the tindog coffeehouse

According to Texas governor Rick Perry, Kay Bailey Hutchison’s decision to not resign from the Senate was his idea:

“If there was ever a time to have full-time representation in the United States Senate, it would be right now,” Perry said during a visit to Emmett J. Conrad High School in Dallas. “So I really appreciate her taking my advice and staying on the job full time.”

Never mind that Hutchison has been decisively indecisive throughout the campaign and has seemed determined to hedge her bets as long as possible. I guess she just needed some helpful guidance from Governor Rick.

Also Perry’s idea?

• The Interstate Highway system (followed later by the invention of toll roads)
• Sliced bread
• Penicillin
• The Roman aqueducts
• Rocky IV
• Cherry Garcia ice cream
• Mega-strength hairspray

I’m pretty sure he also single-handedly planted thousands of acres of apples throughout the upper Midwest in the early 1800s and once had a giant blue ox named Babe.

Previously:
When will Kay Bailey Hutchison resign?
Race for Texas governor on …sorta
Why are the Internets turning on Kay Bailey Hutchison?

Tons of books made from dead trees (probably from the rain forests!) and multiple energy-sucking monitors. Al Gore’s office is killing the earth.

Apparently, education is a popular topic this week. Yesterday, I mentioned the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act being debated in the U.S. House, which would give the Department of Education the authority to “develop” and “disseminate” high school curricula.

Today, the Texas State Board of Education begins debating social studies curriculum standards that would affect history, government, and economics classes in public schools for the next 10 years. And naturally, the debate isn’t without controversy.

One of the biggest questions is how much emphasis should be placed on the role of Christianity in history books. Critics argue that the Board is showing a clear Christian bias, including appointing conservative Christian experts to review current standards.

Some of the board-appointed reviewers are picking and choosing certain people and events from history to make an argument that America is a Christian nation, said John Fea, a history professor at Messiah College, a Christian school in Grantham, Pa.

“Students are not learning history. They are learning the facts about the past that suit some larger agenda, a cultural and political agenda,” said Fea, who has been following the Texas curriculum process.

“My best advice would be to respect the historians, respect the voice of historians,” said Fea, “and try to keep politics out of the teaching of history.”

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“History is written by the victors.” — Winston Churchill

Now it looks like it might be rewritten by those who won the 2008 election.

The House of Representatives is expected to pass the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (HR-3221), which, in addition to expanding federal grants and other education initiatives, would allow the Department of Education to get in the business of creating high school curricula, something previously not allowed by federal law.

Section 505 of the bill states (emphasis mine):

(a) Open Online Education- From the amount appropriated to carry out this section, the Secretary is authorized to make competitive grants to, or enter into contracts with, institutions of higher education, philanthropic organizations, and other appropriate entities to develop, evaluate, and disseminate freely-available high-quality online training, high school courses, and postsecondary education courses. Entities receiving funds under this subsection shall ensure that electronic and information technology activities meet the access standards established under section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. 794d).

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Back in April, Senators Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe introduced two bills, 773 and 778, which would’ve essentially given the President the unilateral ability to shut down any services on the Internet — even those from the private sector — in the case of a “cybersecurity emergency”. But the bills didn’t stop there. They would’ve also given the Commerce Department “access to all relevant data concerning [critical] networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access.”

As Wired points out, S-773 has been revised significantly since then, removing much of the controversial language and replacing it with more sensible (albeit general) guidelines for dealing with with cyber attacks on the U.S.:

(2) [I]n the event of an immediate threat to strategic national interests involving compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network—
(A) [the President] may declare a cybersecurity emergency; and
(B) may, if the President finds it necessary for the national defense and security, and in coordination with relevant industry sectors, direct the national response to the cyber threat and the timely restoration of the affected critical infrastructure information system or network;
(3) shall, in coordination with various critical infrastructure industry sectors, develop detailed cyber emergency response and restoration plans for each critical infrastructure industry sector;

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