Vergil’s Coffee

Student Suspended Over IM Icon

Chris Reimer writes “C|Net News.com is reporting that a 15-year-old student lost a lawsuit over having an instant messenger icon that represented a death threat against an English teacher on his personal computer that another student reported to school authorities. From the article: ‘His parents sued, claiming that the icon was protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech, that the school district failed to train staff in proper threat assessment and that the school board violated state law in not following proper procedures. [The judge] Mordue rejected the free-speech claims.’”

Blogged with Flock

New York Times Unofficially Accused of “Treason”

George Bush and Dick Cheney are calling The New York Times a disgrace. Republican congressmen say it is guilty of treason and demand the prosecution of the Editor, while a right-wing radio presenter suggests most of its readers must be “jihadists”.

A Weak Reed

Why Christian conservatives are souring on the GOP.

Interesting article from Slate about Christian Nationalism:

Cracks in the Christian Ascendancy

Why it’s too soon to panic about an American theocracy.

Huge Asteroid to Fly Past Earth on July 3

An asteroid possibly as large as a half-mile or more in diameter is rapidly approaching the Earth. It’s not gonna crash into us, but the space rock will make an exceptionally close approach to our planet early on Monday, July 3, passing just beyond the Moon’s average distance from Earth

technorati tags:digg, asteriod

F FOR ASSESSMENT
By W. James Popham

For the last four decades, students’ scores on standardized tests have increasingly been regarded as the most meaningful evidence for evaluating U.S. schools. Most Americans, indeed, believe students’ standardized test performances are the only legitimate indicator of a school’s instructional effectiveness. Yet, although test-based evaluations of schools seem to occur almost as often as fire drills, in most instances these evaluations are inaccurate. That’s because the standardized tests employed are flat-out wrong.

F FOR ASSESSMENT

technorati tags:nclb, assessment

From my local paper:

Sunset will arrive tonight later than it has in decades due to Indiana’s change to daylight-saving time. The extra hour of light brought by daylight-saving time means the sun rose at 6:09 a.m. today and will set at 9:22 p.m., making today the longest day of the year.

The Goshen News

And, in case you haven't been up on the controversy, here's a light-hearted look at the change.

Blogged with Flock

This morning’s run was 3 miles and I listened to Train again (I know, I need to put something else on the iPod). Though only 70 degrees f, the humidity was @ 90%…cool running, eh?

Tomorrow will begin one of my big summer of 06 goals: cleaning out the pool house (or shack) and the car port. Lots of cement, weedery and junk that just plain needs to go bye-bye now.

Linux Forums: Word to Writer

However, switching from Word to OpenOffice Writer can be almost as difficult as switching from Windows to Linux…

technorati tags:opensource