Proposed Hurricane Names Honoring the Bush Administration

These are great…

From the Daily Kos:

Cheers and Jeers: Tuesday

by Bill in Portland Maine

Tue May 27, 2008 at 05:39:22 AM PDT

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…

Hurricane season starts in five days. If the Grand Committee of Meterological Poobahs hasn’t come up with their list of names yet, may I suggest the following as a way of commemorating the greatest hits of the Bush administration in this, its final year:

Ashcroft
Brownie
Condi
Dick
Enron
Feith
Gonzales
Hughes
Iraq
Jack Abramoff
KBR
Lieberman
Matalin
Negroponte
Osama
Perle
Quagmire
Rummy
Scooter
Turdblossom
Uranium from Africa
Viceroy Bremer
Wolfowitz
Xenophobe
Yoo
Zell

On second thought, that would really be unfair. To the hurricanes.

 

Texas Awaits TAKS Results

Students across the state were tested in reading, math, writing, social studies, science at the end of April and first part of May. Tomorrow statewide results of Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) testing should be released.

The controversial exit-level test will be phased out during the next few years under a law signed last year. The TAKS will be replaced with 12 end-of-course exams throughout high school takes effect in 2011-12, but only for the ninth-grade class. Students in the upper-level grades will continue to take the high-stakes exit-level TAKS test until the class of 2015 enters 12th grade.

Districts could also use the TAKS as a final exam.

How crucial are these tests for students? At least 100 high school seniors in Galveston County failed the TAKS and will not graduate this year. While state law prohibits high school seniors from receiving a degree if any part of the exam is failed, it is up to school district administrators to allow students to walk on commencement day. Students are allowed to retake the exam at a later date.

There have been past allegations of death threats and injury to teachers and administrators if students in their schools do not pass the test. Additionally, there has been ongoing controversy surrounding teacher bonuses that are shaped around TAKS results.

The Houston Independent School District (HISD) wants accountability to move away from minimum standards and towards measuring growth, which is the basis for the teacher bonus system.

For now, as long as any type of testing and exit exams are in place, the controversy will remain.

 

 

Scott McClellan: Outing the Bush Administration

Some harsh criticisms and allegations were brought to light Tuesday as an ex-spokesman for President Bush releases a new book.

Scott McClellan’s What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception details his time as White House Press Secrerary and gives a crushing negative perspective about the president’s handling of the administration. According to the Politico, who was the first to break the story yesterday:

• McClellan charges that Bush relied on “propaganda” to sell the war.

• He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.

• He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be “badly misguided.” 

• The longtime Bush loyalist also suggests that two top aides held a secret West Wing meeting to get their story straight about the CIA leak case at a time when federal prosecutors were after them — and McClellan was continuing to defend them despite mounting evidence they had not given him all the facts.

• McClellan asserts that the aides — Karl Rove, the president’s senior adviser, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff — “had at best misled” him about their role in the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.

Karl Rove and the White House has disputed McClellan’s book. McClellan also describes the involvement of others such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, and Bush’s Texas “connections.”

Read the story from the New York Times here (free registration may be required).