YellowLinesandArmadillos

I don't think you can paint either Charter Schools who are cherry picking very good students to begin with and Public Schools with broad strokes. Some schools are good and some are bad, just as parochial schools are good and bad, Unions don't have a lot to do with it. I believe it is the school administrators that have big hand school success, how they handle teachers, who they hire and how much do they waste on ancillary budget issues. IMO No Child Left Behind Mandates cause more harm then good. Yes, the feds can better track students, but then teachers only teach for the test, it is a collosal(sp) waste of time and funding. Plus, a lot of teachers don't get the resources they need to be effective and smaller classes sizes are proven ways to improve student scores and yes there are bad teachers that can't be gotten rid or easily, but much more easily now. Though teachers tend to teach better in better atmospheres even when funding is low. Have read a lot of stats on the issue and used to cover it on the Hill. P.S. Iowa Schools get great funding and they can all write very well. There are still a lot of freaks and nuts out there, but they can all write in complete sentences. I use to have to respond to constituent mail from the Des Moines area. Finally, adequate teacher salaries relative to the pay scale of the surrounding area makes for better teachers. In NYC that is a tough problem.

From a power standpoint Cheney was powerful and an effective one. I don't agree with his policy decisions, but partisan though I am, I have to admit he is still and was very influential and effective.

Everybody shut up about it, but it was true, I knew some folks who were involved. It was not worth the media coverage, but there were some immature pranks done. Remember, I was an appointee down at USDA.

Which is why this law likely will be struck down. There are supposedly 20,000 Gay married couples under previous Cal law, I don't see how this will stand up under the equal protection clause of the Constitution. I don't know what Cal law says on the matter? Hmm, I stand partially corrected... Protecting Liberty is never easy, ask 2nd amendment supporters. Also, the RW ran a helluv a misinformation campaign and Gay Rights supporters were not willing or able to get their message out well enough to debunk this falsehood... It allowed folks to hide behind the issue. Simply the Gay Rights supporters got Swift Boated and didn't respond soon or effectively.

Lets also be clear what the "LW media isn't" and "RW media" is...The Weekly Standard, The Washington Times and plenty of other newpapers... The Chicago Tribune, the Heritage Foundation's TV station,.... ABC is not exactly liberal. MSNBC has Morning Joe with Scarborough and Buchanan, though he tries to interview on both sides, his comments are on the right and he gets his shots in. CNN also has Wolf Blitzer who is not partisan just an idiot and what's his name, Lou Dobbs and his editorials on immigration. The man is off his rocker, not exactly partisan, though. Lets not get started on talk radio which heavily slants Right. That being said, there are plenty of LW media types too and the RW love's to list them without acknowledging that they have their sympathizers. However, blaming one or the other is just an excuse for a campaign's inadequacy and an excuse for why an election was lost.

P.S. The Ws were removed from keyboards... Sorry, that one is true. Immature, but true.

Agree, somewhat, but those attacks were started by LW bloggers who made hay about it and the media who took it up ended up looking bad. What gave the issue some legitimacy was that O'Reilly had attacked the parents of the Spears girl that summer and conservatives have often made it a game blaming parenting for children born out of wedlock, especially from teenage girls. Yet that issue gained Palin sympathy, especially amoung Soccer Moms and the media backed off until the Charlie and Katie interviews. The fumbling on Palin's part exposed her dim wittedness and provided ammunition for the media to turn against her.

Agreed.

Now there is a stubborn animal whose curiosity often gets itself into trouble. Had one try and climb in my canoe one time on a lake in Maine.

So the latest update says with 90% counted Smith is down. Don't know how accurate this is.

The blame for Jamie Lynn's pregnancy falls directly on the parents.... but Palin's child's pregnancy is a deeply personal issue.

What is worse is that they picked someone who didn't have a clue the glass house she was stepping into and that she would no longer have any privacy. There are other Republican women who would have been better choices including better Governors: Laura Lingle comes to mind, HI or Jodi Rell, Ct.

That is what I am saying, stick a fork in her, she is done. She could even be done in AK, but they seem to think that is par for the course. They may have re-elected Stevens. She had a chance in 2012 but not now.

