and there are readers who use other methods. Anyway, page-views are important in the blogosphere because that’s what advertisers care about. Your Curmudgeon receives nothing from advertisers (any ads you see here benefit WordPress, not us), so we don’t care about page-views or other statistics. That’s why we do nothing — absolutely nothing — to puff up our traffic. Most bloggers would consider this place to be a high-volume blog, but for the big guys out there our traffic is trivial. We don’t care; we do what we do here because we enjoy it.
This blog’s fifth anniversary is coming on 02 April. We’ll probably use that occasion to babble a bit more about this irrelevant stuff. Until then, we’ll keep blogging from the fabled CITADEL — the Curmudgeonly Institute for Tactics, Advocacy, and Defense of the Enlightenment Legacy — the secret global nerve center for monitoring events throughout the Creosphere, where your Curmudgeon is headquartered in his luxurious underground control room.
While we’re off-topic, in accordance with your Curmudgeon’s non-judgmental, sensitive, and compassionate nature we post the following:
Creationists who read this blog may experience some or all of these symptoms: headache, fainting, dizziness, shortness of breath, rapid breathing, heartburn, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration, high blood pressure, mood swings, paranoia, delusions of persecution or martyrdom, chronic fatigue, feelings of guilt or worthlessness, slowed thinking or impaired concentration, speech impairment, sexual dysfunction, memory loss, hypertension, depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, recurrent and persistent obsessions (ideas, thoughts, impulses, or images) that are ego-dystonic, or intense, repetitive, compulsions that are excessive and unreasonable.
If you experience any of these symptoms while reading this blog, and such symptoms last for more than four hours, it is strongly recommended that you discontinue reading and promptly seek professional assistance.
And we have to conclude with this:
Everything written by the Curmudgeon in this blog is true. The presence of this Certificate is your proof. Our logic is undeniable.
Copyright © 2013. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
I hope that you continue to defend the Enlightenment for a long time to come, Your Curmudgeonlyness.
I second what the forest devil sez. And the numbers are impressive, so kudos are in order.
Some of us have been eagerly awaiting this post ever since the 3499th post, or even longer! I checked and found you have a PageRank of 5, which is not too shabby either.
Back when I was first blogging, I was fortunate enough to have my Games/math blog selected as Bloggers Blog-of-the-Day. My daily pageloads were 600-800 a day and stayed that way for a long time, but I never got the kind of response in the comments that you have here every day, with every post. Not even close. You have grown a good community here, and that is quite an accomplishment.
So go ahead Curmie, take a bow.
You have been a busy man, Curmy. How many keyboards have you gone through?
A heartfelt thanks for all you do to further the cause of scientific truth and enlightenment.
Tomato Addict says: “you have a PageRank of 5″
Hey, PageRank — I haven’t checked that for a couple of years. I forgot all about it. Thanks for the info.
Congrats! I have been waitin for a “free fire zone” to post this. Warning, It’s long:
The following is a fictional dramatization of a 1987 conversation, but something like it certainly occurred:
A. It’s official. The Supreme Court ruled against teaching Creation Science. I guess we have to go with Plan B.
B. Yeah, but I’ve been thinking. Changing “creation” language to “design” language in the textbook we’ve been writing won’t fool many people, fans or critics. They’ll still think “free will,” and thus “God.”
A. But we already omitted all the other Genesis references. That alone makes it harder to ban as a religious view. Plus if the critics complain that design is creationism, well show that it’s not the same as Genesis. If critics even notice the bait-and-switch, and most won’t, they still have a hard job to convince those who want quick sound bites.
B. I agree, but I still think we should take out the “design” too and just make it read like “this happened then, and this is how…” We should have no trouble passing that off as a real science text, even if it’s critical of evolution.
A. But we don’t have any “what happened when.” What little we had got deleted so not to offend the YECs, remember? You and I know that young earth, even old-earth-young-life, was discredited 100 years ago. Even Bryan admitted that it was nonsense. That neat strategy that Morris concocted to revive YEC didn’t stop OECs like Ross from blowing the whistle. Nevertheless, the public is almost completely clueless of that, and will likely be for the foreseeable future. That gives us a lot of leeway.
B. We were YECs. We got over it. So can students and their parents. Especially if we reassure them that evolution is dead. But we’ve got to give them something besides mere incredulity. How about that work Goldschmidt did 40 years ago? The “big jumps” that evolution can’t achieve without some “help”?
A. Goldschmidt’s process is in-vivo. We can’t let students think that they’re related to monkeys, no matter how much we lead them to infer that the change required God’s intervention.
