Hoot Gibson

Here you go. This was an AP story and every major AP affiliate ran it - including Fox News. Who says the media has a liberal bias? Some question inaugural's multi-million price tag (USA Today 1/14/05) Cost of Inauguration Questioned (Fox News 1/14/05) Price of inauguration? Priceless — almost (San Mateo Daily Journal 1/14/05) Some Question Steep Inauguration Price Tag (CBS 1/14/05) Media-Manufactured Controversies: 2005 Year in Review (National Review Online 12/20/05)

The state treats home schools as private schools. You have to submit the name of your school and the name of the principal. Obviously, not many families can field a football team or even a basketball team. More than 20 states allow home schooled kids to play for public schools and IMO, Kentucky should join them.

By definition, home schools in Kentucky are private schools. All that should be necessary for a home schooled kid to play in a public school in their district is a statement that he or she is academically eligible to participate. I don't understand why the transfer rules would be any different than for any other transfer. Suppose the home schooled child lived next door to another private school but played for a public school. If he decided to transfer to the private school next door, then the same rules would apply as for any other student transferring. The home school could be required to agree in writing to the abide by KHSAA rules and decisions before being allowed to play.

The money available to the school to educate the students residing in the tax district does not change because a few people decide to teach their children at home. Whether those parents actually pay taxes or not, the fact is that if their children are not using all of the resources to which they are entitled, then the students who do attend the public school are left with more, not less, of those resources. The reason that public schools do not want to allow home schooled children to use "their" facilities is fear of competition and fear of losing students, jobs, and political power. It is the same reason public schools generally oppose school choice, charter schools, private schools, and any other form of competition.

Home schooled students, on average score better on college entrance tests than public school students do. We only home schooled our kids temporarily to allow them to catch up with where we believed that their math and science skills should be - in other words to undo some of the damage done in public school. Both of my sons were National Merit Scholars - one a finalist and the other one a semi-finalist. Home schooled children can be taught much more effectively - even by parents lacking a teaching certificate than in public schools. The reason is simply the numbers. My wife could easily work one on one or one on two with our kids and cover three times more material in the same amount of time. Granted, there are parents who do a poor job of home schooling or are simply not teaching at all, but the same can be said of some teachers and some public schools. There parents are not representative of the great majority of people who are increasingly choosing not to send their children to public schools. There is no good reason that home schooled children should be barred from taking advantage of some of the services for which their parents are paying.

I agree again. We home schooled our kids for a year but they were not allowed to participate in any extracurricular activities. So, we paid $500 to participate in the Governor's Cup academic competition. Our "school" finished third in a region of 17 public schools. We could have done better with a bigger family. Public school administrators and the NEA fear being shown up by home schooled children. They prefer pushing the same old tired stereotypes of home schoolers as they push for more unnecessary regulations. If they can force home schools to teach the same curriculum as public schools, while denying them the benefits to which taxpayers should be entitled, then the benefits of home schooling will vanish and kids forced back into the system.

My password has upper and lower case characters and numbers. As a result, I frequently mistype my password so I always assume that I have mistyped it when I get an error message.

Yes. The parents of home schoolers pay property taxes to support public schools just like every other parent. The difference is that they do not normally use the services that they pay for. Home schooled kids should be allowed to participate in extracurricular activities at the schools in their tax districts.

The Big East is very strong this year but the conference is ALWAYS overrated, IMO. The network announcers have always over hyped the conference because it operates in such a big media market. That said, I don't think that the Big East is over rated nearly as much this season as it usually is, in part because the SEC is really down this year.

:thumb: I agree. Maravich was not a bad team player. He averaged 44.2 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 5.1 assists for his career at LSU and the team only won 3 games the season before his career began. In the NBA, Maravich averaged 23.6 ppg, 5.3 apg, and 4.1 rpg. But the really amazing thing, IMO, was that he did all that with a defective heart that could have killed him at any time.

