SEP 25, 2000 - Crank Dot Net is a slap in the face with a wet fish (probably a red herring), and the perfect antidote anytime you feel yourself starting to get carried away with enthusiasm for just about anything. I'm not out to kill your enthusiams mind you, but Crank Dot Net sure is. Which is not entirely unhealthy: I mean, if your latest craze can't withstand a little skepticism and/or satire, then you're better off to know that at the outset. And probably better off yet to confine yourself to politically correct causes and ideas that won't require any real thinking on your part anyway. Erik Max Francis, the creative force behind Crank Dot Net, is an equal opportunity skeptic. By that I mean there's little he doesn't see fit to skewer at this website. (See the contents page for a complete and up-to-date list of subjects.) Everything New Age (including astrology) is targeted, of course. Missing in the latter category - again, of course - is any treatment of the Gauquelin statistical studies (supporting an astrological effect) and the attempts by skeptical scientists to suppress them. Seriously people, if you don't know the critical objections to your intellectual interests, then you can't answer them. And if you can't answer them, you have no more business poking around things you don't understand than an equally uninformed skeptic.
Technical note: Web Site Garage rates Crank Dot Net good over-all, poor in load time (31.42 seconds with a 28.8k modem). In comparison, the page you're now reading rates good in both categories (loading in 10.02 seconds at 28.8k).
