Now that Congressional Democrats and Republicans have given away 300 semi-trucks full of $100 bills, $700,000,000,000 to the same speculators who caused the on-going financial meltdown, we might as well ask ourselves what the same amount of money could have bought for the rest of us.

The average cost of construction for a high school is about $25,000 per student.

(There's a brief summary at http://blog.news-record.com/staff/chalkb oard/archives/2007/10/tricky_numbers.sht ml and infinite details at http://www.wakegov.com/NR/rdonlyres/614D 9A8E-42FB-424F-AFEA-73E604598279/0/const ructioncostanalysisfinalpresentation.pdf )

So it's probably fair to say that you can build a beautiful high school for twice that amount... a high school with a couple of Olympic pools, huge classrooms, and high-tech goodies galore.

For $50,000 per student, a beautiful high school for 1000 students will cost $50,000,000.

1000 of these beautiful high schools will cost $50,000,000,000, and by the time you spend $700,000,000,000, you will have built...

14,000 beautiful high schools, with 14,000,000 students enrolled in them.

(cross posted at kickin it with cg)

Last week the government owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) pulled the column "A Mighty Wind Blows Through the Republican Convention" by writer Heather Mallick. Written on September 5, the article in question goes after Sarah Palin and crosses a line that does way beyond political analysis and refers to Palin's supporters as "white trash".

Some of Mallick's more incendiary comments include:

"It's possible that Republican men, sexual inadequates that they are, really believe that women will vote for a woman just because she's a woman."

"Palin has a toned-down version of the porn actress look favoured by this decade's woman, the overtreated hair, puffy lips and permanently alarmed expression. Bristol has what is known in Britain as the look of the teen mum, the "pramface." Husband Todd looks like a roughneck; Track, heading off to Iraq, appears terrified. They claim to be family obsessed while being studiously terrible at parenting. What normal father would want Levi "I'm a fuckin' redneck" Johnson prodding his daughter?"

"I know that I have an attachment to children that verges on the irrational, but why don't the Palins? I'm not the one preaching homespun values but I'd destroy that ratboy before I'd let him get within scenting range of my daughter again, and so would you. Palin's e-mails about the brother-in-law she tried to get fired as a state trooper are fizzing with rage and revenge. Turn your guns on Levi, ma'am."

On September 28, CBC publisher John Cruickshank issued an apology stating "we erred in our judgment".

More than 300 people have taken the trouble this month to complain to the CBC ombudsman about a column we ran on CBCNews.ca about Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Sept. 5.

The column, by award-winning freelance writer Heather Mallick, was also pilloried by The National Post in Canada and by Fox News in the U.S. Despite its age -- it is three weeks old, several lifetimes in web years -- this posting remains a subject of fascination in the blogosphere.

Vince Carlin, the CBC ombudsman, has now issued his assessment of the Mallick column. He doesn't fault her for riling readers by either the caustic nature of her tone or the polarizing nature of her opinion.

But he objects that many of her most savage assertions lack a basis in fact. And he is certainly correct.

Mallick's column is a classic piece of political invective. It is viciously personal, grossly hyperbolic and intensely partisan.

And because it is all those things, this column should not have appeared on the CBCNews.ca site.

After Mallick's column began to garner attention both online and on Fox News, Greta Van Susteren, the host of "On the Record," condemned the column as "beyond vicious" and during the segment repeatedly referred to Mallick as "a pig."  

I guess hate begets hate...  On a brighter note, CBC included a journalistic pledge in its report that is promising.

We failed you in this case. And as a result we have put new editing procedures in place to insure that in the future, work that is not appropriate for our platforms, will not appear. We are open to contentious reasoned argument but not to partisan attack. It's a fine line. Ombudsman Carlin makes another significant observation in his response to complainants: when it does choose to print opinion, CBCNews.ca displays a very narrow range on its pages.