McCain Aide Quote: The shopping spree was ..."a Wasilla hillbilly raiding Neiman Marcus Coast to Coast."

Actually, what was scary was the hacking of both camps. Not that it is a surprise, but scary!

Nah, just making sure everyone is sure that Palin if FOS. So much for her wanting to control spending and what her fiscal morality is really about. But you are right, not likely to have much of a honeymoon. I have greater respect for McCain after this election. Palin.... not so much.

OH Yeh, Check out Newsweek, just found this info... Pretty Damning. http://www.newsweek.com/id/167581

It was all over morning Joe on MSNBC and there is more recent info. Just didn't have time to go to UTUBE for the video interviews. I just didn't think that there would be so much personal anger directed at on of the candidates. Usually it is between the staffs.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i7k9f7...FPeHHzgTHvauu5g http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/2008/11/infig...over-palin.html http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081025/pl_af...in_081025205108 This is usually what the Democrats do. So Republicans are learning to eat their own.

I understand your argument and the law not being about teaching material in schools. The problem is one of politics. Once this issue has been raised in conjunction with the marriage issue, it touched a nerve that brought out the loss of control parents feel about what is being taught to their children in schools and since there are plenty of examples of groups with agendas and teachers pushing them in schools, it provided an avenue for those parents to take a stand, despite it not being directly relevant to the issue at hand. But it was relevant to the lack specificity in the way the law was written and the folks that opposed the issue on so called religious grounds knew they would lose unless they could expand their support. They found a side issue that struck a nerve. So whether or not the law was silent on the issue or not is not good enough. Gay marriage supporters in California are going to have to address this issue in order to overcome the political road block put in their path. They may want to put in some prohibition language to teaching such material to include a ban on teaching religion and morally sensitive issues in schools without specific parental consent to garner greater support and have said class taught only as an elective, not required. That being said, I can understand the frustration of having a non-sequitor issue being used to derail the original issue. It happens all the time and is good political strategy when you are in opposition to something but don't have enough support. I wrote my senior your thesis on a political fight in Virginia where both sides used side issues to get what they wanted. The 3rd battle of Manassas, VA. A developer bought a piece of land to build a mixed use shopping mall/residential apartments. The local board approved it and authorized funding for the roads to be built. After getting the some of the roads built he changed the plans to a much larger shopping mall. The local anti-sprawl folks fought it and brought in some dubious Civil War history on the land and environmentalists because there was a small creek on the land. The upshot was they were able to kill the development based on these ancillary issues. Ironically, it was resolved by the local Congressman getting some pork barrel spending which had the Feds buy out the land for a $30 million profit for the developer and the developer had another piece of land down the newly paved road which still fell under the original zoning alteration which he was able to build the originally designed multi-use shopping plaza. All in all it was a cluster, but that is what sometimes happens on these deals. Not saying it is right. My question for you is are you going to sit on your moral high horse and complain or are you going to be a pragmatist and try and resolve the issue and anticipate any others that the opposition might be able to dream up which could gain traction and provide another road block. Think about it.

Or better yet why use the term marriage to convey government benefits for a domestic partnership and seriously why is necessary for the government to legitimize that partnership that you and your partner, whatever you call it. Of course I complied for the benefits, but not because I cared about the license. I was married the day I asked and my wife accepted under my belief in my God. The license and wedding were only a celebration of that fact and now I could claim those benefits under law. So what....

oh agreed, but that is why you have to write the thing with so much specificity because there will always be someone to push the envelope and some judge who will say that it doesn't violate anything.

Read my next post. http://www.stadiumwall.com/index.php?showt...p;#entry1201039

That is what happens when you right bad law. You don't think some talented lawyers and teachers who have an agenda wouldn't push the issue. Go back and write the law tighter. Now you know why it takes 300 pages to give $300 Billion away to provide for liquidity to banks and brokers on Wall Street. And from the opposition's standpoint, it is an easier political argument to make, legitimate or not. Take the time to write the law narrowly and you won't have the problem.

This going to get me in trouble, because what I said was true, but I am not that sensitive... however, my shame deal worked on you Got a first rate education on it from my Puritanical mother, it happens.... P.S. Coli won't understand until he has kids, I agree and he doesn't understand.... It is a whole new ball game when you have your own.