The new Carnival of the Godless is up, this time at Action Skeptics, and they were once again kind enough to include my blog in their round-up, this time with my piece on Barack Obama. (This week’s Carnival of the Godless has a very funny “Lost Secrets” theme, a la the Dead Sea Scrolls/ Raiders of the Lost Ark.)

BTW, it’s been called to my attention that I haven’t explained very clearly what these “carnivals” are that I keep gassing on about. So let me explain. A blog carnival is a sort of round-up of recent blog posts on a particular theme or topic. It’s a little like a magazine, a way of sorting through the kajillion blogs in the blogosphere and finding the stuff that interests you. There are blog carnivals about comics, salsa dancing, Harry Potter, small business strategy, homeschooling, pizza, military history, knitting, feminist science fiction and fantasy, HIV and AIDS, left-wing politics, right-wing politics, Bible studies, spirit channeling, global warming, cats, and… well, you know. It’s the Net. Everything. (Of course, this being me, so far the ones I’ve been part of have been about atheism and liberal politics.)

If you’re a blogger, carnivals are a good way to draw traffic to your blog — I wish I’d tracked onto them a whole lot sooner. If you’re interested or just curious about what carnivals are out there, check out this Blog Carnival index. (If you’re a blogger trying to find a carnival for you, be sure to focus on the ones that have a “next edition” date listed — if they don’t, they’re probably moribund.) Have fun at the circus!