Why Dont You Blog?

According to wingnutdaily a baptist preacher - whose name (Wiley Drake) suggests that he is really a cartoon character - is praying for his god to rain on Obama.

DENVER – The call for prayer for a rainstorm on this city’s football stadium when Sen. Barack Obama delivers his nomination-acceptance speech there next week, dropped by a Focus on the Family Action personality, has been picked up by a former official of the Southern Baptist Convention. (from wingnut World net daily)

(The pastor’s worldview is almost glorious in the depths of its craziness. The logic seems to be:
Beg hard enough and the “creator of the universe” will take the side of the political party you support.

Despite believing that he’s asking for help from a being who commands the power of the universe, Drake doesn’t ask his deity to relegate Obama to the Delta Quadrant or turn him into a snail.

No, Drake asks his god to use his supposedly infinite power just to make Obama’s supporters bring umbrellas. What? Call that smiting? How unambitious is that?

I foresee a bit of danger here for the Wiley Drake. Surely, if god expresses his political views through the weather, a sunny day would show that the maker of the Universe actually supports Obama?)

Wiley, as it happens, your prayers were answered, but your inept rain-god missed and smited the UK with the biblical rain instead. Call off the hallelulahs now, please. We don’t even have a vote in your election. The UK “summer” is traditionally shit, but, for the past few years, it would be more accurate to just refer to it as the “rainy season.” (Except that every other season could already lay good claim to the title.) Northern Ireland was the most recent place on these islands to undergo widespread flooding.

The people who first called for this action were Focus on the Family. They’ve now claimed their call for torrential rain was “mildly humorous”. I love the novel use of the word “mildly” when accuracy might have demanded the use of “not at all.”

Drake, an activist who has been targeted by opponents of his Christian ministry for using his own radio program to discuss moral issues in the public arena, said he was saddened to see Focus pull the video………
“I, too, am still against killing babies and allowing sodomites to marry. Anyone wishing to join those of us who believe in imprecatory prayer (for divine justice) are invited to join,” he said. (same impeccable source)

“Imprecatory prayer?” That’s just pastor jargon for cursing.* Obviously, the word “moral” is also being used in some new counter-intuitive sense.

Luckily for any Democrats who might forget to bring raincoats or umbrellas to Obama’s Denver acceptance speech, cursing is no more effective than praying…..

The BBC has a direct line straight to the mind of the weather god. They’ve published a Denver prophecy that 3 of the next five days will be sunny and two will be rainy. However, the omens aren’t clear enough for the BBC’s chief weather-augur to predict more than 5 days ahead.

Demconwatch have an even better prophecy - better in that it refers to the actual date of the nomination-acceptance, if I’m interpreting it rightly. And that prophecy is for really good weather.

* Don’t just take my word for it. The free online dictionary defines “imprecatory” as the adjectival form of :

im·pre·cate (mpr-kt) tr.v. im·pre·cat·ed, im·pre·cat·ing, im·pre·cates
To invoke evil upon; curse.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Appealing science stuff in the news this week.

• The Guardian’s science podcast is about music. Some of the speakers have voices that could be marketed as aural Mogadon. However, if you can stay awake, the debate is interesting.
• Magpies can see themselves in the mirror.

  Apart from the interesting implications that magpies have some sense of self that’s not completely unlike ours, this is just a beautiful experiment. So elegant in terms of lateral thinking about testing a hypothesis.

  Imagine that you were wondering if magpies could see themselves in a mirror. How would you find out?
  The answer is to put coloured sticky tabs on parts of magpies that they can’t normally see. Then, place the magpies in front of mirrors. The magpies then start noticing the sticky tabs that they previously ignored and make the effort to remove them.

The elegant experiment prompts me to tell my own ludicrous magpie story. There’s no elegance in it. There’s no testable hypothesis. I haven’t even got any evidence that it happened. (I tried to aim my webcam out of the window but it’s useless enough even for its normal webcamming purpose. It just got glare off the glass and I couldn’t focus it properly.)

On a chimney behind my yard, there was a nest, with magpie chicks in it. This was really interesting. (It made a welcome change from watching rats sneak under the yard door, for a start.) I could watch the magpie-lings getting fed, growing bigger and noisier every time I saw them.

A feral tabby cat usually turns up and whines at my back door on Sunday afternoons. He mainly calls round to get warm and dry and to lie on a couch.

