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National Review offers a few suggestions for the intellectual on your list:

Every Thanksgiving, National Review Online asks some regular contributors and friends for their suggestions for gift-giving for the upcoming Christmas season. This year, as often is the case, the list is book heavy — but is not without its surprises. We aim to help and hope it does….

For argumentation on the science vs. religion front, here are two books, one from each side. For believers, WorldNetDaily columnist Vox Day offers The Irrational Atheist, in which he takes on the “unholy trinity” of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. Good polemical stuff, with tables of atheist mass-murderers, much sneering at “scientism,” and some arresting eye-stoppers like: “Jerusalem aside, the Crusades were surprisingly irreligious.” On the other side, Cornelius J. Troost’s Apes or Angels: Darwin, Dover, Human Nature, and Race is a good survey of current understandings about human nature — including the religious component — from a coolly naturalistic, “evol-con” point of view. I wish Prof. Troost were not quite so free with exclamation points, but his book fulfills the essential condition any book on the contemporary human sciences should, if it wants to be taken seriously, viz.: it will offend Leftist blank-slaters and Rightist anti-Darwinists equally.

That was certainly a delightful surprise. I don’t know if it will be possible to actually get your hands on the book before Christmas, however, since it’s impossible to say when the books will ship from the publisher to the various bookstores. Books are usually available to the public well before their official publication date, but I think it’s unlikely that one could get a copy before Christmas.

Anyhow, it’s encouraging to learn that it’s not only fellow theists who think well of the book. The only thing I should like to note is that the “arresting eyestoppers” to which John Derbyshire refers aren’t there for contrarian shock value, as could be inferred from the phrase, but are fully supported in the text. For example, that statement about the Crusades to which Derb refers isn’t a naked assertion, but rather an evidence-based conclusion that happens to concur with the conclusions of three historians who are generally considered to know a good deal about that particular epoch, Charles Oman, Steven Runciman and John Julius Norwich.

Anyhow, if you’re an atheist or science blogger who is interested in reviewing the book, just send me an email expressing your willingness to write a review and I’ll arrange to have an electronic review copy sent to you when the book comes out.

Bill Conlin of the Philadelphia News, like most journalists, is a maleducated moron who thinks he’s much more intelligent than he actually is. But he has managed to take the suicidal dead-tree journalist’s impulse for self-immolating sallies into the blogosphere to impressive new heights:

The only positive thing I can think of about Hitler’s time on earth–I’m sure he would have eliminated all bloggers. In Colonial times, bloggers were called “Pamphleteers.” They hung on street corners handing them out to passersby. Now, they hang out on electronic street corners, hoping somebody mouses on to their pretentious sites. Different medium, same MO. Shakespeare accidentally summed up the genre best with these words from a MacBeth soliloquy: “. . .a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. . .”

This is hilarious, especially considering that those “Colonial Pampleteers” were actually the immediate precursors of modern newspapers and, eventually, so-called, self-styled “professional journalists”, not bloggers. How many more journalists need to get their heads handed to them by better-educated, smarter and more knowledgeable bloggers before they begin to realize that neither the power nor the technology curve is on their side?

I particularly enjoyed Conlin’s subsequent insistence that his dead friend having been a Jew somehow insulates him from his rhetorical dreams of blogocaust. How very convenient for him that the witness for this close, antisemitism-nullifying relationship isn’t available to testify for the defense… and besides, do you know who else liked dead Jews? Hitler. It seems to escape this eminent journalist that it’s not the mere invocation of the dread H-word which is the problem here, but the fact that he’s fantasizing about the murder of literally hundreds of thousands of people. Still, the ironic truth is that he’s almost surely right about Hitler’s opinion of the blogosphere. It’s not as if the elites in either the Republican or Democratic parties, or, for that matter, the nation’s editorial boards, are particularly keen on it either.

Jonah Goldberg writes an unexpected and effective defense of Ron Paul while succinctly explaining the essential problem with Mike Huckabee:

Let’s even say that Paul has the passionate support of the Legion of Doom, that his campaign lunchroom looks like the “Star Wars” cantina, and that many of his top advisors actually have hooves.

