Digg is open, folks.

Thank you for this post. During the Boosh reign of terror, I learned to check BBC for real news concerning the US. Plus FDL, of course!

Mr. Votus says that if you’re going to be a fascist-corporatist dictator, you can’t be lazy. Napoleon and Hitler worked 20 hours a day–Boosh spent most of his time on vacation.

My response is imagine how much worse things would be if he hadn’t spent so much time on vacation.

Yep – that was one of the points of the Arab newspaper – that Bush could have done twice as much damage..or done it twice as fast – if he’d actually been at work instead of on vacation.

The one part I missed under Language Arts is that George’s literacy level has remained at My Pet Goat.

I have the sneaking suspicion that the barnacles encouraged vacation time so they could throw monkey wrenches into the machinery of Democracy that even the Post Turtle wouldn’t notice. Whatever. He’ll be gone and we’ll pitch in
wherever and however we can to clean up the mess.

That said- in the spirit of the day- I’m feeling hopeful and inspired by one
TobyWollin, am cooking up a storm. From scratch! As soon as it’s all in the crock pot, it’s off to the Farmer’s Market.

Thank you, TW. You really are an inspiration.

“History will vindicate my memory”~ Former President James Buchanan

Viewed by historians as the worst President [not including Bush] in American history, Buchanan pandered to Southern and monied interests, declared a war on religious grounds against the Mormons in Utah [asserting they were trying to secede], and then allowed 6 Southern States to break away [and declared that THEY had the right to secede]. He apparently bribed the deciding judge in the Dred Scot case to rule for plantation interests, tried to make Kansas a slave state (despite the vote of the people of Kansas against it).

DEAR GOD NO!!!!!! Don’t hold him back! He can copy my paper.

I don’t know if I want to bring up something so useful as a crockpot with a discussion of America’s Village Idiot ™, but I made beef short ribs in the crockpot yesterday with ginger, soy sauce, a little ketchup and some white wine I found left in the fridge. Yummm-o. Now, back to our regularly scheduled snark-fest…

AWWWWW, and I thought the worst president was Franklin Pierce..who is a relative of ‘She of the gum-ball pearls’ – Barbara (nee Pierce) Bush.

Punkster – don’t encourage him. We can start a betting pool based on how many papers we think the frat boy copied(or got someone else to copy..after all, I’m sure he had the money to do THAT, too)when he was in college and grad school.

My response is imagine how much worse things would be if he hadn’t spent so much time on vacation.

Cheney was doing the work for him. I think we just have to be thankful that bad as things are, they didn’t get any worse, and they surely could have. We’d be at war with Iran and Russia, and the big dick had his druthers. And the internal camps would be running full steam for all us ‘libruls.’

You beat me to it. I was going to say: please don’t make him repeat his term.

Thanks Toby.

You know, all things being considered, I’m fairly sure that George probably felt pretty comfortable with that – that is probably the way he got through college and grad school…getting others to do his work for him..I can imagine the conversation between he and Cheney right from the get-go, “Don’t worry, George..I’ll take care of everything…no one will ever suspect you cheated on the exam…”

Teacher! He hit me!

George W. Bush is the quintessential ‘boy who was passed along’.

Actually, Egreg – given his supposed history with frogs and explosives, I think we can make a pretty clear case that he probably did quite a bit of that at school too…and Poppy and Babs probably got him out of those scrapes too. Probably sent someone over with…something.

No F’s? Strictly speaking, “D” implies at least a modicum of effort and, say, attendance. His truancy record also needs to be considered. How many days of official vacation time does he have and what did he use?

Buchanan was an incompetent poofter, but all things considered, not half as bad as Bush. His big failing was allowing the South to get their hands on the US armories positioned in the seceding states. This was Jefferson Davis’s doing, as he was still Secretary of War. Lincoln’s election made secession and the ensuing war inevitable. Buchanan simply failed to take some elementary measures to contain the damage.

