And now Ofonagoro runs an investment firm. Maybe he's the Nigerian I keep getting all those offers of free money from.

I agree, but I think the dissenters had a point. This ruling basically takes away any power of courts to say "*insert alphabet agency here* has gone too far". There isn't any agency anywhere that should be able to expand the scope of their power on their say-so alone.

This Ricochet post is brought to you by the Psychic Friends Network.

I had very few bad teachers... bad in the mentally scarring Another Brick In The Wall sense... but I did have quite a few nice teachers that were in over their heads, and coaches were usually at the center of this. Most were friendly, sweet people that had absolutely no background in the classes they were assigned. They were usually coaches assigned to teach geography classes, history classes, etc. I knew more about the subject... even as a teenager... than they did at the time. They did the best they could, but their backgrounds were athletics, so preparing for class usually meant reading the chapter before we did, and then doing their best to lead a class discussion on it. It would be a bit like me being assigned to teach a class on crochet, and being told "just do your best". I knew a music teacher that had a computer science class tossed in his lap. His classes consisted of letting kids surf the web.

This is part of the larger problem of the Cult of Expertise. Expertise is a fine thing and necessary, but we've made a fetish of it, and ignore the shortcomings. Experts are still human, after all, with all of humanity's imperfections, including motive, judgement, etc.

Note to the UK: get out. Get out while you can, and do whatever you have to do to make it happen. If that means David Cameron's head on Traitor's Gate, so be it.  Do it before you're assimilated, Borg-style, into some faceless Brussels superstate.

Education majors tend to have among the lowest ACT/SAT scores. "Those who can't, teach" is a pretty old expression, so this may have been the reality for quite some time. I think the Education major should be abolished for high school teachers anyway. HS teachers should have a degree in the field they're teaching in... math, science, business, etc... with a minor that addresses teacher training.

I don't know if she was bad... let's face it, I was in the 4th grade, and could have skewed memories. But I have a vivid memory of finding a silver penny once (silver colored, I mean), and when I mentioned it in class, I was dismissed as mistaken or fibbing. "There aren't any silver pennies. Pennies are copper". When I insisted... even getting a little angry (hey, I saw what I saw), she rushed over and grabbed me in front of the line of students in the hallway and angrily scolded me for "talking back to her". Years later, I found out that in 1974, the US Mint had indeed coined a silver penny... made from aluminum... for one year only. So, I wasn't seeing things. That was my "There... are... FOUR lights!" experience with teachers. To this day, nothing pisses me off quite like someone arrogantly insisting that I couldn't have seen something I've seen with my own eyes.

You know, my Christology right now is more or less trending Arian. If anyone should have a reason to rip Catholicism, it should be me. And yet I tell you that despite my differences with Catholicism on doctrine, it's been a huge force of good in the world. Even if you're an atheist, you have to recognize what a civilizing force it's been. Which is why I don't get some of the Daily Kos-caliber Catholic bashing we see here frequently.

Uh, I say God was a Utopian, not Christians. Christians believe in a flawed world, and a Utopian next-world.   When Christians HAVE tried Utopia, it's ended badly. See: early Puritan settlements in North America.

We're going to just have to agree to disagree on human nature. 

I see I'm not the only one that thought Axelrod handed conservatism a massive baseball bat to beat liberalism with, Capone-style. In one fell swoop, he just confirmed all of the conservative movements' arguments against big government and massive bureaucracy. I don't think Ronald Reagan could have made the argument for us any more effectively. This was akin to Brezhnev saying on TV "You can't blame me for the food shortages. Communism just isn't very good at making surpluses . And ironically, Axe handed us this weapon in the defense of his boss ... he that seeks to grow government like Red Tide on a polluted beach. We should run that Axelrod clip in every single GOP election for the next two cycles. "Even the liberals admit that government has grown out of control".

I want Mary Ann's brain in Ginger's body. There's nothing in the world like a redhead with the complete package.

I think more than ever, this is evidence of two Americas, one right, that values the Founding ideals... real Americans, in other words... and one left, a sector both revolutionary and vapid, that wants to bring down the tyrannical white patriarchy and effect real change so long as they can have the latest iPhone and won't have to miss The Walking Dead.

The situation is one of numbers, and what makes Black Prince right on this is that they are outnumbering us. And if amnesty passes... whoa boy. Prepare for the flood. The current IRS scandals will be mild compared to the mad abuses of power that will come with 30 million more Democrats weighing the scales.

I've come to the point where I don't believe in Godwin's Law either. I just don't think we should throw out Nazi analogies lightly. But if the argument can effectively use a reference to Der Fuhrer, then so be it, Godwin be damned.

God isn't a Socialist. God is a Utopian. But he's unique in that He's the only one that can actually make Utopia happen. We just screw it up down here. 

Is that another way of saying "Will he get Derb'd?"