The Thinking Blogger Award

Here's a shout out to blogs that make us think. Shawn Williams at Dallas South blog earlier this month was kind enough to bestow upon Grits a "Thinking Blogger Award," a meme-tag which he described thusly:

The award was initiated by ilker yoldas and in receiving it I am to select 5 blogs that in turn, make me think.

The participation rules are simple:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.

2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).

So thanks, Shawn for the compliment for naming me. Here are 5 bloggers I've been reading recently who consistently make me think:

• Subtopia: A Field Guide to Military Urbanism. A forward thinking antidote to creeping militarism in our daily environs, Subtopia has been an especially invaluable and thoughtful source of information on border issues and the practicalities of walls and border security technologies.

• Ernie's 3-D Pancakes. Ernie is a college math teacher whose blog motto is "Let P be a set of n points in general position. Amen." He doesn't post as often as a lot of bloggers, though when he does it frequently makes me think, as evidenced by this Grits riff off of his most recent post. But what I especially like about Ernie's is his blogroll - today's highest-end math often seems to have nearly as much to do with theology as high-school algebra, and I've spent many afternoons jumping from post to post, link to link through blogs I've found at Ernie's shop. I don't read enough on those topics to blogroll them myself. So I visit Ernie's, which was actually one of Grits' earliest blogroll additions.

• Schneier on Security. Bruce Schneier is widely considered one of America's premier security experts, and I've learned nearly as much from his blog as I have from reading two of his books (Beyond Fear is the one you want to try first, if you're looking to dabble). This is a high-traffic blog and Schneier gets a critical mass of knowledgeable commenters who add considerably to many of his posts.

• Lawsagna. Designed as advice and encouragement for law school students, I find many of the discussions about learning methods and presentation are useful to me in much that I do. And Anastasia is always so cheerful!

• The Deception Blog. The blog on the list I've been reading the shortest time, the Deception blog covers precisely the terrain you'd think from its title, and I never go there when I don't learn something new on topics ranging from brain chemistry to child psychology to police best practices to whether plants malinger or prevaricate.
  

So that's it, or at least who I'd answer today. In a week or two I might tell you differently, since of course much of it depends on what I'm thinking about! But these five I've definitely been enjoying lately. Thanks, Shawn, for the nice compliment and the tag.

And readers, let me know what blogs make you think.