I'm aware that Daylight Atheism was unavailable for some time earlier today. I'm looking into the cause with my site host.

In the meantime, is anyone finding that they're getting mysteriously redirected to a site called b.scorecardresearch.com when trying to connect to Daylight Atheism? Several people have mentioned this to me in e-mail. If you're seeing this, I think it's caused by browser-hijacking malware on your computer and isn't related to the site outage, but I'm not completely certain.

If you're having this problem, I'd appreciate it if you could run some simple tests and let me know the results. Does it only happen with this site, or does it happen with others? What about if you switch browsers, or use a different computer?

Also, if you're having this problem, I recommend trying a malware cleaning program like Spybot Search & Destroy or Ad-Aware. If you're able to download and run either of these and if it resolves the problem, please let me know.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm getting married tomorrow and will be away on my honeymoon for the following two weeks. I have a few posts written which I'll schedule for publication, and I may check in from time to time, but it's likely I'll be absent most days.

However, Daylight Atheism won't be left to languish. I'm happy to introduce four regular commenters who've graciously agreed to step up as guest administrators while I'm gone. They'll monitor the site, approve comments, and maybe even write some guest posts of their own, if they're willing. Please welcome them: SuperHappyJen, Teleprompter, Thumpalumpacus and Ritchie. I have full faith in them, so treat them nicely and be sure to thank them for volunteering!

So, if this is the sort of thing that interests you, I've created a page for Daylight Atheism on Facebook. If you'd like to sign up as a fan, do so with my blessing, and help spread the word!

At the moment, the page contains nothing but the RSS feed for this site. That may change, if I can think of any worthwhile information about me or about the site to put there. Suggestions welcomed.

Via Ophelia Benson, this unwelcome news: the Center for Inquiry's podcast Point of Inquiry, which I listened to regularly until now, is seeing a change in hosts. D.J. Grothe, who formerly conducted the interviews, is leaving to serve as the president of the James Randi Educational Foundation. He'll be replaced by a rotating series of hosts, and the most important of which, who's expected to conduct approximately half of Point of Inquiry's new interviews, is Chris Mooney.

On its face, this is a bizarre choice. No one has expressed more consistently than Chris Mooney the view that atheists should sit down, shut up, and not speak our minds if doing so might upset or offend anyone. Yet he's now the head interviewer for a podcast whose stated purpose is to interview the leading minds of today, including a majority of guests who are well-known atheists and religious skeptics. What is he going to ask them? Will the interview be thirty minutes of silence, since he's against giving such people additional opportunity to air their views? More plausibly, will he steer clear of any interview topic that might give his guests the opportunity to express opinions he dislikes, or select only guests who agree with his accommodationist viewpoint of silence and surrender?

Although I have nothing against the other named interviewers, Robert Price and Karen Stollznow, I've come to the conclusion that I can no longer in good conscience listen to or promote Point of Inquiry. D.J. Grothe conducted interviews with skill and professionalism, regardless of his guest's viewpoint, and I'm sorry to see him go (though I am glad to see the atheist movement developing the kind of infrastructure that leads to competition for outreach jobs like these). But I'm not optimistic about his replacement.

So, it seems I need to find some new atheist/skeptic-themed podcasts. Anyone have any suggestions? Feel free to recommend your favorite in the comments.

I believe I've successfully upgraded the site to the newest version of WordPress. Hopefully, this will keep out hacker attacks like the one from a few weeks ago. I think all the glitches resulting from the upgrade have been ironed out, but if you see anything that doesn't work right, or that seems different from how you remember, please let me know.

In the last reader feedback thread, the question was raised of adding a plugin to permit editing comments after they've been posted. Now that the upgrade is complete, I'm going to look into that. I know that Friendly Atheist has something like this, so I'll try to find out what he's using and get the same code set up here.

UPDATE: I've installed a plugin which promises the ability to edit and/or request deletion of comments for up to 5 minutes after they've been posted. Try it out and let me know how it works!

