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Teachers unions and other left wing pressure groups cite disappointing American educational statistics and call for sharp increases in school spending—ignoring the fact that we already count among world leaders in per pupil expenditures.

The education establishment prefers to ignore the most obvious explanation for poor school performance in the U.S.—irresponsibly high levels of television viewing. According to 2007 figures from the International Telecommunication Union of the OECD, Americans are in front of the tube more than 8 hours a day—by far the highest of any society, and nearly three times the figures for nations such as Norway, South Korea, Switzerland and New Zealand—all of which achieve far better educational outcomes. Rather than wasting more taxpayer money, we need a concerted national effort to reduce TV addiction and the wasted hours that result.

An Associated Press dispatch, written by Erica Werner and Richard Alonso-Zaldivar, compares the House and Senate ObamaCare bills. We'd like to compare this dispatch to the AP's dispatch earlier this week "fact checking" Sarah Palin's new book. Here goes:

Number of AP reporters assigned to story:
   • ObamaCare bills: 2
   • Palin book: 11

Number of pages in document being covered:
   • ObamaCare bills: 4,064
   • Palin book: 432

Number of pages per AP reporter:
   • ObamaCare bill: 2,032
   • Palin book: 39.3

On a per-page basis, that is, the AP devoted 52 times as much manpower to the memoir of a former Republican officeholder as to a piece of legislation that will cost trillions of dollars and an untold number of lives. That's what they call accountability journalism.

According to a military official, detainees at a Wisconsin National Guard camp in Iraq are using Brett Favre as a manner of getting at the guard troops there.

"They know Favre by name," said First Lieutenant Tim Boehnen, who is from New Richmond, Wis. 

"One of the big words they know now is shenanigan.  They'll constantly talk about 'Favre shenanigans,' 'He's so good for the Vikings,' and 'The Packers have got to really feel bad about that one.'  "

According to Boehnen, it started when troops there started decorating their camp in Packers colors.

What does it take to get a wavering senator to vote for health care reform?

Here’s a case study.

On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.” 

The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.” 

I am told the section applies to exactly one state:  Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.

In other words, the bill spends two pages describing would could be written with a single world:  Louisiana.  (This may also help explain why the bill is long.)

Senator Harry Reid, who drafted the bill, cannot pass it without the support of Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu.

How much does it cost?  According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.

Undaunted, the White House is steadfast in its support of the measure. Yesterday, the President called the massive errors in reporting a “side issue," assuring Americans that job creation was still his primary concern. As such, it's unfortunate the President has suddenly become unconcerned with the reporting of jobs,  since he has repeatedly promised 3-4 million jobs would be impacted  by his spending bill since taking office.

And the Vice-President is as oblivious as ever. It seems that he has not bothered to take a look at the recovery site he has been touting as such a success - on the Daily Show this week he first misstated the amount of imaginary congressional districts appearing on recovery.gov (Mr. Biden reported there were 70 when in fact there are over 700) and then went on to proudly proclaim “you haven’t seen any wasteful spending” under the Obama Administration. An unbelievable statement on its own merits, Mr. Biden went on to claim they had only been in office for seven or eighth months, so it’s evident that whatever world Biden resides in, it’s not the one the rest of us share.