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Update 5/3/08: SERNAGEOMIN (the Chilean Geologic Survey) is now concerned that the eruption of Chaiten may be a the precursor of a larger eruption, mostly owing to the long (~9,000 year?) repose time. This could be the beginnings of a southern Andean Pinatubo. The towns around Chaiten are ...
I've been following these rumblings for the last few months, but it looks like Colombia's Nevado del Huila is ramping into a new cycle of eruptions. Huila lives in the shadow of its more famous brethren Nevado del Ruiz and Galeras, both of which have had recent and tragic eruptions. Huila is not ...
Ruapehu, in New Zealand, is starting to show signs it may erupt in the near future. It is a fairly active volcano, last erupting in Septemeber of 2007, but it is also a rather hazardous volcano thanks to the crater lake at the top that could be breached. Combined with the development on the ...
So, this isn't exactly about current eruptions, but I was able to watch the new (well, to the U.S.) Doctor Who episode centered around the 79 A.D. eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. Now, to me, this was two of my favorite things (volcanoes and Doctor Who) fuses into one, and while I enjoyed it, it wasn't ...
Dear Mr. Chick, You probably don't know me, but I'm writing to send you my thanks. I used to be a hardcore, evil, godless atheist, but after reading some of your wonderful Christian fundamentalist cartoon tracts, I've realized just how wrong I've been. Now I know that there is a God who loves me ...
The big eruption news today is an unexpected eruption in southern Chile. In fact, it is so unexpected that depending on when and where you read about it, you might get a different answer to what volcano is doing the eruption. What we do know at this point is an eruptive column has been spotted ...
Inspired by a recent post on Philosophy, et cetera, I want to talk a little about zombies and what they imply for a materialist theory of the mind. When I say "zombie," I don't mean the shambling, flesh-eating undead of horror films. This thought experiment is about philosophical zombies, which ...
The First World War ( 1914-1918 ) obviously didn’t get that name while it was still raging*, on account of the Second one still being a few decades in the future. Some called it ‘the War to End All Wars’ (which didn’t quite turn out that way), others labelled it ‘the Great War’, although that ...
Welcome to the inaugural post on Eruptions, a weblog about volcanic eruptions, volcanoes and the people who live near them. I'm going to attempt to compile everything I can about volcanic eruptions currently going on worldwide on this weblog in a hope to foster better understanding of volcanic ...
Last year, around the time I inaugurated my Poetry Sunday series, I contacted Prof. Philip Appleman to ask for permission to reprint some of his work which I'd seen in Freethought Today. He graciously assented to my request, and even said a few kind words about "The Gods", my own brief foray into ...
Even if you're a Charlie Rose fan, you'll have to admit that this is brilliant: Charlie Rose interviews himself on the future of technology. It sounds a bit like a Samuel Beckett play, and that's the point, according to filmmaker Andrew Filippone, Jr.: "Something has happened to PBS favorite ...
Although abortion is stereotyped as the most controversial and divisive social issue there is, I think the moral issues at stake are actually fairly unambiguous. This installment of "On the Morality Of" will explain why. Pared down to its essence, the moral question posed by abortion is a simple ...
People of a very religious disposition have been known to see the face of Jesus in a slice of burnt toast, or the Virgin Mary’s silhouet in a tree. Map-nuts similarly observe simulacra of states and continents in everyday objects. “I’ve seen photos of clouds resembling maps, pancake surface ...
Today's Poetry Sunday features a few selections from the American poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Wilcox was born in 1850 in Wisconsin and soon acquired renown as a poet, becoming well-known for her writing by the time she graduated high school. Her poems were resolutely plain and optimistic, and though ...
Over the past two months, I've written about the differing epistemologies of religion - where the individual's personal conviction is taken as a reliable guide to truth ("The Aura of Infallibility") - and science - where the assumption is that individuals are fallible and should work as a group to ...