Amazing.
I didn't actually expect this, but it appears that some knuckleheads have actually nominated Respectful Insolence again for the Best Medical/Health Issues Blog in the 2007 Weblog Awards, and, even more oddly, I somehow managed to be finalist. It turns out that P.Z. Myers is also a finalist in the Best Science Blog category as well.
I was actually a finalist in 2005 and--shock of shocks--won the category last year. I don't really have any idea who nominated me or how I ended up being a finalist, but thanks to all. The only question is: Can I make it a repeat? It's probably too much to expect, given that the competition looks fairly strong this year. I see that old favorite Kevin, MD is nominated as well as the excellent Autism Vox, and right now a blog I've never seen before, Baldy's Blog, appears to be leading the pack as of this writing. I can't really make any solid recommendations, because, other than Kevin, MD and Autism Vox, these are all blogs with which I am unfamiliar.
Oh, well, vote early and vote often (you can vote once every 24 hours), and best of luck to everyone! Being nominated is cool; couple that with the the fact that October was the second best month ever, traffic-wise and that I'm rapidly closing in on 2,000,000 visits, and life is good for the moment.
One thing that bothers me, though. Where are some other of my fellow ScienceBloggers? There are a lot of great blogs here deserving of a nomination. I think I can say with out reservation that any ScienceBlog here is far and away better than Steve Milloy's execrable denialist blog Junk Science. So, like PZ, I would ask that you vote for either Pharyngula, Bad Astronomy Blog, In the Pipeline, or any of the others except the global warming denialist blog Climate Audit or the aforementioned Junk Science.
Could it be because you post the most long winded posts. If so you will be a shoe in.
Congratulations, chief! This is a very well-deserved recognition for your detailed and thoughtful commentary on an uncommonly broad range of topics, medical and otherwise. You take on some of the most difficult medical issues, explaining issues like statistics and confirmation bias with great facility, reminding those of us in the biz of the basics we may be overlooking as well as making these subjects equally clear to the consuming public. Of course, your vocal, insightful, and entertaining combating of denialist thinking and the most egregious examples of alternative "medicine" rounds out the package that comprises my own personal most-read blog. All this while being a NIH R01-funded physician-scientist (and a surgeon, no less!).
I love Kevin, MD, and, don't get me wrong, he does a superb job as a sort of aggregator blog - he is often first with many stories that make it to the rest of the blogosphere days later. But for original content and depth of discussion, you'll be getting my vote.
Congrats! I think it's well deserved.
But must you link twice to junkscience.com? Each time you do, their technorati ranking goes up :(
Not if you use the rel="nofollow" tag. ;-)
Congrats on the well-deserved nomination, Orac.
One blog-related comment. Despite its supra-national nature, the Blogosphere seems to retain a surprisingly large amount of "national specificity". Thus US bloggers read mostly other US-based bloggers, as far as I can tell.
Here in the UK the top two "bad science" blogs would probably be Ben Goldacre's Bad Science, which covers much of the same ground Orac does, and Prof David Colquhoun's Improbable Science. Since Ben Goldacre is a medical doctor, while David Colquhoun is a bioscience Professor with a taste for ranging into politics and religion, Goldacre and Colquhoun make nice UK "equivalents" of Orac and PZ Myers respectively.
Goldacre and Colquhoun have in turn inspired a new set of UK science and bad science blogs, like the Quackometer of recent fame.
We hope you the best! Good luck and congrats on the nomination. You have a well composed blog and health website.
On a separate note, If you want to do any freelance writing for us, contact me!
-Garry (www.ihealthcommons.com)
Congratulations! And a minor nitpick "I somehow managed to be finalist" should probably be "I somehow managed to be a finalist".
Vote early and vote often!
I regularly read Bad Astronomy by Phil Plait and find his eclectic collection of articles very interesting. He is tough on the current science censorship going on, as he should be.
Please don't allow yourself to be misled by the "consensus" that denigrates Climate Audit. Read for yourself. And then vote for it as best science blog.
Steve McIntyre is walking a lonely path, to encourage Good Science! Good practices, good data collection, proper archiving of results. Essentially, show your work and don't hide behind the politics. He gets excoriated left and right... but only by those who have something to hide, or are supportive of "the answer is right so don't worry about the bad science." All true science-lovers should be very supportive of Steve's work.
Commercial publications have publicists. The rest is no surprise.
Congrats Orac.
BS. McIntyre is a denialist, and your snide attack on consensus (a sure sign of crankery by the way) doesn't help bolster your position on real science blogs.
I've seen the McIntyrites on PZ's blog trying to defend him as some real climate scientist, despite climate not actually being his field of training, his completely partisan and political selling of the minor NASA correction to Limbaugh and other right wingers as some kind of major victory against the conspiracy of global warming etc., his constant cherry-picking of temperature stations to try to show global mean temp can't be measured.
The best part is all the parallels between climate audit and the uncommon descent people. You see all the same tactics - the cries for fair and open debate (when all the people who actually study the field have moved on), the attacks on consensus, the idiotic idea that it's the people who attack and denigrate a field who do science some kind of benefit by being iconoclastic. It's just so much bullshit. Go sell it elsewhere mrpete.
Just voted for you. You're in second place right now.
Oh. Never mind!
And for those of you under 40 yrs old, the joke explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Litella
well, shoot. it edited out my clever "<" Emily Litella htmlish bits.
Trust me, it would have been hilarious. If any one had seen it.
Really.
I'm a nonplussed that many of the highest-rated science blogs focus largely on debunking woo. Good work yes, but it's a pity that so much effort has to go into correcting bad science rather than describing really cool science.
And that fact the Michelle Malkin is even on the list for "best blog" is chilling. Maybe "best blogger with rabies"...
Can I assume you've simply been away and thus my response to your dis of Climate Audit was delayed, not censored?