When you are in the public eye, women become entralled with you. I know because I have seen women "throw themselves" at my mate.
I mean throw!
They grab his tie, one woman patted his ass, they wink, etc.

So here is for your Margaret Spellings News blip of the day.  Remember how this administration has through Margaret Spellings has been attacking public education through the promotion of charter schools and vouchers. Her own husband is a lawyer who lobbies for vouchers.
Now I am not against the improvement of security of students at a university.  I support university education and I think our young people should be safe while they are attending school away from home.  What happened at Virginia Tech was awful and universities and colleges around the world jumped immediately to improve their security in fear of copy cats, right after that happened.
Mind you I AM NOT AGAINST UNIVERSITIES and the security of students.
That said......
This school got:

http://newsinfo.iu.edu/...

IU passes record half billion dollar mark in research grants and awards
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 31, 2008

Over at ThinkProgress.org, Satyam has a piece reminding us all of how Bush ignored the warnings about Bin Laden.
http://thinkprogress.org/...

and he had this link......
http://fas.org/...

(Netroots rock)

Go over there and read it. I wish more Republicans knew about this.  How does McCain get away with all the hugging and kissing of Mr. Bush.
Doesn't he know about this memo?

I am so glad to see that McCain came out and laid out his educational policies.  
Solution?
Let the school fail just sent your kid some where else.  The idea of school choice sounds great for parents who have been able to take advantage of them. But the problems of scale are really difficult because there are not enough "alternative options" to place the children of all poor schools into other more well funded schools.  The very idea of siphoning off children of poor school into For Profit  Charter schools and private schools is not a solution or even an option for many families.
Martin Carnoy at Huffington post

The McCain platform goes a step beyond Friedman: it lumps charter schools in with private school vouchers as part of the market solution to improving education. But Friedman's case was mostly ideological -- he had no direct evidence that educational markets worked better than a public school system, or that privately run schools could deliver a better product for the same or lower price as public schools.

In U.S.A Today there is a column by John Strassburger who is president, Ursinus College and chair, Council of Independent Colleges Board of Directors.  This caught my eye today, when I was doing my morning reading. As anyone who has been reading my posts, I have become a bit obsessive  with Margart Spellings and her under the radar continous assault on our children's education and now Higher Education.

What I find most offensive is the ongoing attitude in every part of the Bush administration. The attitude that experts don't count, only WE know what is right as long as it fits into our ideology of reducing the government down to a size where it can be drowned in a bathtub.  And yet they want to get their sticky fingers into everything.
Follow below the fold

Watching CNN just now I watched segment on CNN that was supposed to be about the educational policies of both candidates.
I was interested in what was going to be covered on the McCain side so I pushed the unmute button. There was Roland Martin going on about how vouchers were a great idea and how it was a short term solution for people who had their kids in failing schools. Rick Sanchez came on with the lame "opposite" argument that the teachers unions wouldn't allow it.  Promoting the idea that teacher unions were standing in the way of progress.  
Mr. Martin was angry because there were so many failing schools and parents need help in the short term to solve their problem.
He said that for families there wasn't time for the educational system to fix itself and that vouchers to Catholic schools, etc. would help families in neighborhood with poor schools. Because after all, tax payers already paid into the schools.
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I am sick of that common refrain. At is always "Republicans and Democrats are the same."  No, no we are not.  FDR was a Democrat. Great Society/civil rights LBJ was a Democrat. Kennedy was a Democrat.  Name one,.... one really magnificant Republican president.

When the Abramoff thing started to spin out, the constant beating of a drum was that there had to be some Dems involved. When the D.C. Madam was hawking her list, again the calls were, " Oh there have to be Dems on the list."
And remember back with 2000 election, Oh Bush and Gore are the same. Oh politicians are all the same.  They are all crooks

Well, i have been thinking alot lately about how this is the summer and teachers all over are thinking about where to go back to teaching or just walk away and do something else.  In the month of August there is a greatr deal of anxiety amongst people in the teaching ranks because they are wondering what kind of year they are going to have. That note I am posting an old comment on a diary by teacherken

http://www.dailykos.com/...

I had alot of fun at the netroots meeting folks and hanging out. I even got to ask a question about NCLB. My husband says I didn' t ask a question but rather made a statement.   But I think I asked a question, I asked, "what about NCLB?"

I was doing my usual reading of the "blogs" when I happend to do a google search of Margaret Spellings.  What I found was an interesting article at the Daily Texan my old alma mater's student paper.  It seems that the  "Dept of Miseducation"  is pushing now for an emergency survey of Pell grant recipients to see if they are satisfied with the process.
The "education" department thinks that there waste in the process because students can't transfer courses from other schools.

