It's that time again … time to nominate your favorite commenters for the Order of the Molly. Leave a comment saying whose name you like to see popping up in the comments threads, a few words about why you think they're molly-worthy would be nice, too, and on Sunday I'll tally them up and bestow the honorable OM on someone. You can find links to previous nomination threads on the commenters page, if you want to see what deserving people were passed over last time.
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I am have vote for Steve_C.
If I had to pick a single person, I'd go for Torbjorn Larsson. He's clear, funny, and devoted to including URLs in his comments. Plus, I figured he was going to get it last time.
I nominate Great White Wonder. His caustic wit has brightened up a rainy day on numerous occasions.
I nominate Great White Wonder's Mom, for being such a prolific -and-totally-not-a-sockpuppet poster.
Seriously, second Steve_C. I can't immediately recall him saying anything stupid, which puts him ahead of many other posters here.
I also vote for Torbjorn. (I know that's not the right spelling, but I'm an idiot when it comes to extra letter marks on keyboards.) His comments always cut to the point.
I nominate Caledonian. When I see that he's made a recent comment, I always pop in to read it, even if the particular subject doesn't interest me much.
PZ,
Apple Security Update 2007-004, which came out today, broke my Mail and Safari apps. Be warned!
I have a negative nomination for Skatje, who gets lots of "promotion" from pharyngula, but never seems to have time to come join in the fun with the grown-ups. *snicker*
Of course, as a lurker, I only get 1/10th of a vote, but still, it's a (-) 1/10th.
You must not have any teenage daughters. It's a positive thing that she doesn't come around here and boss me about.
Do you really want a lot of comments here that consist of a roll-eyes emoticon and a "whatever"?
I would like to cast 1 vote against Caledonian. I hope this does not backfire and end up counting as a vote for him. 'Twould be a tragedy. The reason, simply that he trolled me for being new. Nobody deserves to be trolled, especially if they are new. Also, I would like to nominate myself, for the simple fact that I agree with everything PZ says, but not in a brown-nosing type way.
You all think Hypnotoad's comments are the best.
I think Hypnotoad is the best. It was much better than "Cats". I'm going to see it again, and again...
I second (third?) the nomination for Thorbjörn Larsson, even though he is a Swede.
Larsson! Although I know some regard him askance because of that trendy diacritical mark in his first name. Not to worry! I've been told that there are countries far far away where people use funny symbols on their letters even when they're not in heavy-metal bands. Such a surprise to me!
I also appreciate Scholar's self-nomination, particularly for that part about agreeing with PZ all the time even though he is not a brown-noser. Good for him! I, for one, also refuse to be PZ's sycophant. That is, of course, unless PZ likes sycophants, I mean.
Caledonian, for bringing the liberal Libertarian perspective to things.
Please explain? You mean the thread where you advised him to accept the fact that not everyone believes in God?
If so, I don't think he trolled you. I don't have an axe to grind, I don't have a dog in this fight, I don't have a bone to pick or a metaphor to flog, so FWIW, IMO:
It was a simple misunderstanding on your part, and he toyed with you, rather gently, to the harmless amusement of just about everyone who knew the truth. I urge you not to take that (or this) as any kind of insult. Hey, navigating the ideological terrain around here is tricky enough without being expected to grok, at first sight, all the personalities involved, too. I doubt anyone was seriously whacking you for one misconception.
Zeno: Diacriticals impress you? Hah! Ok then! I'd like to nominate myself for having a cool non-Anglo name (like Skatje) that's even cooler by virtue of being commonly written in a completely different alphabet, and for not trying to capitalize on that meaningless fact in a cheap grab for some unwarranted recognition, and (unlike some people) for not transparently currying favor by name-dropping the daughter of the Bloglord.
Errrm... On second thought, never mind. :-)
I, too, would like to cast a vote for Mr. Diacritical, Torbjorn Larsson, not for any one post but for the overall excellence of his contributions. And his wit. And his cool name. And his hair. I bet he has nice hair.
Anyone but Kristine, who cooks in a cauldron.