He’s the most pampered “feral” cat imaginable. He must have at least seven houses on his round. (Lots of people feed feral cats around here, mainly on account of the rats mentioned above.) If he doesn’t like the flavour of the cat food he’s given, he licks off the gravy/jelly then goes back to rooting through garbage. If he likes it, he demands more, plus a few hours’ sleep on the couch. He’s a very vocal cat, and very affectionate. (Neither attribute would seem like much of a survival strategy for a feral cat, but they certainly work for a cat who’s learned that meowing at humans, purring and rubbing against human legs, is the fastest way to get food and warmth.)

This situation suits me. It combines the occasional pleasure of having a pet with a complete absence of the need to be responsible for it.

A few weeks ago, I noticed him standing in the yard with a furious magpie. I kid you not. The magpie was facing him off - standing about 2 feet away from him - and cawing at him, deafeningly. The cat was neither attacking the magpie nor makng for an exit. He was just cowering, in a defeated stance looking down at the floor.

I watched this for a few minutes and nothing changed. I looked back a few minutes later and the two animals were both on top of the yard wall, doing the same things - shouting in magpie language and cringing in cat body language. (Anthropomorphising, that cat looked damn guilty.)

I looked up at the nest and there were no chicks there. I formed the untestable hypothesis that the magpie was kicking off because the cat had eaten its chicks and that the cat was accepting the magpie’s complaints, on the grounds that it might indeed have done something to get it in trouble.

I lost interest that day. There’s only so long you can wonder what’s going on between a cat and a magpie.

The next weekend, the feral cat turned up as usual. But - in the company of the bloody magpie. The two came into the yard together. The magpie waited in a corner while I opened a pouch of cat food. When the cat had finished eating, they left together.

Disappointingly, this must have been just an early summer friendship. Since then, the cat’s only called round on its own, (Maybe, the cat had incurred some sort of blood debt to the bird and was paying him off in shared plunder. Maybe, the cat finally ate it….)

Popularity: 5% [?]

The Guardian seems to have started a Wire discussion group. It would be churlish to suggest that the Guardian, as an entity, never took as much interest in the Wire before it centred round a newspaper office.

(Charlie Brooker and a couple of other Guardian tv reviewers were the honourable exceptions to this.)

I’m going to steal its intro warning to explain why I haven’t been indulging in my customary gushing over the genius of the Wire:

SPOILER ALERT: Usual rules: No giving the game away if you’ve gone further; don’t spoil it for yourself if you are further behind.

Basically, it’s too difficult to remember which Wire events are OK to write about and which aren’t, in case I spoil someone’s enjoyment. Sadly, I’ve already spoilt it for myself by seeing it already. I know what’s going to happen in the wind-up part of the 5-series set, so I don’t want to watch it until I’ve forgotten enough detail to make it watchable again.

There’s an Iraq war short series from “the team who brought you the Wire.” I would be grateful if someone who’s seen it in the US will tell me if it’s good. I’ve decided to wait till it’s on television here, so as not to spoil it, in case it is good.

However, I’m so squeamish that I won’t want to watch it if it’s too distressing. Which, given that it’s about the Iraq war, is probably a certainty. So I’m in two minds about the whole thing and would welcome any guidance.

Otherwise completely unconnected to the above rambling, except for being also interesting in today’s Guardian, there’s an article by Hicham Yezza, the academic who’s waiting to be deported after downloading the al-qaeda manual for a colleague.

The UN’s committee on human rights has just published a report criticising Britain’s anti-terror laws and the resulting curbs on civil liberties. For many commentators the issues raised are mostly a matter of academic abstractions and speculative meanderings. For me, it is anything but. These laws have destroyed my life. (from Hicham Yezza in the Guardian.)

I had lazily assumed that this nonsense was all sorted out months ago. It appears not. Just because the media have lost interest doesn’t mean that this absurdity has been undone. In fact, some inexorable process - that Yezza characterises as Kafkaesque - seems have been set going.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Good programme. (Channel 4, UK. I should hope some socially conscious pirate has put it on You-tube by now. Or you could buy the DVD.) Dawkins and Dennet made a generally superb job of pointing out how the joys of the real natural universe piss all over the imaginary comforts of religion.

