The Daily Top Five: March 27, 2007

1. Darren over at Right on the Left Coast has a post entitled Propagandizing in the Classroom, where he talks about the Al Gore movie, an Inconvient Truth and he has a plan:

What's missing here? Debate. Inquiry. Critical thinking. All those things we say we want to develop in our students, until our students start believing things we don't want them to believe--then we need to serve up the propaganda and brainwash, and question the intelligence and morality of anyone whe dares to disagree with the party line.

snip

I ordered my copy of their movie, and it sits here on my desk as I type this post. I'm going to put this dvd, still in its plastic wrap, in my safe here at home, where it will remain for 20 years. Twenty years from now (I'll be on the verge of retirement) I'll pull this movie out and see who was right--Al Gore, or me. Maybe then I'll show it in class, and we'll talk about hysteria, about certainty in science, about doom and gloom scenarios, about honesty and cynicism. Maybe then we'll be able to have the debate, inquiry, and critical thinking that are apparently lacking where this subject is concerned. Until then, that's one teacher and hundreds upon hundreds of students (per year) who will not sit through this particular message from the one they call the Goracle.

Of course, if Al Gore is right we may all be dead.

2. The Top 35 Law Schools. Well mine is not on the list.

3. You know that gun that Jim Webb supposedly gave to his staffer, well not so much.

4. The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting the capture/arrest of the leaders of a car-bombing ring in Baghdad.

The US military has captured the leaders of a car-bombing ring blamed for killing hundreds of Iraqis.

The news came as the departing US ambassador said Americans are in ongoing talks with insurgent representatives to try to persuade them to turn against al-Qaeda.

The US command said one of the car-bombers, Haitham al-Shimari, was suspected in the "planning and execution of the majority of car bombs which have killed hundreds of Iraqi citizens in Sadr City," a Shi'ite enclave of Baghdad.

Very good news.

5. Here is a worthless poll and I don't even like Hillary Clinton. Who cares what adults or a voting age sample would do. The only reliable polling sample on electoral matters starts and ends with likely voters.