I skipped my brother's wedding to go to the 1980 Georgia-Florida game (Run, Lindsay, run!). They'll get over it.

Getting lonely?

Inside every silver lining, there's a dark cloud. You keep me on a steady keel; here I was thinking of going into politics. Thanks.

The boy must take after his mother.

Randy Barnett wrote in an article in the Tennessee Law Review that (in the context of advocating the repeal of the 16th and 17th Amendments):

"[T]he post-New Deal judiciary disagrees only on whether other unenumerated rights may also receive protection and, if so, which ones. But whatever few additional "fundamental" rights may be recognized, they do not include the protection of any so-called "economic liberty" that might inhibit the national regime of economic regulation...

[T]the courts allow Congress to exercise unchecked power over the national economy and everything that may affect it, limited only by the express guarantees of the Bill of Rights.... The original scheme of islands of federal powers in a sea of liberty has been transformed into a regime of islands of rights in a vast sea of national power."

Federalist 84 argued against a Bill of Rights, saying that:

"They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted... [I]t is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power."

Our liberty hangs on a slender thread.

It's obvious that Dick Vitale didn't draft this bracket; Duke is nowhere to be seen.

How did you respond to a comment that's below your response?

Can I quote you?

About a month ago I told my wife that if the Dems don't take the House and hold the Senate in 2014, Obama is going to find a reason to resign the Presidency. She looked at me as if I had a cyclopian eye in the middle of my forehead (she often looks at me that way). But with everything that's happening now, I'm more convinced than ever that I'm right.

"Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it." - Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 4

Question: In the lesson plan video, was the aim one of teaching the text within the context of the time and circumstance under which it was written, or to merely examine the "4 corners" of the document in order to learn how to divine meaning from the document itself? If it's the latter, it seems that they're engaging in mere puffery by using "foundational texts" for a much more pedestrian, though nonetheless important, purpose.

There's the little issue of it being the responsibility of the states and local school boards to control education, not the federal government. There's the little issue of teaching to the test, which means that schools will have to revamp their curricula to conform to the standards. There's the little issue of data collection that is part and parcel of the program, and the fact that rules have recently been re-written so that parents don't have to be informed. You're either not a parent or your being terribly naive if you don't think these things are a big deal.

Stu doesn't deserve you.

The National Governors' Association is a private lobbying group.

Read the white paper, then come back. I'm not saying this to diss you, but there are too many things about this program that we don't know about.

Joan:  I'll see your soup and raise you a dessert. Inspired by a dessert I recently enjoyed at the City Grocery in Oxford, Mississippi, I just downloaded a recipe for a vanilla bean chevre cheesecake with red wine poached cherries. 

The Gates Foundation is a major underwriter of the project:

"Because NGA (National Governors' Association) and CCSSO (Council of Chief State School Officers) led its creation, the Common Core State Standards Initiative claims that it is a state-led effort, implying that it had legislative grants of authority from individual states. In fact, through 2008, the Common Core Initiative was a plan of private groups being implemented through trade associations, albeit trade associations that had “official”-sounding names. Since 2007, NGA, CCSSO, and Achieve11 accepted more than $27 million from the Gates Foundation alone to advance the Standards and the connected data-collection and assessments."