Links to Your World, Tuesday February 12

Four considerations as politicians address the health care crisis.


“What I Learned About My Students on MySpace.” Parents and youth workers might benefit from this interview with a youth pastor.



Clever website: move your cursor over the cup for the madness to begin. (HT: The Evangelical Outpost)



Cook a burger during your commute home. (HT: The Presurfer)



Tim Keller is a rock star among evangelical pastors. Newsweek featured him in the run-up to the release of his new book, The Reason for God. I’m listening to the sermon series that served as the foundation for his new book.



“Romney has been faulted for lacking ‘authenticity,’ but this is probably unfair. He is--authentically--a cool technocrat, a management consultant at heart. But a leader, as opposed to a manager, needs not just analytical skills but also intuition and emotion, not just information but also conviction. He needs to be able to consult his gut as well as the data when deciding how to proceed. Romney, in the end, failed to inspire. By contrast, Barack Obama is nothing but inspiring.” (James Taranto from the WSJ “Best of the Web Today”)


Baptist Press covers false e-mail claims about Obama: Regardless of your candidate, let’s not forward falsehood.


Four Exhortations for this Political Season


Newsweek says McCain faces more prejudice over his age than Obama and Clinton do over issues of race and sex (story)



Lifehacker’s Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks



Tobacco Could Kill 1 Billion by 2100.



Some of the backgrounds on my sermon slides are from the painter, Makoto Fujimura. Read an interview with him here.



“Americans from ages 15 to 18 listening to 2.4 hours of music a day hear 84 references to [drugs, alcohol and tobacco] daily and more than 30,000 annually. About two-thirds of the references put drugs, alcohol and tobacco in a positive light by associating them with sex, partying and humor, the study said. Some genres, like rap and country in comparison with pop, have more references than others.” (NY Times story)



“Just within the past few months, several groups of researchers have added support for the growing consensus that plenty can be done to slow the age-related declines in memory, mental speed, and decision making that affect most people” (Read the article, “Keeping Your Brain Fit”)



“Here's a simple truth: The resources expended to combat climate change are not available for other beneficial projects, such as eradicating malaria, killer of 2 million people each year, 90 percent of whom are children under five. Those who believe climate change trumps all else ignore the reality that we face tradeoffs among competing values.” (From a review of Bjorn Lomborg’s new book, Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming. Provocative stuff.)



While Amazing Grace was a fine biopic of William Wilberforce, The Better Hour, airing on public TV throughout February, digs even deeper into the man's life. (story) I’ve asked KLRU, our local PBS affiliate, to air this documentary.



So . . . which one has the greater claim to offense? Man meet his wife at a brothel.



What Gladiator can teach you about being a man.

Have you read the previous posts since last Tuesday? They include the “Song of the Week“ (this week, "Born" by Over the Rhine), inspiration from the annual "Tough Guy" competition, and the beginning of an important new LeaderLines series called "unChristian Christianity."