From the London�Daily Mail

So Obama likes to shoot a few hoops?

Point guard Sarah Palin as high school student at Wasilla (Alaska) High (class of ‘82) got the nickname Sarah Barracuda for fierce play on court.  In a state playoff game, while having a stress fracture in her ankle, she hit the game-winning free throw.

Later, she worked as sports anchor for a local TV station.  She fishes and hunts.  Her husband, Todd, won four times the Tesoro Iron Dog Championship–at 1.971 miles the world’s longest snowmobile race.

It’s enough to make Obama drown his sorrows in his wine.

by Stanley Scism

Conservative Christians, Sarah Palin, Women and Theology

From Stanley Scism
To Editor, USA Today
Date 2008 September 18
Re ‘The Palin Predicament’ by David Gushee

David Gushee gushes over perceived contradictions between conservative Christians’ cultural views, v their support for Sarah Palin. While his statements probably hold true for some people, consider:

First, what he says about women being banned from ministry is simply false. I belong to a quite conservative organization and I’ve met women pastors in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Maine, Delaware, Illinois, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana. These are only my acquaintances–I’m sure there are more. And I know women who pastor in India, Nepal and Bhutan–I’m sure people visiting other nations can point to many more.

Second, he confuses home leadership and church leadership: I’ve asked women pastors about this, and the response is simply, ‘I lead the church; my husband leads our family.’ They follow the Biblical pattern for the family, yet recognize men and women equally inherit salvation and are gifted Spiritually. The roles differ; the family isn’t the church; a pastor doesn’t lead every family unit in the church he/she pastors. Is there something difficult to understand about this?

Third, reality dictates that some women lead homes because the mother is single (or she’s married but her husband is, say, a drunken layabout) and must, or that many women work jobs and help support families because mortgages and college education are expensive and the mother’s income helps a lot. Pastors understand this. Who doesn’t?

Fourth, he misinterprets Scripture. 1 Timothy 2.11-12 says a woman shouldn’t usurp (KJV) or take, grasp (Greek) authority. When a woman is elected or appointed to a position, that isn’t grabbing power. Can Gushee distinguish between taking something and being given it, between democracy and a coup?

Fifth, he tries through his series of questions at his article’s end to ungraciously extract a pound of flesh from his opponents’ imagined positions.

I’ll be first to admit that in the USA/Canada United Pentecostal Church we still define district (= diocese) leadership as being by men only, and I hope that will change so everyone’s gifts can be recognized, appreciated and can benefit us all–in that, I hope in the USA/Canada we will catch up to some of our Third World churches–but that’s one leadership facet only, and in many others, Gushee’s article exaggerated positions conservative Christians hold.

Stanley Scism

How is YOUR day going?

First you had trouble getting out of bed

You had a stiff neck

You washed your hair and couldn’t do a thing with it

You felt like you had a hangover and you weren’t even drinking last night

Your new diet really doesn’t seem to be working out

You pulled a muscle when you tried to exercise

Your new hat looked better on you at the store

You keep losing things

The boss chewed you out at work

You got caught in the rain at lunchtime

Then the lunch you had didn’t seem to agree with you

You feel trapped

Uninvited guests showed up at dinnertime

On top of that you think you’re coming down with the flu

And finally, you’re alone in the house at night when you think you hear a noise in the basement

MAYBE TOMORROW WILL BE BETTER!!

A mother kangaroo jumps in the air with a squeal, then glares down into her pouch and shouts, ‘How many times do I have to tell you? No moking in bed!’

Two sheep in a field. Sheep A says, ‘BAAAA.’

Sheep B: ‘I was going to say that!’

What happened to two bedbugs who fell in love? They got married in the spring.

How do you catch a gorilla? Hide in a tree and make a noise like a banana.

What’s light, white, sweet and hangs from trees? A meringuetan.