B. Well, there have been a few competing attempts at “independent origins” theories, but they’re very preliminary. I’d prefer to wait to see of one of them gains traction before mentioning any one. And I wouldn’t want to mention more than one because that would alert more people that we’re “all over the map” as to what that elusive alternate “theory” might be.
A. Right. We can’t say too much. The few vague statements we already have about “fish with fins, birds with feathers” will wink-nudge most students into inferring Genesis kinds that popped up “long ago.” Most of them don’t like big numbers anyway, so omitting both “millions of years ago” and “a few thousand years ago” makes students happy and keeps peace in the big tent.
B. How about this? Most people care only about human origins, so I can put more emphasis on that. The less we write about other “kinds” the less students might wonder why evolution allows such major changes within those “kinds” but not for “monkey to man.”
A. Be careful, though. Remember all those fossils that scientists claim are transitional between modern humans and their common ancestors with chimps and gorillas. Speaking of “all over the map,” probably no two creationists have the same exact opinion on which are fully ape and which are fully. The fossils don’t help at all. They look too damn much like transitionals – if there were such a thing. (Winks)
B. (Sighs) I guess we really don’t have anything but “weaknesses” of evolution. And even that took a hell of a lot of cherry-picking. I can’t help thinking that at least some critics will ridicule our book by comparing it to a hypothetical Chemistry text with nothing but weaknesses of Phlogiston theory. And those are real weaknesses!
A. I wouldn’t worry much about that line of criticism; if it happens it’ll be lost on the public, and drowned out by the other objections. YEC books have all the bogus arguments of ours and more, plus some easily-falsified positive arguments. Yet most of the objection is about the God part. And in a constitutionality trial is has to be. Besides, even though Creation Science is more blatantly religious than our Plan B, two of the nine justices were still sympathetic to it. So I say we go with the “weaknesses” approach, keep the critics preoccupied with “design” language, and of course, support politicians who will appoint judges with an absurdly liberal opinion of what qualifies as science.
B. I guess you’re right. I’ll have the revised draft for you tomorrow.
(Sits down at the computer and hastily begins to revise the document. Doesn’t notice the “cdesign proponentsists” that appears on the monitor)
Kudos, O Curmudgeon! And vivat!
RSG writes: “You have been a busy man, Curmy. How many keyboards have you gone through?”
Nearly as many as Gary, I’d wager.
TA said: “Nearly as many as Gary, I’d wager.”
I doubt anyone here goes through them as often as I do. All it takes is one good comment from doodlebugger, or ESG (e.g. “the commenter formerly known as RSG”), or you, or (especially!) Doc Bill, or SC himself, and… it’s all over. I use a USB keyboard (as do most people), but most other people plug their’s into the back of their desktop. I don’t bother. Mine’s plugged into the front to make it easier to unplug, grab another one from the pallet (it’s amazing how much you can save when you buy in bulk), plug in the new one, and drive on.
FORTUNATELY, my consumption of keyboards has gone down considerably as I’ve evolved (heh) to learn to (a) put down Mt Dew and/or swallow, then (b) read comments.
Congrats, SC! Look forward to the exponent to the 4th power post.
Gee, Gary, addiction to Mountain Dew carries a high price. Good thing for you we’re not all as clever as docbill at turning a phrase. Tip — just put a sheet of plastic wrap over your keyboard.
BTW, Curmy or TA, what’s “Page Rank”?
retiredsciguy asks about PageRank.
It’s the result of some secret formula used by Google to rank websites to determine their placement in search results, but it’s all a big mystery. The lowest is 1 and the highest is 10, but it’s not as if 10% of websites were at each level. Rumor is that it’s some kind of logarithmic scale, so it’s progressively harder to move up the scale, resulting in a pyramid-shaped picture of the population of the internet. See PageRank. Like this place, the Time Cube is also a 5, which gives me a warm, cozy feeling. NCSE is 7. Good for them!
Addendum: The Discoveroids’ creationist blog also has a PageRank of 5, just like the Curmudgeon. ICR has a 6, and AIG also has a 6. We assume more creationists link to them than to the Discoveroids.
Congratulations on post number 3,500 Curmy. Thought you’d like to know that with Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) set to retire in 2014, there is talk that Rep. Paul Broun may run for his seat. Just what Georgia needs.
Here’s the link if you are interested:
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/279287-report-sen-saxby-chambliss-to-retire
Hi Curmy:
Just dropping by to say keep up the good work. Some of the best, and most of the funniest anti-creationist points that I have in my arsenal come from this blog.