* Very good news: Turkey has finally recognized the Patriarchate of Constantinople as a legal person. It was after a significant legal battle, but it provides some protection from the increasing tendency of the Turkish government to strip the Patriarchate of resources.
* Art Garfunkel has pretty decent taste in books. (ht)
* Hasok Chang, The Hidden History of Phlogiston
* The conjugation of the 'mote' in 'So mote it be'.
* The Holy Thorn of Glastonbury has been vandalized. Legend says that it grew from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea. The last time the Holy Thorn was chopped down was in the days of Puritans; this tree comes down to us from cuttings of that tree, because the locals secretly saved as much of the roots of the original as they could. A sprig from the tree, which is a variant in the species Crataegus monogyna, adorns the Queen's Christmas table each year, and, in fact, the most recent cutting for that purpose was taken just a few days ago. It's not the only scion of the original (there are actually descendants from those original cuttings all around Glastonbury), so it's not an unrecoverable loss even if it does not recover. But it's a shocking thing.
