putting links in the outbox (mostly political)

As I leave tomorrow for a weekend at Bread for the World's Gathering and finish up week 1 as an Interim Youth Minister, I am attempting to rid myself of some great articles and links that I have been looking at for a few weeks (always meaning to post them, but never getting around to).

• apparently some sweatshops in Jordan, whom we have an agreement with to treat workers well, are treating workers horribly. We set up standards and they ignore them (even bamboozling American companies trying to keep an eye on them). Many products we use are made there. Read about it here.
  
• Slate on the Sexual Habits of Evangelical teens (yes, they do it... but with a side of guilt). Link
  
• Turkey: Islam in a Secular Society. If they can do it right, this is a great model for the rest of the Middle East (but, of course, it has to come from within not from the US).
  
• Democrats and Republicans will even fight over military pay (and which one supports the troops more?). One soldier puts the need for a pay raise this way (by the way, don't cut my taxes- raise my taxes and pay the soldiers more. I will gladly pay more and anyone that won't needs to reevaluate their commitments).
  

“If there is someone in the administration that feels that we, the hard-working American soldiers, don't need additional pay raises, then maybe they should get from behind their desk and pick up a gun and vest and go stand guard at the entry control points in Iraq. And while they are out there, let's take away their six-figure income and give them $3.50 per day on top of anywhere from $15K-$45K per year.

“For all that we give to keep our country safe, the administration should at least want to help us eliminate any burden we may have financially. No, I'm not saying make us rich, and no one who enters the armed services expects to ever be rich. But we don't expect to have to take out loans just to put food on the table for our families either."

• The power of positive thinking may be over-rated. Many of our present problems in Iraq, with the Scandals at Walter Reed, poor schools, etc. may be due to our lack of Negative Thinking. As the writer states in this great article, "there are times when it is good to focus on the negative because if we don't figure out what's going wrong, it is hard to make it right." Every leader in a church or non-profit needs to read this. Read Here
• The tragedy of Lindsay Lohan.
• Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi (one of my favorite writers) thinks Rudy Giuliani would be a much worse (and more dangerous) president than Bush. According to Taibbi, Rudy is cashing in on 9/11, working with Rove disciples, Swift Boaters and has an autocratic style.
• Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria, one of the preeminent thinkers on international relations tells us what to do to restore America's place in the world as an open, confident Super power. Link