Cell Phones and Polling

I've been telling my government students for years that cell phone only homes are hurting surveys. Well here is some proof of this from Fivethirtyeight.com and Pew. The analysis does give some more expensive alternatives for pollsters to overcome the problem. I don't think you can discuss polling with your students and not mention the impact of cell phones.

Sent without a change of underwear

Watch live streaming video from wkrg_oil_spill at livestream.com

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

What Can Government Do For BP?
An intriguing question that your students may have time to explore now at the end of the year, is what mechanism, departments, etc. does the US government have to make BP improve the situation in the Gulf. Once the oil leak is fixed, how far can our parts of government - be it federal, state or local go to have BP fix it all up. While your students are pondering, here is a live feed which will include the efforts to fix the problem today. The second video is from the Rachel Maddow show the other day (yes, a liberal show) detailing a 1979 oil spill that sounded (both in the way it happened and in some of the reaction to it) like the current Gulf accident.

Embedded Video from CSPAN
Yes, I know not everyone has a webpage, but seeing that my fellow blogger, Frank Franz, is making a great page with lots and lots of CSPAN videos to highlight all parts of the study of US government (you can e-mail him if you want to help). But above is a rotating set of some of the current films that CSPAN has.

Barack Obama: Gun Salesman

Targeted Races in 2010
Here is a very nice map of all the targeted House and Senate races this fall.

Poll Charts: Truman - Obama

As I work through making my new course for Zulama, I am finding new sites out there. The Gallup Poll organization has a great one where you can look at each president's approval ratings over time (it actually shows you a nice chart of the person's tenure so you can see it over time. Even better you can see how the person did by party (or even independents) and you can even compare presidents to one another. WOW!

Estimating the Oil Spill

West Wing Week

This is a fairly new feature you can find on www.whitehouse.gov (or even more quickly if you search for it on youtube.com. It is a nice overview of the previous week with a few behind the scenes shots. It is, though, a very nice way to show your students how busy Obama is. Above is the week that just ended today May 14th.

Interesting ADA dilemma

When Treating One Worker’s Allergy Sets Off Another’s article from the NY Times.

WashPost/ABC Internet Show
Here is a new Internet daily show (about 11 minutes) put together by the Washington Post and ABC News. Above is yesterday's show. You can also get a two minute summary from CNN Student News.

Kagan’s Notable Statements and Writings

Where does Elena Kagan stand on...

It's Elana Kagan!
Here is a lot of information you can share with your students on Solicitor General Elena Kagan who will by President Obama today. Above, unbelieveably is the first advertisement (a pro Kagan one).

The mess in Greece - Lesson Plan

The lesson is here.

Primaries
There is an interesting story in the NYTimes today on the increasing number of African-Americans running for Congress as Republicans. Many of those are embroiled in primaries. Here is a link to the primaries, many of which are being held in the next few months. Here are the primary results from yesterday's elections.

Computers for All Students
Certainly the aim of this blog is to get to have students using computers much more often in the classroom. If you think about it, the interconnectivity that computer bring, the ability to create and the chance to meet students in their own world (as opposed to the worksheet one) is a great reason to go online. Above is a nice video from PBS on a school in NY that was turned around with a visionary principal and the use of computers.

President @ White House Correspondents Dinner