It was a difficult to decide which anti-evolutionist - the American woman or the British chemistry teacher - would be my first choice if I ever win a “Free kick the stupidest creationist who’s ever been on tv” competition. In the end, it has to be the British teacher. National pride requires it.

However, the American woman managed to combine a patronising manner with a studied and deliberate social “charm”. She smiled continuously - in what she must have been misinformed was a disarming way. She fixed Dawkins with steady (albeit slightly cross-eyed) eye contact and mouthed utter bullshit about “teaching the controversy.” So, it is with a heavy heart that I have to relegate her to second choice.

I was baffled by the English science teachers who declared themselves a bit scared about teaching evolution. Imagine a group of geography teachers worrying about teaching their subject, in case some student had a parent who was in the Flat Earth society. What’s the difference?

The Archbishop of Canterbury managed to tie himself in knots trying to square complete acceptance of the science with his concept of a god who set up evolution but kept out of it - while, at the same time, claiming to believe in the New Testament miracles. There was an entertaining moment where he more or less admitted his position was a fudge to deal with awkward questions.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Youth and beauty are really poor reasons for picking world leaders. Lots of people in the real world and on tinterweb point out that Obama is younger and prettier than McCain. Well, no doubt about that. E.g, Things younger than McCain or look at this image on Covert History with obvious implications that Obama is fitter to be president as well as win the swimsuit round.

Ditto, in the UK, which tends to copy the USA, but following the precept that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. The homely older Brown is contrasted with the younger better-looking David Miliband.*

I’m certainly all for Obama, although less won-over by the Blairite-careerist-style charm of Miliband. (Am buggered if I can see any significant policy difference between Brown and Milliband. I want Alan Simpson for PM, whether he’s standing or not….) But, is “younger and prettier” really an adequate criterion for picking a leader?

The only justification I can see for this is where a leader is just a front-end. A marketing device, cynically stuck there while the real power gets operated elsewhere.

Who cares about how user-friendly the front-end is, when it comes to politics? Or if we are all happy to pick the prettiest candidates, with the longest political-aristocratic pedigrees, then we’ve only got our own stupidity to blame.

***************************
* No, that’s not the sociologist (“Belgian-born Marxist theoretician Ralph Miliband” a/c Wikipedia)whose books I read as a student. He’s said sociologist’s not-at-all-privileged-by-birth (sarcasm alert) nuLabour offspring. Wikipedia is quite informative on how he got to Oxford.

David Miliband was educated at schools in London, Benton Park School in Leeds and Boston, Massachusetts before being educated at Haverstock Comprehensive School in North London, where he obtained a Grade ‘D’ in Physics A-level, and 3 Grade ‘B’s. Despite these results being lower than the normal entry requirements, via a scheme for children from deprived backgrounds, he was admitted to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he achieved first class honours in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. (from his Wikipedia entry)

Blimey, how lucky that schemes for “deprived kids” are so broadly defined. I mean you can hardly get more educationally-deprived than being the son of a world-class academic. (w00t, my A level results piss all over his. In your face, foreign secretary. But, obviously, I had the good fortune to grow up on a council estate so I didn’t get the benefit of schemes for deprived kids like him…..)

Nor is it his brother Ed who has also overcome the obstacle of his background to get into Brown’s cabinet.

Isn’t democracy great? None of that ancient “hereditary principle” crap, so discredited by the Enlightenment. I mean look at George Bush who won political power on an amazing log-cabin-to-White-House trajectory.

Popularity: 6% [?]

To retain the will to live, I’ve bunched up the alphabetical-order challenged members of the Atheist Blogroll all in one final burst of links.

Sorry if your blog is called “Zeebedee’s Journal.” This blog, starting as it does with an unappealing W, feels your pain.

