Here’s the late night edition of the Friday Playlist…

Ben Fold’s new album is great! I especially like Dr. Yang and Cologne… great songs!

Also check out Benjamin Taylor’s album, I really like it… especially Wicked Way — there’s some good honesty in that song that makes it not only hysterically funny, but a really good tune!

|weekly bonus|*194 songs*12.7 hours*940.1 MB

Ever wonder who the rest of the world wants us to elect as president? This is the question The Economist asked as it put together its very own global electoral college to help us answer that very question. With 9,875 electoral votes at stake encompassing 195 countries and representing 6.5 billion people, this is how the current electoral map stands as of 11:40am:

Click here for a current update. The map is updated every 3 hours with newly collected data.

Currently the college has it at: Obama 8,489 | McCain 16.

Obviously this isn’t a scientific poll but there is something that I do find interesting about the make-up of this map and the dividing line of red and blue, especially as it relates to the church.

The epicenter of the church has shifted from Western Europe and the United States to the Southern Hemisphere in locations like Australia, South America, Africa and China and in each of these locations on the map they are shaded blue. I find it interesting that Christians in the remainder of the world are not “voting” McCain or swaying many countries ‘Red’ in this global electoral college.

The difference between red and blue in the United States for the past 30 year has revolved around two main issues: homosexuality and abortion. However, for the rest of the world–Christians included–this doesn’t seem to matter as it relates to the next American President. For them it seems the power of America is much more far reaching than those two issues, that this country has a much greater chance to change the world for the better with a certain leader over another. This doesn’t mean that these two issues (homosexuality & abortion) are pointless, but rather that they are something that the church should handle in a caring and loving way — as it does in every other pro-choice nation around the world.

I for one am growing weary of the rhetoric my Christian brothers and sisters pour out in condemnation upon me for choosing to vote Democrat as if this is some sort of break with Jesus and Christianity… that I have somehow walked away from my faith and instead “embraced the liberal-ness of the Devil.” (My favorite accusation by the way.) My vote is no longer a “pro-life” vote even though it is a vote for the hope of peace and less war (no more needless and completely preventable death); it is no longer a “pro-life” vote even though it is a vote for a reduction in abortion (something conspicuously absent—read: removed—from the Republican platform) — // soapbox: if a Republican Congress (pro-life), Republican President (pro-life), and Pro-life Supreme Court can’t outlaw abortion in 8 years then what makes you think McCain is going to be the savior of it all? Don’t you ever feel used for voting for a party which continually promises to overturn Roe v. Wade yet never does anything about it? When is enough enough? Have you ever thought that if Roe v. Wade were overturned what the Republican party would run on that would win elections? There’s nothing else that swings an election like that… why would they get rid of their biggest weapon?// My vote is a pro-life vote for the countless widows and orphans in Africa, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and many other third-world countries who live in extreme poverty, a poverty that kills at a rate of 1 child every 3 seconds. My vote is a pro-life vote in these and many other aspects that I believe will be addressed by the Democratic party nominee for President and his administration.

I don’t disagree with your values, in fact I understand your convictions and applaud them… but please stop your anger and hatred for my convictions which I too find dripping from the pages of Scripture in the words of Jesus and the Prophets.

Perhaps what I find most frustrating about all of this is that we have allowed Red and Blue to divide not only this country, but the church as well… and for that we should be truly ashamed.

Everybody needs a little funny in their day – even if it is at the expense of this poor reporter!

*hint: watch it over and over… it gets funnier and funnier!

After the implosion of the Cubs this past week – I maintain that they truly didn’t lose, they gave the series to the Dodgers with passion-less play. In fact, I would say that they lost the series after James Loney’s grand slam in Game 1… they never looked good after that and played as if they were going to lose the series.

Anyhow, Page 2 has a great way of bringing humor to the situation with this fake facebook page.

In pioneer times, you would have lost the leg and then used the bone in your leg for a cane. They wasted nothing.
~ Dwight

|weekly bonus|*352 songs*23 hours*1.63 GB

It’s extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion [one trillion dollars] to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can’t find $25 billion dollars to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases.
~ Bono (source: Sojourners)