Evening Tom,

I haven't interacted much lately with anomalists, but your post reminds me of why I thought (and still do) that it's not a waste of time. Not easy, either. I've had experiences like Ed's.

Alex dipped his toe cautiously into the water about a week ago at Red Planet, offering to answer serious geology questions. He got a few hecklers, as is only to be expected, but was starting to have a few reasonable conversatioins when Gary had a vast sprawling flameout thread that drowned out everything else. Too bad, because he (Alex) was talking to a couple of those "reasonable anomalists" I keep mentioning but whose existence, by definition, is hard to prove amid the noise of the high-profile radicals.

I can't resist taking the bait:
By the way, the foregoing also applies to the arguments I make in political threads when I'm dealing with unrepentant leftists and liberals. At least most of them aren't looney. Much.

Wellllllll, that's a matter of perspective. Current Vents is often a spectacle indistinguishable in tone and rationality from Red Planet. Shall I quote our Ed's comments about Janet Reno? Ahem... It's sometimes hard to tell the players without a scorecard.

--Robert