OMG! Albright thinks she's a hottie!

Click the title and see CNN's John Roberts blush at Madeline Albright. Thank you, Marty at Chickaboomer!!!

I'm sorry, but I can't think of anything Albright could do that would make me blush, or react at all, for that matter. I'm sorry, but, well, she's not all that.

I'll be nice and leave it at that.

Ugh!

January 20 vs. September 12

Thanks to Blonde Sagacity for this one. Please click on the title. Pictures speak thousands of words. :)

My 2009 NFL Predictions....

Hey, why not? Everyone else does? :) :)

NFC:

NFC East--Philadelphia
NFC North--Green Bay
NFC South--Atlanta
NFC West--San Francisco
NFC Wild Card Berths--Chicago and New Orleans

NFC CHAMPION: Atlanta

AFC:

AFC East--New England
AFC North--Pittsburgh
AFC South--Houston
AFC West--San Diego
AFC Wild Card Berths--Baltimore and Tennessee

AFC CHAMPION: Pittsburgh


SUPER BOWL XLIV: Pittsburgh over Atlanta

2010 Draft--#1 pick to the Oakland Raiders!

#2--Cleveland
#3--Buffalo
#4--St. Louis
#5--Detroit

Oh, and Brett Favre won't make the trip to Green Bay in early November. He'll either be hurt or will have retired for the 38th time.

Let the football begin!!!

MJ's choice for Hall of Fame presenter? David Thompson | Richmond Times-Dispatch

FANTASTIC choice, Michael! The original high-flyer from North Carolina will present Jordan. A Tar Heel deferring to a Wolfpack. At least one Tar Heel has some sense.....tee hee.....

Classy move, Michael Jordan; thank you for remembering David. :)

MJ's choice for Hall of Fame presenter? David Thompson | Richmond Times-Dispatch

Shared via AddThis

Learn More About PTO's

Click on the title link and learn about the independent parent-teacher groups across America who opt not to spend their money with a politically-motivated National PTA and keep their money at their childrens' schools as PTO's (and other acronyms!)

As we start a new school year, I can't think of a better site to highlight and recommend to parents!

And a "Van" goes under the bus......plus, how one lefty blog handles dissent

Van Jones resigns in the middle of a Saturday night on a holiday weekend. Just as what people had figured would happen.

When you have someone this incriminating near you (or during Watergate, when people are coming close to the truth), they like to dump you on Saturday nights.....

BUT--if you think Van Jones doesn't have a voice or a "seat" at the President's table, think again. He's still going to be around. He just doesn't get to be in the public eye as a "czar".

BUT NOTE THIS:

If you click on either the title of this link or Van's name at the start of this post, and you'll go to the story of Van's resignation as reported by:

ThinkProgress.org.......typical lefty blog.

Scroll down to the comments section, and note how many times you see the following statement:

"This comment has been voted down. Click to read."

Apparently, some comments that are in opposition to the beliefs of ThinkProgress.org are "semi-censored".

Yes, you can read it by clicking on a link, so technically they aren't "censored". But, these comments are "labeled" as "losers" or "wrong" by whomever the powers that be are over at ThinkProgress. Could be editors, could be fellow commenters.

They will argue, "WE'RE NOT CENSORING! JUST CLICK ON THE LINK TO READ IT; IT'S RIGHT THERE!!"

I respond with, "Why do you pronounce a comment as "voted down" before allowing any critical thinking human being, no matter what their political persuasion, to come to their own conclusion?"

BUT---apparently the "vote downs" aren't reserved for those evil right-wingers. Here are a few that get the "scarlet letter"......

"Bad move. Libs & Dems always quit. Conservatives stay & fight.
How can we win when we're always quitting?"

"yeee hawwww"

"Guess he couldn't stand the truth comming (sic) out about what he really was."

"that is one less Panther suporter (sic) we have to worry bout, too bad it had to take public humilty (sic) to remove him tough (sic)"

"Buh-bye to a hater. Van Jones is pure trash. Good riddance."


And now, to be fair and balanced, a few comments deemed acceptable and appropriate for viewing without an extra click and an editorial comment.....


"It's unfortunate that Van Jones quit. He's a good and talented man who is worth an infinite number of Glenn Becks. He would have done a great job for the country.
It's also unfortunate that Beck hasn't choked on his own foul spittle, but that's another subject entirely. While I'm on the subject: Fox, a christian station? Give me a break. Fox is a festering boil on the ass of America. Time to lance that sucker and solve the problem."

"Mr. Van Jones,

Don't let the sh-t faced Repuglian liars chase you out. We need people with courage like yours to stay in the fray and fight! Don't let the basta-ds win like this.
I am ashamed of the putrid foul degenerates above who cheer your leaving. Typical Repuglicans, foul to the end."