GrrRRrrRRrrr.
i don't have a nomination... but i'd just like to chime in with a little molly anecdote: my special lady friends (also named molly) likes to go to stores around her dad's place in rural delaware to buy books... because leftish or science-ish books are always cheap because *those* people don't buy them.
and the last time we went we found molly ivins book... on sale!
:)
I'd like to nominate Michael Egnor who has given us loads of laughs over the past couple of months and who has worked tirelessly to undermine the creationists cause from within the Disco institute. He hasn't been on pharyngula that much but those few times have been comedy gold (who can forget his likening of gene duplication in biological evolution to someone putting the same post on a messageboard twice !) We need more Egnor!
And less fr#m%s!
Ever since "Ed Darrell made such a comprehensive comment on the question of whether Darwin was as wicked a racist as the illiterate ideologues of Uncommon Descent would like you to believe", I have been waiting to nominate him; and my chance finally came.
There are a lot of criteria for good comentating, but adding valuable information on a topic surely is one of the most important. So I hope you pick Ed.
I re-second El Senor Mister Torbjorn Larsson, Esq. His diacritical marks nicely complement his lack of hypocritical remarks.
BUT... and this is a huge but (so to speak), we need a bit more info on TL. Is he a hard-drinking, Abba-loving, aurora-watching, always-neutral-at-least-since-The-Thirty-Years-War, Swedish Swede, or one of those "all hat and no reindeer" Minnesota Swedes who hang out Cato Cailin-like at PZ's Squid^H^H^H^H^HDude Ranch and Tiki Bar?
Another for Thorbjörn Larsson, even though I have to copy-and-paste to spell his name right. We need more diacritics! ;-)
"please explain"
You REALLY must be new here! LOL
I also vote for Larsson. He writes clearly, concisely, and he gets his point across well.
Maybe we need to nominate Rich, so he can have something to focus on instead of witch-hunting. It's ok as a weekend hobby, but when it starts taking over...
I can't believe no one has suggested the most obvious choice, so I'll do it. (But I reserve the right to also nominate someone else later):
Sanjaya Malakar!!!
Scholar, LOL... but... huh? No, really. If my general admiration for Caledonian is causing me to glossing over something, please tell me. I have admiration for you, too; and I've called Caledonian on what I sloppily term his "cryptic arrogance" and tendency to slap the idiot tag on those who don't immediately solve his puzzle-bombs. But... Ok, enough. I spend too much time talking about this.
Re: JimV #20
Yeah, I'm not changing my Larsson vote, but you're right - Ed's post was superb, and was useful as a sort of micro talk.origins on the racism and puppy-beating questions. :-)
I don't think this really displays that the poster gets the point of the Molly. Remember, it is named after the late Molly Ivins, and is intended to commemorate the insightful commenters.
I'm jumping on the Larssssssson bandwagon, not only because he is insightful and adds to our understanding, but because I have 50% Swedish blood coursing through my arteries and I am making a nationalist vote.
It seems that Larsson's time has come, so I will vote for him as well. But you guys need to work on that spelling some more: it's Torbjörn.
I vote for Thornberg Lars:en.
Why don't we just call him Thor to make our lives easier.
I'm a lazy american, I know.
Right on the spelling, Windy. The Thunder God is implied. ;-)
Torbjörn Larsson.
Because of his great comments. And because his name would be great to hear announced from stage. "And the Order of the Molly goes to ... (opens envelope) ... TORBJORN LARSSON!" (wild applause)
...
Note to PZ: Did you decide not to use the Molly bug, or the certificate?
I can see which way the wind's blowing here, but I'm gonna go ahead and put in my vote for Glen D.
Comment #21 on "Virginia Tech on Everybody's Mind" is pretty much the most thoughtful comment on that thread, one of many from Glen D. I don't always agree with him 100%, but he always keeps it logical.
I too support Tjolbin Larsson.
Tojobon Larson.
Tojoebin Larsin.
That swedish guy.
Great music is coming from Sweden these days.
Everyone should check out Peter Bjorn & John.
Thanks for the nods stogoe and Cal.
But I'm sensing the Hammer of Tor is a mighty weapon not to be taken lightly.