P! PA Nonbelievers parenthetical remarks Persephone’s Box Pharyngula Philippine Atheists Philosophers’ Playground phreedom.us physicshead Pink Prozac Pink Triangle Pinoy Atheist Pinoy Freethinker Pinoy-Korean Atheist Planet Atheism Planet Humanism Plonka’s Blog Podblack Blog Polypyloctomy PONZO Pooflingers Anonymous Post Thought Primordial Blog Principles of Parsimony Prose Justice Protium the Heathen Psychodiva’s Mutterings PURPOSE OF LIFE
QuarkScrew Quintessential Rambling quird

Radical Atheist Ramblings Ramblings of an Atheist Undergrad Random Intelligence Rank Atheism Rarus vir Rational Expression Rational Mom Rational Russian RationalEyes Ravings of an Angry Leftist Re-imagine Ritual Real Virtuality Reality Heroes Reason & Society Reason Makes Sense… Right? Reason TV Reasonable Doubts Recalcitrance Reduce to Common Sense Reeding and Writing RejectMoses.com Religion is Bullshit ! Religion is Man-Made Replace the lies with truth Resurrecting Reason REV. ART’S ATHEIST PIN-UPS! Rev. BigDumbChimp reVAMPed Reverend Mark J. Seydel Richard Carrier Blogs Rideo ergo sum Robert’s Thought’s Rodibidably Ron’s Rants Rupture the Rapture Russell’s Teapot RWANDAN ATHEIST

Sacred Celtic exiled in Bruxelles Saint Gasoline Salad Is Slaughter Salient SAMIZDAT Sans God Sarahnomics Scary Reasoner Scripture For Skeptics SDARI Sean the Blogonaut Secular Humanism with a human face Secular Philosophy Secular Sunday Sermon See For Yourself Seeing Beauty Shared Difference SHUFFL Silly Humans Situation normal Skeptic Journal Skeptic Rant Skeptical Monkey skepticisme Skeptico Skepticology Skepticum Skeptic’s Play Skeptigator So long, and thanks for all the guilt! Societal (R)evolution Something From Nothing Something to Say Son Shines Zee 365 Soup’s Soapbox Southern Atheist Spanish Inquisitor Specter of Reason Spectrum of Beliefs Spewing Truth in the face of Lies Splendid Elles Spoliarium Spread Rationality stacy, interrupted Stardust Musings and Thoughts for the Freethinker Stargazer Staring At Empty Pages State of Protest stereoroid.com Steven Carr’s Blog Strange Land Strappado Stupid Evil Bastard Stupid, Lazy, Fat & Crazy Suburban Panic! Success lies within us all Summer Squirrel Synapostasy Tabula rasa tales of an ordinary girl Tangled Up In Blue Guy Tarpan’s Blog Terahertz - From Physics to Life
Terminal Atheist Thank God I’m An Atheist That is so Queer…

The A Word The Affable Atheist The Amanda Show The Amiable Atheist The Anatomy of a Coming-Out The Angry Atheist The Anonymous Atheist The Anti-Church Zone The Antichristian Phenomenon The Apostate The arrogant atheist The Arrogant Atheist The Atheist Blog The Atheist Blogger The Atheist Camel the atheist chronicles The Atheist Endeavor The Atheist Experience The Atheist Handbook The Atheist Jew The Atheist Mama The Atheist Resistance The Atheist Response The Atheist Rock Band The Atheist Spot The Atheocracy The Atheologist The Bach The Blasphemous The Blog of M’Gath The blue roads of thinking The Calladus Blog The Cat Ranch The Choice is Now The Circus of Doctor Lao The Clever Atheist The Conscious Earth The Coptic Atheist The Crazy Christian Blog The Creationist Monkey The Crooked Gremlins The Daily Awesome The Daily Cat Chase The Daily Taylor The Eloquent Atheist The End of Hereditary Religion The End of Silence The Enlightenment of the Healy The Eternal Gaijin The Eupraxsopher The Extended Penotype The Feminist Francophile The Flying Bagpiper The Flying Trilobite The Frame Problem The Freethought Cafe The Fundy Post The Gay Black Jew The Gaytheist Agenda The God Complex The God Dam the God-jeering ATHEIST The Godless Grief The Good Atheist The GORGON’s Mask The Great Lie Of Islam The Great Realization The Greenbelt

The Happy Humanist The Humanist Life The Humanist Observer The Huntress’ Domain The Inanity that is Life The Incomer The Information Paradox The Inoculated Mind The Invisible Pink Unicorn The Iron Chariot The Irrational Theorist The Jesus Myth The Jewish Atheist The JFC Show The Labour Humanist The Lay Scientist The Libertarian Defender The Life and Opinions of Mcmoogol, Gentleman The Life Of An Atheist The Lippard Blog the LITTLE things The Mary Blog the meme pool The Mutt’s Nuts The Nate and Di Show The Natural Skeptic The Nerd The New Atheist The New Horizon The O Project The One With Aldacron the otherwhirled The Pagan Prattle Online The Panda’s Thumb The Passionate Skeptic The Perplexed Observer The Phytophactor the post-bicameral mind The Primate Diaries The Proud Atheist The Psycho Atheist

