Here it is again. I know that you’ve been waiting. It’s been a hard week. Or maybe it hasn’t, I don’t know. But it’s been a week and you need some rest, some relaxation, some thought-stimulation. Or maybe you don’t, I don’t know. Either way, it’s the end of the week and here’s some links that, for one reason or another, caught my interest and made me think. hopefully they’ll do the same for you. Remember, just because I link it here doesn’t mean I fully or even partially agree, it just made me think.

I am in Mexico until Tuesday, but my beautiful wife agreed to hit the “publish” button for your browsing pleasure today! We have to keep the people happy!

See what I hear at Last.fm.

Sign up for eMusic, find lots of DRM-free downloads and help me earn free downloads in the process. Everyone wins!

Browse Amazon’s growing catalog of DRM-free mp3s.

Read as the Guardian reports that skinny ties are back in style.

Read as the Guardian examines “the most hated album in jazz,” On the Corner by Miles Davis.

Read as this blog considers the demise of file-sharing service OINK.

Read about Apple imposing restrictions on iPhone sales.

Read about the Lexington, KY church that is being asked by its pastor to write letters of “letters of love and support” to Britney Spears.

Read as many evangelicals (black and otherwise) decry Obama’s addition of a homosexual “minister” to his “gospel music” promotional tour.

Read about the study which found that fewer “minorities” let their kids go trick or treating than “whites.”

Read and ponder as Jonathan Leeman wonders how one might discourage someone who lacks the biblical qualifications from pursuing the ministry.

Read as the Edmonton Journal offers tips for your emo lifestyle.

Read the New York Times piece on the “evangelical crackup.”

Browse the week in photos from Yahoo.

Read about the growing trend of “ghost tourism” which includes guided tours of “haunted” places.

Read as the Fort Worth Star Telegram celebrates Zaireeka by the Flaming Lips, ten years after its release.

Read as the New York Observer ponders the end of Stylus.

Read as the Times Online reviews the new Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There, particularly in light of the choice to have different actors play Dylan at different stages of his life.

Read as The State argues that religion is going to be a key to winning the 2008 presidential election.

Read as the New York Post examines the “Huckabee boomlet.”

Read as Stylus reviews the new album from Castanets, In the Vine.

Read Pitchfork’s review of the album.

Read about the American Bar Association calling for a moratorium on the death penalty.

Read as Christianity Today tries struggles with the question of whether or not we will recognize our loved ones in eternity.

Read about the dancers in Irvine, CA who recently tried to set the world record for the most dancers at a time reenacting Michael Jackson’s famous Thriller sequence.

Read about Joey Chestnut, the man who recently set the world record for hot dog eating also setting the record for hamburgers, eating 103 hamburgers in 8 minutes.

Read about the growing trend of people leaving fundamentalism for evangelicalism.

Browse as Stylus considers the best reissues of the year including personal favorites The Trees Community (read here) and John Fahey. Of the Trees Community box set, Stylus says that the band “does what most Christian music fails to: it refuses to exclude non-believers by acknowledging other cultures, and more importantly, respecting them.”

Read as the New York Sun chimes in on Sufjan Stevens‘ explorations into classical music.

Read about the advice Mitt Romney is getting from many Christian leaders about his campaign: “Don’t say you’re one of us,” while Kim Farah, a spokeswoman for the Salt Lake City-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says: “”The fact that we are Christians is non-negotiable.”

Read as the Washington Times wonders about Hukabee and a possible third party.

Read/Listen as Justin Taylor links to the recent lectures by Alvin Plantinga at my former seminary, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Read Michael Horton’s thoughts on what he might say to someone considering the move from Evangelicalism to Catholicism.

Read about the internet tax moratorium going to President Bush.

Read two very different takes on the recent O’Reilly Factor questioning of Rosie (here and here).

Read about presidential hopeful Fred Thompson telling N.H. voters that same-sex civil unions are a “judge-made controversy.”

Read Fox News‘ coverage of the controversy surrounding Nicole Kidman’s upcoming “Golden Compass” movie, a friendly family tale of a girl’s quest to kill God.

Read about the new book of interviews with the late President Gerald Ford in which he shares his views, on, among other things, Bill Clinton.

Read about the hunting dog who shot himself a hunter.

R.I.P. Robert Goulet.