Lineages

PZ Myers has a meme with a few questions exploring blog lineages:

1. Who was your blogfather, or blogmother, as the case may be. Just one please - the one blog that, more than any other, inspired you to start blogging. Please don't name Instapundit, unless you are on his blogchildren list. It would have to be Dear_Raed, which I read during the invasion of Iraq, and which showed me how powerful blogs can be. Jill/txt also has to be listed here, since her teaching posts were a large influence.

2. Include your blog-birth-month, the month that you started blogging, if you can. January 8, 2004 at 11:04 PM.

3. If you are reasonably certain that you have spawned any blog-children, mention them, too. I was involved in discussions with Semantic Compositions that eventually helped push him into the blogosphere, but he was motivated by other blogs before I came along.

And, separately, PZ Myers gets the title of my blog uncle; he was the first to link to me, and has always been the source of much inspiration.