Author: mongreldogs

  • Cross-comment: Does the Left “Hate” America?

    Through the Daou Report, I wandered (against my better judgment) over to Dr. Sanity to read the post “Go Wide Mr. President“. Then I read the comments and I was shocked to see something I actually agreed with, posted by someone named GnuCarSmell replying to someone named Garry: You have it exactly right. It is…

  • Health of the Republic down 3.3%, to 30%

    After hearing that the President of the United States has asserted his untrammeled power to read even physical mail, without warrant or other legal constraint, I have decided to move the Health of the Republic bar to 30%. It’s only a 3% shift because in the end this is only slightly more outrageous than the…

  • Unintentionally ironic; unintentionally chilling

    During this morning (Wed Jan 3)’s Morning Edition on NPR, they ran a story on the detention of Jose Padilla. Quite without intending to, the story bespoke the parlous times and the threat to our Republic.

  • Congress, the Koran, and Oaths

    So for about a month there’s been a tempest-in-a-teapot “raging” over the decision by newly elected Democratic Representative Keith Ellison to use a Koran in his private swearing-in ceremony. Some loudmouths, including Rep. Virgil Goode, have decried this and insisted that Mr. Ellison use the same traditional book as all previous representatives, to wit, the…

  • Late Night Blogging

    So it’s about 1:15 AM local time and here I am sitting at my computer starting a blog entry. A sure sign I’m becoming addicted? Probably not. It’s just one of those nights when sleep seems determined to stay away and, since once of my New Year’s objectives is to write more, this outlet seems…

  • The Library’s the Thing

    OK, I’m admittedly behind the time on this whole “social networking” thing. Back in my day, you used computers to avoid interacting with people, gosh darn it! And you liked it! But today I finally stumbled across one of these sites that might actually entice me into being (Internet) social: LibraryThing, a site where you…

  • Happy New Year 2007

    Yeah, it’s lame to post just a “Happy New Year” message. But it’s after midnight and I don’t feel like writing much more, so there. 🙂

  • The Holy Grail in Teaching

    The Holy Grail, in teaching, would be the development of an assessment tool that has the following properties: It accurately reflects the actual learning that has occured. It cannot be spoofed by students who don’t learn/prepare/read etc. It is fair. It is easy to grade. It is, in like manner, easy to administer.

  • Review: Eragon

    Eragon (the movie) fantasy/adventure Cast details, etc., are in the IMDb entry. InstaRating: 2 out of 5 Having little else to do while school is out, I decided to see Eragon, this season’s epic high fantasy. I went with some trepidation, as the commercials made it seem overwhelmingly, well, cheesy. In hindsight, I had no…

  • Makeover for 2007

    Yesterday I spent more time than really justified in playing around with the look-and-feel of The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach. It began innocently enough: I finally reached my breaking point on the comment spam, receiving two blocks of 48 spams within an hour. (And yes, they came in discrete quanta of 48. Odd.) Considering the…