Studying Abroad

Don't know why anyone would want to because those countries are just filled with foreigners, no football and warm beer. However if you are or have a college student that is considering the option a must read from Stuff White People Like

It is also important that you understand the study abroad ranking system. Europe/Australia form the base level, then Asia, then South America, and finally the trump card of studying abroad in Tibet. Then there is the conversation killer of studying abroad in Africa. If you studied in Africa, it is usually a good idea to keep it quiet, it will remind white people that they were too scared to go and they will feel bad. Use this only in emergencies.

Gov't Class Can Save Your Life.

In Montgomery County

One is a supporter of Barack Obama, the other is a supporter of Hillary Clinton, and an argument of words turned bloody when one brother-in-law tried to choke the other and the victim then responded with a knife and stabbed his brother-in-law in the stomach.”

Doesn't appear they paid attention during government class.

If Ortiz is convicted of the felony charge, he won’t be able to vote. And voter registration records reveal that Ortiz, who supports Clinton, is registered Republican.

Oscars

Ms Emily had a great record last night even if she did under estimate the Bourne movie. However she did cost me big time in what appeared to be a sure thing for the supporting actress category. If you people don't start using the Amazon link more the cost of that "investment" will come out of her paycheck. Just click for the children.

Ms Emily Handicaps The Oscars

Review by Emily Trosprel
10th Grade BHHS
Senior Entertainment Editor

The Oscars are Ms Emily's Superbowl. Now if you are over 21 and want experience in the predictive markets there is an Oscar market at Intrade.com for some of the major categories. At Intrade contracts trade between 0 and 100, you can think of the price at any time to be the percentage probability of that event occurring. For example in Best Picture you could buy a contract for Atonement for $2.50 and turn it into $100.00 if it should win.

Best Picture

Will Win: No Country for Old Men (selling at 71.8)

Could Win: Atonement (@2.5)

Should Win: There Will Be Blood (@17.5)

Best Director

Will Win: No Country for Old Men (@75)

Could Win: Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (@8.6)

Should Win: Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Best Original Screenplay

Will Win: Juno

Could Win: Lars and the Real Girl

Should Win: Michael Clayton

Best Adapted Screenplay

Will Win: No Country for Old Men

Could Win: There Will Be Blood

Should Win: No Country for Old Men

Best Actor

Will Win: Daniel Day Lewis, There Will Be Blood (@89.2)

Could Win: Daniel Day Lewis, There Will Be Blood

Should Win: Daniel Day Lewis, There Will Be Blood

Best Actress

Will Win: Julie Christie, Away from Her (@57.0)

Could Win: Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose (@33.6)

Should Win: Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose

Best Animated Film

Will Win: Ratatouille

Could Win: Persepolis

Should Win: Ratatouille

Best Supporting Actor

Will Win: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men (@89.4)

Could Win: Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild (@2.3)

Should Win: Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild

Best Supporting Actress

Will Win: Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There (@40.0)

Could Win: Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone (@28.4)

Should Win: Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There

Best Art Direction

Will Win: Sweeney Todd

Could Win: Atonement

Should Win: There Will Be Blood

Best Cinematography

Will Win: No Country for Old Men

Could Win: There Will Be Blood

Should Win: The Assassination of Jesse James...

Best Costume Design

Will Win: Sweeney Todd

Could Win: Atonement

Should Win: Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Best Documentary

Will Win: No End in Sight

Could Win: Sicko

Should Win: No End in Sight

Best Makeup

Will Win: La Vie en Rose

Could Win: Pirates of the Caribbean

Should Win: La Vie en Rose

Best Film Editing

Will Win: Into the Wild

Could Win: No Country for Old Men

Should Win: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Best Score

Will Win: Atonement

Could Win: The Kite Runner

Should Win: Atonement

Best Song

Win Win: Falling Slowly, Once

Could Win: Falling Slowly, Once

Should Win: Falling Slowly, Once

Best Sound Editing

Will Win: No Country for Old Men

Could Win: Transformers

Should Win: No Country for Old Men

Best Sound Mixing

Will Win: Transformers

Could Win: The Bourne Ultimatum

Should Win: 3:10 to Yuma

Best Visual Effects

Will Win: Transformers

Could Win: Pirates of the Caribbean

Should Win: Transformers

Foreign Language

Will Win: The Counterfeiters

Could Win: Mongol

Best Documentary, Short Subjects

Will Win: Sari's Mother

Could Win: La Corona

Best Animated Short

Will Win: Peter & the Wolf

Could Win: I Met the Walrus

Best Live Action Short

Will Win: Tanghi argentini

Could Win: Le Mozart des Pickpockets

Looks like you could make some money in best picture going with Ms Emily's Could and Should picks.

