Can't Blog

Grading.

Bush's Legacy

I don't envy Obama the task that lies ahead:

The US budget deficit swelled by more than 400 billion dollars in the first two months of fiscal 2009, almost the record gap of the prior year, Treasury data showed Wednesday.

Workers Winning in Chicago

Things are moving in good directions, it would seem:

The creditor of a Chicago plant where laid-off employees are conducting a sit-in to demand severance pay said Tuesday it would extend loans to the factory so it could resolve the dispute, though the workers declared their protest unfinished.

A resolution seemed nearer as Bank of America, which yanked the plant's financing last week, announced it sent a letter to Republic Windows and Doors offering "a limited amount of additional loans" to resolve its employee claims.

But the United Electrical Workers union, which represents the Republic workers, said late Tuesday that no final agreement has been reached and that there are still important details to be worked out before that can happen. Negotiations were to resume Wednesday.

About 200 of the 240 laid-off workers had responded to their three days' notice of the plant closing by staging a sit-in and vowing to stay put until assurances they would get severance and accrued vacation pay.

The Big Scam

AIG executives to receive $4 billion in "non-bonuses":

American International Group Inc., the insurer whose bonuses and perks are under fire from U.S. lawmakers, offered cash awards to another 38 executives in a retention program with payments of as much as $4 million.
...
AIG, which received a U.S. rescue package of more than $152 billion, has been criticized for saying it will eliminate bonuses for senior executives while still planning to hand out “cash awards” that double or triple the salaries of some managers.

Even Bush

Isn't stupid enough to insist on the literal truth of the Bible:

US President George W. Bush said in an interview Monday that the Bible is "probably not" literally true and that a belief that God created the world is compatible with the theory of evolution.

Experts

Excluding native peoples would be a foolish mistake:

Chief Bill Erasmus of the Dene nation in northern Canada brought a stark warning about the climate crisis: The once abundant herds of caribou are dwindling, rivers are running lower and the ice is too thin to hunt on.

Erasmus raised his concerns in recent days on the sidelines of a U.N. climate conference, seeking to ensure that North America's indigenous peoples are not left out in the cold when it comes to any global warming negotiations.

Erasmus, the 54-year-old elected leader of 30,000 native Americans in Canada, and representatives of other indigenous peoples met with the U.N.'s top climate official, Yvo de Boer, and have lobbied national delegations to recognize them as an "expert group" that can participate in the talks like other nongovernment organizations.

"We bring our traditional knowledge to the table that other people don't have," he said.

Will Iowa Do the Right Thing?

One can only hope:

The Iowa Supreme Court this week will hear arguments in a case challenging the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.

Pedagogy

You're doing it wrong:

An attempt to make history more interesting turned ugly when a white, seventh grade teacher in White Plains, New York used black students to enliven a discussion about slavery.

The social studies teacher bound the hands and feet of two black girls -- only one of whom volunteered -- and had them crawl under a desk to illustrate the conditions on slave ships.

Security

Strangely, I thought that soldiers provided security for military bases. Silly me:

The U.S. Army is looking to private contractors to provide armed security guards to protect Forward Operating Bases in seven provinces in southern Afghanistan. In a recent study, Anthony H. Cordesman, an intelligence expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, described five of those provinces -- Helmand, Kandahar, Nimruz, Zabol and Uruzgan -- as among the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan.