Bradley Thomas Horton, Founder and President of D.A.P.P.E.R., a new advocacy for the differently abled, has given me permission to post the e-mail he sent me this morning: Hello, I am Bradley and I am disabled. This is from the brain tumor I had at 13 years of age. I have been fighting my health problems, most of my life. I am about to have my 40th birthday. I am trying to speak out, like never before and get people to realize that god is a myth and we need to work to help each other, in real ways, now....

CNN selected an atheist as one of the YouTubers permitted to question the Democratic candidates last night. Should he fear that a Democratic administration would snub secular voters but "pay lip service to the extremely religious?" Literally understood, of course, the question asks whether the candidates intend to ignore believers as much as non-believers. CNN, regrettably, did not pick up on the misuse of "lip service," aggravating matters by emblazoning the question across screen as if it made perfect sense. They even put "lip service" in quotes, seemingly to emphasize the audicity of favoring anybody with it. As you can...

"You are a stupid duped deluded idiot." It was my custom to speak to religious people bluntly, and so three years ago I e-mailed that observation to a woman named Ashli after our paths had crossed on another blog. She might have taken more offense than she did but for various distractions, which, as I learned once our discussions veered away from religion and politics, included the fact that her emaciated, jaundiced, bedridden body was vomiting forth, up to 40 times a day, whatever nutrients could be pumped into it with an industrial-strength IV line. She was suffering from hyperemesis...

Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan spar over whether the most important issue is religious truth or religious extremism -- an issue explored by this blog here last year....

Cass Brown died on January 6, 2007, outliving, apparently, the blog he died for. Your prehumous tributes to him may be found here....

I 100% agree that this was a targeted hit on atheists in politics. Amanda of Pandagon, referring to her resignation as blogmaster of the John Edwards campaign....