Spent 3 hours this afternoon researching Head Start on-line.  I have a draft post written but am too tired to finish tonight.  Still have to do some laundry or TLG will be back in diapers tomorrow instead of dinosaur underwear.  Tomorrow, TBG and I meet with our architect again.  I am excited and nervous.  I will post about it here.

I am going to drag my tired and slightly cranky tush away from the keyboard and go join the guys in the other room.  Where TBG is reading about -- what else?-- dinosaurs to TLG. 

8:17:31 PM    

I still cannot believe this won by one vote and Gephart wasn't there to vote.  I really think this is going to hurt him.  Key paragraphs from NYTimes.com:

After a tense and bitter debate that ended a 38-year history of bipartisan cooperation on Head Start, the House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill early this morning that would allow eight states to take over Head Start, the largest federal program for nearly 1 million preschool children in poverty.

[...]

The bill passed 217 to 216. Twelve Republicans voted against it, and no Democrats voted for it.

[...]

Under the bill that passed this morning, eight governors could take over Head Start in their states in a demonstration program. States that do so must pledge not to reduce state and local money spent on preschool centers, and to maintain the level of services children receive under the federal program.

The bill also raises the educational requirements for Head Start teachers, demanding that all teachers hired after 2005 have at least a two-year college degree, and that half of all Head Start teachers have four-year college degrees by 2008.

[...]

The Trust for Early Education, which supports parts of the bill, has nevertheless estimated that an additional $2.2 billion a year is needed to pay competitive salaries to Head Start teachers with college degrees, which is not in the bill. [emphasis mine]

The bill also allows religiously affiliated Head Start providers to consider religion in hiring decisions for jobs paid for out of taxpayer money.

[...]

Despite the bill's demands that states continue serving at least as many children without lowering the quality of services, Representative George Miller, the ranking Democrat on the education committee, said states could still cut corners. "You can exclude 3-year-olds, you can increase the child to teacher ratios, you can run half-year programs and serve more children."

More to come ...

From CBS news

The House put its mark on the landmark education program early Friday, voting by a hair-thin 217-216 margin to give up to eight states control over Head Start so they can coordinate it with other programs. The White House backs the idea.

I have read at several places this morning that Gephart was onthe campaign trail and did not vote.  I will look to confirm.  If this is true .... gggggggrrrrrrrrrr....

Update: Sourcing myself.  The first place I heard of Gephart's absence was from Sean at KOS' open thread today.  He included this link to confirm.  And as "Mr. Happy" comments in the same thread, "If Mr war lite can't do the job he has, why does he deserve a promotion?"  Hear, hear.

9:19:50 AM    

Further checking out Znet, lead me here.  The author, Yiffat Susskind, lays out 10 compelling reasons why the US military should not be in charge of "rebuilding" Iraq.

An excerpt:

3) The military lacks the training and experience to distribute aid properly

• The result has been utter chaos: soldiers firing handguns into the air to keep order at distribution points, randomly throwing aid boxes off trucks into crowds and standing by while Iraqis fight each other with fists and knives to get at food packages.

• These conditions violate the dignity of aid recipients. When people are pitted against each other in competition for scarce resources, their capacity to pull together to survive the crisis at hand is undermined and their dependence on the invading army is reinforced.

 • Aid distribution requires expertise. For example, in late March, Oxfam reported that soldiers had handed out powdered milk without proper instructions. For children, ingesting milk powder that has not been properly mixed with water can result in diarrhea or even death.

[This is what I was intuiting when I wrote :

And, quite frankly, I can’t think of a person in the world who, if their goal was, “to create a place where Arabs were free and safe and unafraid and happy and successful and not ruled by corrupt monarchs or brutal dictators,” would choose the US military to achieve this goal.]

More from Susskind:

5) Humanitarian aid should be directed to meet the basic needs of Iraqis, not the propaganda needs of the US military.

• Army spokespeople have stated bluntly that aid delivery is intended to make Iraqis view US soldiers as liberators rather than occupiers.

• That aid distribution is primarily a public relations exercise became clear early on. There are 24 million people in Iraq. Yet, US soldiers came provisioned with enough food aid to sustain only two million people for a day and a half.

• The UN World Food Program, meanwhile, was prepared to provide food for the entire Iraqi population for four months. But its operations were suspended for more than a month because the US military arbitrarily barred aid workers from entering Iraq.

And

8) US control of reconstruction encourages war profiteering and unscrupulous conflicts of interest.

• The destruction of Iraq means big bucks for US corporations who are being hired – to the tune of $100 billion in government contracts – to rebuild the roads, government buildings, water systems, bridges and other infrastructure destroyed by the US. The contracts are blatant examples of kick-backs and conflicts of interest.

 • Even before the war began, the Administration secretly invited six US companies to bid on reconstruction contracts. These companies have a history of making large campaign contributions to the Republican Party⁴.

 • Many of the same individuals who lobbied aggressively for the war have ties to the companies who are now profiting from rebuilding Iraq. For example, Dick Cheney is paid $1 million a year in “deferred retirement” by Halliburton, which was hired to fight oil-well fires in Iraq. Former Secretary of State George Shultz, who heads the advisory board of the virulently pro-war Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, is also on the board of directors of the Bechtel Group, which won the first major contract to repair transportation, power, water and sewage systems in Iraq⁵.

9:01:50 AM    

Checking out my site stats I see someone got to me by googling "uranium/Niger facts well understood?" [which is a pleasant bit of PR, even if overstated].  In any case, in following that link back I see that the Dean for America folks are investing in Google Ads.  Those are the little boxed ads that appear on the left of the screen when you receive your google search results. 

Several months ago I investigated these ads for TBG's consulting biz.  They are a very affordable, pay-per-click way to market to a target audience.  Basically you choose the search words/search string that you want to trigger your ad.  The more you pay, the more often your ad will show up when someone googles those words.

As I said, the Dean team is on the ball.  Below is the ad that came up when someone googled: "uranium/Niger facts well understood"

Sponsored Links

Where's the WMD? Read Dean's 16 Questions for Bush Howard Dean is the best alternative www.deanforamerica.com Interest:

See your message here...

8:29:38 AM