Bush’s failings are higher on a whole of magnitude. He allolwed 911 to happen; he lost two wars; he squandered the surplus and wrecked the budget. He trampled on the Constitution, he directly broke the law by not observing treaties the United States signed and ratified. We don’t know the half of what he did. He is the worst president ever, by a big margin.

Another cliche: failing upward.

Dug Toby and you are way to generous to George my overall assessment of George is he is a total failure. From start to dismal finish he has done nothing for the great majority of Americans if anything he has made their lives far worse off than when he first stole the office of President!
I would give straight E’s (which in my day was anything below 45%)You just have to look at his exit pols 22% that spells complete and utter Failure!

Blub – where I went to school, anyone who showed up and could mist a hand mirror got a D. It took REAL effort to make an F.

LOL Toby, thanks.

F F F F F- F- F-

Heh..we didn’t have E’s, but you are right – he is a complete failure. There is no person on this earth who is not, in some way, shape or form touched or will be touched negatively by what he and Cheney have done over the past 8 years. We will be dealing with the effects of him for years to come. And he knows it – he alluded to it in is ’so long suckers’ speech last week when he talked about Roberts and Allito – he knows what he has done.

Should there be a grade for willingness to take responsibility
19 hrs & 37 min

I hate grade inflation :)

Toby -

Read the article earlier today but your interpretation of it is priceless!

In a no inflation scenario, I respectively submit the following alternative gradint scenario:

Language Arts D (does at least do the homework assignments here, albeit with little understanding of the concepts)
Time Management D- (mostly truant)
Maths: F (no evidence he even bothered to show up to this class)
Interpersonal Skills: F (he’s a bully, and now he’s universally hated… he fails)
Personal Boundaries: F (when boundary issues run across international borders and are resolved through invasions…)

Another great one, Toby!!

Yes ‘forgiving’ works best when the ‘evidence’ of the abject failure’s consequences are not staring everybody in the face, year after year, perhaps into decades of time … ‘forgetting’ ain’t easy under those circumstances.

Bu$hCo’s ‘remains’ will be quite a lasting ‘monument’.

Mt. Rushmore is safe, for a while, at least

The worm wasn’t in the apple… the worm was the student.

Peace: F——-
Cooperation: F—
killing: B+
being an asshole: A+

Chimpy said “I am a uniter, not a divider.” If you cannot divide, you get an “F” in Arithmetic. Also Chimpy gets an “F” in Geography for always mixing up countries, especially Irak and Afghanistan. English? Seriously, Chimpy gets an “F” with extreme prejudice.

Toby, Today this site needed a good laugh and you provided it. Thanks.

OT: I hear through the grapewine that Bushies pardon list includes a pardon for a “Ms Hamsher for being a loud female hippie blogster”.

This good news indeed, can Marcy be on the next list? A question we all want answered.

PS Fuck Bush

Newspapers around the world skewer Bush on eve of departure

On the eve of his departure, newspapers across the world are letting loose in editorials on the man seen as responsible for diminishing America’s standing in the world: President George W. Bush.

Papers in Canada and France say he’s the worst president ever. An outlet in Scotland says Bush drove the world to the brink of economic collapse. A pan-Arabic newspaper penned a headline, “The Joke’s On Us.”

Seems we are in good company Toby(:>))

Personal Boundaries:

And German Prime Ministers who don’t want back rubs!

You do realize that Toby linked directly to the Reuters article that Raw Story is quoting from?

Frank — yes, you are right, as a ‘uniter’ Bush obviously could add – he has no division skills whatsoever. However, he does seem to have the concept of multiplying down extremely well, in that whatever actions he has taken have had multiplier effects in the negative. His global geographic skills are fairly poor – though he does seem to understand symbols such as oil rigs on maps. And I still find it extremely difficult to believe that he has any foreign language skills whatsoever…
He does, though have the ability to turn pages in books and skim – he and Rover Boy had a contest in terms of how many books could be read in a certain period. I assume that George was working for stickers there.

hahahaha…but we’re the ones to give George his report card. :)

He should have rode the small bus to school.