Best play buy Ms Emily's two favs in supporting actress for $68.4 and pickup a $100 if either of them wins. Looks pretty good because the other nominees are huge long shots nominated just to fill out the category.

Rock On

This is so wrong in so many ways. An alternative version of history and rock. If the Beatles had recorded Stairway To Heaven.

Lacross Not Football But What Is

The Gov. Mifflin School Board has voted 6-2 to recognize boys and girls lacrosse as school-sanctioned club sports for the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons and as full varsity sports for the 2009-10 season.

Brandywine should one up them and start a curling team. Curling could even be co-ed.

Kaboom

If you are into blowing things up this video is cooler then grits

Sad Day For Real Americans

The Oley Valley School Board shot down the latest attempt to start a district football program Wednesday, even with backers offering to cover the first year costs.

A motion to support a one-year middle school football pilot program failed by a vote of 3-6.

Opponents cited dwindling enrollment, finances and lack of community support.

California Child Abuse

Investor's Business Daily on a proposed requirement that "climate change" be taught as "science" in all California public schools.

[children]... will listen to their teacher when she says the polar bears are drowning and their schools and homes will one day be under 20 feet of water.

Turning our public schools into Gore re-education camps and sending children to bed thinking we're all going to die is child abuse.

To Young Voters

Before you become all swept up in Obamamania, you should realize in a very important area his change is not to change and it is going to cost you big time.

Social Security along with Medicare and Medicaid is already 50% of the federal budget and us boomers are just now starting to retire. Instead of recognizing that people are living and working longer and pushing to raise the eligibility ages and trim benefits for wealthy retireees, his change is keep the system as it is. Proposals of real change that could make a real difference like Bush's privatization for young people are strongly rejected. Just to make a bad system worse he would also exempt all retirees making less than $50,000 annually from income tax. These soaring cost my young friends will be made up by you.

So stay in school and study hard in order to obtain a great job because you are going to need it to raise your family and to send us old coots our free stuff. Just don't expect a thank you note from Florida.

People WIth Too Much Education And Too Much Money

The NY Times on parents are shocked to find Children are not De'cor.

Now Its Only A Wink ;-) or A Pretentious Anachronism

“When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life,” Kurt Vonnegut once said. “Old age is more like a semicolon.”

The NY Times on grammar's red headed stepchild.

David Brooks On Education

A good Op-Ed in the NY Times

The Economics of Procrastination

According to this article if you child never puts off doing the big paper till tomorrow when they can put it off the day after tomorrow they are not being lazy. There are just responding to economic stimuli. The authors give three reasons why it is a rational approach versus work smoothing, doing a little bit each day.

1) Fixed Cost of doing homework: putting things off in order to concentrate the work for a paper in one epic block means that you don’t have to waste time setting up to write again and again.

2) Decreasing marginal costs to doing homework - Doing the work in one long block of time allows one to enter the "homework zone" making the 2nd hour easier then the 1st and each hour afterwards increasingly easier.

3) Thick-market externalities in doing homework - If their friends are playing their is a higher opportunity cost of missing out on the fun rather then waiting till their friends are also working.

What the author didn't mention is that if you wait till the last minute the work only takes a minute.

Obama Changes

Senator Obama said this week that he is open to supporting private school vouchers if research shows they work.

"I will not allow my predispositions to stand in the way of making sure that our kids can learn," Mr. Obama, who has previously said he opposes vouchers, said in a meeting with the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. "We're losing several generations of kids, and something has to be done."

...

Senator Clinton had a strong response, saying she opposes vouchers because they hurt public schools and could also open up the possibility of using taxpayer dollars to finance dangerous schools including training grounds for "jihad."

