Links to Your World, Tuesday September 15

I’m not sure I’d gather all the stories in this article under the title “The Helicopter Parents are Hovering on Facebook.” Yes, the parent in the opening illustration went way over the top (Rule for parents: Never use Facebook to advise or chastise, especially an adult child. Yeesh!). But there are some sound parenting decisions for parents of teens in the rest of this article.


Baby born 9-9-09 has sibling born on 8-8-08.


Should you repair it instead of replacing it?


This NYT piece says happiness is catching. That’s one of the reasons we want you in a Common Ground group or Sunday School class.


Timothy George gives 3 reasons why John Calvin, born 500 years ago this summer, is experiencing a comeback. His magisterial work, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, is my reading project right now.


This woman went without make-up for 30 days and learned some important lessons.


Classy. His parents must be so proud: “I can see someone spitting on him or punching him, but shooting him is pretty stupid.” Curtis Wisterman, a 16-year-old at a Michigan high school where a 33-year-old antiabortion activist was shot outside Friday in front of parents and students.


The story that opens this article probably won't be relevant to everyone (buying a stovetop). But the flowchart really makes a lot of sense. See “Should You Buy It? A Flowchart for Evaluating Potential Purchases.”


The WSJ said the President’s speech to a joint session of Congress “was especially notable for its use of one of Mr. Obama's favorite rhetorical devices: Noting in the first instance that his opponents have a good point, and entirely legitimate concerns, only to reject their ideas in toto when it comes to policy. Thus he endorsed the public's concern about the competence of government to manage one-sixth of the economy, only to finish with a soaring oration about the moral necessity of letting government do so.”


“It's not a ministry. It would be nice if it got out of the churches and got into the mainstream” (a critic of Dave Ramsey, in an AP story).


Texting Shouldn’t Be So Expensive: “The wireless channels contribute about a tenth of a cent to a carrier's cost, accounting charges might be twice that, and other costs basically round to zero because texting requires so little of a mobile network's infrastructure. Summing up, Keshav found that a text message doesn't cost providers more than 0.3 cent. You don't have to be a Wall Street analyst to do the quick math: With a carrier cost of one third of a penny, when a customer pays 15 cents to send a message, 98% of that 15 cents is pure profit. (Of course, you already knew that in your gut; that's why your stomach turns every time you examine a cell phone bill.)” (story)


Mohammed is now the third most popular boy's name in England.


A carrier pigeon beat broadband at delivering content in South Africa.


“Of the 25 members on President Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, former Southern Baptist Convention President Frank Page is easily the most conservative. Seven months after being named to the council, Page talks about his experience so far, from the shock of being invited to join in the first place and his frequent chats with White House officials to frustrations with the council's limited policy role that have him pondering resignation” (“Q&A With Frank Page, the Obama Faith Council's Most Conservative Member”).


“Now that Mr. Bush is gone no one seems particularly worried about the entanglement of the federal government with religious organizations. A recent study sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that President Obama's ‘faith-based initiative has so far generated little of the contentious press coverage associated with Bush's effort’” (Mollie Ziegler Hemingway in WSJ’s “Houses of Worship.”). What better proof of a double standard than to see Barry Lynn, leader of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and vocal critic of Bush’s faith-based initiative now in service to the same initiative under Obama. Time to change the name of his organization to “Americans United for the Separation of Church and State Under Certain Conditions.”