"Let's hope that this frees him up to carry on the battle in a different, stronger way. Those not in official positions may have more latitude to kick the crap out of these idiots."

"Kit Bond called for an investigation on Van Jones? Because he said all republicans are as*holes? He should have said they were all racist crackers."


So, there you go. But here's one final comment that, as an earlier post referred to, echoes my earlier sentiment that Mr. Jones will now only fade into the woodwork, still with plenty of pull.

"Now Van Jones is free to retaliate without any impediments. Good."

This "Van" will come out from underneath the bus in fine condition.

Rob on education, politics, and the whole Obama speech thingy.......

Lots of comments regarding my Facebook and Blogger postings of a couple of days back regarding my deep concern over the plans to show all students a speech by the President this Tuesday. I even saw a comment that led me to believe some may believe me to be a racist over all this. Can I first say that I could care less if our President is purple, green, or blue? I look at substance.

And thus the reason for this post. For those of you who think this is a knee-jerk reaction on my part, I present to you a history lesson.

----From the moment I stepped foot into Longdale Elementary School in August, 1997 to meet my son's Kindergarten teacher, I have been very, very involved in my childrens' education. I've been proud to be a Co-Class Mom, a Class Mom, then eventually a Vice-President and two-time President of the school's PTA and one-term President as the school's PTO. I loved every minute I spent at school with my kids, their friends, their teachers and the rest of the staff. My FAVORITE part would be when kids would see me in the hallway and greet me with either "Hi Robbie's Dad!" or "Hi Rachel's Dad!". That was THE BEST. :)

Let me take you back several years to my two years as PTA President at Longdale. Upon doing much studying and observing of the PTA on a local, state, and national level, I became extremely uncomfortable with the tenets of that organization. Though some of the "reasons" given for their hearty lobbying efforts "on behalf of education" seemed innocuous enough, further review revealed a definite bias toward one political ideology over another.

Whenever you begin to involve yourself in politics, you immediately, as an Association, should go under the microscope to be scrutinized as to what said group does with their dues, donations, etc. And, too many times, PTA monies, mostly on the National level, were being used in ways where it was abundantly clear who the PTA was comfortable associating with politically, and who did clearly did not care for.

This led me to study the then-growing movement of schools nationwide leaving the PTA in favor of PTO's, which are "Parent-Teacher Organizations", and concentrate their efforts on the local school. Period. If they choose to partner with other schools in their district, or county, or across the country, they could, but they were not forced to do so, as is done via the National PTA with mandatory dues.

Each year, Longdale families were giving more than $1,000 to the National and State PTA and essentially getting nothing in return except the "privilege" of calling themselves a PTA. Want "leadership training"? That's more $$ and a trip out of town for a weekend. I always wondered why a non-profit group would pay good money to send willing "leaders" to a "leadership conference". Isn't that something that could be done on the local or area level for free, thanks to the expertise of all the volunteers in said local or area group?

Somehow, I never thought their members magazine was worth the $1,000 plus dollars.

Well, the year I was NOT part of the PTA Executive Board, the wheels were put in motion to leave the PTA and re-form our parent group as a PTO.

What did the PTA do?

Per bylaws, we had a meeting where they sent a representative to speak to the membership to implore them not to leave, which was perfectly fine. Per bylaws, if we voted to leave, any monies that were raised as a PTA would go......to the State and National PTA.

And not to the children.

You would think the PTA people would want the money to go to help the children of the school, but I digress......

Long story short, we left the PTA for the non-political PTO, which is, by the way, NOT an "National" organization. There is no such thing as a "National PTO". Any dues you collect as a PTO stay at the school. Heck, you don't even have to CHARGE for membership, if you don't want to!

THE PTA RESPONSE:

1) They always paint PTO's and other type groups that are not associated with them "fundraising groups for schools". This is their "slime tactic" against anyone not aligned with them. Remember, for each school that there is no PTA, that's hundreds of kids and thousands of adults that do not receive their money (dues), hear their politically slanted message and less numbers they can add to their "total membership" tout of clout at State Capitals and on Capitol Hill.

Truth be told, even though the PTA's say they have a "3 to 1 ratio rule" of projects to fundraisers, you don't get flyers and handouts the first week of school about the latest PTA projects. You get hit with a huge fundraiser. PTO's can do as many projects as they want and as many or few fundraisers as necessary, all based on what's best for the school and THE KIDS. Gee, what a novel concept.