Torbjörn (sorry, Americans, but I have an Ö key on the keyboard), and Kseniya for comment 16.
I vote for that one Swedish dude too because his comments are always very interesting and smart, even if his name does sometimes cause my computer to reboot itself! Wow!
You know, I can usually count entries by just searching for the name and hitting command-F, and counting how many times I have to press the key. It's easy. This Törbjörñ Lârrrssssöñ character is totally messing up my schema.
Another vote for Torbjörn Larsson- I may as well help make it a landslide. He deserves it.
[Stands up behind keyboard, bows left and right.] Why, thank you, fans! [Sits down. Grabs coffee glas -its starting to get cold again.]
This month my vote goes to Greg Laden. He writes interesting comments, he can make us smile, and he has taught us about using f-words.
Zeno, you should polish up on your Venn diagrams! How do you know I'm not in a band?
(As it happens, I'm not. But I love to move to music so it happens that I listen to HM too. As long as it gets my groove on.)
More? Um, let's see, I've already mentioned elsewhere about my education and profession for the google-savvy. I can add that as a modern Swedish Swede I don't wear hat - and it messes with my nice hair.
Oh, come on, you really wanted to write Thaurghbj@#&!rn Laaargh-sszzonn here. You can as well admit it.
Have you ever just gotten a negative impression of somebody, based on what you have experienced? I personally feel that way about Caledonian, at this juncture. Then again, I haven't condemned him to hell, just expressed my opinion that I don't think he deserves a Molly (I could name about 25 people who commonly post here who I think are more deserving). Feel free to ignore me or to take (stay on) his side, since I could be just jumping to conclusions. (In which case, his character strength, intelligence, wit, and kindness will speak for itself over time.)
Maybe its that I am jealous of his popularity, or that I misunderstood that he was actually laughing "with me" rather than "at me". Whatever it is/was, it was a very real feeling that I experienced, and I felt like sharing it. In this sense, it would be accurate to accuse me of retaliation, if you so chose.
Scholar, Think you might be investing a tad too much real feeling into a blog?
Well if you feel that way, I'll vote for you, cause it doesn't matter a flake of snow and maybe you'll feel better.
I also vote for Ŧĥôŗбĵőřņ--as "Thor's bear", he's a godly killing machine.
Sailor, I was politely asked to elaborate on my (rushed?) judgement of Caledonian. I was quite willing to leave it at "simply because he trolled me for being new" which is still the case, in my mind. (and that what counts in my mind, ironic, I know)
Actually, when Blake Stacey won, I had not really discovered him yet. I went and investigated, who is this guy everybody likes? Indeed, he (Blake) is a wonderfully brilliant commenter and deserves to win another 28 Mollies if just for his daily comments this month. Further, I feel that the community would have missed out on quite a bit, if Blake had not won. I don't (yet!) put Caledonian even in the same stadium as Blake or Toby L. If all you have learned from this is not to piss me off, or face unfair retaliation, you could be right. What's done is done, but I'm sure if I slandered Blake Stacey, he would still deserve 2 Molly's a day. I am still willing to read Caledonian's posts with an open mind, what more can anyone ask?
BTW, that's 2 votes for me now. (thanks to scholar and sailor)
I'd support Torbjorn Larsson -- as long as Greg Laden gets the OM soon.
(Sounds like Scholar is the Rookie of the Month, though.)
Just reading these postings, I'm reminded of the opening credits to "Holy Grail." I just can't place a finger on it.
A little help would be appreciated. Thank you.
Heck, I'll vote for Thorson Larson too.
Do not worry, the last commenter has been sacked. Please continue commenting.
Thank you.
The person(s) responsible for sacking the previous commenter been sacked for failing to properly sack said commenter.
BUT... and this is a huge but (so to speak), we need a bit more info on TL.
I heard that a møøse once bit his sister...
I heard he was in ABBA.
I heard he was björn in a fjörd.
Is he perhaps a Norwegian Blue?
Beautiful plumage.
He was a bear where?
LOL @ all y'all, for the moose bytes and for the lesson in diacritical thinking!