I will let you go read the article .....

From the wrong side of Culebra to inside Nuremberg.

A few years back I took a trip with some kinder to deutschland. And there while doing due diligence watching o' de flock of younsters.  I took a stroll down to the square in front of the church.  I had wandered around and looked at the neato shops and liitle eateries on the inside of the great wall. Before that I had wandered the streets of Nuremburg, looking at the buildings that showed the obvious patches on the buildings with damage that the Allies had visted on the city and it's people.

a brief little fun thing to do at the kitchen table with some kiddies.....
You can do it for a fun afternoon with your "home for the summer" children or as part of home schooling exercise or camp.

Politics for many people is a fascinating addiction which in part is one thing that drive many individuals to this site and others.  The very idea that people sit at a computer and click from diary to diary, post to post site to site and then turn on the T.V. after perusing several newspapers is interesting because I know that I am not the only person who neglects chores and procrastinates because of the need to know what is going on.  
For me, it is all about "being in the know".  

Today is Canada Day! The big day of national celebration for the peoples of Canada.  Notice I said peoples of Canada because Canada has lots of different groups of people that make it up and most of those groups are the same ones that make us, the United States.  So have good day knowing that you friends and cousins to the North are having a big day of hot dogs, beer and fireworks.

So please sent your regards to all the Kossacks in Canada and wish us a Happy Canada Day.
(remember we supply you with oil)

Well, golly!  Ya think that Republicans are soured on the values of the United States?  It is amazing how blind these people are when it comes to their belief that the morals of the nation are going down.  When the truth is that Republicans have repeatedly lied to their "base" about what Republican values are and how to impose them on others in the nation.  From lying to recruit young people into fight in the war, lying to the nation about everything, withholding donated supplies to Katrina victims, teaching abstinence to deprive kids of real information, take money from public chool to spend it on christian schools, and charter schools, not the best armour for our troups, not enough flu vaccines, to the constant parade of Republicans admitting to using prositutes, molesting young men and not to mention the foot tapping stuff and Gannon etc, Republicans have been at the forefront of committing bad behavior after bad behavior.  And yet.......

I agree with Representative Denis Kucinich (http://kucinich.house.gov/) and other people who have diaried this point. I think that President Bush should be impeached for his many actions that have been harmful to the people of the United States.
  I also think that it is time for every blogger that posts on his or her blog to post  the same thing......
Impeach George W. Bush.
I think KOS should write that and every Kossack that has not yet written a diary yet today. There is a media black out or so it seems, but when I google impeach and the word Dennis Kucinich you don't get a lot of recent stuff so I think similar to a google bomb that we should ALL POST AT LEAST ONE DIARY ABOUT IMPEACHING GEORGE W. BUSH in the title and post them in comments on various news sites
and get the impeach meme clicked on at news sites and and so on......
Now go do it!

Yeah!
Get real people. Lighten up. People have been working on both the Hillary campaign and the Obama campaign for so long all people are looking for is some offence. So John McCain's teeth are yellow. Come on. The man is a WEALTHY MAN!!!!!!
So Kos make fun of his teeth in that ad. Great! It is about freaking time we had a laugh at his expense.  If it had been about Hillary, people here would have been jumping on board and toasting with champaign.  Kos is right!
Why are they?
Doesn't he have people competent enough to use some white out and then take a picture. Come on and this is all over the rec list with outrage????
Ha ha that is even funnier!

Bush talking right now to the military. Keeps repeating the mantra of losing our nerve. Which in other words means those people wanting to end the war are cowards.
Bu the coward is he. He is the one who went awol, he is the one who have to tell lies to lead the country to war and describes the countries as "emerging democracies" and admited how newly liberated people were not ready to govern thier own land. But makes no mention about how being there cultivates hostilities against Americans.
So there he stands lying to the young cadets on the day that his own former press secretary rats him out.  "This experience will promote your experience"  So going to war is good for your military career.
Congress better supply your needs, etc. When Rummy wouldn't allow better body armor or better vehicles.
The man has no shame.

Yesterday after posting a comment on another diary about Burma ......
Can't we concentrate on Myanmar and forget about superdelegates for one day?
by proud2Bliberal

I  posted a link to a Rotary supported program that puts together shelterboxes for disaster relief.
http://www.shelterboxusa.org/
As a frequent commenter but not a writer of diaries, I thought, "well hell I'll just thow one up and see if I can get a few dollars."
My diary written in hast was lame with some broken links and some peole thought it was a scam.  But of course my fellow Kossacks checked it out and recomended it!  I don't know how to post pictures and stuff but the members of the Daily Kos pictched in and raised 595 dolars towards a 1,000 box!......