HistoryPin

One of the more interesting new websites (HistoryPin) is a mashable application that allows individuals to add photographs of specific locations to that specific location.

The result is a set of photos that show a multiplicity of historical snapshots of a single place so that one can compare and contrast that place over time.

We Not Only Lost the Race...

Connecticut's legislators sold out whatever shreds of integrity were left in the education system to -cough- compete for Race to the Top extortion money dollars. Our legislature licked the heels of Obama and Duncan and didn't even get a tip.

They convinced school boards across the state that they'd split the money up if everyone just shut up and played along. Having done the math, I knew and published what a load of malarkey that was. It was probably a key as to why Connecticut "lost" funding. The reason of course is that the state would have to live up to its deal and distribute the money.

Trouble is that the money is political funny money that is being directed at certain insiders but being laundered through the states to make it look like its going to, well, the other usual education crooks.

So the Feds instead did a back-door deal with CT funneling millions into the state in a side transaction that went unreported. That money has no strings attached.

Here's what the Courant reported;

Educators and legislators predicted that the state's failure to win a penny in the $3.4 billion Race to the Top education funding competition could delay some of the landmark educational reforms that the state legislature passed this spring.

Legislators and education leaders were uniformly disappointed to learn that Connecticut — for the second time — did not place among the 19 finalists announced Tuesday for federal school reform money.

The state had asked for $175 million, and is now worried that plans that include instituting a new high school curriculum and building a data system to track student achievement by grade will have to be postponed.

"It's obvious if the economy doesn't turn around and we continue to have dire fiscal straits in Connecticut, we will have to push back various reforms," said State Rep. Andrew Fleischmann, D-West Hartford, co-chairman of the legislature's education committee.

"We're going to have to find the dollars to implement this. We cannot create some kind of unfunded mandate for cities and towns that are already strapped."

Well, instead of feeling good that we dodged this steaming pile of education reform, all the knee-jerk idiots who passed L.E.G.I.S.L.A.T.I.O.N. that now encodes this stuff into CT law are wringing their hands about the inevitable TAX INCREASES this will bring and pretending that they "can't create some kind of unfunded mandate".

THEY ALREADY DID! Idiots! Our Bryan Hurlbert crowed in a recent mailing that he voted for money for education data collection. GEE. THANKS. I guess you never received the memo telling you to vote no because its a bait and switch scheme. We could use leadership with a backbone, not doormats for bad Obama policy.

Repeal these laws NOW.