Our illegal population has grown about 2600% in the last 15 years. Best estimate 2007. We are now building 10,000 school seats per year, every year. Our tax valuation went up 70% at the beginning of the year. And the schools still can't keep up. And mind you, the legitimate residency growth is more than 8%/year every year. That's 8% more property tax paying homeowners every year.

If someone would like to suggest a solution to that that doesn't bankrupt me I'd like to hear it. If someone has a solution to the problem of some classes having 70% ESL I'd like to hear that too. If someone has a solution to the 50% non graduation rate, ditto.

Private schools, and by that I mean non religious private schools are, if you can get a slot, $15,000-$17,000 per year.

Right on to a Joshua Tree.

Since you have to be literally destitute to qualify for a Pell grant nowadays. In other words the population of people who are both homeless and wanting to attend private school is probably small, Hollywood feel good Pursuit of Happyness movies notwithstanding.

Cubans Bad

Jews Bad

Farmers Bad

Lesbians Good

War Veterans Good

Blacks Good

and so on, just so we know what we're supposed to support and hate, correspondingly. Because as far I can tell, we still have a country of thousands of tiny focus groups and special interests that haven't been outlawed yet. I'm waiting for the Salon firefight over all the old people in FLA now.

Bush used 'empower' about 20x. This is the shortform for "sucks to be you out there out of the lifeboat."

There is not a single NCAA baseball or MLB scout who will look at any high school player who is less than 6'2" 215lbs give or take. Period. End of story. It does not matter what that player can do or is capable of.

Let's put that in perspective. If Mariano Rivera were an American high school athlete today, he'd have a hard time getting serious consideration from a scout.

So given that all players have to be in the upper limits of physical size and strength just to get an audience, it's inevitable that the talent pool is going to be thin. One remedy would be to shrink the size of the player pool by about 30% or more. Eliminate about a quarter of the teams outright and shrink the rosters of the remaining teams. Same thing for D-1. Just scratch a quarter or more of the D-1 teams.

I am 100% positive that college football is the same. In the 'premier' high school programs, there are guys who can't start, can't START, unless they're 270lbs. How many high schoolers you know are 270lbs and can run a 5.0 40?

I'm not sure owners, television or the fans would tolerate that kind of constriction. So I think the 'fans' have a clear choice - be ready to say goodbye to your favorite teams or be ready to tolerate what you see now.

It's the semi fictional account of a 'secret' military hospital in Greenland where soldiers too grievously wounded in the Korean War, to ever return to the US, are kept. Something to think about.

Will that be adequate reparations? I'm wondering this because no one seems to notice that they had to blow up a wall between Gaza and Egypt. As if, let me think....oh yes, the Egyptians didn't want them.

Clearly the Jews are to blame for the Egyptians building a wall between Egypt and Gaza. Clearly the Jews are to blame for Gaza and Egypt having no trade relations and not even a treaty between them similar to that Egypt and Israel have. Clearly the Jews are to blame for firing up & running the power plants in Ashkelon that provide 75% of the electricity for Gaza, for free, often under fire from the 2000 rockets fired into Israel in the last 12 months. Clearly the Jews are to blame for another 5% of the electricity that Egypt provides. Those dastardly Jews.

Did you know for instance Gary that it's Hamas who turned away 65 truckloads of supplies from Israel to Gaza in November 07 because they didn't want to be beholden to the evil Jew menace? Well if you're a journalist like you claim you are, you do. I don't expect the deluded hippies who read Salon to know that because they get their 'news' from you, they're too lazy to do your job for you. Just one example. Another example, one reported in that neocon rag the BBC (wait that can't be right...?!??!?) that last weeks' 'vigils' held by Hamas by candlelight were held in broad daylight, indoors. The Beeb noted "even a few journalists noticed this was odd". Those damn dirty Jews and their control of all media, like the BBC....?!?!?!

Gary, I really wouldn't care either way, but let's not pretend you and Salon are a 'news' organ. That you print, understand or even care about facts or reality. You don't. And that's fine, just tell your readership that what you print is Op-Ed Propaganda and not truth, or reality, or measured or researched or accurate. Just admit it's your personal pulled out of your ass opinions in between long paens about camping in the Sierra Madres or wherever and come clean. Don't you own your profession at least that much?

Great speeches are great not because of what they say, but because of why they DO.

At the end of the day, Mayor 911 with his 3 marriages and tawdry life and his antagonism and personal attacks on Bratton and everyone else means little. What is important is that he says nothing that resonates with anyone. It's not good or bad it's just blank.

Like being Mexican or Black or blind or a midget or in a wheelchair or (in some states) Gay. That way you automatically get chucked in the affirmative action pile and no one need debate or worry about it any longer.