Welcome One and All!!!!

Pharynguloids, Dispatchers, High Ranking Politburo Members, Kossacks, Redstaters, Aliens from across the Cosmos, Pundits of all flavors, Godless Atheists, Self-aware Intelligent Machines and sentient energy or exotic matter constructs, inter-dimensional travelers, religious lunatics, and rational or irrational humans of every stripe ...

WELCOME!!!! We're not angry, we just don't agree with you ...

Unscrewing the Inscrutable is your Free Thought Forum and includes lots of scientists, science students, skeptics, theists, deists, and atheists/agnostics ... Not only do we encourage you to share your opinions (And hopefully your reasoning backed with extensive references and plausible lines of thought) whether you agree or disagree with us or anyone else, we consider ourselves fortunate to have members who do exactly that. Just as anyone is free to write what they fancy (Within liberal limits outlined further below), anyone is free to criticize that content.

If you have a Blog and you like what you see here, consider linking this Introduction to help us launch the new site. Our official rollout date is Wed morning, July 13.

More below the flip

We recently lost all our domains and a good deal of our content due to an unbelievable foul-up by a previous hosting company. But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? To underscore that cliche, it is my great pleasure to present your new Unscrewing the Inscrutable now powered by open-source Drupal and featuring your humble operators, Brent Raz and DarkSyde! Drupal is new to me also so take everything I say here with a grain of salt.

UTI still works just like it did before in that you can read entries and post comments to them. But we have a few optional add-on features for your Blogging pleasure.

If you want to comment on an existing post you can do so as an anonymous user without registering (You can still add a user name as part of the post, it just won't hyperlink). To comment under your user name automatically you need to log in/create an account by clicking on the "Create New Account" link to the right. There is no software download involved. You merely enter a user name and a valid e-mail address so that a temporary password will be sent to you. You can then log in with that user name and password and go on to change your password and provide various types of information about yourself such as your Blog URL or other biographical info as you see fit.
If you choose to create an account, any required information (A valid e-mail address and user name) will not be sold or made public.

You and you alone control what information others have access to about you on your UTI Homepage and through the content of your posts. We don't care if you register and we don't care if you don't. We don't get anything out of it if you do register. The choice is yours.

(More info here)

In addition to posting comments under your user name, registration allows you to edit your comments after you post them and it allows you to write your own diaries! In effect create your own Blog, on this site at no charge and with no obligation outside of the suggestions here. One fantastic use for this feature is you can post content here if you have no Blog to call home, but want your work included in Blog Carnivals. A FAQ on HTML Tags reviewing how to enhance your comments or diaries with images, links, quote boxes, italics, etc., will be forthcoming.

Diaries you submit will post immediately and can be see in the Recent Blog Posts list in the right margin of the main page where they are listed chronologically by title. There is an edit function allowing you to revise your diary after it has been submitted. There is also a rating system available for member diaries: Those that receive recommendations from other members will be featured on the front page.

This site doesn't exist solely to promote your own Domains or publications elsewhere, but we don't care if use it for that within reason. You may link to your Blog, cross post from your existing Blog, praise and pimp your Blog or anyone else's, beg for money to keep your Blog going, tell us about your work, promote a cause; all to your heart's content. The best way to generate hits on your diary and thus bring attention to yourself is to produce well written, original work, on a timely subject or interesting topic.

Here are a few suggestions to keep yourself out of trouble with the Moderators (Brent and I). Most are just common sense and should be obvious. Any suggestions or criticism concerning these guidelines are welcome.

Brent and I are more or less political centrists with some Libertarian characteristics. We're at times highly critical of the Bush White House, the religious right, and extreme right-wing politicians. We're not terribly impressed with the Democratic Orthodoxy over the past few years either. Our articles will reflect this.

We tend to write about science, political issues, and social topics centered on religious freedom, Separation of Church and State, and matters of interests to skeptics. We have published vulgar rants, satire, and snark galore in the past and will almost certainly continue doing so smack dab in the middle of the front page.
We will also feature front page guest writers who have detailed knowledge and insight into specific issues. If you're interested in being a guest writer contact us and tell us why you think you'd be a good one.

As a member you can write pretty much whatever the heck you feel like writing in your own diaries within a very broad and liberal set of guidelines (See below).

Guide-lines for Diaries and Comments

UTI carries the cinematic equivalent rating of "R": For Mature Audiences.

It's not easy to get comments and/or diaries deleted or get yourself banned from UTI. On the old Blog out of hundreds of posts and thousands of comments we never banned or deleted a single one, with the exception of spam. We hope to continue that tradition seamlessly at the new UTI: You'll have to really work at it to get banned or deleted here.

We welcome Republicans, social or economic conservatives, environmentalists, Libertarians, Democrats, wingnuts, Disciples of Scientology, Communists, flat-earthers, theocrats, Raelians, or misguided conspiracy theoristes that think 9-11 was a Neo-con/Zionist frame-up. Other members are free to point out why you're a lunatic if you do indeed spout lunacy.

If you're neurotic, just going through a lonely spell, suffering a terminal illness or a serious mid-life crises, suicidally depressed, if you've recently lost a loved one, or you're a certifiable whacked-out flake, and choose to share any of that with us, you're welcome to do so. As long as you understand this is a free discussion forum and no one is under any obligation to treat you special. The Internet is a harsh mistress.

