8 years of 'oops'

So Long Worst President Ever; 10 Reasons History Will Hang You | | AlterNet

Bernie Horn takes out his Bush-Bashing stick one last time:

So, congratulations for being the worst president in American history.
That's not just my personal opinion; that's the opinion of 109
historians polled by the History News Network. Fully 61 percent ranked Bush as the "worst ever;" 98 percent labeled his presidency a "failure." And this poll, taken in early 2008, predated the cataclysmic housing and banking crashes. Bye-bye W -- history will not be kind.

Palin pwned by the ADN

Cost of Sarah Palin writing a letter to the Anchorage Daily News Editors, regarding "false reports" that were "pursued and/or published": $0

ADN editor Pat Dougherty's response: $priceless

You can find the full text of the Palin-ADN email exchange at adn.com. Here are some of the best parts:

Did you really allow a story to run in your paper today claiming Levi Johnston is a high school drop out?

Your question today is the first suggestion I've heard that this fact might be in error.

Should I infer from your question that Levi did not drop out of school and will graduate with his class? If so, we will be happy to publish our own correction of the AP story. I think you would also want to contact the AP and ask them to issue a correction as well. Their story was distributed nationally and internationally.

(Paragraph written after this message was otherwise finished.) Literally just this minute I see an AP story, quoting you, saying that Levi has enrolled in correspondence classes. There's not much detail in the story about what he's doing and when he started his correspondence work. Does that mean today's story should have said something like: Johnston dropped out of school last fall but has since started taking correspondence classes?

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Did you really print a story last week suggesting I had any connection with Sherry Johnston's activities in the past six months or so and you won't correct the story?

Because we checked the trooper's statement in the affidavit with the Secret Service, we didn't make the mistake of treating it as fact. I don't see that anything we reported was incorrect.

Do you read this differently, or am I missing something?

I would also remind you that we called the governor's office for comment about the Johnston arrest. Your spokesman declined to make any comment on the matter. He could have clarified your relationship and/or interactions with Ms. Johnston, but elected not to.

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And is your paper really still pursuing the sensational lie that I am not Trig's mother? Is it true you have a reporter still bothering my state office, my very busy doctor (who's already set the record straight for you), and the school district, in pursuit of your ridiculous conspiracy?

Yes, it's true.

You may have been too busy with the campaign to notice, but the Daily News has, from the beginning, dismissed the conspiracy theories about Trig's birth as nonsense. I don't believe we have ever published in the newspaper a story, a letter, a column or anything alleging a coverup about your maternity.

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And, oh, I could go on . . .

Governor, I would encourage you to go on. I cannot address your concerns if I do not hear them. Perhaps after reading this you will conclude that the facts are not exactly as you thought, or that there was more to these issues than you knew.

And I'm sure naughty British teens grow up to get arrested at footie matches

Behavioral Difficulties At School May Lead To Lifelong Health And Social Problems

They show that the participants with severe or mild conduct problems in adolescence were more likely to leave school with no qualifications and go on to suffer a number of problems in adulthood including depression and anxiety, divorce, teenage pregnancy, and financial problems that continued throughout adult life.

Now blogging on a Windows lappie

I looked at the MSI Wind and Asus 1000 with every intention of installing OSX. But in the end, I decided to go for a full-size craptop and install Ubuntu Linux. But now... after running Vista for a few weeks... I am no longer interested in my Ubuntu partition! How did this happen???

It all started about a month ago. When my MacBook display had a high-speed collision with the living room floor. Now blackie is hooked up to life support (a 19" monitor for use at work).

Then the Walmart sold me a Compaq for $299. And Best Buy offered an identical HP G50(though upgraded with Intel core 2 duo) for $279. The last deal even included a free printer. Thanks Black Friday.

I customized the HP and used PING to restore everything onto the Compaq. Now I have a matched set for me and the missus. And a funny thing happened... I decided that I like Vista better than Ubuntu.

Occasionally, I get serious Unix withdrawals but the Vista UI is more polished and friendly than Ubuntu. Of course I still use Mozilla & Open Office software and that made the Vista transition easier. And I can't imagine what I'd do without Launchy and Rocketdock.

Movie clips too violent for school?

I have shown parts of R-rated films in class but have never ventured to show a full-length "R" movie.  Is that common sense or just a prudish overreaction to sex, foul-language, and violence?

/really hoping I'm not a prude

Elmbrook schools consider restrictions on R-rated films in classrooms - JSOnline

A Brookfield East High School history teacher's notice to parents that he might show clips or full lengths of those R-rated films - as well as "Glory" and "Mississippi Burning" - has drawn protests from two families who say R-rated movies have no place in school.

Teens getting dumber?

It's official - Teens are getting dumber - ParentDish

The study reviewed test scores of 800 thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds and compared them with similar tests of teens from 1976, a generation ago. The results? In one test, only one in ten of the current teens tested with top scores, down from one in four twenty years ago. In another, only one in twenty reached the top score compared to one in five from the 1976 batch. Professor Michael Shayer, who lead the study, believes the educational focus on testing (rather than learning) is at least partially to blame. Focusing on testing leaves little time for teaching development skills such as those required in the tests that were part of the study.

Primarily, however, Shayer believes that television and video games are responsible for the decline. Participating in these "non" activities leads to a lack of being involved in other things such as playing with gadgets and tools which develop higher level thinking. The UK education system has responded that measures were being taken to "ease the burden" of testing. According to the article in the Mail Online, the UK government had also scrapped the SATs for fourteen-year-olds.

Still need a majority to win...

Forget Red vs. Blue -- It's the Educated vs. People Easily Fooled by Propaganda | Media and Technology | AlterNet

Millions of Americans live in a non-reality-based belief system informed by childish clichés - they can barely differentiate between lies and truth.