Random

• Phoenix's air conditioning coop runs on ice ~ Link

• Overheard at a Mesa, Arizona post office, which closes at 4:30 p.m. (!!!) -- a customer arrived at 4:31 and was trying to talk a clerk into letting him into line. The not-so-friendly clerk told him off and suggested that he might want to ship his package with UPS! After the annoyed and bewildered customer left, the postal worker turned to another worker, "...and he thinks we really need the $8 for his little package."

I had been the last customer to squeeze in at 4:30 this afternoon -- so I was privileged to hear the whole thing. If Congress wants me to testify the next time the post office asks for a rate hike I'd be glad to share my observations on their customer service issues.

• Senator John McCain has spent the week trying to tell people that he feels their economic pain. So it was more than a little unhelpful when one of his top economic advisers was quoted Thursday as saying that the United States was only in a "mental recession" and that it had become a "nation of whiners." ~ Link

Well, the truth be told, when you look at the big picture -- the global picture -- we Americans are still extremely well off, and on a whole have been relatively unscathed by the current economic hic-up. Perhaps "mental recession" isn't such a poor choice of words -- and we are pretty good at whining these days.

• Interesting twist -- the Evangelical Free Church of America has adopted more sacramental language in their new description of the Lord's Supper. The Free Church and the Covenant Church both emerged out of the same Scandinavian Mission Friends movement but the Free Church felt that they couldn't work with the Covenant people over this and a few other issues.

The Covenant folk were more on the sacramental end of the spectrum and less interested in replacing their Lutheran theological paradigm with the dispensationalism which characterized the early Free Church folk. And while we never managed organizational unity we've always been kissing cousins. ~ Link

• Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to require algebra proficiency for all California 8th graders. It's a bit controversial -- currently only half of all California 8th graders take algebra. ~ Link

• NEW! New Living Translation Blog -- glad to see it -- glad to promote it -- the NLT is an outstanding Bible -- especially for Americans (it's heavy on American idiom) looking for something very readable which will accurately communicate the general sense of original text. The blog demonstrates why it's a good choice. ~ Link (via)

• As fuel prices go up so does enrollment in online classes ~ Link