Blog carnivals!
Humanist Symposium #36, at Bloc Raisonneur.
Carnival of the Godless #116, at Relatively Science.
(And because I somehow missed it when it came around: Carnival of the Godless #115, at Anonymously Blogging My Heart Out.)
Carnival of the Liberals #89, at Johnny Pez.
Philosopher’s Carnival #88, at Go Grue!
And Skeptical Parent Crossing #7, at Clashing Culture.
Happy reading!
And today, we have yet another round of Cool Stuff I Found On the Blogosphere and Elsewhere on the Internet. I haven’t done one of these in a while, and it’s past time.
By Hemant Mehta on Friendly Atheist: You Say We’re Redefining Marriage? You’re Redefining Love. The anti- gay Christian Right loves to fear- monger by saying that same-sex marriage advocates are “redefining marriage.” And they also say that they don’t hate gay people, they love gay people, with tropes like “love the sinner, hate the sin.” Hemant argues beautifully that, given these folks’ appalling behavior towards LGBT people, they’re doing something much more serious than redefining marriage — they are redefining love. This piece is entirely made of win.
By Susie Bright on Susie Bright’s Journal: SERE Training Turned My Boyfriend from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. There’s been a lot in the news lately about the SERE training done by the U.S. government to try to train soldiers to resist torture… techniques that were adopted by interrogators in the Bush administration. Susie writes about someone she knew who went through the SERE training, and what it did to him. A chilling, intensely personal account, not of the techniques of torture, but of its effects… even under supposedly controlled circumstances.
By NonStampCollector: What Would Jesus NOT Do? A bust- a- gut, laugh- out- loud funny video, in which angels try to persuade Jesus to do something broadly helpful to humanity and genuinely convincing of his divinity, instead of just walking on water and healing a handful of people. (Translation: Angels make atheists’ arguments for us.) Totally hilarious, and an absolute must-see. (Via Friendly Atheist and Pharyngula.)
By The Chaplain at An Apostate’s Chapel: The Boyfriend. An insightful, creepy, hilarious piece on romantic and sexual imagery of Jesus in Christian songs… otherwise known as “Jesus is my boyfriend” music.
By Eric Michael Johnson at The Primate Diaries: Male Chauvinist Chimps or the Meat Market of Public Opinion? How sexist attitudes in science reporting doesn’t just foster sexism — it fosters a bad understanding of science.
And by Ebonmuse at Daylight Atheism: Dreams of a Better World. Why hopeful optimism isn’t blind or self-deluded, but is actually a reasonable life philosophy.
Happy reading!
Blog carnivals!
Humanist Symposium #35 at Psychodiva’s Mutterings FCD.
Carnival of the Godless #114 at Deep Thoughts.
Skeptics’ Circle #109 at The Lay Scientist.
Carnival of the Liberals #88 at Liberal England.
And Philosopher’s Carnival #89 at Subjunctive Moods.
Blog carnivals!
Humanist Symposium #34, at Atheist Revolution.
Carnival of the Godless #113, at Daylight Atheism.
Carnival of the Liberals #87, at Blue Gal.
Philosopher’s Carnival #88 at Kenny Pearce.
Skeptic’s Circle #108 at PodBlack Cat (with audio- visual aids, no less!)
And last but not least, a newish carnival on a fascinating and richly important topic: Skeptical Parent Crossing #6, at Rational Moms.
Happy reading!
Blog carnivals!
Carnival of the Godless #112 is up at State of Protest.
Skeptic’s Circle #107 is up at The Skeptic’s Field Guide.
And Carnival of the Liberals #86 is up at The Greenbelt.
Happy reading!
Humanist Symposium #33 is up at Verywide.net.
Carnival of the Godless #111 is up at The Atheist Blogger.
Skeptics’ Circle #106 is up at Disillusioned Words.
And Carnival of the Liberals #85 is up at The Lay Scientist.
Happy reading!
I’m going to be out of town for a few days, officiating at the wedding of my friends Chip and Hayley. I’m bringing my computer and will check in on the blog now and then, but it’s unlikely that I’ll have time to post anything new until after I get back. Don’t expect anything new here until Monday or Tuesday.