And hey, Scholar for Rookie of the Month works for me, even if it's not really a category, Scholar is cool, and hey Scholar, just because I defend Cal doesn't make me anti-You, I respect your feelings, I'm just going for fairness and I like to think I'm brave enough to back a newbie if I thought the newbie was being treated unfairly, and I hope you vote for me for run-on-sentencier of the month, thank you very much.
So can you tell that I'm a Big Sister to two brothers who are 5 and 7 years my junior, one who spent lots of time and energy trying to get Thing One and Thing Two to play nice and to learn to resolve their differences? *grin*
No kite flying in the house!
Has Karl Rove endorsed anyone in this campaign yet?
Another vote for Torbjorn Larsson.
Glen D. has also been pretty darn hot recently (though as I recall he had a bit of a name-calling meltdown in one of the threads.)
Still, I'll cast votes for both. Torbjorn looks like a shoe-in, and Glen is a favorite of mine.
Scholar:
Many thanks. I'm glad to hear that at least one person thinks my post-Molly rambles are as good as my pre-Molly rants!
Another vote for Tõrbjórn here.
I recommended TL last month, thank you very much, so I'm glad that so many have come around to my way of thinking. His comments are thoughtful, frequently sourced (which is always appreciated) and from time to time sprinkled with an extremely dry wit....SH
Awww, Blake, you're always on my A-list. :-)
Scott, it wasn't a matter of coming around with regard to Торбёрн Ларссонь, it was only a matter of time. Having only two winners per month means that even the greats have to wait. ;-)
I'm feeling the love K, thanks. A good tip, for those run on sentances. Is just to put periods. In there.
Okay sentence, sorry. Anyway, I think I might just go ahead and nominate Scott Hatfield for next month :)
Great White Wonder deserves this more than anyone. His posts are probably the most congruous with the spirit of Molly Ivins.
Caledonian does not need to be associated with Molly Ivins in any way, whatsoever. If there's ever an award for being a useless smug malicious narcissistic self-righteous bigoted moral conventionalist with a histronic streak, I'll vote for Caledonian.
Oh, and Blake, since you are listening, I have one suggestion which could seriously improve your posts. You may want to try harder at Grooming your arguments toward your audience, in a way that they understand, and are not alienated. I will elaborate if you wish...
Ah, you mean "The Caledonian".
Damn! He just got two more votes from Dustin and me.
PZ, this counting votes as absolute values of yours loses a certain amount of nuance.
correction: three more votes.
Scholar: I appreciate the thought, but I already wear the last two letters on my name here with pride. Speaking of two letters:
TL!
TL!
TL!
"Grooming"! What a relief to get away from "framing"! Thank you, Scholar. It's an excellent choice, too, because "grooming" isn't a word that many of us need in daily life. For me, for example, it's a complete non-issue! That's right: no horses in my bachelor pad.
Zeno:
I must confess I find myself mildly puzzled. Do you mean that horses come with marriage?
Re "grooming" in general:
If I can't say exactly what I mean in a Pharyngula comment thread, where more than anywhere else on the Net my audience will contain Giant Flame-Spouting Floating Atheist Heads, where can I speak my mind? One should preach to the choir when the choir is present in force!
If I'm ever hard to follow here, well, I'm happy to take suggestions for improvement — but you should see me elsewhere. For one thing, I don't use equations at Pharyngula! I don't even make LaTeX jokes. (It was over at Rosenhouse's place that I spelled Torbjörn, Torbj\"orn. But Rosenhouse is a mathematician, after all.)
What, Blake, you never heard of bridal [sic] and bit? Or animal husbandry?
RavenT:
Well, I did grow up in Alabama, where the mud is red, the chicken is fried and the textbooks are disclaimered.
Blake, if it is any consolance, I appreciate that reference, and I avoid math if at all possible.
Me, too. I miss two of the three things you mentioned; I bet you can guess which they are. Fortunately, I'm old enough to have gotten through school unscathed by the disclaimers; that crap kicked in only after I had left.
And I'd add lightning bugs and real thunderstorms to the list. Mind you, not worth leaving Seattle to go back for, but I still miss them.