What kind of monkey can fly? A hot-air baboon

USA: Colleges are starting to give students more engagement, involvement and work in their chosen vocations alongside faculty and community because employers prefer hiring people with experience. Some colleges or groups thereof have designed websites publishing information for parents about what the students get for the cost, promoting transparency as ‘the right thing to do’ (as says Julia Williams, who heads the institutional research office at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana) because people need to make sure this major life choice—college—is chosen correctly. Each institute has a purpose, attracts different students, offers different resources, provides innovative programs. Many schools offer various assessments: the Collegiate Learning Assessment measures critical-thinking skills, is used by 330 universities; the College Senior Survey shares data among 130 universities; the National Survey of Student Engagement has surveyed 1200 schools with 85 questions in five categories:
1. level of academic challenge (How many books do teachers assign students to read? How many papers do students write? How long do they prepare for class? Does coursework apply theories to practical problems, or synthesize ideas?)
2. student-faculty interaction (How many full-time faculty teach? How long and often are they available to students? Do students work with faculty members on activities outside coursework, or on research projects? Do faculty give prompt oral or written feedback?)
3. active and collaborative learning (Do students participate in classroom discussion, make class presentations, work with classmates outside class to prepare assignments, discuss ideas from readings outside class time?)
4. cultural and extracurricular experiences (Do students seriously discuss different beliefs or values with other students? Do they interact with students of different ethnicity? Do they participate in student clubs, learning communities, internships, or culminating senior experiences?)
5. support for groups on campus (Does campus provide support to succeed academically and thrive socially? How are student relationships with other students, faculty and administration?)
Assessment results lead to redesigning curriculum (for example, the amount of writing required), advisory services.
Most schools decide to quietly improve rather than to publish results, since most people don’t have the time ‘to become experts on what it all means’, says John Novak, director of institutional research at Indiana University at South Bend. The purpose is to enhance college experience to include activities helping students develop mental habits ‘to survive and thrive during and after college’, says NSSE director George Kuh.

When applying for college, a prospective student can:
a. Consider your own interests and strengths. If you want to go to a large research institute and want to work with faculty in research, then find student-faculty interaction scores for new students at those institutions. You might work better on your own or with group collaboration. Choose a college that works your way.
b. Consider the school’s nature. Commuter schools or adult-education schools have lower student involvement because their students have other jobs and/or live off-campus.

Colleges and students can do things to make student engagement happen:
1. Learning communities provide a stake in each other’s well-being and success. Study together. Form small, discussion-based seminars. Help each other with mutual accountability, knowing each other. This helps more students graduate.
2. Writing a lot helps you think more deeply, understand more highly. Struggling for precise language means struggling for precise thought. Rewriting means rethinking: ‘Do I mean that? What did I learn? How does this matter?’ Prompt, honest, constructive faculty response helps people turn a mistake into a step up.
3. Senior capstone courses with low enrollment and high group involvement on real problems. ‘Step forward, take responsibility, prepare carefully, work with other students in preparation’ for an oral and written comprehensive exam synthesizing everything experienced over college program.
4. Set inclusive tone at residence halls, intervene if there’s bias. Expect respect.
5. During admissions, note student leadership in former school. Have a student-led honor system (to report and punish cheating) and judiciary committee (to investigate, defend and resolve complaints). Student-organized and –led Contracted Independent Organizations meet individual interests. This can help meet a college requirement of cultural activities related to completed coursework. For instance, students can be required to attend a Convocation program of lectures, symposia, concerts and other arts performances.
6. Work with older students through career-oriented distance-learning programs. ‘Adults already have a social life. They’re looking specifically for credentials.’
7. Students whose parents did not graduate from college, ‘first-generation students’, need advice on campus life. They move from looking like ‘deer in the headlights’ to ‘I have what it takes to do this and I’m in the right place.’

USA: The Supreme Court in 1962 called school prayer unconstitutional, and in 1985 said laws allowing a moment of silence in an attempt to restore school prayer are also unconstitutional. More than half of the states have voluntary or mandatory moments of silence. Indiana University law professor Daniel Conkle says federal courts generally rule that ‘moment of silence statues are permissible as long as they are not clearly tilted in the direction of actually encouraging students to use this moment for prayer.’

In 2007, Illinois state Representative Will Davis sponsored a measure for mandatory moment of silence that ‘shall not be conducted as a religious exercise but shall be an opportunity for silent prayer or for silent reflection’ and says the intent ‘was never about trying to put prayer in schools,’ but giving students a chance to ‘settle down at the beginning of the day is not a bad thing.’ The measure took effect 2007 October 11 when the state legislature over-rode a veto by Governor Rod Blagojevich. The measure caused consternation in some schools—a school board in Evanston decided to ignore it.