Oh yes, he does have problems there, doesn’t he? (we won’t get into the volley ball team stunt)

My personal favorite was this one:
*************

“Perhaps we could say that fate, which let the American people down first in Florida and then with the issue of the pretzel in the president’s throat, ultimately helped them by making sure the president would spend half his time on vacation,” wrote the paper’s editorial writers. “Indeed, he would have caused twice the damage if he had been more active and focused.”

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/….._0119.html

one can also look at this on a subject-by-subject basis:

Foreign Policy: Not graded*
National Security/War on Terror: D
Iraq: Not graded**
Economy: F
Education: D
Justice/Rule of Law: Not graded*
Health & Welfare: Not graded*
Environment/Climate Change: Not graded*
Government Spending/Fiscal Policy: F
Government Accountability: F

*Grading status in dispute. Student either claims that this subject to does not exist as a legitimate field of inquiry and that he did not in fact enroll in the class.

**Student claims to have taken this class; however, there is no evidence that he was ever placed in the class or that he met any of the prerequisites.

Geography Osama is in Pakistan not Iraq.

Volleyball team?

Frankly, I believe that you must have graded on a curve or else grade creep is totally out of control.

Worst of all, anyone who believed that an Ivy League education has greater value now knows that it is not true!

Yep, with George’s capacity for turning everything to s**t that he touches, he could have been twice as destructive, or twice as fast, if only he’d actually been on the job.

Blub – you forgot this one:
US Constitution: F
Student has no grasp of the importance of the entire Bill of Rights. Cannot move forward.

Ahem, there was an event where he met a ladies volleyball team who asked him to give one of them the ‘traditional’ whack on the rear end. The photo taken frankly looked as if he was giving it serious consideration.

We need a law to prevent special admissions of legacy kids. We cannot afford another rich kid getting a degree he does not earn and then deciding one day to run for President.
I want Bush’s college Professors to defend passing him on tv.

Thank you TobyWollin……. this is priceless…… I still keep wondering where they have that 22% stashed in an undisclosed location and kept like mushrooms….

Some girls have no taste.

I just got through watching an episode of Leave it to Beaver in which Beaver and Larry made a pact that they will always stick up for each other and never snitch on one another. Then Larry told Beaver to give him his homework so he could put his name on it, and Beaver honored his commitment and gave it to him. Beaver got in trouble, but he didn’t rat Larry out. In the end, Larry’s conscience troubled him and he admitted in front of the class what he had done. Bush is like Larry but without the conscience. Nothing but a “big fat ape.”

Only 14 diggs. RIGHT HERE!
14!!!
Digging this feels sooooooooo good and right.
TRY IT.
It’s better than sex!

I want Bush’s college Professors to defend passing him on tv.

Did Bush get a passing grade on tv, Wonder what other courses he took. Sounds like Yale has a very rough curriculum. *g*
18 hrs & 54 min

Dug

And we KNOW he won’t be reading what all those papers are saying, so he still thinks he’s hot stuff!

Where I went to school, people like Bush were referred to as CHIPS as in ‘chip off the old block’ – and everyone knew that basically there was a price tag attached. I never knew if the check got written out and stapled to the application or just got passed, “Deep Throat” like in a darkened parking garage, but the issue is always there. This is a major problem in terms of making education accessible in this country. We have scholarships going to people who do not need them and no money for people who do. We have a situation where higher ed has become basically unaffordable not just for people who are considered ‘poor’ – but for almost everyone else who is not wealthy. The average amount of student loan debt that public college students leave with is in the $20,000 range; for students going to private college, it’s much higher. This is NOT what this country needs. We need to get as many students prepared well at K-12 and then into good quality education programs to produce the people with the skills we need to survive. We are already behind.

Dangerous topic, given the history of the women in the Bush family.

TV that would explain allot.

Well, the difference (and I know this because I knew a bunch of guys like Bush where I went to college) is that Bush would never promise anyone anything. His sense of entitlement would not include that sort of commitment. He’d just expect for someone to give it to him and when that person would not, he’d offer to pay. I saw this too many times to even count.