His statement is a departure from the one he gave the American Teacher's Union and the National Education Association when he said he did not support vouchers. His leading education advisor Linda Darling-Hammond and the favorite to become Sec. of Ed is strongly opposed to vouchers and almost every innovative, competitive reform.

Having a big lead and a captive audience frees a politician to appeal to opposing groups. Statements like these are a wonderful thing. Now everyone can hope that his promised changes are the changes they want.

Who Says Math Can't Be Fun

Early one morning a mother went to her sleeping son and woke him up.

"Wake up, son. It's time to go to school."
"But why, Mama? I don't want to go to school."
"Give me two reasons why you don't want to go to school."
"One, all the children hate me. Two, all the teachers hate me."
"Oh, that's no reason. Come on, you have to go to school."

"Give me two good reasons why I should go to school."

"One, you are fifty-two years old. Two, you are the principal of the school

Check out Jester 4.0 designed by a Berkley engineering professor and an undergrad uses a a collaborative filtering algorithm called Eigentaste to recommend jokes to you based on your ratings of previous jokes.

When Buses Misbehave

Pennsbury School District in Bucks County has pulled five buses from service because of another out-of-control school bus incident. A bus of the same make, model and year plowed into a crowd outside Pennsbury High School in January 2007, hitting a retaining wall and injuring 17 students. Article

Its Valentine But Don't Fall For It.

Forget crimson roses and chocolates.

Grab a broom. Unload the dishwasher. Play with the kids.

Now, that's hot. That's choreplay.

Parenting Magazine recently coined the term after its survey revealed 15 percent of moms said their idea of foreplay is their hubby doing chores. More

Paperless Home

CHRIS UHLIK’S children can be found in their home computer lab almost every morning. Nicole is writing a story about her two lizards. Tony is playing an interactive spelling game, while Andy is learning multiplication tables. Even 5-year-old Joceline is clicking away at a storybook game.

Mr. Uhlik, an engineering director at Google, and his family live a practically paper-free life. The children are home-schooled on computers. Other sources of household paper — lists, letters, calendars — have become entirely digital.

Typical OCD engineer but you wouldn't have any drawings to hang on the fridge. Guess you could buy an electronic tablet for drawing and a digital video frame.

If you want to opt out of the U.S. Mail or if you travel a lot and don't want to come home to a pile of mail this looks interesting World Class Mail.

High School Art Exhibit

Looking for something warm to do visit our local library.

The Brandywine Community Library is featuring works by Brandywine Heights art students during February. The display is the culminating senior project by Brandywine student, Andrew Souders. The gallery will be open during library hours M-Th 10-8, Friday and Saturday 10-5. Yes they now have Friday hours.

Happy Evoloution Weekend

Evolution Weekend, created by Michael Zimmerman, a dean at Butler University in Indiana, is timed to celebrate the Feb. 12 birthday of Charles Darwin, who in 1838 brainstormed the theory of evolution by natural selection.

Two years ago, Zimmerman decided he was tired of fighting with fundamentalist Christians about teaching evolution in the schools. He began to seek out clergy who believe in compatibility.

More than 800 congregations will say "yes" this weekend, when pastors and rabbis in nine countries are expected to offer sermons and discussion groups on the potential for peace between the warring camps.

30 Benefits of Ebooks

Read an Ebook Week is a yearly event, and this year (2008) it runs from March 2 to March 8. To encourage the elebration of this little-known happening, here is our list of 30 Benefits of Ebooks.

"Tumblebooks" are e-books for kids, and just one click on your Berks county library's website.

"Also available are downloadable audio books - free through the Brandywine Community Library website...just click on download digital media. Access to many of your favorite authors without even leaving your home!."

http://www.berks.lib.pa.us/brandywinecl/

Campus Pundit

The new political pundit on the right for the student newspaper at Case Western Reserve University is a Brandywine Grad.

You Do Have To Set Priorities

One of those stories where you don't know if you should laugh or cry.

Police have arrested a motorist they say had a 24-pack of beer strapped in with a seat belt but had a 16-month-old girl unrestrained in the back seat with the toddler's mother. MORE

Quote Of The Day

"every generation, Western civilization is invaded by barbarians — we call them 'children'.” - Political theorist Hannah Arendt.

