FLAP Develops: Mandatory Arabic Classes in Texas?

From michellemalkin.com- By Doug Powers -If one of the main goals of the Department of Education is to educate parents on why they might want to consider the option of private or home schooling, then mission accomplished: MANSFIELD (CBSDFW.COM) – Some Students at Mansfield ISD schools could soon be learning Arabic as a required language. The school district wants students at select schools to take Arabic language and culture classes as part of a federally funded grant. The Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) grant was awarded to Mansfield ISD last summer by the U.S. Department of Education. As part of the five-year $1.3 million grant, Arabic classes would be mandatory at Cross Timbers Intermediate School and Kenneth Davis Elementary School. The program would also be optional for students at T. A. Howard Middle School and Summit High School. More here

FLAP Develops: Mandatory Arabic Classes in Texas?

Why Big Government is Bad Government

From hotair.com -That government which governs least, governs best. This well-known wisdom from Thomas Paine has been lost on succeeding generations that see an ever-growing federal government as the way to impose favored outcomes on markets and individuals. Blayne Bennett from Students for Liberty hosts the latest Econ 101 video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, explaining the damage that big government does by crowding out private markets and redirecting resources into non-productive and counter-productive uses: Video and more here

Why Big Government is Bad Government

Hawkins: 15 Quotes on Global Warming

John Hawkins

Townhall - Liberal luddites who hate capitalism and industry have spent billions to spread global warming propaganda, despite the fact that it looks more like a fraud, a scam, and a hustle every year. Not only do those on the Left use their control of the mainstream media and the school system to push this nonsense, they've even found a way to rig the scientific process. If you say global warming is happening and it's caused by man, you're deluged with money for research, members of the media are dying to talk to you, and you're patted on the back. If you take the opposite position, the grant money dries up, you can't get published, and you're attacked non-stop as a "denialist." Fortunately, people have started catching on to the game and the public has become much more skeptical about manmade global warming. Read 15 quotations from conservatives explaining why the public is right to be extremely skeptical of manmade global warming here:

Hawkins: 15 Quotes on Global Warming

New Mexico Ballot Access Improvement Bill Introduced

From ballot-access.org -New Mexico Senator Linda Lopez (D-Albuquerque) has introduced SB 403, a 130-page bill of election law changes. The bill is backed New Mexico elections officials. It includes a few improvements in the ballot access laws. It changes the filing deadline for independent candidates from the day after the primary (which is in early June) to the day that is three weeks later than the primary. For presidential independents, the existing New Mexico law has the earliest petition deadline of any state except Texas. The bill also lowers the number of signatures to qualify a new or previously unqualified party, in midterm years. Current law says the petition needs signatures equal to one-half of 1% of the last vote cast. The bill changes that to the last vote cast in a gubernatorial election year. Because turnout is always higher in presidential years than mid-term years, this eases the number of signatures for a party that is qualifying in a midterm year. For example, in 2010, a party needed 4,151 signatures, but if this bill had been in effect in 2010, the requirement would have been 2,796 signatures. The bill also specifies that the petition to create a new qualified party must be available from the Secretary of State’s office at any time. Past Secretaries of State have withheld the petition form, even though there had been no law authorizing that behavior. The bill’s author is Chair of the Senate Rules Committee, the Committee that handles election law bills.

New Mexico Ballot Access Improvement Bill Introduced

New Mexico Gas Faces Lawmakers, Is That Redundant?

Capitol Report New Mexico - Representatives from New Mexico Gas Company received an expected — but not too harsh — grilling from lawmakers in the wake of the heating outages across the state that has still left between 16,000 to 18,000 customers without heat Monday (Feb. 7) . A frigid cold front that dropped temperatures across New Mexico to levels unseen in 40 years was the main culprit, gas company vice president Tom Domme told members of the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee Monday morning, who added the company is trying its best to re-light homes that are still without power as another cold front is expected to come through the state by midweek. Read full story here:

New Mexico Gas Faces Lawmakers, Is That Redundant?

