Lifery update

Hey, you know all that writing and posting and commentary I’ve not been doing lately? Well, you’re in for a bunch more of not that. I’m still moving in with my girlfriend, bit by bit, over the course of a month or so, and next week we’re going to be holidaying in the Hebrides. I’m [...]

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Is there much climate change in Hell?

Atheists we might see as people like those who deny global warming. You might celebrate their right, and defend their freedom of speech, to deny global warming – but if they’re wrong, and millions of other people have taken their view, then it could end in a terrible, terrible disaster for a lot of people. [...]

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On being against the death penalty

Two lives were taken by the government in the southern United States last night. One, in Georgia, received a great deal of media attention, and has invoked those opposed to capital punishment to speak out in force and in great numbers. This was in part due to the serious doubts raised about Troy Davis’s guilt. [...]

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Unwelcome or excluded

If the skeptics community is going to thrive and grow, it’s essential that no one feel unwelcome or excluded due to race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. This line caused a bit of a stir lately after it appeared in an article written by Brian Thompson on the James Randi Educational Foundation website, a major [...]

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Blasphemy with no recourse to ancient laws

But what of my religion? I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance. That is my religion, and every day I am sorely, grossly, heinously and deeply offended, wounded, mortified and injured by a thousand different blasphemies against it. When the fundamental [...]

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The Problem Of Evil (one of many)

Troy Davis has been awaiting the death penalty since his conviction for murder in 1991. There was never any physical evidence linking him to the crime, and no murder weapon was found. He was convicted largely on the basis of eyewitness testimony. Of the nine non-police eyewitnesses who testified against Troy, seven have since taken [...]

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Rich People Problems

I’ve been finding more and more things about which to disagree with Penn Jillette, as I’ve been learning and making up my mind about libertarianism. He’s still a great guy, and a fantastic performer, and I have not a shred of doubt that his politics are consistently driven by compassion and humility, even when I [...]

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Michelle Bachmann Gives Your Children Cancer!!

Okay, no. I’m not actually proposing a direct causative link between those two things; I’m not the Daily Mail. The evidence that proximity to Republican presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann causes life-threatening illness is, at best, hazy and inconclusive. What has happened is that she has strongly opposed a certain vaccine, which is known to prevent [...]

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News: Busted!

Although it starts off being about grammar, this post at the Sadly, No! blog has a great line about the double-standards employed by conservative news outlets such as NewsBusters: Over at Newsbusters, disagreeing with a conservative is hate; suggesting that gays shouldn’t even appear on TV unless they are portrayed as dismal, dispirited, suicidal homos [...]

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Obligatory September 11th post

When the planes hit the twin towers on… Actually, you know what? I don’t have anything to say about 9/11 which hasn’t already been said a billion times all over the internet, and which isn’t being repeated another trillion times today in blogs and newspapers and angst-milking TV news shows. So let’s just listen to [...]

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