What r Your Thoughts on Bilingual Education in America?

Indeed. Happy 4th of July!

@moralecheck:

You know what ruined that movie for me? I’ll tell ya…

When the main character first ran outside in his avatar and saw the other avatars playing basketball in street clothes. From that moment I could not get the image of the “all-star monstars” from Space Jam out of my mind.  :x

Haha… that’s pretty good.  :lol:

Chicago Public Schools have a different teacher union than charter schools in Streamwood, Smack.  I know that’s not common knowledge so you were probably unaware of that.

Our union negotiated a credit from the schools in our district that we could apply to our own health insurance plans that we bought from a second party.  Primarily the cause was a change in policy of United Health Care which applied the copay to each line item in a bill (which for a child birth has A LOT OF LINE ITEMS!  You have anesthesia, you have room charges, food charges, medicine charges, specialist charges, nursery charges, etc…it adds up fast!)  Instead of dropping UHC altogether, we negotiated with the school for a clause that allowed us to find a different policy somewhere else and have that amount auto-debited from our paychecks (kinda like what happens for your payroll taxes and if the courts garnish your wages, etc) and applied to our insurance bills.  The only problem with this plan is that if we don’t go with the UHC plan we have to pay taxes on the wages earned that are spent on health insurance.

Thing is, however, UHC was charging us a lot more than BCBS is charging me and providing worse coverage.  I, personally, think the reason for that was because we were a captive set of customers.  We had to use UHC so they could screw us.  Now we can shop around and with the market the way it is, other providers are dying to get us onto their books and so gave us a relatively great deal. (Relative to UHC.)

And I am not confusing will not turn away with free.  They will not turn you away, even if you have never paid an emergency room bill.  Therefore, since you don’t have to pay for services rendered, by definition, it is free.

It will be even messier if Turkey is part of the EU when this takes place.  However I think this should resolve itself before that happens as it doesn’t look like the EU is letting Turkey join anytime soon.

It isn’t certain what will happen with regards to greater Kurdistan (Kurdish areas in Iraq, Turkey, Iran), although it could certainly get ugly there.

Any Kurds in Syria?  I’m not sure, and if so what that would imply as well.

Nevertheless, this goes back a long ways to when the British occupied Iraq (taken from the Ottoman Empire in WWI if I am not mistaken).  It is always a difficult thing to go back to the pre-colonial (and pre Ottoman empire) nations and boundaries as often they were not clearly marked or identifiable.  Besides, there is oil in N. Iraq…and everyone wants a peice of that!

Those were the rulings I was referring to when I said I still had reservations. If he lacks a clear stance on abortion, it leads me to think he’ll lack a clear stance on other important issues, which is something I’d rather avoid. And, if his stance is that the Constitution somehow includes an article assuring that abortions are to be free and federally protected… I’m sure you can all guess my reaction to that ;).

Any updates of what’s going on in Liberia? I know US troops are there and are facing a massive problem from rioting civilians.

The point is: Liberia is a country founded by you. It is what comes closest to an ex-colony.
Just as you accuse that the French go in when their ex-colonies have trouble, we want you to go in when your ex-colony has trouble.
You have responsibility for them (sure we could discuss the degree, but not the fact).

No, Liberia was a country founded by the American Colonization Society in 1816 by Robert Finley, not by the United States Government. The US government is not responsible for it (except if you mean providing the ACS with some government grants). It’s like saying, I went to start set up a small communist country in the Pacific, but since things didn’t turn out right, the US government has to bail me out. Also, Liberia was set up with good intentions - not exploitation. Were any of the French colonies in Africa like that?

@Grigoriy:

TX is either Texas or Thanx-you be the judge. :P

OK.

Texas.

I’ve seen some odd ‘Thank yous’ on this site…
tanks…arm…armour…10-Q, just to name a few.

@HortenFlyingWing:

care about the environment. Loggin’ is their biggest business.

well, we do “care” about the environment - prolly more than America, as well as many other nations. We are the home of Greenpeace, afterall. Also there are many “renewable resource” programs in place, and dozens of friends of mine spend their summers working tree-planting for these logging companies, etc.
No no, not logging. Our shame is in Alberta - a province that is working against Kyoto and environmental measures (it’s the Texas of Canada - with the good and the bad), not that Ontario is so great either - much industry near Toronto etc. Also we do waste quite a bit. Nice having all that landfill room.