The Questionable Authority The Rad Guy Blog The Raving Atheist The Red Ferret The Religion Virus the religious atheist The Renegade Writings The Right Wing Professor’s Blog the Science Ethicist The Science Pundit The Scottish Atheist The Second Mouses Guide to Life The Second Oldest Question The Secular Outpost The Secular-Man Blog (An Oasis of Clear Thinking) The Serenity of Reason The Seven Solitudes The shadows of an open mind The Skepbitch The Skeptic Review the skeptical alchemist The Skeptical Sorcerer The Smug Baldy Speaks The Stubborn Curmudgeon! The Thermal Vent The Thinkers’ Podium The Truth Of Islam The Truth of Rational Thought The Uncredible Hallq The Underground Unbeliever The Uninformed Suburban Housewife The Uninspired Manifesto The Universe According to Tim The Untraditionalist The View from Here The View from the Pond The Water is Poison The Word and The Golden Monkey The World is a Lesson in Perspective The World Wide Rant The Zen Of G

These Twisted Times Thought Room Thought Theater Thoughts and Opinions Tidbits for Atheists Tolerance and Peace toomanytribbles Toxic thought waste site Trifling Ideas Trinity’s Christian Dairy Troffle Trudging the Gentle Path of Happy Destiny True Bible Knowledge Tungtide UberKuh Uncouth.net Ungodly Cynic Unorthodox Atheism Unreasonable Faith Unscrewing The Inscrutable Urikalization - Uri Kalish Variable Veracity Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy Velocity Inversion Vetenskap & Förnuft View From Earth Villa Nandes Vincent Geloso: 100% libéralisé

Wanderin’ Weeta WASP Waving Not Drowning Way of the Mind We Are Alone We have a voice Well, that would be telling whatever will bewilder me Where The Rubber Meets The Road Where We Make Our Stand Why Believe? Why Dont You Blog? Why I hate Jesus Wishwords WithoutGods WORKS WITHOUT FAITH Wrong In Their Mind Tanks Yet Another Atheist Blog Yet Another Blog You Call This Culture? You Made Me Say It Young Earth Creationists Anonymous Zatheist Zen of Zero zenbullets ‘Satan Is Real’ Atheist Music Blog

Popularity: 8% [?]

This has got to stop. The end is in sight though. I hope this is the next to last of these lists.

Just to remind you where this information comes from, it’s Mojoey’s Atheist Blogroll. ( Brits. Please note. It’s not the Atheist Bogroll.)

halls of macadamia Happily Godless Happy Jihad’s House of Pancakes HASSERS Heathen Queer Heathen.TV Hellbound Alleee hell’s handmaiden Heretic’s Altar Heuristicism Hokum-Balderdash Assay Homo economicus’ Weblog Homologous Legs Honjii’s Harangues Hot Dogs, Pretzels, and Perplexing Questions http://www.skepticaleye.com/ Human Psyche of J.D. Crow Humans: The Other White Meat Humbuggery I Am An Atheist I Never Shut Up I traded my soul for happiness Ian’s Brain Ice Station Tango IDiosyntocracy In Defence Of Reason In the grip of hysteria Incessant Expressions indoctriNATION Infidel boy in Blabber mode INFIDELIS MAXIMUS Infinite monkeys, infinite keyboards Infophilia Inkblot Icon intelligent or silly design ? Interested Interesting INTJ Mom Intrepidon Ionian Enchantment Is it just me? it’s about time izzworld dot org jdc325’s Weblog Jeber’s Jeebus Freaks Jewelisms Jewish Atheist Joe’s Big Blog Judith’s thought-provoking hard-hitting journal Juke of Flow Just a whisper in the wind Just Another Atheist Jyunri Kankei

Nor is it working seamlessly. It’s taking span tags.