Bear in mind that extraordinary claims work the best when they're accompanied by extraordinary evidence and/or underlying rationale. Failure to supply such evidence or rationale combined with incessant moonbat posting will likely result in embarrassment and ridicule for you (Her hair was red, but it was a little TOO red if you know what I mean).

UTI is not set up to work as a democracy. We're happy to listen to your thoughts on democracy, this site, or any other form of governance, but we're not obligated to practice it. This is a privately owned and operated Blog which is paid for out Brent's pocket and offered in good faith to anyone who wishes to participate, at no charge and with no strings attached outside of the suggested guidelines here. Brent and I are both cranky, foul-tempered, amoral, Godless atheists who prize science, critical analysis, reasonable inferences, writing skills, and plausible scenarios over personal attacks, smearing, and logical fallacies. But we're also tolerant and interested when anyone favors UTI with their thoughts including ideas out of the mainstream.

Nevertheless, I can think of a few extreme situations that might result in warning, revision of your post[s], a deletion, or a temporary or permanent ban'n:

1. Spamming. If you spam that's an onsite permanent ban'n

2. Posting identical entries over and over, even if the wording is slightly changed. Doing so will result in warning, deletion, and ultimately a ban'n

3. Threatening another member with harassment or violence; Threats of Reprisals such as "I'm gonna hack your PC"; Outside of public officials, celebrities, news anchors, etc, publishing someone's name, pic, address, and other identifying information without their expressed consent. Brent and I have made waves on other sites. If those folks want to come here and cause a ruckus in revenge, as long as they don't violate any of the common sense policies stated here, they'll probably be tolerated with one exception: If you've been instrumental in banning us from your site or deleting our comments in the past, you are free game for turn-about.

If someone is essentially stalking you around the site pestering the shit out of you, and if we agree it's out of line and you're not egging them on in any way, we may send a warning shot across the offenders bow. If they keep it up, that's probably a ban'n.

Fit into any of these categories and that's a warning, a deletion, or a ban'n

4. Hate groups, terrorists, and violent extremists, such as proponents of the Ku Klux Klan or those sympathetic to Al Qaeda who advertise their ideology are not necessarily banned outright. But if you argue for these views and/or attempt to recruit for them, I can pretty much assure you we won't put up with it. And if we have reason to believe you are violent and/or about to commit a crime, and not just an unpopular adolescent misfit with a social disorder and access to daddies PC trolling for effect: We'll report you to the Feds

5. If you have a Blog and we see that you've rewritten one of our member's comments in a dastardly way (known as "Wizbang'n"), we may well do the same to your comments here just for kicks. And it won't be flattering

6. If you create multiple accounts known as 'sock puppets' to pose as other commentators and engage in some kind of weird, split-personality, self indulgent discussion with your own aliases ... frankly we don't really care. But we think you should seek professional help. And we may ban you for your own good in such circumstances if it's truly pathetic, if it starts bugging us, if there is intent to defraud, or if you're sucking up too much bandwidth.

7. We despise Spyware but we recognize there's crappy versions that are unavoidably all over the place, and truly horrific ones that can crash your system. Do not knowingly attempt to infect anyone else's system with Spyware or Viruses or Worms of any kind at UTI and you'll be fine.
If you encounter aggressive programs from this site, or if anyone posts a link with an insidious download on it, let us know and we'll take a look. We may well post a warning, disable the link, delete it, or hand down a ban'n.

8. Activity of a fraudulent or criminal nature, such as soliciting donations for a scam, promoting MLM/Pyramid schemes, or shopping for an under age victim to satisfy your deviant predilections, will earn you warning, a ban'n, or a call from the police, depending on the particulars

Other than that, you're pretty much on your own here. You can cuss, you can be rude, you can be a total asshole. Or you can be pleasant, you can be charming, you can be the life of the party. And so can anyone else. We highly recommend that if someone is being rude to you and you don't like it, that you simply ignore them. We are reluctant to intercede in any flame wars which you initiate or participate in of your own free will, unless it breaks one of the above rules or we experience massive member outcry/revolt.

Bottom Line: The is a Free Thought Forum. We don't expect everyone to just 'get along' perfectly. In fact we expect some members will be at each other's throats. You are in control of your experience here. You choose who you correspond with and who you do not. If you start a feud/war don't come whining to us that the other guy is being mean. If you pick up the gauntlet of another's flame, same deal.

Chat Rooms and Message Boards

For those of you like myself who miss the Evolution Vs Creationism and Ask an Atheist Live Chatrooms on MSN, or the Yahoo chatrooms, Brent thinks there's a good chance he can install a stand alone chat room linked to this Blog which will not require a client download and will be accessible to any member. We don't know for sure but we think it might be doable. It would take time and bandwidth and we're not going to do fiddle with it if no one cares to use it. The advantage is those Comms could use that chat room if they so desire while remaining intact at MSN (And we'd be happy to have their participation on UTI of course). For those of you active in either of those MSN Communities please cross post this portion of the Intro with a link to UTI onto their message boards.

We also have the embedded option from Drupal of setting up an old style Use.net message board such as the Talk.Origins forum. Up to you folks.

That's about it for now. The site may act up on you in some way. If you encounter problems registering or posting, contact Brent or I. In the meantime we sincerely thank you for considering our cozy corner of cyberspace as one of your regular haunts and ask that you please excuse the dust, paint cans, power tools laying about, and any glitches. We're still tweaking things and tightening a few bolts here and there. This is a powerful and unfamiliar software set-up; it takes Brent (Who BTW is a software diva) an hour or two a day of fiddling with it just to keep it up and running.