The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by mattH:

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Posted on entry The creek's dried up ::: October 24, 2006, 11:19 AM:
Chris wrote an explanation in that same Pharyngula thread. It seems the threat arose as part of an intra-left argument, and he decided to take the site down, for now, because he didn't want to contribute to the acrimony.
Posted on entry Bestsellers, okaysellers, and slippery figurative language ::: October 21, 2006, 12:37 PM:
It's being a fox and not a hedgehog.
Posted on entry 1491 ::: September 01, 2006, 09:38 AM:
Hunter-gatherer groups often consiously kept their populations down. Most people are quite willing to accept that hunter-gatherers were quite knowledgable about their environments and that they exploited a wide range of foods. The flip side is that they likely had just as wide a range of knowledge about the dangerous plant and animals that they had access to in their environment, and that some suitable plants were used as abortifacients. Some have even been found in coprolites that would function quite well.

As for GG&S, and even Collapse for that matter, Francis(in #26) is dead on. He has an interesting, and perhaps even correct, thesis, but he often gets the details wrong in relation to specific cultures. Besides glossing over the relationship between Pizarro, disease, and politics and the collpse of the Inca, he gets the Anasazi wrong, arguing for Chaco canyon's collapse as entirely environmental, while it may certainly well have been political and trade oriented. He's pretty slopppy in his work with ancient cultures.
Posted on entry 1491 ::: September 01, 2006, 01:54 AM:
Certainly better than 1421: The Year China Discovered America, even if many of it's points are in contention. The Amazon certainly was more populated than people think, and the initial complex Peruvian cultures developed without pottery, a rarity for the world.
Posted on entry You Can't Dance to It . . . ::: August 07, 2006, 12:18 AM:
I just finished Paris in the Twentieth Century, and was a bit dissapointed, but then, it's also my first Verne book, so I'm not too sure what I was expecting. Also, I read it because of it's underlying distopian theme, which is very disturbing.
Posted on entry Memo to British fandom ::: July 28, 2005, 02:10 PM:
Oliver, I wouldn't be so sure that such a tax would be as effective as you might hope, especially if it were to drastically reduce air travel.
Posted on entry Your homework done for free! ::: April 05, 2005, 03:51 AM:
You are so evil. That's eight links to a free term paper.
Posted on entry Slushkiller ::: February 23, 2004, 01:39 AM:
Alice Keezer re: Besides the urging of one of my favorite musical artists (she wrote an accompaniment of sorts to this book), what made me run up to the register and dig out the $20-something for this book was the way it was put together.

They happen to be brother and sister, Mark and Annie "Poe" Danielewski.
Posted on entry J. Daniel Scruggs ::: October 08, 2003, 02:21 AM:
My heart goes out to his mother. Being held responsible for his death, with little or no substantive connection, it's horrible. It's also seemed that the jury was looking to blame someone, and she happened to be the one who was brought to them.

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