Bush’s behavior at the China Olympics was a total disgrace…… He didn’t even behave as a guest in a foreign country…… the frat boy flew to China and embarrassed the American people.

IF Obama (which I just cannot even consider) behaved like that the media would be is such a spin they would fly off the earth….. Falling down drunk, patting female Olympic athletes on the butt …… OMG a black man patting white women…..

This wasn’t an F ….. expelled for the rest of the semester…..

So we let CHIPs in because they pay but they don’t pay enough to lower college costs it seems ike the worse of both worlds.
We should fund college better so nobody has a big debt. That and no more CHIPs my Uncle always asks his Dr ok you went to Harvard but where were you in your class ranking?
No Bush league Doctors for him!

Remember Philip Semore Hoffman in “Scent of a Woman” as the smarmy guy at the school? THAT’s Bush.

You know people like him? A Diary of how they are in college and later in life would be insightful into Bush’s lack of character.

Sorry my 66 was for Toby

It isn’t just that they pay their way – it’s that there is an expectation, that either up front or at some fairly soon time, the CHIP’s family or the relative that the CHIP is referring to (”My uncle, Charles Wigglesworth III, Class of ‘47″)on the application, is going to pony up money, or stocks, or set up a ‘planned giving’ program or money for a building or some such thing. The business of colleges …is to produce really successful alums who will…in turn give them money. I figured that out when I went to my first Convocation during Orientation Week of my freshman year when the first person to speak got up (after they’d taught us the college song) and said, “Welcome, future Alumni of xxx”.

World Class, Category Five Guinness Book of World Records DISCONNECT!!!!!

Heh..I’d get sued.

Read “Bush on the Couch” by Justin Franks …… will scare the pants off ya…

I got an F once. In one of my better (and favorite) classes. (I did a lot better after that, having learned it wasn’t the end of the world.)

Too bad Bush doesn’t learn from his failures and his mistakes. He’d have been a better president if he’d been allowed to fail when he was a kid.

Making Hartford Election Cake and W H Harrison’s pound cake to take to work tomorrow. After the swearing in, we’ll party.

Iraq’s a special case.. where he actually failed at a subject he didn’t have to take in the first place….

That is probably one of the benefits of having attended a state supported college. Although there was some of the “So and so is an alum and the money they donate…” bit, it was no where near as prevalent as at the private colleges.

At least we knew why the basketball and football players were there. And they even had to attend class.

Thats another problem the rich give the college money for things they like like Chicago School of Economics or Straussesian Professors.
This distorts the education process by giving nuts who pander to what the rich want to believe a platform they should not have.

But I don’t have to name names. These are the guys who in college cheated – used other people’s old papers from files at their frat houses, who would use the system to their advantage to get favors from profs, or who would circumvent the system so that they’d get admitted to classes before registration even started(which is why you would find that even if you were in the first group to register and were a senior and needed the class to graduate…the damn thing was already closed). These are the people who would get themselves elected to student offices and then line their pockets..and if they got caught, would get money from family to smooth things over. These are the people who would get themselves into trouble in courses…and would be allowed to drop the class AFTER the close period..and would not pay in any sort of academic way. These are the people who know how to game the system.
The rest of us were brought up in the ‘work hard, keep your nose clean, stay out of trouble, and you will get noticed’ school…and find out that if you do that…you will never GET noticed.
These are the people later on who end up being people like Dick Cheney, George Bush, et al. who have decades of gaming the system, using family connections and money to get what they want and who succeed extremely well in our system.
The fact that we have someone who will be sworn in tomorrow who does not come from that background is absolutely astonishing.

Maybe the problem is never learning how to learn.
18 hrs & 35 min

Maybe it was one of the nightmares that we all get where we end up taking the final exam in a class that we never attended?

No names just call it fiction. When the Chinese wrote bad things about an emperor they always set the scene in a previous Dynasty to keep their heads.

I did and the Kitty Kelly Bush family history thats why I’m so against legacy admissions Bush would never be President without a college degree and he only got one because of connections, >clout, and everything Blago is accused of in Illinois.