2) We were the first school in Henrico County to leave the PTA. The rest of the PTA's then, in essence, shunned us. How hard would it be for a County body to change their name from "County Council of PTAs" to "County Council of PTAs and PTOs"? That didn't happen. Nor were we included at the beginning in any activities. Our school's voice was silenced....by them, not us.

3) In 2004, when Longdale families constituted a majority of new parents and students at the then-new Greenwood Elementary School, we simply asked the new principal that, since groups from three different schools were coming together to start the new school, that both the PTA and PTO option be presented to the parents and let them decide how to organize the group at Greenwood.

The PTAers hated that idea. We had a meeting, though. The PTA representative attempted to grandstand and take the entire alloted hour of speaking, knowing the hall was being used by another group later and that we'd have to vacate. My wife had to go find the principal, who had left the room, to come back in and basically shut him up.

The parents voted to form a PTO. At the first meeting of parents interested in wanting to form it, a group of PTA supporters came and effectively staged a coup d'etat. How did they eventually win?

A formation committee packed with Pro-PTA'ers botched up (on purpose, I suspect?) the formation process to the point where they then later came back and convinced enough people that the ONLY way to get the group going was to form as a PTA so the PTA could help them.

For example, they said it would cost thousands to lawyers to form the PTO. Lie. We did it at Longdale for free.

It went on and on and on. For months.

Almost AN ENTIRE SCHOOL YEAR went by, and these people were perfectly content to waste all this time where THE STUDENTS could be benefiting, simply to get their way.

--------------------------

When people are motivated by politics, it's amazing how many of them make decisions and do things which actually go against what they claim their core beliefs are. For example, if you are "only looking out for the children", why spend so much money that could be used in the classroom strengthening an association whose existence has already been proven to be not necessary?

Did you know around 3 out of every 4 "parent-teacher" groups in America are NOT PTA's?

No wonder they're going nuts! Where will they get the money to "promote their cause"? Dry up the dues and you're in trouble.

-------------------------

Why did I and do I support PTOs? One big reason is that they are NON-POLITICAL.

Public school classrooms, the students, and their lesson plans should never be used for any political purpose. Period. On either side.

And that brings us to President Obama's speech on Tuesday.

The fact that he wants to speak to the nation's schoolchildren is not the big issue here.

The big issue is THE PLANS SURROUNDING AND FOLLOWING UP THE SPEECH. You know, the ones I highlighted on this blog the other day. The ones which want students to focus on "what the President wants" throughout the entire school year. The ones which didn't focus on children achieving their best in educational endeavors or on what we can do to be better citizens and help our country and our neighbors......

Obama's speech will be very innocuous, I'm sure. Even moreso now that people like me have blown the whistle on all this.

Friends, all politicians present their messages through a uniquely defined political prism. This goes against my "non-political" stance of what life should be like in the Pre-K through 12 classrooms of this nation. They can't help it, whether from the right or the left.

POINTS TO PONDER:

1) How can the same Administration, who cannot even pay car dealerships for their "clunkers" in the Cash For Clunkers program even after tripling their workforce to get the paperwork processed, somehow masterfully pull off sending lesson plans for a year-long project to every classroom in some 100,000 schools with nary a whisper to the public who pays for those schools? When an Administration can administer some things better than others, one begins to wonder what priorities cause the success and failure....

2) WHY has the White House now spent MORE taxpayer money to REVISE the lesson plans to take the focus more away from the President??? Was it just an "oversight" of Education Secretary Arne Duncan and his gang, just thinking that citizens would assume "following a President" meant "following a nation"? Heh. Think again. We caught them red-handed. If these lesson plans were so innocuous, THEY WOULDN'T BE REVISING THEM, now would they?

3) Guilt by association. In its short history, the Obama Administration has placed itself in a position by which doing this very exercise guaranteed the grassroots response.

--Appointing more "czars" with no Congressional oversight than any other President
--Trying to ram through Health Care Reform before August, before there could be discussion.
--The stimulus package that HAD to go through or we would be in a Depression.

Once a group plays "ramrod" with the American people for awhile, the people awaken and say enough. And thus, they begin to question everything they do. Why? Because past history indicates questioning is a GOOD thing to do.

The latest indication? Van Jones, the President's "Green Jobs" czar. According to Van's own words, I'm a white polluter, an "a**hole" (even though I'm an independent and NOT a Republican) and I live in a country where the last Presidential Administration colluded to kill 3,000 Americans eight years ago on 9/11.

I rest my case.

-------------------------------------------------------

In closing.......

1) I want no publicly elected official having the control of speaking to all of the nation's children without first announcing such intentions to the entire nation. Schools are for LEARNING. Learning about politics in schools belongs in Social Studies, US History, and US Government classes. I wouldn't want kindergarteners asking themselves "What Would Reagan Do?" any more than "What Would Obama Do?" I should have found out about this speech from news reports straight from the White House and not from the Drudge Report and radio talkers.

