Jul

Governor, Frist brace for poor TCAP showing, try to lower expectations | Nashville City Paper: Nashville’s Online Source for Daily News.

So, just so we’re clear … my child took a test, upon which her entire future is based (her scores this year, the first time she ever took the test, determine where she gets to go to middle school, which determines where she goes to high school, and so on), and no one knows how to score the damn thing?!! How do you make a test without developing the standards for it?!! So basically they’re meeting later this month to “decide” how to score the test … when they will have the results right in front of them!!!

Favorite quote … our illustrious State Education Commissioner Tim Webb on the new scores … “For the first time in many, many years, we in Tennessee are being honest, truly honest with our students and our families,” Webb added, stressing the scores don’t indicate a “loss in knowledge.”

So we’ve been lied to for years with the test scores, but THIS TIME, they’re going to tell us the truth. Only, they’re not sure what the truth is, or how to find it. Are you f%#@*^! kidding me?!! No, they’re not, that’s the problem.

  

Jul

238 presidential scholars: Bush worst president of modern era, fifth worst in US history | Raw Story.

Am visiting the ‘rents in lovely Richmond right now, so dare not speak about this outloud!

  

Jun

GOP congressman apologizes to BP for $20 billion ‘shakedown’ | Video Cafe.

Just picked this up from Crooks & Liars … UNBELIEVABLE. “Shakedown”?!! The company is responsible for the WORST environmental disaster in the HISTORY OF HUMANKIND, and this guy feels compelled to APOLOGIZE to them?!! Seriously, I don’t know how these sorry sacks of you-know-what sleep at night.

  

May

Despite Leak, Louisiana Is Still Devoted to Oil – NYTimes.com.

Wow. Just, wow. Hope that works out well for you guys.

  

Mar

No More Bipartisanship For You! | Talking Points Memo.

Wow, this is just beyond words…

  

Nov

So in Britain, all personal communications (emails, phone calls, web browsing habits, etc.) will soon be stored by the government for a minimum of 1 year, with access by a whole host of people and no judge’s order required to access.

While I am not naive enough to believe that anyone has much privacy in this day and age, I think a government mandate of this type (all in the name of fighting terrorism, of course) is ludicrous and dangerous.

Interestingly, the government is pushing forward with this despite MASSIVE public resistance to the idea. Guess W has been over there giving “how to be a leader” seminars.

  

Aug

“For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die… ”
Edward Kennedy, 1980 Democratic National Convention

Deeply flawed, yes, but still did great things for our country. Especially in these times, we could use a lion in the Senate…he will be missed.

  

Jun

http://www.wsmv.com/politics/19761259/detail.html

In case the link above isn’t working (or more likely, some Republican donates a new sound system to the news station and gets them to just pull the story), let me summarize – a state employee (an aid to a Republican senator, chair of the state Republican Caucus no less) used a state email account on a state computer to send a “racist” (that’s the word the article uses, I am not embellishing) email about Barack Obama. It depicts portraits of all the Presidents of the United States – except for one. Instead of Obama’s picture, there is just a black rectangle with big white eyes in it. I have, with some trepidation, posted the image below. The employee sent the message to 20 other state legislature employees – all Republicans.

Okay, regardless of how I feel about this deed and the attitudes behind it, I gotta say … how NOT smart do you have to be to pull a stunt like that using your official state email account on your official state computer?!! In this day and age you’ve just GOT to know that that’s going to come back and bite you …

When asked her actions, she apologized only for sending the message “to the wrong group of people”. Seriously?!! Who would the RIGHT group of people be?!! I have, as you know if you read this regularly, posted many a disparaging story about (mercifully) former US President George W Bush. Some of those have also had funny (I thought) pictures to go along with them. One of my favorites was a picture of him making the same facial expressions as a chimp, which I had on the wall in my office for some time:

So the question is, when do you cross the line? Is calling someone a moron and equating that person with a lower-on-the-food-chain animal the same as making fun of them because of race? I think not, but other people have made the argument that you’re buying into stereotypes and exploiting them either way.

Tough issues … there’s a lot about this incident that is outrageous, and a lot about it that is just sad. It certainly doesn’t exactly paint the south in a favorable light, but you know what … given the backlash in Tennessee and some of the other southern states, I’m not sure that’s not as it should be. Sigh…our country still has “a ways to go” (as they say here in the south).

Okay, this story got picked up by CNN, now, so less likely it will just disappear. We’ll see in a week or so, though, my experience is that these things flair up and then dissipate quickly…

  

May

Hamas Won’t Accept Two-State Solution

So for now, let’s leave out the fact that Muslims (deliberately) built a mosque on top of the ruins of the ancient Jewish temple precisely to desecrate the Jewish site, that Jerusalem is not mentioned even once in the Koran ( see this recent humorous incident for more info), that there already IS a Palestinian homeland (it’s called Jordan), that the Palestinians are being used as pawns by the rest of the Arab countries in the area, and the fact that the only reason Israel is occupying the “disputed” territory in the first place is that the Arabs attacked Israel (unprovoked), and LOST. MULTIPLE TIMES.

