The senate is debating a bill that has broad bipartisan support and would cover higher education for any veterans who have served at least three years in the military since Sept. 11, 2001. The Veterans of Foreign Wars is on board. The American Legion favors it as well. Still, as the bill makes its way to the White House, President Bush has argued that such legislation would encourage soldiers to leave the military.

The VFW disagrees, arguing that separate funding increases for soldiers would help with retention and that the current increases would attract new recruits interested in higher education in the future but without the means to afford it.

When it comes to big ideas, it seems that any time books and classrooms are involved, they are involved in describing a hostile foreign country or how to provide people with health care (possibly also in hostile foreign countries,) but the issue of education by itself only seems to be ancillary to other things.

The Chronicle of Higher Education notes Open Education's argument that education taking a back seat (or no seat) is to the detriment of the country.  The Chronicle implies that "bowling and whiskey" have received more coverage then education and, disturbingly, that this might be a bad thing.

For those who think popular music is on a long decline, consider new records by The Roots and Gnarls Barkley. I've heard both in their entirety and they are really good. But I haven't purchased them, at least not yet.

No, no, I listened to them legally. Still can. They, and lots of other album tracks, are available to listen (but not download) via a small subsidiary of Google called You Tube. Look it up sometime.

When it comes to illegal downloads, the Recording Industry Associate of America (RIAA) and its movie industry counterpart are deadly serious in protecting their products. The RIAA has long been trying to convince authorities that merely making copyright material available for download constitutes piracy.