Monday Roundup: A (Kind Of) Quiet Weekend

The biggest news over the weekend, more or less, is that Senator Clinton had a decent welcome at Yearly Kos.

The Politico is humorous enough when they say that she was "booed, but only twice". The shindig in Chicago seems as if it went well, and polls and debates went on as you might have expected. John Edwards won the YearlyKos debate according to a poll over at the site, and Clinton performed well, and probably everyone had a good time. If you want to catch up on the last few weeks of the Bill O'Reilly / Kos fight, this Dionne editorial illustrates how O'Reilly's attacks in the run up to YearlyKos were great for Kos and the convention and bad, in general, for the right.

Republican presidential candidates, apparently, are having less of a good time being in the same party as George Bush, and are still actively taking steps to distance themselves from the White House. Democrats will have an easier time hanging out with their leaders in the coming months, and probably enjoy it more, too. If you'd like to catch up on what the Democratic majority has been doing, the AP has a nice rundown here. Not that I'm paying attention, but I'm particularly excited about the minimum wage increase, the student loan stuff, and the 9/11 Commission Act. You should pick your favorites now to keep you company in the long summer days ahead, as Congress has skipped town until September 4.

For the first time in a bit there's some TYC news, but it is of the disappointing variety: the Dallas Morning News reports that the Justice Department didn't do much about the complaints filed against TYC guards and workers for abuse, apparently due to "a shifting political climate." The piece is full of information and some interesting reporting on this specific finding and the whole investigation in general.

Speaking of investigations, where'd all the guns go? Apparently, some 30% of the weapons we've given to Iraq are unaccounted for. I know the Pentagon has a lot on its plate, but how do you lose 190,000 AK-47's? The GAO discovered this, and the Pentagon "did not dispute" the results and has launched its own internal investigation.

If you'll remember from last week, there was a disastrous bridge collapse in Minnesota and agencies all over the country are checking their own bridges feverishly in search of similar defects. An audit of some Texas bridges discovered that many of the weight limits listed for the structures are incorrect. Nothing is about to go tumbling down, say state officials, but the calculations should probably be refigured. Here's hoping someone checks that out.

In other news, Perry's community college veto is still bad. This San Antonio Express-News editorial takes him to task for it, and they seem to be pretty convinced that, despite the public approval for restoring the funds from other Republican bigwigs, Perry isn't likely to change his mind.

Finally today, a blast from the past. Karl Lynch looked at a bill in March that would limit the number of classes an undergrad could drop throughout their whole career at a state university to a total of three. Everyone pretty much agreed this was a bad idea. That limit was raised to six, but the unfortunate idea became a law. I was sort of surprised to see this pop up, and university administrators are already struggling with how to ensure implementation. Sounds like what was a bad idea became a bad law.