Links of the Day, January 4
Welcome to 2010! (Here's Jon Stewart's review of 2009.)
Since there was ZERO net job creation in the US over the last decade, let's hope the next ten years go a little better, shall we?
News
- France joins the US and the UK in shutting its Yemen embassy.
- The NY Times offers a fascinating look inside Barack's war on terrorism. And WaPo defends the President against critics who say he's "soft on terror."
- Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, NJ, is fast becoming one of my favorite people. Check out this awesome story.
- Avatar breaks $1 billion, worldwide.
Health care
- From Foolocracy: "Rush Limbaugh praised the American health care system while in a Hawaiian hospital for a couple of days during the last week. What he did not mention is that Hawaii has the most socialized system of any of the 50 states and, with its near universal healthcare, resembles the Obama health care plan."
Immigration
- The Nation investigates the ICE's detention facilities.
Miscellaneous
- Read Jim Wallis's op-ed in WaPo yesterday: "A religious response to the financial crisis."
- Rich Mouw considers a poetic revision of "In Christ Alone." I think I agree with him (and Tom Wright).
- If you haven't already subscribed to xkcd, I think you should:
The last weeks of 2009
Last week, I celebrated Christmas with Aaron, Amy and Elijah in Huntington, WV, home of Marshall University ("We Are Marshall") and of Amy's family. It was great spending a few days outside of DC, and with an awesome and wonderfully welcoming family.
To boot, last week ...
- I got to go on a tour of the East Wing of the White House.
- I got to talk with family in Australia, Hong Kong, and California.
- I got to talk with friends in New Zealand, Pennsylvania, Texas, and California. (What up, iChat video conferencing?!)
- I got to watch a truckload of enjoyable movies: Avatar, Invictus, The Blind Side, The Invention of Lying, and Sherlock Holmes.
It was a good week. 
[For Christmas pics, check out my Facebook.]
This week, I'm in snowbound St Louis for Urbana 2009, InterVarsity's triennial missions conference. I'm here with Sojourners, who are co-leading the Poverty and Advocacy track along with World Vision and International Justice Mission. It's the first time in Urbana's history that they're looking at advocacy as a form of mission, and so it's a pretty momentous occasion and an exciting development.
One of the things we're launching this week is the Human Wrong Initiative, which is geared towards combating child slavery in all its forms: prostitution, forced labor, and child-soldiering. Of the 27 million people still in slavery today, about half are women and children.
This is how the world is today. But it is not how the world should be. Nor how the world needs to be. Join us, get involved, let your friends know. Let's stamp out child slavery.
The other thing that's happening (that I'm involved with) is helping Sojourners lead a night of lament for the injustice in the world; that'll take place tomorrow (December 29th). I'll only be speaking for a few minutes, but I'm gonna be laying the groundwork for the couple hundred students in our track to engage with God in this way, so I'd appreciate your prayers!
[Pics to Urbana will follow. ]
Iron Man 2 trailer!
Wow ... with all these new trailers, it's like Christmas or something.
...
Oh, wait ...
Click the poster for the trailer!