Then Rob Sherman, an activist atheist and talk show host, filed a lawsuit—his daughter is a freshman at Buffalo Grove High School. Judge Robert Gettleman said schools can’t enforce this because the practice attempts to reinstitute school prayer. Most schools don’t enforce it anyway, so the judge’s statement won’t change anything. Meanwhile, Sherman’s lawyer Gregory Kulis says he’ll request an injunction barring moments of silence in schools statewide or a ruling that the law violates constitutional separation of church and state.

State Senator and Democrat Jeff Schoenberg says religion should be practice ‘in our homes, in our houses of worship, not in our schools’ and hopes the legislature will drop the issue. School superintendent Tom Schneider says his schools ask students to be silent for fifteen seconds before reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and few parents or students have complained, but decisions on impacting students’ lives positively should be made locally.

USA: For decades, the big three credit reports agencies, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, denied consumers access to their credit histories, selling date only to lenders. Due to the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003, each of them must supply every consumer with one free credit report a year. This is available only at AnnualCreditReport.com, run jointly by the big three. Be careful not to mistype this address.

While meeting this minimum requirement, the big three energetically tap online shoppers for $100s of extra revenue and profit by selling credit date via websites using ‘free credit report’ and ‘free credit score’ to sign up for ‘credit monitoring’, their cash cow. Experian sells to consumers at Experian.com and six other sites. Don Girard of Experian calls this ‘creative marketing.’ TransUnion, owned by billionaire Pritzker family of Chicago, operates TransCredit.com and TransUnion Interactive, which in turn sell consumer products by dozens of independently run websites, like free-credit-reports.com, FreeCreditReportsInstantly.com, PrivacyMatters.com, speedycreditreports.com, SpendonLife.com, says spokesman Steve Katz.

Only Equifax sells mainly through their own website, Equifax.com. ‘Our approach has always been to take the high road’, says Steve Ely, their president.

The big three don’t apologize for how they sell. The biggest, Experian’s, spokesman Girard says, ‘We’ve been averaging about 20% growth in our direct-to-customer business, year over year. That’s due to happy consumers.’ But their subsidiary Consumerinfo.com was fined twice by the Federal Trade Commission: in 2005 August, they paid $950,000 in fines, and in 2007 February, another $300,000, neither time admitting any wrongdoing, but agreeing to post disclaimers on all their websites. They put their disclaimer in light blue lettering on dark blue background next to a large, bright orange ‘order now’ button for the credit monitoring ‘service’.

So beware of ConsumerInfo.com, FreeCreditReport.com, Free3BureauCreditReport.com, PrivacyMatters.com and other similarly named websites touting ‘free trial’ and ‘package deal’ offers if you subscribe to a ‘credit monitoring’ service alerting you each time a lender checks your credit history. ‘The word “free” is used so freely that it really has no meaning in the context of these types of sites’, says Robert Mayer, University of Utah professor who analyzes such sites for Consumer Reports WebWatch. These sites all sell information supplied by the Big Three.

Now a turf war grows between the big three and Fair Isaac, which supplied the formula for calculating FICO, the score lenders most often purchase from bureaus to determine a loan applicant’s credit worthiness. The big three starting offering an alternate score, VantageScore, based on an algorithm they contrived. By pooling data, they say they have a scoring tool more accurate than FICO, and they whittle away at Fair Isaac’s long dominance in credit-scoring markets. Experian and TransUnion send VantageScore and others scores of their own to consumers who don’t know this differs from their FICO scores. If you try to buy your score from Experian or TransUnion, you’re generally don’t buy your FICO score, but rather VantageScore or Experian’s Plus Score or TranUnion’s TransRisk score. The only place people can buy their FICO score is at Fair Isaac’s consumer website, myFICOscore.com, or at Equifax.com.

Warning: ‘Typo Squatters’, to capture visits from Web users mistyping official web addresses, set up web pages with Internet addresses slightly varying from official site names. They then route visitors to other websites selling credit services. They usually lack privacy policies and contact information, says World Privacy Forum. One such site was taking Social Security numbers to sell to other companies.