K H A L A S ! KafirGirl Kapanalig Sa Wala Kergillian Kieran Bennett Kill The Afterlife King Aardvark le tiers monde leaping rabbit/lapin sauteur Leicester Secularist Les non-sens de Jean Staune Let Go - Forget God Let There Be Light Letras Nocturnas Letters from a broad Liars, Lunatics and What’s Left Liberal Debutante Life & Otherwise Life According to Mike White Life before death Life is an adventure Life Without Faith Life, the Universe and Everything Lifecruiser Living the Scientific Life Living with Missy and other thoughts Logic’s Last Stand LOL god Look at the Bright’s Side Lord of the atheists Love the Nimbu Lubab No More lynn’s daughter, thinking

Madman’s Paradise Masala Skeptic Matt’s Notepad Matt’s Truthonomics Maximum Likelihood Mechanical Crowds mediawatchwatch.org.uk Meet An Atheist Memoirs of a (G)a(y)theist Memoirs of an ex-Christian Mere Skepticism Merit-bound Alley Mickipedia Midwest Atheist Migrations Mike’s Weekly Skeptic Rant mindcore MINISTER OF RANTS Mirth, Musings, & More Misc. Musing Mississippi Atheists Missives from the Frontal Lobe mister jebs blog Modern Agnostic Modern Atheist Moiz Khan - The godless Liberal Mothrust Much ado about nothing My Case Against God My Elemental Muse My Goddless Drama My Life Thinly Disguised as Groove My Long Apostasy My Single Mom Life Mystery of Mysteries

Naastika Nanovirus Natural Reckonings Naturalistic Atheism Neural Gourmet New Humanist Blog New National Reformer News From the Front - Fair and Balanced Nicest Girl and Destroyer of Planets Nick Harding Nihilist Future No Double Standards No Gods Allowed No More Fake Gods No More Hornets No more Mr. Nice Guy! Nobody’s There… NoBS Radio Show NoGodBlog.com Non Credo Deus Non-Prophet North Alabama Rant Not really, Alice. Nothing Is Sacred Null Session Nullifidian Nut Watch Obscene Desserts Odder Stories Of Microbes and Men ohm sweet ohm oldcola olio Oliver Benen On Fire For Reason on the street and in my head One Fewer God onegoodmove Onion Breath Onwards and Forwards Open Parachute Oracle and Atheism Order of St. Nick Our Freedom of Espresso Outchurched Oz Atheist’s Weblog

Still I’m up to O. Once you get past the As, the list goes much faster.

Popularity: 4% [?]

This is getting boring…

Daily Atheist DAILY BBG Daily Rant Dark Christianity Dark Matter, USA Dark Side of Mars darwinian remiix Darwin’s Dagger Day & Nite Daylight Atheism Debunking Christianity Deconverts Deep Thoughts Deeply Blasphemous Deranged Ramblings of an Angry Reptile Keeper Desperately Seeking Ethics and Reason Deutschland Uber Elvis DEVOUT Atheist Godless Grief Diaphanitas Diary of a Teenage Atheist Did a guy named Phil start Philosophy? Dikkii’s Diatribe Dime a dozen Disaffected and it Feels So Good discernible chaos DisComforting Ignorance Disgusted Beyond Belief Disillusioned Words Dispatches from the Culture Wars do not read this blog DoctorE Dorset Humanists blog Doubting Even Thomas DOUBTING FAITH? Dr. Joan Bushwell’s Chimpanzee Refuge Dragged From the Bottom Drunk in Ontario Dubito Ergo Sum Duplicitous Primates Dwindling In Unbelief

Easy to be Entreated eAtheists.com Ecstathy Edward T. Babinski Elaine Vigneault Elliptica EnoNomi EonBlue Ethics Gradient evanescent Everyday Humanist Everything Is Pointless Evolution Evolutionary Middleman EvolutionBlog Evolved and Rational exapologist ExChristian.Net Excursions into the mundane and the revealing… Exercise in Futility Expletive Deleted Explicit Atheist Exsisto Sane Eyebrow Ascendant f think faith in honest doubt Fed Up with Religion Feersum Endjinn Ferret’s Cage Fish Wars on Cars Five Public Opinions Fleeing Nergal, Seeking Stars Flex Your Head Flumadiddle forms most beautiful… Free Infidel Freethought FreeThought by a FreeThinker Freethought Weekly FreThink Friendly Atheist Gary William Murning Online Geoff Arnold Ghosts of Minnesota God Be Gone - Atheist News God is for Suckers! God is Pretend Godless in America Godless on the Wasatch Front Godless Sunday Goosing the Antithesis Gospel of Reason grattans.us Gratuitous Common Sense Greg Hartnett Greg Laden’s Blog Greta Christina’s Blog Grey and White Matter Gynocide

The text that accompanies these list bits (I guess you could call them “posts”) is there to try and persuade Technorati that this blog isn’t just a link farm. (Though it feels like it today.) Not that it seems to care. Despite not getting any credit for atheist blogroll links, in the normal course of events, Technorati gives us link from a fair number of spamblogs.

