33 Things: This Week’s Amusing and Intriguing Links

Theology of sports, first hand accounts from Haiti, a good word on JD Salinger and—oh yeah—a White House spokesman giggling at his own joke.

If you can’t find something you like, go read Wikipedia.

1. Reporter Fail! (Epic Fail!)

2. “Refiguring the Sacred Feminine: The Poems of John Donne, Aemelia Lanyer, and John Milton.”

3. “Jesus Made in America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to the Passion of the Christ.”

4. “Jesus of Hollywood”

5. Monsters, Inc.?  Lady Gaga and Madonna Parade

6. In honor of Superbowl Weekend: “And God Created Football”

7. Will Facebook usurp Google?

8. “Plummeting birthrates threaten prosperity worldwide. Can America buck the trend?”

9. Geeks love the internet.

10. Video tour of the International Space Station

11. Tesla Motors, famed Silicon Valley start-up and poster child for innovation in “Green Industry,” is looking to go public and raise some much needed, uh, green.  What’s that you say?  Never head of them?  Well, part of your earnings from your eight (or more) hour workday just went Tesla’s way in the form of a $465 million loan from Obama’s Department of Energy.  But that is just the beginning of the interesting details surrounding Tesla Motors:

“So what if Tesla Motors, the luxury electric-car maker, lost $31 million in the first nine months of last year and $236 million since its inception. So what if it’s canceling its $100,000 Roadster — its single current product — in 2011 and a replacement won’t be available until at least 2013. So what if Tesla won’t even begin producing its $50,000 Model S “family” sedan until 2012, leaving an unknown period of time when this new company won’t be selling any cars at all. And so what if Tesla admits that CEO Elon Musk (pictured, with Model S) “does not devote his full time and attention” to the company.

Tesla’s IPO filing — the company hopes to raise an additional $100 million — sure contains some eyebrow-raising disclosures.

Tesla, of course, is the start-up that recently closed a controversial $465 million taxpayer loan through the U.S. Energy Department’s Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program. Many people questioned why a company based in the heart of Silicon Valley that raised over $300 million from private venture capitalists needed a half-billion-dollar loan from the government. But Tesla has insisted the money is necessary for its survival.”

12. Most Accurate Clock in the World.

13. A ‘serious’ contemplation of an overlooked film from 2009: the Coen Brothers’ “A Serious Man.”

14. The Tea Party movement, the Framers, and mob rule: is democracy killing democracy?

15. See Haiti through the eyes of its at-risk youth and support the earthquake relief effort.

16. It’s not often you get to step inside the inspiration for a book you love, but Jeffrey Overstreet offers occasional commentary on his book Auralia’s Colors at his blog, Looking Closer.

17. Lady Jane Grey has lived on in myth as the innocent child executed for her mother’s ambition, but was she the victim or the oppressor?

18. Six Saints Who Could Kick Your…Behind (caveat: this one is peppered with some foul language).

19. Rules for My Unborn Son.

20. Postscript on J.D. Salinger.

21. Snowball Fight!  Oh the weather outside is frightful, but a snowball fight is so delightful.

22. Homosexual love in the bedroom isn’t the only kind of free association that gay activists are seeking to define in the courts and Congress:

“Pres. Barack Obama’s nominee for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a Georgetown University professor named Chai Feldblum, wrote in 2006 that “just as we do not tolerate private racial beliefs that adversely affect African-Americans in the commercial arena, even if such beliefs are based on religious views, we should similarly not tolerate private beliefs about sexual orientation and gender identity that adversely affect LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] people.” Feldblum believes that there is a “zero-sum game” being played between religious freedom and the homosexual activists, in which “a gain for one side necessarily entails a corresponding loss for the other side.” Religious liberty, in Feldblum’s estimation, must give.

This conversation about religious liberty, homosexuality, and rights will be a prominent one this term as the U.S. Supreme Court takes up Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, in which it will decide whether religious groups on college campuses must be open to members and leaders who do not share their beliefs. The Court will decide, in other words, whether we’re still free to associate or not.”

23. The scale of the universe – from strings to the whole thing!

24. The Super Bowl commercials were funny this year, especially Audi’s hyperbolic view of environmentalists as the “Green Police” that terrorized everyone but Audio drivers.  Wait, that was completely hyperbole, wasn’t it?

“The locally conceived advertisement was enough to get Newsom, who has pushed for the type of recycling and composting mandates that give the spot its believably authoritarian edge, was moved to tweet, “Ok .. That “green police” Audi commercial hits home.”"

25. This MS Word hack can save you time in more ways than one: (HT Homemaking Through the Church Year) I tend to overuse the word just. To stop myself I put in this autocorrection: just autocorrects to NO! NO! NO! If I type:

“I’ll just wander over to the Agora,” N said.
What appears is:
“I’ll NO! NO! NO! wander over to the Agora,” Nicolaos said.

26. Just think… Stand to Reason’s new youth site is, as the young people say, ‘full of win.’

27. Invite an author into your living room–you won’t even have to clean your house.

28. Happy Birthday, Boy Scouts. Think your scouting days are over?  Think again:

The National Council has created a new award that can only be earned this year. This award comes in five parts: Outdoors, Achievement, Character, Leadership and Service, and there are different sets of requirements for Scouts, current Adult Leaders, and Alumni. Even alumni who are no longer active members can earn the awards on their own…

29. 1984: Orwell vs. Reagan.  With chickens.

30. Amazing Mini Landscapes: Paprika + Cinnamon + Thyme + Chili Powder = Mars

31. President Obama wants you to stop watching cable news.  Upside, it’s good advice.  Downside, his teleprompter has no other method of syndication:

“Speaking to a group of Democratic senators, the President exhorted his listeners — and, by extension, all Americans — to break the cable news habit.

“If everybody here turned off your CNN, your Fox, just turn off the TV, MSNBC, blogs, and just go talk to folks out there, instead of being in this echo chamber where the topic is constantly politics,” Obama said, “things would be an awful lot better in Washington.”

32. Dear John: A Love Letter (Slate)

33. Looking at Pixar Through a Political Lens