Leaving all that aside, we’ll focus on the issue at hand … what to do now. I continue to maintain that the idea of a two-state solution is ridiculous, and not a solution at all. Why? Well, for one reason … because it’s inherently obvious that the Arabs are not going to accept this. But don’t take my word for it … read what they say! Hamas will not accept a two-state solution. Not my interpretation, their actual words.

Yet Israel is demonized every day in the international press, and faces an inordinate amount of pressure to “fix” the Palestinian problem by agreeing to this two-state “solution”…

  

Mar

http://polfeeds.com/item/Open-for-Questions-President-Obama-to-Answer-Your-Questions-on-Thursday-2

Seriously, that is pretty awesome. He’s going out of his way to get the word out to people, and answer their concerns. I love that he’s going over the heads of bureaucrats, lobbyists, and the Washington Establishment to actually get things done.

Quite the contrast to the way W handled things! :-p

  

Jan

And it’s done – Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States!!!

He swore to uphold the Constitution which once would’ve labeled him only 3/5 of a human being, on the steps of a building built by slaves. The images of the crowd were amazing – two solid miles of people packed in, feeling the hope and promise of what this man has accomplished, and hopefully will continue to accomplish. They’re saying more than 2 million people were there in person, and more people watched this on TV than have EVER watched ANYTHING else.

His speech was, of course, awe-inspiring. I like his message of picking ourselves up, dusting ourselves off, and re-building. I think he has very good plans for public works projects that will both create jobs in the short term and provide us with technological and other improvements in the medium- and long-term. I LOVE that he talked, right in this address, about restoring science to its rightful place! My whole field, will hopefully benefit from that, after 8 years of painful neglect. I think it is awesome that he sent the message to the world that we are ready to lead again. But I also like that he says we won’t apologize for our way of life, and the message of building not destroying is an excellent message on terrorism. The quote from George Washington’s speech at Valley Forge was incredibly powerful, and his translation of that into what we are facing today was masterful, and very apt. Yes, some of it was strongly worded, but it needed to be – it IS a big split with the last 8 years. That’s what we all voted for and have been wanting and waiting for.

Other key moments of the day –

1. Aretha Franklin singing My Country ‘Tis of Thee – anyone who didn’t get chills wasn’t listening!

2. Yitzak Perlman & YoYo Ma playing together – how often does that happen? They were truly remarkable. You could see the joy on YoYo Ma’s face. And the John WIlliams composition did an excellent job of capturing the feelings of hope that abound today.

3. Obama hugged W at the end. I almost felt sorry for W in that moment – but not quite. He did bring it on himself, and that 22% final approval rating speaks for itself. Even with the classy handling of W, Obama barely even acknowledged Cheney – as it should be. And speaking of Cheney…

4. Dick Cheney in a wheelchair. I know, it’s only temporary (he had an accident moving into his new mansion), but it was a fitting way for him to go out of office. More fitting would be crawling like the snake he is, but at least there is some justice sometimes, however small. The newscasters talked at length about how that was NOT how he wanted to go out. How that guy sleeps at night is still beyond me, but … he’s gone. I’m (gleefully) moving on.

5. The ultra-right-wing Chief Justice had one job today … how do you mess up the Presidential Oath of Office?!!

6. Obama’s demeanor throughout it all – very calm, very confident, very reassuring. I think he gave us the very strong message that it won’t be easy, and it won’t be instant, but that we can get through this.

7. W getting on the helicopter – I felt more relief than anything, but it was still a nice moment. And, again, very classy of Obama to escort him out.

  

Jan

Wow, what a day this will be – not only will W be gone in less than 12 hours (which would’ve been good enough by itself), OBAMA will be our new president!!! I’m excited beyond belief about Obama taking over – there’s so much that’s wrong, I know he will have an amazingly difficult job, but I do feel like he is up to the challenge. Here’s hoping…

Several of my students asked about watching it live – the swearing in will be during my morning class. I decided, even if they weren’t Obama supporters, it is an historic occasion and a single class shouldn’t stand in the way of them seeing it live. I am tempted to keep the kids home from school, but I think the teachers will have it on at school, so they can experience it with their friends. And we are TiVo-ing it for posterity…

  

Jan

Less than 10 more days of W, less than 10 more days of W, less than 10 more days of W. It’s like a mantra for me now.

As expected, he has been devoutly working to destroy as much of the country as possible since the election – literally, in the case of letting their greedy cronies develop federal lands.

Less than 10 more days of W …

  

Nov

First and foremost, I want to say I am VERY proud of my sister Terra for actually voting in this election. She’s 32 years old and had never voted before!!! She voted for McCain, but I am still very glad she made her voice heard.

Turns out she wasn’t the only one – Politico is reporting that, as expected, we had record voter turnout this time: over 130 million people voted, which is 64% of eligible voters. Not fantastic, I know, but an improvement over the steady 50%-ish that I grew up with.

  

Nov

I know that it’s typical to finger-point after a lost election, but this seems a bit much…
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/us/politics/06mccain.html

I mean, a key issue for these McCain insiders to keep in mind is … THEY PICKED HER!!! Seriously, you now expect us to feel sorry for you because you nominated someone grossly unqualified (not to mention just flat out … umm, let’s go with not smart, to be polite) to be Vice-President of the United States, and quite possibly to take over as President?!! I don’t think so. And this kind of small-minded nit-picking is just pathetic.

Again, THEY PICKED HER!!!

  

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