I liked the book when I read it about two years ago. It does the two things that good science writing for the public should do: it focuses on the people, and it is careful to get, at least a bit, into the actual science rather than staying on the level of vague analogies. (It is astonishing how much science writing there is from which you can learn no science whatsoever.) The errata list is here.
* A tutorial for making your own version of the Grail Diary from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
* Mulla Sadra, overwhelmingly the most important Muslim philosopher of the early modern period, and arguably of the past several centuries, finally has an entry at the SEP. Much more work needs to be done on him in the West.
* Susan Palwick discusses being a volunteer chaplain in an ER.
* Andrew Brown discusses David Hume's Comment Policy.
* Simon Tisdall suggests that the surprise Lebanon elections (in which the March 14 bloc defied expectations by inching past the March 8 bloc) were partly due to the "Obama effect". He recognizes that it makes little sense to attribute the effect to Obama's speech there, but suggests that Maronites in the country have appreciated the overall Obama approach since he has been taking office. I'm skeptical that it had much direct influence. But it could be that the Obama administration helped indirectly by not messing things up, which is not inconceivable. Regardless, things are still very dicey; politics is very generous in giving everyone second chances for throwing things into chaos.
* Playboy recently got into a huge pot of hot water when they put up a hate-sex article by Guy Cimbalo, called "So Right, It's Wrong," subtitled, "The Top 10 Conservative Women We Hate to Love." This sort of despicable rape fantasy nonsense, needless to say, stirred up some outrage. Playboy eventually removed the article, but Caleb Howe has the screenshots (NSFW). I don't recommend you look at them if you have little stomach for the vile; I give the link only so that it can be made clear, to those to whom it needs to be made, just how vile it was.
One thing I've noticed here, which I've noticed before, is that some of the anger that has been stirred up among the women discussing the issue has been against feminists; Tabitha Hale puts this view in succinct form (only one of the forms it has taken, though):
And are any feminists going to come to the rescue? No. Because modern feminism does not apply to conservative women. It is not about supporting women at all, in fact – it is about supporting Liberalism. It’s about hating men. It’s about hating mommies. It’s about pro-choice. They’ve shown us their true colors with Sarah Palin and Carrie Prejean. Even Hillary Clinton was treated horribly, because she was juxtaposed with a black man who was even further to the Left than her.
This claim, that modern feminism does not apply itself to conservative women, seems to me to be a growing one; I've heard it more and more from conservative women in the past few years. I imagine it will come up again.
(Elisabeth Hasselbeck, one of the women treated in this way, did get the NOW to make a statement on the subject.)
* I'd intended to mention this before; some time ago Rebecca put up a link to BibleArc.com, which is a very interesting Bible study site.
* Sherry's Hundred Hymns List continues:
#96 I Will Sing of My Redeemer
#95 God Moves in a Mysterious Way
#94 Wonderful Grace of Jesus
#93 Tell Me the Story of Jesus
* Ophelia Benson gives her theory for why so many women are religious.
* Miriam has some humorous YouTube finds. The Anna Russell ones are especially worthwhile.