2) What would liberals be saying today if George W. Bush had created "lesson plans" to give to the nation's children so they could wonder "What does George W. Bush want me to do today"? Remember just a couple of years ago when some liberals were demanding that President Bush's pictures be taken down from public school walls?

3) Our society is in grave danger due to stupidity. You read me right. You can't read a chyron graphic on CNN, Fox, or another news or sports channel these days without seeing MULTIPLE misspellings. Adults can't name the 50 states, their Senators, or how many Justices are on the Supreme Court. How many kids don't know their times tables, 0X0 through 12X12, by heart? How many kids have to learn the Gettysburg Address by heart?

May the President's speech be short and full of direction sending all American children to their textbooks, so we can get back to reading, writing, and arithmetic.

As opposed to "What does (insert any political leader name here) want me to do??"

Follow Up to Below Post------Obama to be prayer day no-show - Washington Times

Why did a Christian tradition come to an end? Your thoughts.......be sure to read the post BELOW this one to get the whole story here.....


Obama to be prayer day no-show - Washington Times

Shared via AddThis

Obama hosts Ramadan dinner at White House - Washington Times

I have no problem with this, and am glad he hosted a Passover Seder last April. But what troubles me will be posted separately, when we remind ourselves of a decision he made in May.

Obama hosts Ramadan dinner at White House - Washington Times

Shared via AddThis

What The???????-----Obama speaks to captive audience......

Here it is, friends. The outline that will grace America's classrooms THIS TUESDAY before Dear Leader "speaks" to OUR children----without our permission.

PreK-6 Menu of Classroom Activities: President Obama’s Address to Students Across America
Produced by Teaching Ambassador Fellows, U.S. Department of Education
September 8, 2009

Before the Speech:
• Teachers can build background knowledge about the President of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama and motivate students by asking the following questions:
Who is the President of the United States?
What do you think it takes to be President?
To whom do you think the President is going to be speaking?
Why do you think he wants to speak to you?
What do you think he will say to you?
• Teachers can ask students to imagine being the President delivering a speech to all of the students in the United States. What would you tell students? What can students do to help in our schools? Teachers can chart ideas about what they would say.
• Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?
During the Speech:
• As the President speaks, teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful. Students could use a note-taking graphic organizer such as a Cluster Web, or students could record their thoughts on sticky notes. Younger children can draw pictures and write as appropriate. As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following:
What is the President trying to tell me?
What is the President asking me to do?
What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?
• Students can record important parts of the speech where the President is asking them to do something. Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?
• Students can record any questions they have while he is speaking and then discuss them after the speech. Younger children may need to dictate their questions.

After the Speech:
• Teachers could ask students to share the ideas they recorded, exchange sticky notes or stick notes on a butcher paper poster in the classroom to discuss main ideas from the speech, i.e. citizenship, personal responsibility, civic duty.
• Students could discuss their responses to the following questions:
What do you think the President wants us to do?
Does the speech make you want to do anything?
Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?
What would you like to tell the President?
• Teachers could encourage students to participate in the Department of Education’s “I Am What I Learn” video contest. On September 8th the Department will invite K-12 students to submit a video no longer than 2 min, explaining why education is important and how their education will help them achieve their dreams. Teachers are welcome to incorporate the same or a similar video project into an assignment. More details will be released via www.ed.gov.

Extension of the Speech: Teachers can extend learning by having students
• Create posters of their goals. Posters could be formatted in quadrants or puzzle pieces or trails marked with the labels: personal, academic, community, country. Each area could be labeled with three steps for achieving goals in those areas. It might make sense to focus on personal and academic so community and country goals come more readily.
• Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.
• Write goals on colored index cards or precut designs to post around the classroom.
• Interview and share about their goals with one another to create a supportive community.
• Participate in School wide incentive programs or contests for students who achieve their goals.
• Write about their goals in a variety of genres, i.e. poems, songs, personal essays.
• Create artistic projects based on the themes of their goals.
• Graph student progress toward goals.



NOTE how many times the kids are asked to focus on THE PRESIDENT!!!!!!!!!
As opposed to THE COUNTRY!!!!!!!!!!!

This is sick.

Happy For Stacey Dales!

I'm sorry, but I don't get the whole Erin Andrews thing.

Yes, she's attractive, but there are several "reporters" who put her to shame.

And as for strong personalities on television, ESPN let one get away and now NFL Network gets to reap the benefits.

Welcome Stacey Dales to NFLN, who I will personally take over EA anyday! Click on the title for the story.