In the meantime, why don’t y’all use this post for some shameless self- promotion. If you want to plug your blog — either a particular post or just your blog in general — here and now is the place and time to do it. Or if you have a project you’re working on that you want to tell the other readers here about — or there’s a post on another blog that you think is keen and want to plug — you can do that as well.
There’s also a fun contest over at Friendly Atheist that you might want to check out. The rules: Replace any word from the title of, or a line from, a book about atheism… with the word “Pants.” (Example from one of my own submissions: “Pants: The Failed Hypothesis.”) Winners will get a nifty Friendly Atheist bracelet. And just reading the submissions so far is about twenty five hoots.
Finally — blog carnivals!
Humanist Symposium #32 at A Superfluous Ramble.
Carnival of the Godless #110 at The Greenbelt.
Carnival of the Liberals #84, at Submitted to a Candid World.
And Skeptic’s Circle #105, at It’s the Thought that Counts.
That ought to keep you busy while I’m gone. Have fun, and I’ll see you soon!
I’m Number 10!
This is kind of surprising and neat.
A little while back, Daniel Florien of the Unreasonable Faith blog came up with a list of his top 30 atheist/ agnostic/ skeptic blogs… and I made the list. I was honored and flattered (thanks, Daniel!), but I didn’t mention it here, since “Hey! Some other blogger thinks I’m cool!” was a little too much tooting of my own horn even for me.
But inspired by this, Hemant Mehta of Friendly Atheist decided to come up with a list of the top 30 atheist blogs… based not on his own subjective preferences, but on an analysis of five different objective metrics measuring a blog’s popularity (Alexa Rankings, Google PageRank, Google Reader Subscribers, Technorati Authority, and Technorati InLinks).
And I’m in the Top 10.
#10, to be precise.
Now, I’m not a statistician, and I don’t know how accurate this measuring system is. (Hemant’s a math teacher, so it’s probably not completely wack…) I do suspect that the results may be somewhat skewed by Atheists and Anger, since a lot of these metrics measure how often a blog is linked to… and everyone and their great- aunt Martha seems to have linked to that post.
But I am tickled pink to even be on this list. The idea that I might even conceivably be in the Top Ten? By any sort of objective measurement? It’s kind of freaking me out. In a good way.
One of the top ten atheist blogs in the blogosphere. That’ll look good on my writer’s resume. Neat!
A couple of announcements, and some blog carnivals!
I’m going to be doing a reading tomorrow (Friday), in Marin County. It’s part of Susie Bright’s book tour for her new anthology, “X: The Erotic Treasury.” It’ll be at Book Passage, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd., in Corte Madera. This reading will feature Bill Noble, and Susie Bright, and me, with discussion time afterwards. It’s Friday, Feb. 6, at 7pm.
I’m also going to be on the radio! Listeners to Sirius Radio Left, Channel 146 on your Sirius Satellite Radio dial, can hear me being interviewed live on the Mike Feder Show this Saturday. We’ll be talking about religion in the Obama inauguration and other fun topics, and will be taking calls and everything. The show will not be available on podcast (damn them!), so you have to tune in live. I know. It’s like the Dark Ages. The show will air on Saturday Feb. 7, at 5pm Eastern time, 2pm Pacific time, 10pm Greenwich mean time, 7am on Sunday in Tokyo, 146:23:2457 on the Rigel 7 Glognax Zone Clock… oh you get the idea.
Finally, since I’m so far behind on these: blog carnivals!
Carnival of the Godless #109 at Reduce to Common Sense. (And, which I somehow missed, Carnival of the Godless #108, at CyberLizard’s Collection.)
Humanist Symposium #31, at An Apostate’s Chapel.
Carnival of the Liberals #83, at And Doctor Biobrain’s Response Is… (And, since I missed it when it came out, Carnival of the Liberals #82, at Accidental Blogger.)
And Skeptic’s Circle #104, at Space City Skeptics. (And again because I missed it — I know, I’ve been a bad blogger — Skeptic’s Circle #103, at Bug Girl’s Blog.) Happy reading!
Kind of behind on these — but better late than never.
The Humanist Symposium #30, at Daylight Atheism.
Carnival of the Godless #107, at Skeptico.
Carnival of the Liberals #81, at Rust Belt Philosophy.
Skeptic’s Circle #102 at Happy Jihad’s House of Pancakes.
Enjoy!
