Lots of good stuff at
Viking Pundit today:
--The story about rich men paying ten grand to shoot naked women with paintballs in Las vegas is apparently
false.
--Ugly moment in Congress when another
anti-voucher Senator had to admit that she sends her children to private school:
But now, at the moment of truth, with a president in the White House who has made clear his eagerness to make such a bill a reality, Sens. Specter and Landrieu upset a critical Appropriations Committee vote by switching from yea to nay. What makes their flip-flop especially nasty is that this move to undercut choice to the overwhelmingly black and Latino students of the district comes from two white senators who each chose private schools for their own children.
Even a child can spot the contradiction. Outside the committee's meeting room last week, nine-year-old Mosiyah Hall, a D.C. public school student himself, politely asked Sen. Landrieu where she sent her own children to school. "Georgetown Day," came the response, a reference to one of Washington's most exclusive private schools. Mosiyah's mother says an obviously agitated Sen. Landrieu then came over to a group of local mothers to explain that a voucher would be no help for them here, because even with the $7,500 voucher this bill offers, they still couldn't afford Georgetown Day.
***
In the intervening years since the Senate last considered--and passed--a D.C. voucher measure, many of the old excuses for opposition are no longer valid. The Supreme Court has upheld their constitutionality. Congress is even allocating new money for this program, so it doesn't take away from the public schools. And this time around too the D.C. voucher bill has strong local support from key figures including the mayor and head of the school board. Even Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), who says she's never voted for a school choice bill in her life, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post saying it's time to try one in D.C.
--And snide remarks can't do justice to
this letter to the editor in the New York Times:
To the Editor:
To my knowledge, Saddam Hussein's sons had not been found guilty of any offense by an international court of law. Their killing by United States troops (front page, July 23) is therefore extrajudicial.
ANDY COX
San Francisco, July 23, 2003
