I feel badly about writing about Brad
Johnson twice in one week, in part because it’s so easy, and in
part because he’s probably excited to see his name written down
anywhere, but I just can’t help myself.
The Secretary of State had nothing better to do than call Matt
Gouras to complain about a joke (and a bad one at that) told by
Governor Schweitzer? How many reporters do you think he had to call
before he found someone willing to print it?
Pathetic.
One has to begin to wonder if Brad Johnson
is the least competent state official in Montana. Despite running
around screaming about voter fraud during the legislative
session–and ignoring his failure to better prepare county election
officials–Johnson, as Jay points out hasn't actually uncovered one
case of it in his tenure as Secretary of State:
Spokesman Bowen Greenwood said the office has yet to
uncover a verified case of voter fraud. But he said the latest
verification procedure, required under federal regulations, will
help make sure it doesn't happen.
That would make it seem that Johnson is either a liar or an idiot,
but a following news story today by Charles Johnson
suggests that the most likely answer is that Brad is just
incompetent.It seems the Secretary of State's office has been
ignoring US Justice Department requests to meet implementation
requirements of the 2002 Help America Vote Act:
So Tony Snow says that Al Gore should reprint his new book "The Assault on Reason" because it contains inaccurate facts. In light of this argument, I have taken the liberty of reprinting the President's 2002 State of the Union address, with all the inaccurate and misleading portions redacted:
Thank you very much. Mr.
Speaker, Vice President Cheney, members of Congress, distinguished
guests, fellow citizensThank you all. May God bless.
Don and I chat a lot about the problems with education and most certainly one of them is that a lot of teachers aren't teaching. When I say that aren't teaching, I don't mean they aren't teaching the curriculum (although that is a problem too), I mean that don't begin the process of actually using their skills to teach kids things.
One example of that is the proliferation of movies in the classroom. I went to high school just after VCRs were available and at the worst, I saw three movies in any given class. In the world of DVDs/VCRs/TVs/projectors in most classrooms, some teachers have used that as an opportunity to show many more movies to students.
Don't get me wrong, a movie can be extraordinarily useful in a curriculum. I certainly use them. However, showing movies a majority of the time in a class or worse, without critical reflection or discussion (which can come in a lot of forms), they are little more than educational fast food.
This article struck me as an example. This poor kid was shown An Inconvenient Truth FOUR times in different classes this year. Now, of course, people like Drudge (who I stole this link from, so I guess thanks to him) think the problem is that this movies with all of it's "liberal science" is being pushed down student's throats. The truth is, the more offensive part of this is that any movie was shown in four different classes, where there was only a link in maybe one.
I don't think it is hyperbole to say that we are fighting for the soul of education right now. Great teachers are leaving the classroom in droves and those quality professionals that remain face an extraordinary challenge to actually teach students. But more than the lack of funds, more than overpacked classrooms, more than falling apart buildings, we have to make sure that the relationship between students and teachers is a productive one. Anything else? Meaningless unless we prioritize TEACHING first.
The New York Times reports what seems quite clear: they're aren't too many Republicans eager to challenge Max Baucus:
Nonetheless, for a conservative-leaning and usually Republican-voting state that in 2004 gave 59 percent of its votes to President Bush, Republicans appear to be struggling to find a viable candidate to challenge veteran Democratic Sen. Max Baucus.
Of course, a cynic might be tempted to ask why they'd bother.
As it turns out, some people dislike Michael Moore. Most of them live normal lives, occasionally criticizing Moore's films, but going on with the day to day to day business of their lives. Not Jim Kenefick, though. Jim is obsessed with Michael Moore, operating a site called Moorewatch, where he promises to be "Watching Michael Moore's every move." Creepy, sure, and perhaps not the most productive of vocations, but a hobby that seems to fill his days.
Unfortunately, it seems Mr. Kenefick's vocation doesn't exactly pay the bills. This champion of American free market capitalism, hasn't been working hard enough to pay for his own insurance , because as we all know, it's only lazy people who can't afford insurance in America. Given his unwillingness to work hard enough, Mr. Kenefick relied on a classic version of Randian independent thinking: he begged for help on his blog, no doubt that his conservative audience, believers in private charity, would step forward to help him in his time of need, to keep the crusade against Michael Moore alive, not to mention to fix his Xbox, which is no doubt a critical tool in his wife's health care. So which of his thousands of readers stepped forward to help Mr. Kenefick?
Montana Blog Feed
