Posts from — March 2005

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.

Extraordinary Machine:
The unreleased Fiona Apple CD is available for download in full. Go now.

It is a pretty good cd….

Barking Irons vs. Cool Hunting / Reader Survey:

We’re working on a collaboration with Barking Irons to make a few t-shirts. “Interesting mix” you say? We think so. They’re coming along beautifully and will be available this Spring. Stay tuned for more details on that…
cool t-shirts

Inside Higher Ed :: A Reason to Move:
Our primary reason for leaving Virginia was to gain the rights that come from legal recognition of our relationship and future family. It is clear that we would not obtain those rights in the near future in Virginia. States that choose to discriminate against their same-sex couples will continue to lose valued citizens to states that provide the same rights to all individuals, couples and families.

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supporting your family is one of the most important things a university and state can do… however, it is increasingly difficult to do the right thing by friends and colleagues when the state is not just conservative, but tending toward enforcing inequality. i think this professor made the right decision.

Search Wikipedia — using LookAhead from SurfWax:

handy

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,13887,1439272,00.html

TomPaine.com – Behind Bush’s Youth Agenda:
So we have a reverse twin-headed monster. The president’s Social Security agenda is a substantive plan for a fabricated crisis, while “Helping America’s Youth” is a fabricated plan for a substantive crisis.

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great leadership shows, as does poor leadership, and misguided leadership, or just plain asinine leadership

Oliphant on Schiavo
I think Pat…:

Oliphant on Schiavo

I think Pat Oliphant gets it pretty close to correct
here
…

- Orac [Respectful Insolence (a.k.a. "Orac Knows")]

I guess it is a wonderful time to be a political cartoonist or to write for The Daily Show.

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i agree. this is spot on