Well, I would still find him less scary than Mike Huckabee.

One is a culturally conservative libertarian. The other is a right-wing progressive. Whatever the faults of the man and his friends may or may not be, Paul’s dogma generally renders them irrelevant. He is a true ideologue in that his personal preferences are secondary to his philosophical principles. When asked what his position is, he generally responds that his position can be deduced from the text of the Constitution. Of course, that’s not as dispositive as he thinks it is. But you get the point.

As for Huckabee — as with most politicians, alas — his personal preferences matter enormously because ultimately they’re the only thing that can be relied on to constrain him. In this respect, Huckabee’s philosophy is conventionally liberal, or progressive. What he wants to do with government certainly differs in important respects from what Hillary Clinton would do, but the limits he would place on governmental do-goodery are primarily tactical or practical, not philosophical or constitutional.

This is the most important aspect of libertarian philosophy. Even if you seriously disagree with another libertarian, you can support him without reserve, since he is committed to not using the power of the state to compel you. Huckabee offers nothing more than a repeat of the George W. Bush fiasco. Jonah’s electoral analysis is inaccurate; it’s thrown off by his underlying belief that support for the occupations is somehow a vote-winner, but his reasoning here is sound.

UPDATE – Bob Novak also concludes that Huckabee is no conservative, but rather an advocate of strong, intrusive government cut from the Bush the Younger mode:

Huckabee is campaigning as a conservative, but serious Republicans know that he is a high-tax, protectionist advocate of big government and a strong hand in the Oval Office directing the lives of Americans…. Quin Hillyer, a former Arkansas journalist writing in the conservative American Spectator, called Huckabee “a guy with a thin skin, a nasty vindictive streak.” Huckabee’s retort was to attack Hillyer’s journalistic procedures, fitting a mean-spirited image when he responds to conservative criticism.

All I need to know is that the guy supports smoking bans. If you seriously advocate that sort of idiocy, you’ve obviously got an anything-goes attitude towards government rule. I wonder how long it will take Joe Carter to see through the Huckster and drop him?

As I wrote in September, it’s not actually news that Hillary isn’t normally oriented. But given how tightly this has been kept under wraps and how obediently protective the media – both “conservative” and mainstream – has been of this oft-testified fact, it’s interesting to see how rumors of her and her omnipresent aide have begun to surface in the international press. It seems increasingly probable that the Hillary and Huma scandal is the one upon which the Los Angeles Times has been sitting, about which so many rumors have been flying.

It would be a very, very interesting development if it turns out that the Internet has developed to the point that not even the united efforts of the conventional media suffice to kill a politically explosive story. Because for all the inevitable protestations about how sex is no one’s business and shouldn’t be a factor, Hillary would neither be the first nor the last political candidate to be sunk by her poor judgment in these matters.

A few weeks ago, Ron Rosenbaum reflected on the media’s culpability in protecting the unnamed candidate in the same way they protected FDR and Kennedy:

Now, as I say it’s a rumor; I haven’t seen the supporting evidence. But the person who told me said it offhandedly as if everyone in his world knew about it. And if you look close enough you can find hints of something impending, something potentially derailing to this candidate in the reporting of the campaign. Which could mean that something unspoken, unwritten about is influencing what is written, what we read.

Why are well wired media elite keeping silent about it? Because they think we can’t handle the truth? Because they think it’s substantively irrelevant? What standards of judgment are they using? Are they afraid that to print it will bring on opprobrium. Are they afraid not printing it will bring on opprobrium? Or both?

But alas if it leaks out from less “responsible” sources. then all their contextual protectiveness of us will have been wasted.

From the way Rosenbaum described it, the rumor could apply to either Obama or Clinton, although there has certainly been lots of talk of late about Hillary losing both Iowa and New Hampshire. We already know it’s about a Democrat, otherwise the media wouldn’t have been keeping their lips sealed in the first place. But I still think he was probably referring to the lid finally coming off of Hillary Clinton’s Wellesleyan ways.