Ms Emily Goes To The Movies

Review by Emily Trosprel
10th Grade BHHS
Senior Entertainment Editor

There Will Be Blood

There will be greed. There will be character study on the volatile lunacy of a driven man. There will be monstrous, metaphorical struggles between the powers of Christianity and capitalism. And yes, there will be blood. At the start of an epic narrative spanning decades in the Old West, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is less than a success, involved in the perilous business of silver mining. Plainview finally strikes it rich after willpower sustains him through a painful accident, and years later he has used the money to create several middling oil wells, harvesting the “black gold” that bubbles up beneath his boots. It is not until he meets the Sunday family that the dark liquid fully absorbs into Plainview’s mind, becoming a consuming obsession. He negotiates first with Paul Sunday then his twin brother Eli (both played by Paul Dano) for the rocky land of the Sunday Ranch, contained within, according to Plainview, is “a whole ocean of oil underneath our feet. No one can get at it except for me.” Though, perhaps not even he can get at it; pillaging nature comes at a cost of more than dollars, as Plainview and his young boy H.W. (Dillon Freasier) will soon be discovering. The geyser of oil accompanies a geyser of immorality on the part of all, including the fanatically fervent preacher Eli Sunday but having the greatest effect on Plainview’s twisted morals.

One realizes at the opening tones of music, a buzzing drone like that of insects, that There Will Be Blood is no ordinary cinema. It’s driving yet hardly “fun;” it’s epic yet its story is sparse, more of a character portrait than a plot. Of course, it is a masterpiece—a masterpiece of cinematography, directing, acting. Daniel Day-Lewis doesn’t even need words to command the screen (the first fifteen minutes of the film are dialogue-less), but when he does speak, his theatrical voice creates an indescribably powerful presence. No other actor could have cultivated such an enigmatic persona or for that matter, pull of a line like “I drink your milkshake!” and sound utterly terrifying. It would be a mistake to think that it is Lewis’s movie however, for the corruption of Eli as presented by Paul Dano is just as intriguing. The other young co-star, Dillon Freasier, has an impressive debut in his first film as the son that suffers for Plainview’s prosperity. It is Paul Thomas Anderson’s direction that pulls together the sprawling elements. Though without his usual dramatic visual flourishes (the rain of frogs in Magnolia comes to mind), the filmmaker’s story-focused approach entangles the viewer in Plainview’s brutal, greed-driven world. There will be Oscar gold.

Four out of four stars for There Will Be Blood

Bonus Section
Ratings for other Academy Award Best Picture nominees:
Juno: Two and a half stars
No Country for Old Men: Four stars (Though There Will Be Blood has a slight edge

Just In Time Reading

A school librarian writes on the reasons kids don't read for pleasure anymore. With information overload people are tending to read just what they need, when they need to know it.

Educators or parents might start by framing the questions differently. Who isn't having trouble concentrating these days? Who doesn't find it nearly impossible to stick with a 450-page novel? I've come down with the same virus as the kids -- the very group I criticize for ignoring the library's "new arrivals" book display.

Seperation Of Church And Football

Seems the NFL has been cracking down on churches that have Super Bowl parties on big screens. Churches have long used the event to reach out to people and groups like teenagers that are normally difficult to get through the doors. The league bases their objection on that it lowers rating and hence their revenue from the beer commercials. The NFL and the federal regulations on the other hand do not have a problem with sports bars showing the game on big screens in fact they are specifically exempt from the regulations. So if you want to watch the Giants rout the Patriots along with the warm and fuzzy commercials showing the players helping with the youth in their community you will have to see it at home or in a bar.

Big Names & Fast Cars

According to a British survey if you want your son to be popular with the ladies name him Dave. If you want him to drive around in a Corvette go with Ray.


via videosift.com

If History Does Repeat Some People Are In Trouble

Two Amtraks trains were stuck in California Donner Pass Friday due to heavy snow after a snow plow fell through the tracks and blocked its path. With over 400 passengers on board no food shortage were expected.

Having A Superbowl Party

Don't forget to buy some wine for your dogs so they can participate in the festivities.