I love those "teach the controversy" shirts. I wish I could wear them to school.

HA. That's hysterical. I'm super stoked that we're a $100 away. I'm also shocked at how much other stuff Donors Choose puts on for shipping & tax and fulfillment (the books themselves cost ~$400).

I wonder if Sars will do another big push for Donors Choose. I can do two more proposals, which I will try to do over the summer to get the rest of the books I need (mostly Atwood), but I'd like to have it done so that we can have a challenge thingy ready.

Also, This cracked me:

AS the Democratic primaries revealed, Barack Obama is having a hard time winning the support of blue-collar voters.

So here’s a piece of strategic advice for the candidate: Lose the Nicorette. Light up instead.

Consider these statistics, culled from studies of smoking patterns. Americans who make between $24,000 and $36,000 a year smoke at twice the rate of those earning $90,000 or more. The same applies to Americans with a high-school education rather than a college degree. Rural Americans smoke more than city-dwellers. As for race, there’s a close correlation between states with high rates of white smokers and those where Mr. Obama polled worst in the primaries. Leading the pack of smoking states are Kentucky and West Virginia; industrial states like Ohio aren’t far behind.

Bottom line: small-towners in the Rust Belt and Appalachia don’t cling to guns and religion so much as they do cigarettes.

Weren't we talking about how people claim liberal media bias for not covering Obama's smoking?

I was sad mac's school's Donors Choose thing did not get funded and that if funding is not complete the project gets nothing.

I am sad about that too, msbelle. If a project you donate to doesn't get funded, then what happens to those that have already donated? Where do their funds go?

I guess if I am in that situation when the time comes, I'll just self fund the last bit. Because then the donation is more easily tax deductible than taking it as a teaching expense, which isn't allowable on 2008 returns.

I was sad mac's school's Donors Choose thing did not get funded and that if funding is not complete the project gets nothing.

Yeah, that was a bummer.

I am sad about that too, msbelle. If a project you donate to doesn't get funded, then what happens to those that have already donated? Where do their funds go?

You get a credit to use for something else. So actually, the money I put to your project is the same money I had put toward mac's school already.

Today is my anniversary at this job and I'm being taken out to lunch of my choice. I have no idea where to go though!

lisah - where did you go? I was going to say Mezze or their new one... hey. Have you been to Asahi? Looks scary. Is not. Up past Ding How.

Jesse, I guess that's the only way they CAN do it, huh? Interesting.

Do they send a note saying that it isn't getting funded?

This is so absurd and fucked-up: CityNews Exclusive: The Mother, The Child, The School Board And The Psychic

Colleen Leduc already had a lot going against her. The Barrie woman was holding down a job while struggling to raise her autistic 11-year-old daughter. She couldn't afford to give the child the intensive therapy she needed, and was forced to send her to a public school in the area.

So she was completely unprepared for what happened to her and the youngster, an almost unbelievable tale of red tape involving a strange claim from a teaching assistant, a bizarre decision by a school board, a visit from the Children's Aid Society (CAS) and most improbably of all, the incorrect pronouncements of a psychic.

Leduc's weird tale began on May 30, when she dropped young Victoria off for class at Terry Fox Elementary and headed in to work, only to receive a frantic phone call from the school telling her it was urgent she come back right away.

The frightened mother rushed back to the campus and was stunned by what she heard - the principal, vice-principal and her daughter's teacher were all waiting for her in the office, telling her they'd received allegations that Victoria had been the victim of sexual abuse - and that the CAS had been notified.

How did they come by such startling knowledge? Leduc was incredulous as they poured out their story.

"The teacher looked and me and said: 'We have to tell you something. The educational assistant who works with Victoria went to see a psychic last night, and the psychic asked the educational assistant at that particular time if she works with a little girl by the name of "V." And she said 'yes, I do.' And she said, 'well, you need to know that that child is being sexually abused by a man between the ages of 23 and 26.'"

...

But things got worse when school officials used the "evidence" and accepted the completely unsubstantiated word of the seer by reporting the case to Children's Aid, which promptly opened a file on the family.

"They reported me to Children's Aid," Leduc declares, still disbelieving. "Based on a psychic!"

...

And so a case worker came to the Leduc home to discuss the allegations of sexual misconduct, only to admit there wasn't a shred of evidence that anything had ever happened at all. They labelled Leduc a "diligent" mother doing the best she could for her child under difficult circumstances, closed the file and left, calling the report "ridiculous."