The Texas State Bored of Education

A trite headline, true. I'm just so sorry that it fits:

SBOE ALLOWS HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETES TO SUBSTITUTE ATHLETICS CLASSES FOR ACADEMIC ELECTIVES
The move heads off unintended consequences of new math and science requirements but others say the decision runs counter to spirit of state's "no pass, no play" policy.

Sometimes the State Board of Education’s bad policy choices – and by “bad,” we mean votes inconsistent with two decades of education reform in this state – aren’t always the fault of the State Board of Education.

Such was the case this afternoon, as the SBOE’s committee of the whole passed a jaw-dropping measure to elevate athletics to the same stature as curricular courses in the high school catalog and allow students the option to begin substituting athletic classes for virtually all academic elective course requirements.

State law forced the board to the vote. The combination of the 26 credits for the distinguished academic diploma and the impending 4x4 math and science requirements make it impossible for a student athlete to play four years of sports.

To meet new standards, the highest-achieving student athlete – or lowest-achieving, if it means TAKS remediation courses – must quit athletics to pick up the required two academic elective credits to meet diploma requirements.

But hey, it's not their fault they had to lower academic standards; state law made them do it.

Oh well. If you weren't bothered by the fact that the SBOE is packed full of religious extremists who don't believe in evolution, then this probably won't bother you either.

International pariah

No one offers their hand. He doesn't offer his. He knows, after all, what an outcast he is.

Box Turtle's new chewtoy

Our freshly re-elected junior senator gets to be the boy that gets more Republican senators elected. In the glorious words of Bobby Knight: "He couldn't lead a hooker to bed":

In his new role, Cornyn will have to oversee a coming election cycle in which Republicans could stand to weather further losses. Among GOPers whose 2010 races are shaping up as potential nailbiters are Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky, and Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire.

The GOP in fact stands to lose even more seats in 2010 than they did this year. Kagro X:

The title says "National," but the party's increasingly regional. The hard-right rump of what used to be a national base. And the GOP's cure? A hard-right Texan, who is, rather fortuitously, a bit of a rump himself.

But really, what choice have they got? You choose your leaders from the Senators you have, not the Senators you might want, or might wish to have at a later time.

Now, my humble O is that these jobs are a little overblown. After all Chuck Schumer, who does the same thing for our side at the DSCC, did nothing that I could observe to recruit Barbara Radnofsky in 2006 or Rick Noriega in 2008, and even less to help them. Recall that Mikal Watts raised over a million bucks last year for Schumer (that he must have spent somewhere else besides in Texas, obviously).

Will Corndog be the referee that separates the scrum that develops if Kay Bailey resigns her seat to run for Guvnah in 2010? She doesn't have to step aside, so it may not be necessary to even do that unless she won, and then called a special election for 2011 to replace herself.

And what does Corndog think he can do to stanch the GOP bleeding? Raise more money? Recruit better Republicans in other states to run?

Good luck with that, buddy.

Countdown to 60 in the Senate

Mark Begich makes it 58 (counting Bernie Sanders and Joe the Plumber):

Sen. Ted Stevens' election defeat marks the end of an era in which he held a commanding place in Alaska politics while wielding power on some of the most influential committees in Congress.

It also moves Senate Democrats within two seats of a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority and gives President-elect Barack Obama a stronger hand when he assumes office on Jan. 20.

On the day the longest-serving Republican in Senate history turned 85, he was ousted by Alaska voters troubled by his conviction on federal felony charges and eager for a new direction in Washington, where Stevens served since Lyndon B. Johnson was president.

Alaska voters "wanted to see change," said Democrat Mark Begich, who claimed a narrow victory Tuesday after a tally of remaining ballots showed him holding a 3,724-vote edge.

"Alaska has been in the midst of a generational shift — you could see it," said Begich, the Anchorage mayor.

Courtesy of historian Carl Whitmarsh, we have more on the Alaskan Senator-elect:

[Begich] is the son of the late US Rep. Nicholas Begich, who was killed in a plane crash while campaigning for re-election in October 1972 with then-House Whip Hale Boggs of Louisiana (father of ABC's Cokie Roberts and lobbyist Tommy Boggs), whose wife Lindy succeeded him in Congress and served New Orleans for some 26 years. The elder Begich and Boggs were presumed killed when their plane disappeared in the mountains of Alaska and they were declared dead in December after no wreckage or bodies could be found. Mark Begich was 8 years old at the time of his father's death.

So a recount in Minnesota and a runoff in Georgia are the last remaining Republican roadblocks to a super-majority. The links detail the circumstances; Al Franken needs rejected absentee ballots examined for various technicalities (including undervotes that the state's optical scanners may have missed) to overcome Norm Coleman's 200+ vote lead, while Saxby Chambliss and Jim Martin call up Libertarians and call on the heavy hitters (John McCain, Bill Clinton, Al Gore) to campaign for them.

A win in either race matches my prediction *buffs manicure*, and I'll go a little farther out on the limb and say that Franken pulls off the upset but Chambliss beats back the challenge, which would perfectly align with my October 28 prognostication.