Heath: Time to Expand Web-Casting

Heath Haussamen

NMPolitics - The New Mexico Legislature has taken huge steps in recent years to let the sun shine on its work through webcasting, but there’s more to be done. And it’s time that the other branches of government follow suit. It’s great that we can watch and/or listen to the House and Senate when they’re in session, and that we can listen to House committees. But Senate committees still aren’t accessible for people who aren’t at the Roundhouse. Fortunately, Sen. Mark Boitano, R-Albuquerque, is keeping up the fight this session with a bill that would require audio webcasting of Senate committees. Let’s hope his colleagues finally approve this important legislation. Read full column here:

Heath: Time to Expand Web-Casting

Doan: Obama's False Tune on Innovation

Lurita Doan

Townhall - Obama deserves some credit for his recent interest in innovation and the creative abilities of American entrepreneurs. Now, if only Team Obama would change their tune and review the many White House initiatives and policies that are killing innovation and punishing entrepreneurs. The disconnect between Obama’s fascination with innovation and Washington’s continued hostility to innovators and risk takers in our economy has never been so stark. Even as Obama is talking about his intention to foster more innovation, American companies like Pfizer are announcing cuts of $2 billion in research and development. Team Obama does not seem to understand that they have championed policies that are essentially adding “miracle grow” to the already tangled regulatory regime currently strangling American entrepreneurial energies. As a result, the task of bringing new and more innovative products to market in America has never been more difficult. Read full column here:

Doan: Obama's False Tune on Innovation

Parker: If You Want to Promote "Freedom"

Townhall -Watching the wave of unrest in the Middle East, there are lessons to consider regarding how we view the world and how we manage our lives here at home. I’d call it getting perspective on what you can control and what you can’t. It should be pretty clear that the upheavals in Tunisia and Egypt came as complete surprises. No one predicted them. Is this because no one was paying attention? Of course not. We’ve got armies of analysts – “experts”- who do nothing but study countries. Not just in the government, but also in the private sector - at consulting firms and investment firms. Despite the fact that we’ve got “experts” galore doing nothing but studying particular regions and countries, they rarely, if ever, make a correct prediction if it means that tomorrow will be fundamentally different from yesterday. We can depend on them for plenty of conventional wisdom drawing on reams of information from what’s already happened. But can we turn to them for the entirely new, for the unanticipated, for the inconceivable? Forget it. Read full column here:

Parker: If You Want to Promote "Freedom"

Anti-Corruption Bill Introduced

Santa Fe, N.M. – Representatives Nate Gentry (Albuquerque, Dist. 30) and Rep. David Doyle (Albuquerque, Dist. 23) today announced the filing of landmark anti-corruption legislation that will bring stronger penalties for corrupt public officials and abettors of those who take advantage of their position for personal benefit.  Their press release said, "For far too long, New Mexico has condoned a ‘culture of corruption,’ and these bills will provide authorities with the tools to put an end to it. These measures are a comprehensive effort to expand education for public officials on ethics rules, bring transparency to the process to give authorities access to the necessary documents to prove corruption, and strengthen penalties, ensuring those that break the public trust are held accountable for their actions." For full story read here:

Anti-Corruption Bill Introduced

AOL Buys Huffington Post for $315 million

From hotair.com -AOL has agreed to purchase The Huffington Post for $315 million, the two entities announced in a joint news release Monday. “As part of the transaction, Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post’s co-founder and editor-in-chief, will be named president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, which will include all Huffington Post and AOL content,” the statement said. The new group will have a combined 117 million unique visitors a month in the United States and 270 million around the world, according to the release, which cited December 2010 data from the marketing research company comScore. The editorial arrangement seems like a strange decision. AOL has been careful to give the impression of political balance in their news and opinion offerings on line. Putting a political activist like Arianna Huffington in charge of all AOL content will upend that balance, and might have a significant number of subscribers and readers heading for the door. The end result might be less a combination of the two readerships and more of a replacement of AOL’s community with that of the HuffPo. Another strange decision, related to the first, is to rebrand AOL’s content with the Huffington label. From here

AOL Buys Huffington Post for $315 million