The public is involved in electing the school board members, and running for school board. Of the school board members I've met, I don't think I'd identify them as politicians. More importantly, the pubic is sitting in front of the teachers deserving an education by a qualified teacher who is allowed the resources to do the best job that they can for their students. I understand you don't like taxes. But if we're going to complain about how our tax money is spent, I'd much rather not have my taxes used for sending my former students to foreign soil to get their brains blasted out, the same brains I spent several years putting information into at tax payers expense. The money used to kill, maim, or otherwise damage my former students in pointless wars consumes 60% of the federal budget. You don't like taxes, let's take a chunk out of the biggest consumer.

Who is 'oppressing' these teachers?

Administrators who suddenly decide to have a 3 hour meeting at the very end of the work day. Administrators who fire qualified teachers and hire their unqualified good buddy for the same position. Administrators who refuse to purchase enough text books for the number of students in a class. Administrators who don't plan man-power properly and have 40-50 kids in a classroom built to hold 30 max. Administrators who give performance reviews based on the attractiveness of a teacher. Administrators who maintain physical environments that are not condusive to learning (too hot, too cold, dirty, depressing, interruptions to class time). Administrators who assign extra duties that interfere with student's education, at no extra pay. Administrators who create a schedule that does not allow for even a lunch break, much less a restroom break for the teachers.

All of these examples are things that actually happend in the district that I worked for, and had clauses in the contract that were added, negotiated by the union and the school district.

As a (former) teacher living in Missouri, this law is horrible. It comes from school administrators around the state going out of their way to not do their jobs. This law came about because of a fear of a teacher going from district to district who molests children, and uses electronic media as one of his tools. If there is a teacher who gets asked to find a job somewhere else because it is suspected that they have molested a student, it is the job of every school district employee to report this person. This reporting is legally mandated, and anyone found having knowledge of molestation who holds a job as a mandatory reporter can and should be held liable. I once worked in a district where the band teacher was suddenly arrested for having sex with students. I was livid. If he had been in the building when I found out, I would have kicked his ass into his office and kept him there till the police came. Any district that doesn't investigate such things should be held liable, and any administrator who suggests a teacher find another district in which to molest students should lose their job and license as well. I say regressive because most students are well ahead of the school districts in terms of making regular use of technology. This just discourages teachers from using technology further. I can't tell you how many times we've been able to plan accordingly because my kids were able to text their coach or teacher about an upcoming event to make sure we weren't late, or planned to be out of town.

We already have a bunch of negative approaches, I've thought of a slightly different approach. The cheapest foods are also the most unhealthy, so what needs to happen is that we make the healthier choices more appealing. Since "food stamps" are now on a debit card type system, the government can make calculations in the background. I say that any fresh produce purchased on an EBT card will get a 10%-50% rebate, I have no idea on the ramifications of this number, so the exact amount of the rebate would have to be studied. The cost for this rebate can be offset by taking it out of farm subsidies for the less healthy choices like meat. Of course this would have to be monitored for over-users, people who purchase tons of produce, then go to a farmer's market and try to re-sell it for less than grocery prices, but more than their rebate price.

I got this MVIX box off e-bay. My model is the 760 HD, I paid under $50, but most auctions seem to go for under $100. It will look for open SMB shares, wired or wirelessly. If you get one with a hard drive, you can also use it as an external hard drive, but one's not required. They have newer versions also. The interface is basically a file browser, and I've only had a few poorly ripped movies not play with all the codex loaded on this thing. Makes about as much noise as an external hard drive, when you have a hard drive in it, otherwise, everything is in the solid state memory. I guess the downside is that it is JUST a media player, and doesn't surf the internet or anything like that.

Amen to that. When I worked 3rd shift at a hotel while going to college, the pay was crap. I got a "raise" of 10 cents above minimum, then minimum wage went up 15 cents, and they called it another raise. 23 years old, and the only employee on site in charge of a multi-million dollar property and hundreds of lives, getting paid minimum wage. I was never tempted to steal, but I was often tempted to walk out.

When I get a site phishing for my info, I fill in the forms with words that very graphically describe what I think of them.

At our shop, we started recommend MSE after seeing some independent and objective testing done with it as well as about a dozen other solutions. MSE tested as good as (or better than) most free or subscription services. We have only seen one computer infected with a virus with MSE installed, and after reviewing his history, he deserved a virus for the sites he was visiting. I also find it to be rather non-invasive and not bloated, like so much other AV software is becoming. Although my personal preference is still Ubuntu.

The author assumes that advertisements are a good thing, and implies they are necessary. Ads may be necessary to his business model, just like prostitutes are necessary to a pimp's business model. I do not see how this shotgun effect of advertisements can continue to be effective. It seems that most sites that sell advertising space try to make up for decreasing revenue from ads by adding more ads. They aren't getting the reality that people don't like advertisements, don't click on advertisements, and those that do are idiots that are likely to fight any charges they may incur by inadvertently clicking on something. How about a totally different concept: sell a service that people want, and charge a reasonable price for it. If your idea is a good one, people will pay. If it's not a good idea, if your pricing is too high, it will fail. Don't try to subsidize your possibly good venture with advertisements. Thank you for letting me know about a service I won't be using. If you're determined to use advertisements, I'd try to do it like sites where it's more successful, like Google. I can tell you if Slashdot had pop-ups and ads screaming in my face, I would not be using it either.