Random

• GO GET 'EM BILL -- "Bloggers need to invoice publishers for their marketing efforts on publishers' behalf." Of course, in this economy there are a lot of unpaid invoices out there.

• THE FALKLANDS/MALVINAS are back in the news. No shots fired -- so far. ~ link

• ARE MEGACHURCHES the healthiest churches in America? ~ link

• LUTHERAN WATCH -- North American Lutheran Church is the name of the new denomination being formed in the wake of the split in the ELCA. The NALC will consist of those Lutheran congregations which prefer a more centralized structure than the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ. The LCMC has added about 60 new congregations since the first of the year and consists of about 300 congregations in total. The NALC will start with about 220 congregations. The ELCA has about 10,000 congregations.

• ANGLICAN WATCH -- St Francis Anglican Church, a familiar parish from our 11 years in Turlock, California, and its entire diocese, left the Episcopal Church. Now the Episcopal Church is suing them, hoping to get the parish property. Considering what property values have done in Turlock, a lawsuit could easily end up costing more than what the property is worth. ~ link

• GUAM RESIDENTS are divided over the proposed name change. I suspect that if changing the name of the island was a step toward solvency or sound management of the government they would embrace it without a second thought. Guam loses a lot of energy squabbling over secondary issues -- not that history and culture are unimportant. It's just that historically institutional name changes on Guam seem to be red herring distractions that keep people from dealing with the critical survival issues at hand. ~ link

• PERSONALLY -- either Guam or Guåhån works fine. As a matter of fact, since the territory is officially bilingual (Chamorro & English) it seems that a name change is unnecessary. Either or both are already appropriate and legal -- and either can be used at the discretion of the speaker. And both support the popular island saying OOG.

• GUAM CURRENTLY has only five civilian ambulances in working condition. OOG. ~ link

• QUOTABLE: "Firing the customers you can't possibly please gives you the bandwidth and resources to coddle the ones that truly deserve your attention and repay you with referrals, applause and loyalty." ~ Seth Godin

• 10 MILLION WordPress blogs went offline during a two hour outage yesterday. Hey, down-time happens -- even with a good system. If it became a regular problem there would be a lot of movement toward blogger. ~ link

• FOR SOME REASON I CRINGE when I see the word "pen" used as a verb. Nobody talks that way anymore (if we ever did). Why do we pen things in writing -- especially when there wasn't any kind of pen involved in typing the document?