No one is banned: let’s get giggy with it

I’ve received two emails from readers over the last few days saying they can’t comment elsewhere on FTB nor on this site. My guess is this is yet another in the endless series of obscure technical glitches plaguing this medium, having something to do with the fact that we use computers, computers suck beyond words by themselves, and add to that they have to try to operate on an Internet well into the process of being utterly ruined by thieves, scammers and spammers.

I apologize for any frustration this may have caused. FWIW I have not messed with comment permissions or banned anyone, ever. And I’ll see what I can find out about this. For now, let’s get techy with it! [Read more…]

Easter Atheist Sermon: Til death do us part

Millions of people will be worshipping eternal life today. That’s what Easter is all about. Stripped of all gravitas and ceremony, that’s what this boils down to: we want to live forever, or at the very least much longer. Religion and death walk hand in hand, and will continue to do so until death does them part. We can’t blame death on religion, but sometimes we can blame religion for a death. Here for example is a news report about witches being burned alive in Kenya. Warning: it leads to another link which will scar you. [Read more…]

Hare comes Peter Cotton-tail with big, pointy teeth!

Even as a young skeptic Easter Sunday was exciting for me. As children, my sisters and I could always count on finding a basket full of yummy chocolate treats waiting for us on Easter morning. How exactly the most important date in the Christian calendar came to be associated with an anthropomorphic pagan rabbit hiding colored candy eggs is a story for another day. But real rabbits also have a story. One nearly as mysterious, every bit as interesting, and as fun for the whole family, as Peter Cottontail’s. [Read more…]

Role of aerosols in global temperatures confirmed

When you look at that NASA GISS graph of temperature stations, one features jumps out: the flat-line beginning around WW2 and extending through the 70s. For awhile climatologists have suspected that was caused by relatively short-lived particulates that block/reflect sunlight, produced en masse by a big jump in industrialization for war production at the end of the Great Depression, perhaps aided by lots of burning cities and countryside. A new study confirms this: [Read more…]