In this, Carlin is also correct. This, too, is being immediately addressed. CBCNews.ca will soon expand the diversity of voices and opinions and be home to a diverse group of writers with many perspectives. In this, we will better reflect the depth and texture of this country. We erred in our editorial judgment. You told us in no uncertain terms. And we have learned from it.

No wonder I have been spending less time online.

The polling is really astonishing in recent days.  Support for Prop. 8 has gone from a fifteen point deficit to a five point lead in a month.  Supporters have vastly outraised and outspent the No side.

All I've seen is the ad Mocking SF Mayor Newsome and the California Supreme Court.  It's really quite effective.  And
the Mormons have really organized; this could even reduce Obama's
margin in the state.

But I think there are also some other considerations:

According to the transcript, mentions of "middle class"

Obama: 4
McCain: ZERO

(That's a repeat from the first debate.)

John McCain has now gone through both debates without mentioning the middle class!

www.drudgereport.com

only about 20 have voted so far.

Sorry for the short diary

Icecrown and the Frozen Throne

Kil'jaeden cast Ner'zhul's icy cask back into the world of Azeroth. The hardened crystal streaked across the night sky and smashed into the desolate arctic continent of Northrend, burying itself deep within the Icecrown glacier. The frozen crystal, warped and scarred by its violent descent, came to resemble a throne, and Ner'zhul's vengeful spirit soon stirred within it. wow gold

From the confines of the Frozen Throne, Ner'zhul began to reach out his vast consciousness and touch the minds of Northrend's native inhabitants. With little effort, he enslaved the minds of many indigenous creatures, including ice trolls and fierce wendigo, and he drew their evil brethren into his growing shadow. His psychic powers proved to be almost limitless, and he used them to create a small army that he housed within Icecrown's twisting labyrinths. As the Lich King mastered his growing abilities under the dreadlords' persistent vigil, he discovered a remote human settlement on the fringe of the vast Dragonblight. On a whim, Ner'zhul decided to test his powers on the unsuspecting humans. wow power leveling

Ner'zhul cast a plague of undeath - which had originated from deep within the Frozen Throne, out into the arctic wasteland. Controlling the plague with his will alone, he drove it straight into the human village. Within three days, everyone in the settlement was dead, but shortly thereafter, the dead villagers began to rise as zombified corpses. Ner'zhul could feel their individual spirits and thoughts as if they were his own. The raging cacophony in his mind caused Ner'zhul to grow even more powerful, as if their spirits provided him with much-needed nourishment. He found it was child's play to control the zombies' actions and steer them to whatever end he wished. World of warcraft Gold

Over the following months, Ner'zhul continued to experiment with his plague of undeath by subjugating every human inhabitant of Northrend. With his army of undead growing daily, he knew that the time for his true test was nearing. buy wow gold                    warhammer gold        
warhammer gold

Ohio again will be the key swing state in this election - and the Ohio Democratic Party and Obama for Ohio are working day and night to turn this state blue. The key issue in Ohio is the economy. Ohio has been devastated by the last eight years of failed Republican policy. The effects of these GOP failures are highlighted in our newly release radio and TV ads.

The Ohio Democratic Party will release a series of five radio ads tomorrow morning throughout Ohio entitled "Not Numbers." The new series of radio ads will highlight the economic devastation left in the wake of the 1,087 factories and companies in Ohio that shut down or had mass layoffs under George W. Bush, costing more than 180,000 Ohio jobs. John McCain describes these years as a time of "great progress" for the economy.

In a moment of drama usually reserved for US court rooms, Mr Waxman showed off pictures of the grand staircase, sparkling fountain and white columns at the St Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, California. AIG executives had - according to the congressmen - convened there for a week-long retreat just one week after the US Treasury saved it from certain failure with an $85bn (€62bn, £48bn) bail-out. Bills showed the fallen insurer - and, some argued, US taxpayers - had paid nearly $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and $23,000 in spa charges.

Bailout is sure helping the economy...NOT!