...and option e: rob those glib, ivory tower preaching, short-sighted 'muricans home-invasion style.

Damn those devastatingly poor people. Why don't they just get jobs?

Here's an alternative: emigrate. That's what I did. Haven't looked back. To hell with the false dichotomy that is US politics. To hell with platitude-quoting sub-intellectual pundits and the morons who follow them. Here's one rat who realized the ship was sinking.

As a teacher in a relatively poorly funded and equipped school, I'd like to say "anyone who isn't a teacher or hasn't been a teacher at some point, STFU." But that'd be rather glib of me.
Suffice to say there are plenty of free lesson plans out there for those of us unwilling or unable to come up with our own. If a teacher finds a lesson plan that they feel is worth paying for, go for it. I personally wouldn't pay for a lesson that someone else wrote, but that's just me.
Until teachers are paid--not just paid, but respected--commensurate with the job they're doing, to wit: raising your dumbass kid while you bitch about your tax dollars, I don't see how anyone not in our shoes has any right to tell us how to make ends meet. There is a serious disjunct between what is expected of teachers by society and what many parents are willing to do at home to assure their child receives a worthwhile education.

Whoosh.

I guess I'd tend to agree with you, insofar as I didn't make an accusation of incompetence. What I see, after reading this article between the lines, is a political allegiance influencing an interpretation of the law that's offensive to those of us with a different political allegiance. Happens all the time. It's happening right now to Obama's opponents.

Zo

Not to get all ad hominem or anything, but this judge was apparently nominated by G.W. Bush and is an LDS, according to Wikipedia. We should be expecting these kind of rulings for a long time: Bush got a lot of his guys in before he lost his political capital. Civil rights, schmivil schmights.

Zo

Well, sure, if you want to talk about the most TALENTED player to play one. But I think the previous posters were talking about who was the most POPULAR due to stage theatrics/douchy occult persona.

"No, no. Look. This shed business -- it doesn't really matter. The sheds aren't important. A few friends call me Two Sheds and that's all there is to it."

"You're fucking nicked, me old beauty."

It is a UK issue, after all.

Having read a bit about Mao, Che & Fidel, and Pol Pot, it's quite obvious the bigger guns don't always win. But what you have in these situations is a well-organized vanguard that in turn organizes the masses, has utter willingness to sacrifice said masses for "the cause," and has the support of the masses they've organized to sacrifice.

To put it frankly, Americans are just not that hard. We don't need a military to dominate us, we're just fine being dominated by business in league with government. We can't even do anything to stop THAT. What makes you think we could ever revolt against the military?

Wow. So a regular infantry combined with asymmetric warfare in native terrain (which was also initially alien to the invading force) --as well as funding and supply by a major power-- pales in comparison to the Michigan Militia and Joe-Bob with his .30-06? You, sir, have a remarkably high opinion of the US citizenry. My personal prediction is that a potential civilian revolt/revolution/uprising of any decent size would fracture due to Americans' inability to see eye to eye over trivial political issues.

One last thing: compare the value westerners (generally) place on life to, for example, the value placed by the Vietnamese Communists and/or the Iraqi opposition. I'm an American living in Thailand, and I can say from experience that the attitude toward life here would blow your mind, daddy-o.

I'm not a Christian either. I guess it was an intentional act by "Eve" but according to the RCC it seems everyone who's not the Virgin Mary has the bit set to 1 on first boot. Regardless, I wasn't trying to be too serious.

I know this is going to start a brushfire:

ORIGINAL SIN.