Al Gore's climate expert says that the sky is still falling. Story at noon and at 6 and at 10 and at 11. Ignore the snow, ignore the record breaking low temperatures, ignore the cooling oceans - these are just a prelude to runaway global warming. It is Mother Earth's way of giving her creatures one last chance before unleashing her wrath. :lol:

I will let you know. I have eaten shrimp on a pizza and I liked it but have not had one from Bazbeaux. I found the picture at a restaurant review site and decided that I will try one on my next visit - hopefully today. Bazbeaux has several pizzas with shrimp. TCHOUPITOULAS – Cajun shrimp, roasted red pepper, green pepper, red onion, andouille sausage, fresh garlic. NEPTUNE – Crab, shrimp, snow pea pods, black olive, green pepper. FIRENZE – Pesto sauce, sun-dried tomatoes, black olives, fresh tomato, shrimp. No tomato sauce. BBQ – Barbequed chicken or shrimp prepared with Debbie’s homemade BBQ sauce, red onions, green peppers, cheddar. No tomato sauce. Of the pizzas that I have tried from Bazbeaux, this one has been my favorite: PIZZA ALLA QUATTRO FORMAGGIO – Romano, cheddar, ricotta, mozzarella, provolone, bacon and mushroom.

I think that you might be confusing a statement by that liberal brain trust, John Murtha, who did call his own constituents "rednecks," with Barack Hussein Obama who only implied that people living in small towns are rednecks. The intent and arrogance of the two statements were the same but Obama is just more articulate that Murtha.

Yes, that system certainly seems to have done wonders for the working men and women of North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba. Hugo Chavez is now begging the big oil companies to come back after nationalizing most of Venezuela's oil fields. Socialism is great until it is given time to work its "magic."

Shooting 38 times to score 44 a game with no 3-point line on average is impressive. I read an estimate that Maravich would have averaged 57 points a game had the 3-point rule been in effect during his college career.

He seems to have the "spreading the wealth" mantra down pretty well. I guess things could have been worse. His mom could have hung out with those SLA nuts. (But then again, he would probably not have turned out so anti-gun either.)

:thumb: Very good. I have fixed a few on a pizza stone in a ceramic grill and they came out great. The Papa Murphy's in this area are extremely generous with their toppings and the quality of the cheeses puts most chains to shame.

The best that I have ever eaten was from Bazbeaux in downtown Indy. It's a little pricey for pizza but the freshness and variety of the toppings is impressive.

Not every All-American life involved hanging out with communist poets either.

Obama's mother was bit of a hippie. I doubt that he ever knew the simple joy of opening a genuine Daisy Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. :lol:

Did Fleming County have school today? Some districts have a rule against holding games if school was canceled because of slick roads.

You have to remember that conferences sent only one team to the NCAA tournament. Had the field been 64 teams, LSU would have gone in Pete's senior season with a 20-8 record. The year before the Pistol era began at LSU, the team posted a 3-20 record. Kentucky won the SEC championship in each of the three seasons that Maravich played.

Not only did the written majority opinion in Roper v. Simmons refer to world opinion as a factor, Justice Ginsburg also publicly defended the reference to world opinion. I provided a link both to the majority opinion and to an article detailing Justice Ginsburg's defense of the reference to public opinion. If you want to continue arguing that public opinion was not a factor in Roper v. Simmons, then go right ahead - but do so without me. The facts are clear and I have documented them as well as they can be documented. Whether you want to acknowledge those facts is up to you. Although the Supreme Court's willingness to consider public opinion in its decisions is relevant to the thread topic, it is only tangentially related, so this is my last post on the subject. Feel free to have the last word on this subject before somebody drags out the dead horse smilie. :lol:

Good point. There is no need to confiscate that which can be aborted with government funds.

Another bad analogy? You are batting 1.000 today! :lol: The difference is that the confiscation of guns in which guns have been confiscated have seen an increase in gun control laws prior to their ultimate confiscation. If there is no registration, then the government would be required to conduct house to house searches to confiscate guns. Are you arguing that large scale registration does not make confiscation easier, and therefor more likely?