It’s at least a good thing that they’re calming down with all the inflammatory rhetoric, but they’re still butt stupid. (note bolded sentence)

Utah schools are gearing up for another President Barack Obama speech to kids, though some say the outcry over it will likely be less intense this year.

The White House recently announced that Obama will give his second annual “Back to School” speech to school kids on Sept. 14. Last September, many Utah schools received calls from angry parents, and some pulled their kids out of class during Obama’s talk, fearing it would amount to political indoctrination. At least one Utah district initially refused to show it. The speech, however, turned out to be little more than a start-of-the-year pep talk about the importance of education and working hard.

“My impression is this is going to be much less of an issue this time around largely because I think of what we saw last time, it really was a tempest in a teapot,” said Matthew Burbank, an associate professor of political science at the University of Utah. “What happened was many groups were protesting and complaining and yet there was very little substance to most of those concerns.”

Gayle Ruzicka, head of the Utah Eagle Forum, said it seems like a bit of a waste of time and money to give a speech again this year when Obama could instead write a letter to students. But she said she doesn’t plan to make an issue out of it as long as parents can opt out their children, see its content ahead of time and it’s nonpolitical.

Ah, so Schundler wants the government to spread the wealth? To him?  He’s asking for a– dun dun dun-n-n!– government handout?

He must have been indoctrinated. Socialist!

It’s amazing how hefty mortgage payments and college tuition can make one do crazy things like beg for unemployment benefits:

Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) has fired his state Education Commissioner Bret Schundler, as a result of errors and misrepresentations from Schundler in a matter costing the state $400 million in federal “Race to the Top” money. At the same time, the firing has been arranged at Schundler’s request in such a manner so that Schundler — a former leading figure of the state GOP’s right wing — will be able to collect unemployment benefits.

The key detail is that Schundler preferred to be fired, rather than submit his resignation. “I asked if they would mind writing a termination letter, instead of a resignation letter, because I do have a mortgage to pay, and I do have a daughter who’s just started college,” Schundler said, the Star-Ledger reports. “And I, frankly, will need the unemployment insurance benefits until I find another job. … And they said fine. They said sure.”

Hyp. O. Crites.

TPM has more.

State Senator [now termed-out] Sheila James Kuehl as Zelda Gilroy in the 60′s TV series “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis”

Sheila James Kuehl is kewl. (Bygones) I’ve been a fan for a long time, including of her long ago acting. She used to be a California state senator. She is the founding director of the Public Policy Institute at Santa Monica College. (sheilakuehl.org.)

She also writes killer op-eds. Today’s L.A. Times had one about my governor, the guy who had no business barging into California politics and ruining my state:

After more than six years of systematically gutting the California dream, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is now pushing the idea that he’s not to blame for the wreckage — and the media seem to be swallowing it.

What is it about Schwarzenegger that turns the media into total wusses? It’s not like they don’t cover famous actors here in Tinsel Town.

We Californians saw through him and voted down most of his abysmal proposals. Some of us are smarter than the media that way.

Too bad we didn’t vote him down when he ran for governor.

[T]he two previous governors faced exactly the same set of circumstances and actually governed without taking California down the drain. [...]

From the beginning, he exhibited a woeful ignorance about what governors actually do. Not having studied the three branches of government or checks-and-balances in elementary school, he seemed stunned to realize that the Legislature had to agree to change the law.

Pow! Sheila for the win!

Pray tell, what were his biggest blunders?

[H]e has refused to agree to any budget that included tax hikes on corporations. [...]

His support for tax cuts at the same time he refused to support anything that would raise significant revenues has devastated education and the social services safety net.

I can attest to that. I worked in the school system for over 15 years and got laid off this year. Thank you, Arnold B. Wreckington of SquanderState Lane.

Take it, Sheila:

All of this has taken California down the rat hole, and I say the blame lies squarely with Schwarzenegger.

Then there’s the myth of his environmental credentials. He constantly takes credit for state Sen. Fran Pavley’s (D-Agoura Hills) greenhouse gas bill, AB 32.

Well done.  Let’s recap.  Go for it, Ms. Kuehl. Tell it like it is:

There is no room for amateurism in government, and this governor is an amateur. He has knocked California’s public education system into the basement, diminished the state’s higher education system to the point that it will take decades to recover, and gutted services to the poor, further exacerbating the gap between poor and rich in this state. It didn’t have to be like this.

No , it didn’t.  He should have stuck with his day job.

Via.

So, I got up extra early this am to get some work finished off, and as usual I put the tv on so I could hear it in the other room. I got started on my stuff and noticed that the tv was on Fox, not MSNBC. I figured I could take a few minutes of Fox until I got the one thing done, then go change the channel. Not sure of the order since I was trying to do something, but in 35 minutes, this is what I heard-

They got all gushy over Daryll Issa being dubbed Obama’s Annoyer in Chief by the New York Times, which gave them a chance to run thru all the greatest Faux scandals they’ve been pimping. (See video above)

Next was a segment about the FCC ruling, finding a way to incorporate Joe Biden and his “dirty mouth”.

Then there was a breathy discussion over Sex Ed FOR 5 YEAR OLDS**!! OMG!! Gretchen got to put on her mommy voice and tsk tsk about something “that should be between a child and his parents”.

The Obama Administration so beholding to the powerful Teachers Unions that they’re taking away voucher money from D.C. just to keep them happy, even though this goes against the Administrations findings. Ayup. I can’t make heads or tails of this one, never could.

Surely they can find a Democrat to come on and trash the President’s lawsuit over Arizona’s immigrant law!? Why of course they could!

And a nice little rah rah for BP and the Gulf states (Battling The Rumor Mill On Oil Spill), going on about the spill being “not that bad” because Florida has 67 counties in Florida AND ONLY 5 have been affected by the oil spill, so far (and getting in a bash against the Obamas for vacationing in Maine.)

I don’t usually watch that big of a chunk of their b.s., but when you do, it is just astounding. I can’t remember what they were, but there were at least two little digs at Obama and/or his administration sprinkled liberally, in just 35 minutes. Have to go take a shower now.

**This one is like a greatest hit that they take out and play as often as they can.

This is wrong on so many levels… just watch. Via News Hounds, exploitation in action:

The sixth-grade grad will now be home schooled.

Please go to News Hounds for a play-by-play commentary.  I usually ignore ClusterFox (Paddy’s territory), but their using a child to do their dirty work got my attention.

I just got an e-mail from the Director of Communications at the National Center for Science Education. I’d actually gotten wind of this last night (h/t to whoever sent it, with apologies for not remembering who you are. I get a million tips a day…or 12), but didn’t get to post it until now.

Via the e-mail:

The U.S. District Court just upheld the Texas Higher Education Coordination Board’s ruling: The Institute for Creation Research cannot award masters degrees in science education. (In 2008, the Board denied ICR’s request for a state certificate of authority; the ICR sued; and on Friday the 18th, the District court sided with the Board.)

Added the exasperated court: “[ICR] is entirely unable to file a complaint which is not overly verbose, disjointed, incoherent, maundering, and full of irrelevant information”.

Now that’s what you call an embarrassing legal defeat.

So a court of law declared the creationists’ complaining “overly verbose, disjointed, incoherent, maundering, and full of irrelevant information.” For a minute there, I thought it was reviewing Glenn Beck’s book [sic].

For the full story, go here.