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Hey, I got interviewed!

Freethought Blogs is growing at an insanely fast rate. Glorious, says I! However, a lot of you may not be aware of all the authors on FtB. Even if you are, you may not know who their celebrity crushes are or what they think of Kim Kardashian’s marriage. In an effort to acquaint everybody with the rabble here at FtB, I’m going to be conducting interviews with the bloggers.

The first up is author of the X Blog, Greg Laden.

Here.

Vote For My Nephew on XFactor!!!

Not that I’m trying to influence you or anything, but you BETTER DO IT!!!

LeRoy Bell is clearly the best singer of the bunch. You can vote for him using any of five different methods.

… we are giving you a handful of ways to cast your votes for your favorite 12 finalists. And they are…

1) PHONE: You can vote via calling a toll-free phone number. Each act will be assigned their own toll-free number, which will appear on screen after their performance.

2) TEXT: You can vote via Verizon SMS/text voting. Each act will be assigned their own four-digit short code, which will appear on screen after their performance.

3) ONLINE: Vote online at www.TheXFactorUSA.com and follow the instructions there, and if you have a Facebook account you can also vote at Facebook.com/TheXFactorUSA

4) TWITTER: You can vote by sending a Direct Message containing the number of the act for whom you wish to vote via Twitter if you follow @TheXFactorUSA. (Note: We don’t need to follow you back.) Tweets do NOT count. The number assigned to each act is based on order in the performance show each week, much like the toll-free and SMS voting methods. So, if you wish to vote for act number 1, send a Twitter Direct Message containing the number 1 to @TheXFactorUSA. Or, visit twitter.thexfactorusa.com and follow the instructions for how to Direct Message your Twitter vote(s).

5) MOBILE APP: If you are a Verizon subscriber with an Android device, you can vote via The Xtra Factor App. Download the app now! For Verizon Android tablets, you will need to log into a Facebook account. For Verizon Android handheld devices, you vote via SMS/text message. Beware: for the Verizon Android handheld device voting the short codes and keywords for the acts will be different to those shown on air, but that’s the only thing different..

A few more things to keep in mind here before you pick up the tellie or get your texting fingers warmed up — voting opens five minutes before the end of every performance show and is open for two hours after the show ends in each time zone. Voting is available to people from within the Continental US, Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

“If you want to go crazy voting, direct SMS, SMS in-app, and telephone votes are unlimited. But online and Twitter votes are maxed out at 50 votes. Got that? And all of that is brought to you by Verizon.”

Wednesday, Nov. 2 is when voting begins and on Thursday, Nov. 3 it will be the first of the results show, where the effects of your power will be shown!

source

“The American Cancer Society is not happy…”

…It insists that it is not discriminating against atheists. It insists that its recent decision to deny the Foundation Beyond Belief a national team in their upcoming Relay for Life — and its decision to reject the $250,000 matching offer that would have gone with it — had nothing to do with the fact that the FBB is a non-theist organization.

This is getting interesting. Click here.

Julian Assange may be extradited to Sweden

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange lost his appeal against extradition to Sweden to answer sex crime allegations, but said Wednesday he will now consider whether to take his protracted fight to Britain’s highest court.

High Court appeal Judges John Thomas and Duncan Ousely rejected Assange’s claims that it would be unfair and unlawful to send him to Scandinavia to be questioned over the alleged rape of one woman and the molestation of another in Stockholm last year. The 40-year-old has denied wrongdoing, and insists the case is politically motivated by those opposed to the work of his secret-spilling organization.

“We will be considering our next steps in the days ahead,” Assange said …

Read the rest here

A true ghost story: The Slide Show

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The McGregor Museum is a complex building with several wings surrounding an inner court yard, a multi-layered roof, balconies everywhere, and numerous trees in the court yard close in to the building. So, a cat can spend the heat of the day in the shaded crown of a tree, and the cool of the evening up on the building’s sun-warmed metal roof.

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The interior of the McGregor museum houses numerious exhibits. The old period rooms and hallways focus on the late 19th century, and other newer areas (not shown) have an excellent set of exhibits on archaeology, human evolution, and “San” rock art.

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Defending Kimberly.

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The dude in the kilt.

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The Gatling Gun. (A Gatling gun is an old fashioned machine gun.)

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A visitor to the museum checking for ghosts.

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Doing fieldwork in a game park.

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Possible “San” burial … which turned out to have no physical remains.

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Although no artifacts of note or bones were found in the burial, there were plenty of these. The scorpions were in a state of torpor, as it was winter.

The End

A True Ghost Story, Part 6: But first, since we’re talking geology …

Since we are talking about geology, I do not want to give up the opportunity to bring up one of the coolest stories of geology ever, given the present day discussion of science and religion. You will be asking for a source for this story. Look it up in Wikipedia, where all knowledge resides, and you will not find it there.
Continue reading A True Ghost Story, Part 6: But first, since we’re talking geology …

A True Ghost Story Installment D: I see dead people. Hey, It’s my job!

I wrote earlier about the graves that were dug daily to receive the dead. In truth, the details of this procedure are still being worked out by archaeologists at the McGregor Museum in Kimberley, but when we were there on this particular trip, part of the grave yard to which I refer had been just discovered, accidentally uncovered during a public works drainage project. I’ve never seen anything quite like it in all my years as an archaeologist.
Continue reading A True Ghost Story Installment D: I see dead people. Hey, It’s my job!

A True Ghost Story III: Who is that kilted man with the big gun?

Well, we were living with this ghost who would walk up and down the hall in the middle of the night, invisibly leaving behind only the sound of its footsteps. But before I tell you how this all came out, I want to tell you a related side story.

As I had mentioned, I had the “hallway extension” room. Let me explain.
Continue reading A True Ghost Story III: Who is that kilted man with the big gun?