I find that I’ve managed to limit myself by choosing the “But how?” classification for posts of this nature, because not everything that I want to address fits into that question format very well. So just chalk it up to poetic license (or poor planning) when I fudge the structure a little bit, like now, when we examine How come atheists are so mean?
The biggest question, of course,
I have to admit, I’m really not one for rating things, especially comparatively – top ten lists and all that are not for me. I did it last year, mostly because a prominent blogger would feature any such posts on his own blog as a bit of promotion, so it was blatant opportunism. If you’re here because you found my blog from that link and are still following it, cool, it worked!
And, I admit, showing off at the same time.
First off, I never expected to be away from the blog so long, but it’s been a surprisingly busy several days, coupled with a minor digestive ailment which tended to sap my creativity. “Okay,” you’re thinking, “but what does that have to do with your writing or photography?” Don’t lie to me I know
Ha! I scooped Jerry Coyne on this one (unless he posts in the next few minutes.)
Courtesy of Big Cat Rescue in Tampa, Florida.
Today marks the day we’ve all been waiting for, and by “we” I mean those of us in the northern hemisphere who don’t like the axial tilt of the planet. Yes, today is the day the days no longer day get shorter from here on out the days will be getting longer. No, that’s not true at all, the days are the
Spurred on by this post from The Bloggess, who is a delightfully warped person, I dredged up some memories of christmases past. Part of the reason I don’t put a lot of effort into holidays is not, as some clueless people seem to think, from being an atheist, but from growing up in my family.
Jon Rosenberg at Scenes From A Multiverse is picking at scabs (click for complete version):
This… is totes uncalled for! Atheists are level-headed, fair, well-adjusted individuals, and none of them would ever get cranky because a favorite whipping boy turned respectable.
Good thing he hasn’t, then…
Actually, and it’s stupid that I even have to say this yet it’ll be news
So, what is it?
I’ve had this experiment in the back of my head for a while now, and tried it last night. What you’re seeing here is Sirius, otherwise known as the Dog Star or the Dog’s Nose, and the brightest star in the sky. As a quick aside, for some reason many people think Polaris, or the North Star, is supposed to be the brightest, which would be handy but is far from the
… but it’s better if you find it on your own.
North Carolina doesn’t really see ‘winter’ as many people imagine it – honestly, it’s pretty boring – but we do get cold spells from time to time, and went through one a few days back, after some heavy rains. Things that had collected water were frozen over, and in some cases nearly solid, so I took the
Infinity is this curious concept, wide open for misinterpretation, but even in its refined sense, it often suffers from one of the biggest problems of philosophy: we believe that since we’ve put a lot of effort into it, it must be important.
To explain the most misunderstood aspect of it, I’m going to steal brazenly from an article in Science ’82, a now-defunct magazine