We've got real thunderstorms here, and also real snow and real cold. They are kind of neat, but I agree -- Seattle is an awfully tempting kind of place.
Well, looks like the award will be going to Torbjörn Larsson. Congratulations! It is well deserved. :)
archgoon - The voting's not over.
I'll put in a vote for Greg Laden.
But how can we be sure that we're all voting for the same person? Perhaps there are a dozen Swedes with variants on the name, and we're each voting for a different one of them. :)
Odonata:
I'm the news media! I call it before its over to discourage voting!
My apologies.
Well, since Torbjörn Larsson (any of them) have never complained about impersonation, we can conclude that if Torbjörn Larsson is indeed multiple people, its some sort of hive-mind deal, so we may treat them as a single entity without disrespect.
Having read some of his offerings, I have to say it would not surprise me in the slightest should TL turn out to have access to more than one mind at any given moment. He's, um, really smart.
Self-righteous, I'll grant, but bigoted?
And there is neither anything "moral", nor "conventional", about the vast majority of my opinions.
Ooh, I still have time to make a comment about an award I find repugnant. ;-)
Well, I did up the whole year, so I would stop being snarky about this, but I won't post the whole year (and will there be a OM Poster of the Year award?) I have to go back to my last suggestions, because the posters who have been around for a while deserve note, and then I can just refer back here:
Ed Darrell
Steve LaBonne
Steve_C
Torbjorn Larsson (go Sweden!)
Molly in NYC
Red Molly
Kesinya (note age for year-end)
Kristjan Wager
George
Mike Haubrich
Caledonian (when he's right he's very right, when he's wrong he's obtuse...or Libertarian, but I always read him.)
Greg Laden
Carlie
Max Udargo
...leaves November and December.
Orac and Coturnix don't count because they have their own Science Blogs, but everybody should follow their writing skills as well as PZ's, of course.
Caledonian, Moral Conventionalist does not mean one who has conventional morals.
http://faculty.mc3.edu/barmstro/ethicalisms.html
Please explain? You mean the thread where you advised him to accept the fact that not everyone believes in God?
If so, I don't think he trolled you. I don't have an axe to grind, I don't have a dog in this fight, I don't have a bone to pick or a metaphor to flog, so FWIW, IMO:
It was a simple misunderstanding on your part, and he toyed with you, rather gently, to the harmless amusement of just about everyone who knew the truth. I urge you not to take that (or this) as any kind of insult. Hey, navigating the ideological terrain around here is tricky enough without being expected to grok, at first sight, all the personalities involved, too. I doubt anyone was seriously whacking you for one misconception.
Zeno: Diacriticals impress you? Hah! Ok then! I'd like to nominate myself for having a cool non-Anglo name (like Skatje) that's even cooler by virtue of being commonly written in a completely different alphabet, and for not trying to capitalize on that meaningless fact in a cheap grab for some unwarranted recognition, and (unlike some people) for not transparently currying favor by name-dropping the daughter of the Bloglord.
Errrm... On second thought, never mind. :-)
I, too, would like to cast a vote for Mr. Diacritical, Torbjorn Larsson, not for any one post but for the overall excellence of his contributions. And his wit. And his cool name. And his hair. I bet he has nice hair.
Torbjörn (sorry, Americans, but I have an Ö key on the keyboard), and Kseniya for comment 16.
[Stands up behind keyboard, bows left and right.] Why, thank you, fans! [Sits down. Grabs coffee glas -its starting to get cold again.]
This month my vote goes to Greg Laden. He writes interesting comments, he can make us smile, and he has taught us about using f-words.
Zeno, you should polish up on your Venn diagrams! How do you know I'm not in a band?
(As it happens, I'm not. But I love to move to music so it happens that I listen to HM too. As long as it gets my groove on.)
More? Um, let's see, I've already mentioned elsewhere about my education and profession for the google-savvy. I can add that as a modern Swedish Swede I don't wear hat - and it messes with my nice hair.
Oh, come on, you really wanted to write Thaurghbj@#&!rn Laaargh-sszzonn here. You can as well admit it.