Final Home Match

Tonight the Bullets will face the Newport Buffalos in the 2nd round of District 3 duals at BHHS gym.

This is the last time the current seniors will walk on to the mat to wrestle in their home gym. Even if they win tonight, there will be no more home matches, only away matches in neutral gyms.

* This current class of 5 seniors walked on to the mat to wrestle as freshman and all of them wrestled varsity all 4 years.
* In these 4 years their team dual record is 82 wins (& still counting) and 6 losses.
* They have combined for over 700 individual wins.
* One of these seniors is currently the all time Berks County career win leader at 172 (& still counting). The former Berks record was 160 career wins by a Conrad Weiser wrestler.
* Another of these seniors is 3 wins away from surpassing the 160 mark and moving into the #2 all time Berks career winner.
* Another of these seniors is 6 wins way from surpassing the 160 mark.
* Brandywine will end with the #1, #2, & #3 all-time Berks County career winners.
* 4 of these 5 seniors currently have over 100 wins, with the 5 th senior most likely to hit this prestigious century mark by the end of post season.
* Brandywine has more "100" match winners than any other school in the state.
* 1 of these seniors is #3 in the Pennsylvania state all- time career pins and is still counting. He needs 4 more to tie the state record and 5 to set a new record.
* Another of these seniors has 95 career pins and is 5 away from hitting the century mark for career pins. Only 7 other wrestlers (including the one above) have ever done that in the state's wrestling history and Brandywine could have two wrestlers in this elite group of 8.
* All five seniors are continuing their education and plan to attend college, Delaware Valley College, George Mason, Elizabethtown, & Penn State are the top schools that made offers of acceptance to these young men

George Stephanopoulos??

Famous People Who Wrestled Best of luck this weekend.

Wow

What started out as a few misguded comments against this humble site has now grown into a real protest.

You can judge a book by its cover

But here is an attempt to judge a college by the books the students read. Seems good of a way as any to judge a school.

• The dumbest philosophy book is "The Five People You Meet In Heaven" and the smartest philosophy book is "Atlas Shrugged".
• "Lolita" is the smartest book.
• Consider "I Don't Read" as a control variable. Thus, if "I Don't Read" is smarter than 13 books, then I'd think these bottom thirteen books do in fact, make you dumb.

Smartest Schools

1. California Institute of Technology
2. Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering
3. Yale University
4. Harvard College
5. Princeton University

PA Schools in the Top 100
14. Swarthmore College
16. University of Penn.
22. Haverford College
68 Bryn Mawr College
69 Lehigh University
73. Franklin & Marshall College
79. Gettysburg College
87. Dickinson College
91. Lafayette College
93. Villanova University

Improve Your Mind and Feed A Hungry Child

Its friday so here is a good time waster with a purpose.

After this week

Will some one explain what is so bad about global warming. The hard part about being a skeptic is trying to keep a straight face.

World's Meanest Mom

Jane Hambleton has dubbed herself the "meanest mom on the planet."

After finding alcohol in her son's car, she decided to sell the car and share her 19-year-old's misdeed with everyone -- by placing an ad in the local newspaper.

The ad reads: "OLDS 1999 Intrigue. Totally uncool parents who obviously don't love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for three weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet."

Tail Wagging Tutors At The Library

All ideas from California are not necessary nuts. This looks like it could be beneficial and even fun.

For those who are learning to read, sign up to read to a therapy dog. Reading out loud can be stressful for a beginning reader, but dogs don’t judge---they like to listen to your voice and don’t care if an occasional word is mispronounced. If someone in your family would benefit from this volunteer service, sign-up for 15 minutes with a registered therapy dog. Dog(s) will be available from 10:30 to 11:30 AM on the third Saturday of each month beginning January 19, 2008. Sign up for your time at the desk or by calling the library 610-682-7115, Brandywine Community Library.The library is also now opened on Fridays.

Not So Silent Cal

Where is Cal when you need him? Over 80 years later the guy still makes more sense then the entire current crop of candidates.



1924 the first Presidential film with sound recording.

24 in 1994

If anyone is suffering from 24 withdrawals here is a short clip on how the young Jack Bauer saved the world back in 1994. Watch it NOW!!

Teacher absences are hurting learning

WASHINGTON - A year is a long time in a child's education, the time it can take to learn cursive writing or beginning algebra. It's also how much time kids can spend with substitute teachers from kindergarten through high school — time that's all but lost for learning.

Despite tremendous pressure on schools to increase instructional time and meet performance goals, the vacuum created by teacher absenteeism has been all but ignored — even though new research suggests it can have an adverse effect in the classroom. MORE

Enrollment

Its Friday

Time To Crank It Up

Speaking of Politics

Before you make your mind up take the quiz to see who you actually agree with could be surprising. Of course this assumes that what they say is actually has a correlation to what they actually plan or even capable of accomplishing.

[EDITED: Repaired Link to the quiz]

Crying And Hoping The Future President Won't Protect Your Kids

"We will do whatever it takes to make America a better country, to give our kids a better future," says Mike Huckabee, winner of the Republican Iowa caucuses.