For the holiday season, some goodies this weekend:

• First up, some music for the season: the blogger Lirone, of Words That Sing, in collaboration with William Morris, composer in residence at the British Humanist Association (did you know the British Humanist Association had a composer in residence? me neither!), has written a humanist carol, Gathering Round the Fire. It's 99 cents on iTunes, and all profits will go to the BHA. I downloaded and listened to it, and I enjoyed it greatly. Check it out, support a good cause, and lend a little bit of humanist cheer to your holiday gathering!

• Next, CNN has a surprisingly sympathetic interview with Richard Dawkins on evolution and atheist advocacy.

• The Daily Mail's Andrew Alexander offers a "heartfelt plea for atheism", an eloquent essay only slightly marred by an ignorant passage about climate change.

• Hanna Rosin asks whether the prosperity gospel contributed to the economic crash.

• On Daily Kos, it's a shameful day for the Irish Catholic Church, as a long-awaited report is released about the complicity of the bishops in sex abuse by predator priests.

• And finally, from Time, an unsparing essay about the subjugation and abuse of women in Islamic countries. (Did you know a Saudi Arabian woman has no legal proof of her existence besides her name on her husband's ID card? I didn't.) This is the kind of thing that the New Atheists get called "shrill" and "strident" when we write.

Also, you may have noticed that posts on Daylight Atheism are now classified by tag in addition to the six major categories (also, there's a tag cloud). I implemented this as a result of suggestions in the reader feedback thread, and I've been working my way backwards tagging older posts. Before I go further with that, I'm interested if people have any opinions on it. Too many tags? Too few? Are some missing that you'd like to see included? Personally, I'm still considering whether to add the "Science" tag to the posts on Lee Strobel.

I haven't had an open thread in a while, and I wanted to post one for this purpose. This is a thread for Daylight Atheism readers' feedback: on the site and the way I'm managing it.

Do you have any complaints or grievances, general or specific, about the way the site is being run? Extravagant or effusive praise? Any recent posts you especially liked or disliked? Are there any regular features you'd like to see more of, or less of? Suggestions for something I haven't done yet but should? No topics are off-limits; whatever you've got to say, I want to hear it!

I realize these kinds of forums tend to be dominated by people who have strong feelings one way or the other, so I'll also take my cue from the number of responses. But if you think I'm doing just fine, feel free to say that as well.

The floor is now open, so let's hear what's on your mind. I'll try to respond to as much of it as I can.

I've revised the "About the Author" page that can be found via a link on the bottom of the sidebar. The first version of this page was dashed off just before Daylight Atheism was launched, and was never very informative. The new version is more detailed, so if you want to know more about the mysterious fellow behind this website, now's your chance.

I've also added a new page, "Statement of Principles", also linked from the sidebar. This one sums up my core beliefs on a range of philosophical topics, with the aim of explicitly defining the worldview that underlies my posts.

This is an open thread. What's on your mind?

I have reason to believe that the database errors which caused my site to crash last week were the result of a malicious hacker trying to break in. As of now, I don't know whether DA was targeted specifically or whether the responsible party was just looking for any vulnerable site to attack.

Last night, I found several user accounts that had been elevated to administrator privilege levels without my knowledge. I deleted these and set up some countermeasures to prevent a similar attack from happening again, but it's possible the attacker had access to my database for some time. As far as I can tell, nothing has been changed or deleted, but if anyone notices any broken links, strange changes to posts or comments, or any other oddities, please contact me. If you have a user account here, I'd also recommend changing your password.

Today I'm proud to introduce Daylight Atheism's newest guest author, Sikivu Hutchinson. You may know her from when she made a splash earlier this year with an article in the L.A. Watts Times about black atheists coming out of the closet, and I'm happy to offer my site as another platform for her to continue her freethought advocacy. She's also the editor of blackfemlens.org and a commentator for KPFK 90.7 FM radio in Los Angeles. The following post is reprinted with her permission.