Bad News and Good News

Bad News:

Well, I was planning on posting a few things on my blog during yesterdays late night/early morning study session, but I never got around to it. At least I did well on my tests though, I'm just about done with all my finals so I can really start working on this site. I guess the news isn't that bad.

Good News:

I recieved a call from the Crist campaign yesterday morning. About a month ago I had contacted all four gubernatorial candidates to check for interest in running a debate between the Republican candidate and the Democratic candidate for governor. I've seen interest from all of the candidates, but the Crist campaign was actually the first to call and ask for more information. The plan is to run the debate on Florida International Universities south campus and hopefully get students interested in politics a little bit more. Right now the only problem in running the event is the fact that there is no College Republican club on campus. There is no one for the College Democrats to sponsor it with. I've e-mailed the President of the University and various departments to see if they can sponsor the event instead, but I'm still waiting for a response.

It's actually kind of sad, when I was looking for people to join FIU's College Democrats I contacted the Political Science Department. One of the professors in the department told me this: "Alot of Political Science majors here aren't even interested in politics. They're just using it as a stepping stone for law school"

Finals Kind of Suck

Yup! It looks like I'm going to have to pull another all nighter today to fully prep for my next exam tommorow. I'll be using break periods throughout the night/morning to add some posts on the blog though. It gives me time to relax and not think about school. This post not counting of course.

I figure that once finals finish I can use the extra time during the summer to fix up the page and to start adding links. Eventually I'm going to design a banner too. That way the site could be a little bit more appealing. The template is already getting old.

Anyways, I better head back to studying.

Remember to wear BLUE!

If you're a parent heading to drop your child off at school then you're probably going to be in for a suprise. There is a flu going around that is causing teachers to rid themselves of their normal garbs for a more stylish blue. They're calling it the "Blue Flu" and basically it is a protest against the legislature for doing such a horrible job with the school system.

The main parts of the protest focus on the legislatures failure to lower class sizes, tying of teacher wages to the F-Cat (Which has yet to be implemented and will most likely have to wait until the next legislative session due to the current telephone company debate occuring right now), and the way the legislature is forcing testing down the school systems throat.

So remember everyone! Wear your blue!

Blue Day = Wednesday April 26, 2006

Moussaoui Trial

9/11 jurors face complex life or death decisions

This is the title to the article revolving around the Moussaoui trial on CNN today. Is it really that complex of a decision though? Obviously capital punishment is no way to deal with religious zealots. If we kill Moussaoui we're just going to turn him into a martyr, if we place him behind bars he's going to cause much less damage than if he was alive. We would just be adding fuel to the fire. Nonetheless, the jury has yet to decide on the fate of Moussaoui, but you can be sure that there will be an article in the news for every day there is no verdict.

Also, If you haven't had the chance to pick up a book lately I suggest reading "Why Terrorism Works" by Alan Dershowitz. He gives great insight on ways we should be fighting terrorism and why it has been so succesful as of late. It's a good read.

Thanks Alot!

Thanks for all of your support everyone! And special thanks to Mustang Bobby at BarkBarkWooofWoof and Derek Newton at Fla Politics for linking me. I appreciate it :-)

Governor Bush's C- Plan

Well Governor Bush is at it again with his new "A++" plan. While the l plan has a few bits of intelligence sprinkled in it it still remains slightly out of tune to the real world. Some of the reforms it calls for are wonderful, such as having children take seven years of mathematics throughout middle and high school, making all schools have at least one High School course taught in middle school, and giving money to schools to improve reading scores. There are some things however that are a little bit...childish.


[quote]
Ø Offering students the opportunity to graduate with a major or minor area of study - just as college students do - in the arts, advanced studies or career preparation, after completing a rigorous core curriculum.

Ø Revising Florida's high school diploma to recognize student performance through "Differentiated Levels of Proficiency" in specific content areas. Students meeting higher standards in honors courses, such as Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs, deserve special recognition. The high school diploma should reflect these accomplishments.

Ø $12 million for middle school and high school reform, incentivizing the development of special learning communities and career academies, assisting in the revision and upgrade in sunshine standards and providing training to school districts on new technology.
[/quote]

While having a student pick a major might sound good, it probably isn't going to work very well. More than 60% of college students change their major sometime before they graduate. I've already done it twice. Having a High School student do something similar is just going to cause problems, and it isn't going to make them seem any more appealing to a college recruiter.

...And while rewarding students is nice its just a waste of good legislation paper and possibly a waste of money as faculty decide which special diploma goes where. Students who are apart of an IB program get their reward in the form of an Associates degree when they graduate or even in their High School transcripts which have a list of all the classes they took with their grades.

The worst part of it however is the funding. $12 million dollars isn't going to be nearly enough money to fund these progams. It calls for new teaching jobs, creation of career academies, and training programs for the school board. We have to be willing to spend a little bit more money on our schools than that. After all better schools means better jobs in the long run.

These programs are going to sink in areas with high poverty levels. Then again, maybe the governor doesen't care about those places...

Introductions

Hello everyone, welcome to the Nesting Grounds! This is my first blog post on my first blog so any comments would be greatly appreciated. I'm going to try to keep this site tuned to a political station as best I can, and I'll be posting probably about every other day at the very least. I'm a college student so I want to make sure I kinda keep up with my school work. Here's a little bit about myself:

I'm a resident of the state of Florida and a student at Florida International University. I'm a recently converted democrat and I consider myself a politial moderate. I am an economics and political science major and my future goal is to run for public office. I'll be using the blog mostly for testing ideas and expanding on my beliefs, by bouncing them off other. So any comments would be great and I hope you all enjoy.