And more lottery stuff. . .
I'm about to toddle off and watch the governor sign the lottery bill. He's then expected to do the political equivalent of a touchdown celebration, being that this has been a centerpiece of his education policy for five or six years now. More on that here if it's interesting.
News of the day can be found right here. Be sure to click on all the nifty bells and whistles like our Q+A.
Here are some other lottery tidbits and musings from my e-mail box and around the web:
- Sen. Phil Berger is none-to-happy about the lottery's passage. He wrote in this release: “North Carolina is currently 42nd in the nation in high school graduation and 42nd in SAT Scores. If this is truly an “education lottery,” we should see measurable improvement soon. Based on the hype we’ve been hearing, the only thing keeping our students from academic success was the failure to jump on the gambling bandwagon.”
- The state Democratic Party can't seem to decide whether to blame the Republicans for blocking a lottery or blame the two Republicans who weren't in the chamber yesterday for not going on their honeymoon and getting sick earlier.
“Whether it was by voting against a lottery or by choosing not to vote, the bottom line is that the Republicans refused to stand up for our schools and our children by supporting an education lottery,” said NC Democratic Party Chairman Jerry Meek in an e-mail. I've copied it into a word file you can access by clicking here.
But wait, there's more. The web is alive with the sound of lottery musings:
- The News and Record's Doug Clark is mad about how the lottery vote came to pass and let's us know it in this post. The comments are worth reading too.
- NC SPIN has some interesting lottery chatter, but I can't find a perma-link to it.
- Local blogger Guarino is none to happy about the lottery.
- The folks who hand out on this website, however, are very happy. I'd call them lottery enthusiasts.