Congratulations.
As a (mostly) silent member I must agree with re: #8 oaktree

If any, the blog’s label should be “pro-rational”.

Your rational pro-science take on things is encouraging and heartwarming. As an Israeli I must also thank you for years of liberal, rational and loud support. There are not many places in the internet who give that. Most liberal blogs are debating whether Israel should exist or is there such a thing as a Jewish nation at all (hello, that’s me, pleased to meet you) and calling for the U.S to stop supporting Israel.
Most right wing blogs support us either because we show the world how evil Islam is or just because we hasten armageddon according to their form of Christianity (I have Muslim friends and I try to hasten world peace if you don’t mind).

I do want to use this opportunity to ask something. Mainly Charles but also the rest of you lizards. Even though I don’t really follow the minutes of american politics, as an Israeli I completely empathise with your worries about right wing gone crazy (Rabin, Grintzweig etc.). But aren’t you leaving the whole Islamistic Terror issue to the same crazy right wingers? Maybe there are things I don’t know about in the U.S, but it seems to me that as long as most undiscriminating acts of terror are carried out by people calling themselves muslims and they call for a take over of the world by Islam, people will continue to use those terms when looking for more info. I was lucky to find info here, so I didn’t have to separate the wheat from the chaff so much, but if the only places that mention the problem and try to make sense of it are places like atlas shrugs and hot air, people will find their information there.People that are not as immersed in politics as almost any Israeli is might not have the perspective to understand when they are being pulled by their noses, and so the flames of fear will keep growing as they seem to do these days according to what you publish here. Am I missing something?