If this blog were a person.....

.....it would now be eligible to vote. Yes, as of today, the blog is eighteen years old.  Having kept on going through arthritis, eye problems, troll outbreaks, my mother's nine-year stroke/dementia crisis, and a couple of times when I came disturbingly close to ending up homeless, I don't think anything short of death is going to stop me now, so the blog will probably keep going as long as I do😈.

For this blogiversary, I thought I'd link to a few of what I consider the best posts over the years, since newer readers probably haven't seen them.

I paid tribute to an animal which has helped boost blog traffic.

Here's why you shouldn't worry about an alien invasion.

The internet is giving rise to a new form of written English.

Are men necessary?  Note that when I wrote this post, the present ideological meaning of the word "gender" had not become common, so whenever you see the word "gender", think "biological sex".

I wrote an obituary for Christian propagandist Jack Chick.

In 1886 a colony of German anti-Semites was established in Paraguay, led by the sister of Friedrich Nietzsche.

Yes, humans have free will, even if it's not yet possible to understand it.

Religion is undermined by contact with other religions.

Space colonies are not the answer, no matter what the question.

The fact that all life on Earth shares a common origin has far-reaching implications.

Here's what I mean when I speak of "the essential struggle".

This is the best of my poetic pieces.

If aliens do exist, what do they look like?

The world's deadliest disease keeps on killing and killing, because we don't recognize it as a disease we must eradicate.

Catholicism is utterly ridiculous.  Read this one too, just for fun.

I respond to pro-death arguments.

The Middle East has the same cultural origins as the West, and is not so alien as you think.

Violence leads to failure for political and social reform movements, because we aren't chimpanzees any more.

It took sixteen centuries, but Hypatia finally won.

A former Muslim reveals the truth about Islam, a dangerous and surprisingly fragile religion.

Efforts to stop or slow down technological progress are doomed to defeat.

Perhaps there is an afterlife, or will be.