Kevin Eckstrom, the editor over at Religion News Service, just dropped us a line with the news that his wire service has updated and expanded its weblog. So head over there and give it a shot. Pronto. We do this even though RNS does not -- yet, hint, hint -- have GetReligion included in its links list.

Kevin notes:

We've relaunched the blog in the last week or two, and we've got writers around the world (DC, Boston, NY, Rome) blogging away. There are a few kinks that still need to be worked out, but it's essentially all there. Eventually, it will be moving to a new server so we can throw up some more bells and whistles, but we wanted to let you know it's up.

Let's hope that this is another way for non-RNS subscribers to keep up with the material that the world's only mainstream religion-news wire service puts out -- beyond the weekly feature (much appreciated) featured on its regular website. By the way, they need a nice, bright button at ReligionNews.com -- right there in the mast, or something -- that takes readers over to the blog. Right?

While I am spouting ideas, I have also told our friends over at Beliefnet.com that I think it would be good to create a better hard-news page on their site -- in large part to handle the RNS copy they receive.

At the moment, it's easier to get to the page on spiritual weight loss programs than it is to find the news. The actual news material is in the blogs section.

As always, your GetReligionistas are interested in knowing the best links that you find out there for religion news and commentary. Some papers do a great job of that and, well, some do not.

Help us find the good stuff.

Art: Your basic picture that pops up when you search for "heaven" in Google Images.