Required NCLB Reading and Other Communist Manifestos

Just in case you aren't an elitist, pro-intellectual, left-wing commie, and don't go to the New York Times first thing every morning, the Old Gray Lady's story today on the vagaries and variations of standardized testing in various states is absolute required reading.

And, just in case you aren't a card-carrying communist, pinko, intellectual, elitist, and don't already know it, the NYT site is also "RR", registration required. Probably so elitist, neo-Maoists can report your personal data to Echelon or Leon Trotsky or somebody just like him.

And as further proof of its elitist, Communist International flag-waving, un-American status, the NYT's Paul Krugman just won the Nobel Prize in Economics, an award that used to be won by Milton Friedman free market uber-alles capitalist types, but those days appear to be long past.

Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced late last Friday afternoon that the U.S. was beginning to take equity ownership of many U.S. banks. Despite sounding exactly like Socialism (taking over the "means of production" and all that), please do not construe U.S. Government ownership of Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, IndyMac Bank, etc., etc., etc., as anything other than laissez-faire capitalism at work. I mean, this is the Bush Administration we're talking about, not the Lenin Administration.

P.S.: I quite obviously digress for cheap economic humor effect. I apologize. And isn't the phrase "cheap economic humor effect" chock full of oxymorons? Anyway, the coffee and brain cells responsible for this digression have been sacked. Forget all about the "Socialism", and just read the New York Times article. It's really good.

P.P.S.: I got an Albuquerque Federation of Teachers Ellen Bernstein robo-call this past weekend announcing (I think, I wasn't really listening that well) some sort of meeting with various slam-dunk winning Democratic candidates (i.e., Tom Udall) on the subject of how to get rid of No Child Left Behind. I went to the AFT website for more info. That website is, uh, not very good. I'd love to hear more about it, if anyone was listening to the robo-call any better than I was.