Linkfarm sites are extra-annoying when they print your posts and attribute them to someone else. This has an upside when the posts are landfill in text format like this one. I am looking forward to seeing:
“Freemeds had an interesting post today on..” followed by sections of the Atheist Blogroll.

I think that’s called social networking.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Still only up to the Cs. Arrgh.

I’m going to rattle on about converting information between sources as an example of why computers appeal to people. (Well, to me.) It’s the mental challenge.

If I was even halfway competent at using a keyboard, I’d just type lots of things. But, I’m a terrible typist.

(In case, that sounds as if I’m any better at handwriting, you’d be dead wrong. I can barely write a legible sentence by hand, since I took up spending my life at computers. I bet that’s true of many people.)

And I get bored by any repetitive task way too easily. So, if I have any task to do, I look for a more interesting way of doing it. Even if it takes MUCH longer. And fails to work.

I bet this is true of most people who read this. (Except, maybe, for the people who get here looking for Arnold Schwarzenegger or pictures of guns, about 10 and 5 every day respectively, in case you wondered.)

Of course, since it’s me and you I’m talking about, we can take it for granted that this is a good thing. “Creative thinking” and so on. (A less charitable person might say “butterfly mind.” ) But, maybe it’s part of why it’s possible to get people to do things for the buzz of working out how to do them, without thinking of the consequences.

Things like using computers and the internet to collect information from a huge variety of sources and putting them together.

cabhara’s zeitgeist Canterbury Atheists Can’t make a difference CaroLINES CASE: The Center for Atheistic Secular Evangelism CHADMAC Speaks Chaos Maniac chedstone.com Chimaera Contemplations Choosing Atheism CHRISTIAN PWNAGE 101 Christianity is Bullshit! ChristopherSisk.com Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Circular Reasoning Cogita Tute - Think For Yourself cognitive dissident Coming Out Godless Compendium of Religious Evil Conclusions worth jumping to Confessions of an Anonymous Coward Cosmic Variance Covert History Creative Century Critical Mass Crowded Head, Cozy Bed Culture for all Cupcakes in Hell

Popularity: 4% [?]

Next bit. In case anyone is trying out this method, I forgot to mention that this list-posting method doesn’t take out the “last updated” bit.

My idea for doing that was to paste the list into a word processor and insert commas before the word “title” and before the word “href.” Then, save the file in csv format, open it in a spreadsheet program and delete the column that fell between the commas. Then save it back into text file format and paste the text into Wordpress.

But, through trial and error (scientific method :-)) I found out that you also have to insert line breaks at the end of each line. I tried a find and replace but didn’t bother to cut down the spaces first, so I missed some. I gave up at this point. After all, the “last updated” bit doesn’t matter.

Atheism and Coffee Atheism Is Not Evil Atheism Online Atheism Sucks - sucks Atheism through rationalism and science Atheism | simra.net Atheism: Proving The Negative Atheist A Go-Go! Atheist Anonymous Atheist Armaments Atheist Bitch Atheist Blogs Aggregated Atheist Ethicist Atheist Girls Atheist Haven Atheist Hussy Atheist Liberty Atheist Media Blog Atheist Momma Atheist Movies Atheist Okie Atheist Peace Atheist Propaganda Atheist Revolution Atheist Think Tank Atheist Tuesday Atheist Wisdom Atheista Atheistkiwi’s Weblog Atheists And Christians Community Blog Atheists Rule! AtheisTube Atheoi.org Atheology Axis of Jared Ayrshire Blog

Babble and Rants Babble, bullshit, blasphemy and being. Bad Thinking Barrum Bright Blog Bay of Fundie Beaman’s World Because No One Asked Being Human Ben’s Place Berto: Philosophy Monkey Bert’s Blog Beyond Belief