What do you think of the revised look? I’ve been wanting to add a second column for some time now, and finally managed to get around to it during the Bears-Broncos game. I’ll be adding one or two new sections, but in the meantime I just wanted to make sure that all of the previous functionality was preserved.

If people with narrower screens are having a problem, let me know and I can reduce the middle area somewhat.

As if the militarization of the police and their non-stop no-knock invasions weren’t bad enough:

News Chopper 2 had a Local 2 Investigates team following the aircraft for more than one hour as it circled overhead. Its wings spanned 10 feet and it circled at an altitude of 1,500 feet. Operators from a private firm called Insitu, Inc. manned remote controls from inside the fleet of black trucks as the guests watched a live feed from the high-powered camera aboard the 40-pound aircraft.

“I wasn’t ready to publicize this,” Executive Assistant Police Chief Martha Montalvo said. She and other department leaders hastily organized a news conference when they realized Local 2 Investigates had captured the entire event on camera….

Montalvo told reporters the unmanned aircraft would be used for “mobility” or traffic issues, evacuations during storms, homeland security, search and rescue, and also “tactical.” She admitted that could include covert police actions and she said she was not ruling out someday using the drones for writing traffic tickets.

Or, you know, firing Hellfire missiles at the homes of reported drug dealers. That would work too. You know, for the children.

Open season on this week’s NFL games. I’m really just hoping that Adrian Peterson doesn’t play today. I don’t think we can beat the Giants either, but that’s really a secondary consideration at this point.

Isaac finds humor in my failure to be impressed by a few atheist writers:

[Vox Day], author of obscure Christian fantasy novels calling PB Shelley, Saramago, Primo Levi, Lichtenberg, Stanislaw Lem, and Largerkvist literary lightweights?

Yep. They don’t exactly rank with Homer, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Calvino or Goethe, do they? They don’t even rank with MacDonald, Tolkein, Hesse or Fitzgerald. I should have specifically mentioned Shelley in my list of exclusions, however, as I like his poetry and he was very influential, although I suspect his biography remains an important factor in both his popularity and his influence.

Of course, it is ironic to note that Lem is famously known for having publicly agreed with my generally low opinion of science fiction’s literary qualities. It’s only that I don’t think his stuff is particularly great either.

I am on the floor laughing.

Hey, enjoy it while you can. It seems timely to mention here that one philosopher, with whom I am unfamiliar but who is apparently well-regarded in some intellectual circles, recently declared that TIA significantly raised the intellectual level of the entire religion-atheism debate. Now, perhaps he’ll be alone in his opinion once the book comes out, on the other hand, I’m still pretty young by literary standards.

Out of curiosity, have you ever actually read either The World in Shadow or The Wrath of Angels, Isaac? Or do you simply believe that obscurity is somehow fundamentally incompatible with literary significance? I have to mention, I’m always amazed at how many complete strangers enjoy informing me that I’m obscure… and in a culture where fame is increasingly predicated on one’s predilection for exposing one’s genitalia to photographers. Obviously I’m going about this ALL wrong!

What I find alternatively irritating and amusing is the outright bias in the science fiction and fantasy genre, where writers who are doing little more than writing bad ripoffs of Tolkein and Lewis refuse to even consider flipping through anything with a similarly overt Christian perspective. Seriously, nearly every SF reviewer I ever contacted openly refused to even look at the EW books and I would bet that there is only a single member of SFWA who has read all three of them. (And no, I’m not including myself.) Now, that’s certainly their perogative, but one can’t reasonably cite a lack of literary praise as a strike against a collection of books that the critics simply will not read.

In any case, my shortcomings as a creative writer have very little, if anything, to do with my criticial faculties as a reader.

PZ recommends pulling all the atheist writers out of our shelves after hearing that the execrable Philip Pullman’s work could possibly be tossed out of a few Catholic libraries in Canada. But should we regard that as a threat or a promise?