"We will deliver for our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren," claims Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic winner in Iowa.

"We're going to reclaim the future for our children," says Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton.

The big lie of campaign 2008 -- so far -- is that the presidential candidates, Democratic and Republican, will take care of our children. Listening to these politicians, you might think they will. Doing well by children has now passed motherhood and apple pie as an idol that all candidates must worship. Our children face a future of rising taxes, squeezed -- and perhaps falling -- public services and aging -- perhaps deteriorating -- public infrastructure (roads, sewers, transit systems). Today's young workers and children are about to be engulfed by a massive income transfer from young to old that will perversely make it harder for them to afford their own children.

No major candidate of either party proposes to do much about this, even though the facts are well known.

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- three programs that go overwhelmingly to older Americans -- already represent more than 40 percent of federal spending. A new report from the Congressional Budget Office projects that these programs could easily grow to about 70 percent of the budget by 2030. MORE

If you like food

or now that the holidays are over just reading about it check out a new site by a local blogger at:
The Inquisitive Palate

College Daze

The hunt for the perfect 13th grade.

As for the remainder of the tuition--that portion not covered by student aid--it must then be provided by the parents, who work overtime in America's marvelous market economy so their children can spend four years in the care of college professors who despise the market economy and the bourgeois buffoons who work in it overtime so they can send their kids to college, where, coincidentally, the kids will acquire a degree that does next to nothing to prepare them for working in the market economy. More

The Girl Who Sank Hillary

Interesting story out of Iowa on how one new voter effectively caused the Clinton machine to unravel.

and on the other side Vodkapundt gives a great recap.

Dear Iowa Republicans,

I’ll put this in language even your tiny little Iowa brains can understand: What is wrong with you people?

The news coming out of Des Moines (literally, French for “tell me about the rabbits, George”) tonight is distressing in the extreme. 32 years ago, your Democratic brethren took one look at Jimmy Carter -- the worst 20th Century President bar Nixon, and the worst ex-President ever -- and declared, “That’s our man!”

Three decades later, and along comes Mike Huckabee. Same moral pretentiousness, same gullibility on foreign affairs, only-slightly-less toothy idiot’s grin. Then you so-called Republicans took a look at Carter’s clone and said, “That’s our man, too!”

Happy New Year

Ms Emily Goes To The Movies

Review by Emily Trosprel
10th Grade BHHS
Senior Entertainment Editor

I Am Legend

If I Am Legend proves anything, it’s that when the box office is looking a little drab, it takes one of the country’s most bankable stars, not a brilliant film, to swoop in and save the day from theater-going blues. It also proves how abruptly and drastically a movie can sink in its final third after a solid first half. The legend in I Am Legend is Robert Neville (Will Smith), excuse me—the Robert Neville, an apparently brilliant and renowned scientist and lieutenant facing desolation in a barren, overgrown New York City. In 2009, a potential cancer cure goes awry, immediately killing 90% of the world’s population and leaving an immune 1% as prey for the remaining 9%, who are turned into hairless, carnivorous, violent creatures (Not zombies though; you mustn’t call the flesh-eating humans zombies! They’re “Dark Seekers.”) This strands Neville with no company except for that of his faithful German Shepard, Sam, spending his days hunting, scavenging canned goods, testing cures for the ravaging epidemic on rats and the occasional perilously snatched human subject, and desperately clinging to maintaining his sanity in this thoroughly insane future. “The last man on earth is not alone,” proclaims the tagline, and indeed he’s not alone. Or the last man on Earth. But don’t tell the advertisers, it makes for good marketing.

Yes, the film is based on a 1954 novel by Richard Matherson, but it feels as if the movie’s already been made in recent years. 2002’s 28 Days Later took on similar themes with a great deal more dexterity (just replace New York with London and the “Dark Seekers” for the “Infected.”) Nevertheless, I Am Legend does show promise in a strong opening, showing the how-did-they-do-that type of shots of an utterly deserted New York. The following computer generated imagery is less than impressive. The movie is in love with CGI; deer, lions, monsters, grass, trees are all “lovingly” animated at a computer with video game worthy results. Since when is it impossible to a get a couple of deer? Pennsylvania could have donated a few thousand. The dog, however, is not CG. Nor Will Smith. Maybe it wasn’t in the budget. Unreal or not, the infected creatures are most effectively creepy out sight, when their rasping sounds build taut suspense and play off of Neville’s own terror. In light, they’re just…pixels. All could be forgiven though, if only the plot at the conclusion wasn’t as shoddy as the effects. The first two acts of the film expertly navigate exploiting the hero’s loneliness. It’s as close to a character study as one can get in an action blockbuster, helped along by a shining performance by Will Smith, who has turned into an unlikely dramatic actor as of late. Some plot holes (close to plot chasms in a few cases) aside, the story holds steady until crashing into clichés, melodrama, and *shudder* pop culture references near the end. As far as holiday entertainment goes, I Am Legend not terrible, in fact it’s more than passable, but it’s a movie of wasted opportunity. If the filmmakers had used merely a little more logic and pandered to a little higher intelligence level, the results could have been more than a little better.

Two and a half out of four stars for I Am Legend