Links for 2009-08-19

The simple math behind a silly game.

An update from Uncertain Principles Senior Middle East Correspondent Paul Schemm.

"In a video released by the group, brown, transparent sheets of graphite oxide can be seen to blacken and expand, accompanied by a loud popping sound. Huang's team describes the resulting black material as "fluffy" - it is porous and only a fraction of the density of graphite. Further analysis showed that the material is made up of disordered graphene sheets and flakes that are well spaced from one another. "

"Their Big Idea for youth ministry is scarcely hinted at in anything on the group's Web site, so I can't quote this in their own words, but it goes something like this: If you want your youth group and your youth ministry events to be popular, you've got to get the popular kids to come. So the popular kids should be your priority -- the jocks, the cheerleaders, the attractive kids, the Heathers.

So basically, Young Lifers accept and adopt the stratified hierarchy and caste system of high school. A Young Life meeting -- by design -- looked like a casting call for the villains of every decent high school movie ever made, the richies or preppies or whatever you wanted to call them.

Evil."