It’s just atheism that spurs this objection. I think we ought to run with it. The school board didn’t go far enough. Let’s purge school libraries of all books by atheists.

Look at his list. What a bunch of literary lightweights! I’ll admit, I have a soft spot for Asimov and Adams, mostly because I thought they were really great when I was in junior high. Try to read Asimov’s novels as an adult without cringing… it’s tough since he has about as much interest in character development as the director of a movie based on a 3D shooter starring an inarticulate pro wrestler. Love Paglia and Pratchett, but both are one-trick ponies. Arthur C. Clarke was an SF giant and wrote one great novel and several great short stories, but he’s hardly Dostoevsky. Can’t stand Vonnegut, Harrison or Hoellebecq, and Dave Barry is mildly amusing but it would be a toss-up as to who is the most dreadful stylist, him, Harris or Rand. Rushdie isn’t bad, he’s just massively – MASSIVELY – overrated.

The only two I’d take very seriously are Mieville and Leopardi, both of whom are intelligent and genuinely talented writers, but possess[ed] seriously screwed-up minds. And their inclusion here is a little amusing, given how the overt socialism of the former and the overt nihilism of the the latter are two things from which atheists usually do their level best to disassociate themselves.

“This is going to greatly thin out the science fiction section of the library”, PZ notes. That’s very true, he could probably add eighty percent of the current membership of SFWA to his list, but it is the atheism pervading science fiction and modern fantasy that is a primary factor in keeping both subgenres banished to a much-disrespected literary ghetto. I’m not the only one who has noticed; even the aforementioned atheist Paglia has publicly commented upon the negative effect of atheism on the arts.

Why shouldn’t any library ditch Pullman if it wants to anyhow, especially if it’s a Catholic one? His books have no more inherent right to a place there than do my overtly Christian novels.

While there are actually some very good atheist writers, past and present, all this post actually demonstrates is that either the Wikipedia editors or our friendly community college professor have the reading habits of a teenager… assuming PZ actually reads anything outside of atheist cheerleading and tentacle porn. I mean, if you’re writing about sci-fi and atheism, how do you come up with Lem while leaving out Heinlein?

President Bush’s broad swath of electoral destruction isn’t limited to domestic politics:

Conservative Prime Minister John Howard suffered a humiliating defeat Saturday at the hands of the left-leaning opposition, whose leader has promised to immediately sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and withdraw Australia’s combat troops from Iraq.

Labor Party head Kevin Rudd’s pledges on global warming and Iraq move Australia sharply away from policies that had made Howard one of President Bush’s staunchest allies….

“The United States and Australia have long been strong partners and allies and the president looks forward to working with this new government to continue our historic relationship,” said Emily Lawrimore, a White House spokeswoman. “During his time as prime minister, Mr. Howard served the people of Australia well by pursuing policies that led to strong economic growth and a commitment to keeping Australians safe by fighting extremists and their ideology around the world.”

The election was an embarrassing end to the career of Howard, Australia’s second-longest serving leader. As little as a year ago, Howard had appeared almost unassailable. But on Saturday he was in real danger of becoming only the second sitting prime minister in 106 years of federal government to lose his own seat in Parliament.

Very little has changed on the so-called global warming front in the past year, so the likely conclusion is that, like the Republican loss of the House and Senate in 2006, the Australian Prime Minister is another casualty of the neocons’ Grim Struggle Against Victorious Elections.

The amazing thing is how many intelligent Republicans whose political judgment I usually respect continue to behave like functional idiots in insisting on continuing to support this political suicide pact. It will be interesting to see their response after they lose the White House as well as the House and Senate. Will they finally wake up, or will they follow the neocons’s lead and leap onto Hillary’s bandwagon?

UPDATE – Mary Steyn fails to note the obvious:

Of all the doughty warriors of the Anglosphere, Howard, his Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and their colleagues had the best rhetoric on the present war, and I often wished the Bush Administration had emulated their plain speaking.

And now they’re booted out of power… such an unlooked-for surprise!