Ambiguous:
I can’t believe I haven’t heard about this before. There is a substantial buying bloc–namely, school boards in southern states–that follows suit with whatever the state school board of Texas does. These states buy textbooks uniformly, statewide. 1 Most “blue states” buy district to district, so there is no unified bloc per se to counterbalance the southern states where points of politics are concerned. So this bloc of southern school boards has an unrivalled power to influence the choices of the major textbook 1 publishers 1 in the country–of which there are only like four, anyhow. Basically, they don’t publish anything the school board of Texas doesn’t buy.

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great… just great. now students don’t get to learn more important things.

SourceOECD: factbook:

cool

Schiavo Case Almost Led to State Cop v. Local Cop Showdown:
According to today’s Miami Herald, Jeb Bush ordered state cops to grab Terri Schiavo at a point during the judicial proceedings at which, due to Florida’s automatic stay law, such a move would arguably have been if not legal at least not in direct violation of a court order. The automatic stay law suspends a judge’s order when the state appeals it. (Judge Greer reimposed his order within a few hours.)
”
“There were two sets of law enforcement officers facing off, waiting for the other to blink,” said one official with knowledge of Thursday morning’s activities.

In jest, one official said local police discussed “whether we had enough officers to hold off the National Guard.”

“

OK. We dodged that bullet. But kindly remind me how many microns separate us from banana republics with warring paramilitary forces.

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it wouldn’t be so bad if our governors and president weren’t acting like dictators.