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In case you haven't been keeping up with the Rapture Ready! news page or Facebook group, here are some highlights from the last few weeks:

Reviews in Publisher's Weekly, SoMA Review and Discerning Reader (a conservative Christian site, so this is as close to a rave as I could possibly get).

Interviews in The Forward and Metromix.

A thoughtful discussion and analysis in Slate (that, for what it's worth, I don't entirely agree with).

Also, there are now six excerpts available online at various sites, with more to come. Pretty soon the entire thing will be free on the Internet, just like music.

Perhaps due to all this buzz, my Amazon rank briefly rose to about 850 and has now settled down to 3,000-something.

What can you do to help continue this saturation coverage, I hear you ask? Well, if you have a blog, drop a mention in whatever manner suits you best. If you want to enlist me in any such enterprise for a Q&A or guest post or whatever, let me know. If you don't have a blog, get one. Or Twitter it. I have no idea what Twitter is, but I hear it's quite fashionable.

Also, if you read the book, please take two minutes and write a review on Amazon. If you haven't read it, check out the reviews that are already there and let them know which ones were "helpful to you" (hint, the five-star ones). You can do that in less time than it took you to read this post.

You did read this far, right?

Hello? Is anybody there? There was going to be cake.

04:24 PM :: Comments (0)

Andrew is right that no matter whether John McCain convinces you that Arianna Huffington and the cast of the West Wing are all lying, we've still got a cable news story (as opposed to a real news story) about John McCain's dinner with Arianna Huffington and the cast of the West Wing — at Candice Bergen's home in Beverly Hills. Think they were knocking back Pabst Blue Ribbon?

Better still, John McCain is put in the position of affirming, loudly and clearly, that, yes, he voted for the asshole with the highest disapproval rating in history. And we should vote for you why?

Meanwhile, McCain's camp is accusing Obama of playing the age card (again) with his "lost bearings" line. Nonsense! He's playing the crazy card. Whatcha gonna do about it, Walnuts?

02:32 PM :: Comments (1)

I'll leave it to Jack Shafer to untangle everything that's wrong with the AP's reprinted White House press release on The Dangers of Marijuana: This Time It's Actually True, Trust Us.

But just a couple of things off the top of my head. According to the first graf, marijuana "can lead to dependency, mental illness or suicidal thoughts."

The supposed evidence:

"A teen who has been depressed at some point in the past year is more than twice as likely to have used marijuana as teens who have not reported being depressed."

And

"Teens who smoke pot at least once a month over a yearlong period are three times more likely to have suicidal thoughts than nonusers"

Ergo, smoking marijuana leads to suicidal thoughts! Or, perhaps, depression does. No, that can't be it. Really, one little data point could answer this question: are depressed teens who smoke more likely to consider suicide than depressed teens who don't? Guess they didn't have room in the budget for that question.

I'd also be curious as to whether the suicidal thoughts increase or decrease immediately after smoking. I mean, if depressed kids are becoming "dependent" on marijuana, might it be because marijuana helps them feel better?

Even taking the study at face value, which is never wise with a government study on drugs, the logic makes no sense. "Gee, depressed people take Prozac. Sometimes a lot. And sometimes they think about suicide. We'd better ban Prozac!"

Oh, and by the way, is there any chance these kids also drink alcohol?

11:35 AM :: Comments (3)

American teenagers rap about The Economist.

What, no love for The Week?

10:32 AM :: Comments (1)

So Alec Baldwin thinks he can be governor of New York. He's ready to face hard questions about the "thoughtless little pig" incident. But to understand how clueless Hollywood Liberal Elites are about real America (yes, New York is real America, once you get north of Westchester), take one look at the picture Reuters chose to distribute with this article. Sure it's probably just the latest photo the agency has of Baldwin, but still...

"Hi, Soccer Moms and Dads, here's me at the premier of a movie defending a fugitive child rapist!"

Oh, don't give me any nuance. If a missing flag pin can become a campaign issue, this picture definitely will.

06:36 PM :: Comments (7)

According to Salon's Obama Veepstakes quiz, my top two picks would be Wesley Clark and Jim Webb. And although some of the questions are kind of a joke, that's probably what I would have said on my own, though not in that order.

Of course, the fact that these are the top picks of nearly half of all Salon readers means it probably won't happen.

04:05 PM :: Comments (5)

[h/t simsburybear]

11:12 AM :: Comments (5)

Submit the worst possible caption for this New Yorker cartoon. Click here for details. Click here to see last week's results.

09:37 AM :: Comments (162)

Subliminal end homophobia CD

PROGRAM YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS MIND TO STOP HOMOPHOBIC TENDENCIES! ALLOW YOURSELF TO ACCEPT PEOPLE REGARDLESS OF THEIR SEXUAL PREFERENCE! RELEASE YOURSELF FROM UNWANTED FEAR OF HOMOSEXUALS & HOMOSEXUALITY! LEARN TO HATE CHRISTIAN SIRIANO FOR THE RIGHT REASONS!

OK, I added that last one.

10:48 AM :: Comments (3)

The mysterious secret of absinthe revealed: Booze! (and psychosomatics).

CG kiddie porn is The Next Big Thing. Or possibly robots. Does Vanity Fair know about this?

Why not Bil Keane! By which I mean, Why not, Bil Keane, try some of this LSD? It might do wonders for your creative process.

If you're thinking of blogging about anything Jeffrey Goldberg writes, pick up the phone and call him first. He's got the time. There are only, what, a couple dozen people with blogs out there? Note: I tried to call Goldberg to before posting this, but got his voice mail. Should I have left a message? How long should I have waited for a callback? This Internet blogging thing moves fast, like some kind of superhighway.

11:58 AM :: Comments (2)