See you guys later; I’ve got to go make some dinner…

I took a Poly Sci class one semester and figured out real quick that the test came straight from the book, regardless of any class discussion. So I usually cut the class. I’d stay in touch with a couple of classmates, make sure I attended the class right before the test (to find out what was on the test) and the test itself.

I carried a B into the final. During the final I had about a quarter of the class copying off me, since I had become famous as the no show with a B.

I got a D on the final. But a B for the course. I laughed and laughed and laughed at all the frat boys and sorority girls that also got Ds on the final.

Diary! plus how many Legacy admissions are there are Ivy League Legacies worse than state school legacies? I don’t remember this in state school but then again I was to self assured to join a frat and join the system.
Outsiders don’t need a group:)

Sounds like a new diary

FWIW, there are different variations of Ivy legacies. There are the Dubya types of course but there are also those that I think are considered “legacies” but are admitted because a parent is faculty at other top universities.

Legacies with brains if you will.

Better and better…so glad you started the clock…ticking…

I do not think that state schools have legacies…

That is a different deal altogether. There are several ‘consortia’ of colleges and universities which will swap tuition costs with one another. One example: I knew a guy who worked for Cornell – his daughter went to Univ. of Delaware tuition free because of their agreement with Cornell. I had a friend from high school whose father worked for Monmouth College in New Jersey. She and her sisters went tuition free to Syracuse University because of the agreement between Monmouth and Syracuse were in the same consortium. In some places, such as Univ. of Pennsylvania, their ‘benefit’ is that if you work there (and I do not know if this extends to people other than staff and faculty) and if your kid can get in to UPenn, then they can go tuition free. There are all sorts of permutations on this one. The DH works for SUNY – there is no such benefit for staff/faculty at SUNY.

Yeah, that’s the deal I was thinking of. I have some cousins whose father taught at SU and 2 went to Harvard and 1 to Yale for undergrad.

Already did it, Egreg.
http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/2184

I think those plans were set up decades ago when faculty and staff were paid much less well than they are now. It was basically a no-cost way to give people a benefit. The issue now is that for many faculty at highly endowed institutions, they could afford to pay the full shot anyway, but it’s now expected, so any college that does not have this sort of program has a hard time attracting really good faculty. That is one of SUNY’s problems. They give faculty and staff the ability to get one course a semester tuition free (not free fees or anything like that). If they want to take a second course, it’s half tuition. This benefit cannot be used by any other member of the person’s family.

Wonder how Bush would do on “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?”

Those kids would eat him alive!

Yale has an odd open registration process. Their classes are open for the first week (perhaps two) of the term, then students register for the classes they want to keep.

I was told by a Yale alum that when Bushie was there he was sitting in the back of a classroom when Calvin Hill and some other Yale jocks walked into the class. Hill saw GWB back there and said, “Guys, this is the class we want, Bush’s in here.”

The Ivies have this bad habit called “the Gentleman’s C.” A poor student is passed along, provided they promise not to enroll in another course taught by that professor.

The very top end schools also have a policy of admitting a handful of students who can succeed, but won’t be competing for the top of the class. I experienced this one first-hand when I was a senior in high school. I had good SAT’s (high 80 percentiles verbal and quantitative), and good grades and recommendations. I had an on-campus interview and visit at a top-10 science school. The interview started with an admissions counselor who told me I had good grades, test scores and recommendations. How would I feel about being in the bottom 10% of my class?

The answer to that question was not good at all. So I took the tour and went elsewhere.

I’ve got an idea for a game show. Are you smarter than George Bush?

ooo, that rates a big ‘ouch’.

Very nicely stated.

Ds??? Bush got Ds probably been said upthread but these guys were way to generous. Bush is a walking, talking archetypal F.

Awww, but Hugh…his heart was in the right place…he told us so…

Dear God, please no more stupid mean oilmen in the WH.

Well, I guess that leaves T. Boone off the hook. :)

We cannot afford another rich kid getting a degree he does not earn and then deciding one day to run for President.
I want Bush’s college Professors to defend passing him on tv.

THAT would be priceless. Talk about accountability!