Due to an increase in workload thanks to COVID-19, needing to watch my son much of the day while we are confined to quarters, and a general slowdown in fringe history claims due to the virus drowning out most other discussion, I did not have time write a blog post today. I hope to return tomorrow to review Ancient Aliens, if only in abbreviated form.

After two weeks of near record-low timeslot ratings for Rob Riggle: Global Investigator, the Discovery Channel pulled the show from its desirable Sunday timeslot and benched it until next month. The show will return on Thursday nights in April to burn off the remainder of its season. The misbegotten series wasn’t funny enough for comedy fans, and it offered nothing new to fans of fake history, putting it in the uncomfortable position of alienating two audiences at the same time.

As much as I don’t want to waste more time on this, the state of the comments section on my blog has degenerated to the point that changes have to be made. For the first ten years I ran this blog, I kept comments open to anyone, for close to real-time conversations. However, the toxic, combative nature of the comments on nearly every blog post have driven away dozens of people who used to make substantive, thoughtful comments. I have tried culling toxic comments, but the flood of them comes faster than I can handle them, given that this is not my actual day job and I can’t spend hours each day reading aggressive, inane, or abusive posts. I have tried IP blocking, but many posters simply generate a new IP address and continue on, while Weebly, which provides my blogging software, has restricted my access to IP addresses in their latest redesign.

I have no blog post for you today because, for the second time this year, my boiler failed. This time it began leaking water and apparently has a crack inside that would cost more to repair than replacing the boiler. I spent the entire day yesterday dealing with the boiler failure, which is the second one I have now gone through in five years, across two different houses. When you add that to the broken toilets, dead washing machine, faulty door knobs, and myriad other problems, it makes for a very long and expensive half year of living in this house.

I am happy to announce the publication today of my new book, The Mound Builder Myth: Fake History and the Hunt for a “Lost White Race.” This book has been a long time in coming. I started writing it in the winter of 2011/2012, and it has been a slow road to publication, but one I think is worth the wait. Clocking in at 400 pages, The Mound Builder Myth is the best book I have ever written, and you know that it must be good because both Graham Hancock and Ken Feder have read it in manuscript and had great things to say about it. You can order the book directly from the publisher or from your favorite retailer.

My boiler stopped working yesterday morning, shutting down my heating system, and as a result I spent all day yesterday arranging for repairs before the house chilled to the point of becoming uninhabitable. The circulator failed, resulting in an electrical malfunction that only managed to avoid catching fire because the valve above it leaked, extinguishing the sparks. This resulted in a busted circulator and a blown fuse. The circulator was easy to repair, according to the HVAC specialist, but the stupid special little fuse took two hours to replace because no one in the area carries that particular type and it had to be procured from twenty miles away. This happened simultaneously with the much-delayed closing on the house I have been trying to sell since last summer and with FedEx delivering my repaired computer. It was a busy morning that slid into a busier afternoon when the ongoing legal issues I have faced entered a new phase when the complainer (whose name I no longer use) demanded the removal of his name from every URL ever published on this blog. Despite the hardships, by the end of the day, I had a working furnace, a working computer, and only one house. My lawyer also drafted a response to the complainer. But I had no time to write, so I have nothing else to share this weekend except that my publisher has asked for revisions to my Legends of the Pyramids book and I now must work on that since I have a working computer again.

My publisher has delivered to me a reader report and a set of notes for revisions and changes to my book on legends of the pyramids. Based on the manuscript, they would like to revise parts of the book into a more visual organization. They would like to see a revised chapter right after New Year's. I will be taking some time off during the holiday weeks to work on the revisions.

Yes, it’s that time of the year again! Every Christmas season, I follow the lead of NPR, PBS, and the charity of your choice and ask my readers to help with the upkeep of this site and to help keep it commercial and ad-free. In the interest of saving some time, I am adapting my pitch from previous years for this post.

You know it is going to be one of those days when you get told that your lawyer is calling and you have to ask which lawyer, and for what reason. I ran out of time for writing a blog post because I spent the day dealing with legal issues. Part of the day was spent trying to finalize the sale of my former house, whose closing has been delayed for weeks while the purchaser's bank dragged its feet. With the paperwork on that finally moving forward for a closing before the end of the year, I had to simultaneously deal with another situation arising from claims made years ago against this blog. My attorney and I had to discuss our response to a request to remove content from this blog. The issue is still ongoing, and I cannot provide additional details while the matter is active.

My original intention was to review Unexplored + Unexplained today, but the Science Channel has locked the most recent episode, which I am unable to view because the network is not included in my cable package. Oh, well. No loss to me. Meriwether Lewis is still dead, and I did not need another conspiracy theory about it. Meanwhile, here near Albany we received two feet of snow, and I had to spend much of the last two days clearing snow. I did not have time to write a blog post, especially after I devoted so much time this weekend to reading and reviewing Gods, Man, and War 2. Normally, I would have divided the book review in parts anyway, but I thought that putting it up as one blog post would be more useful to anyone looking for information about the book. Let us say that it counts for two or maybe three posts this week.