Fresno County California school Superintendent Larry Powell is willing to take an $800,000 pay-cut over the next three years to help save programs in his district from budget cuts.

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From CNN:

(CNN) -- Sen. Edward Kennedy, the patriarch of the first family of Democratic politics, died at Tuesday night in his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, after a lengthy battle with brain cancer. He was 77.

"We've lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever," a family statement said. "We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice."

The man who gave us SCHIP, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and COBRA, who erased immigration quotas, who defined liberalism, who stood up to Reagan. A real American hero.

(For the full text and audio of this speech, visit this link. H/T reggie44pride in the comment section.)

My hands are trembling as I type. I have weeped over three political stories in my short life - 9/11, Obama's election, and tonight. And I should add, my health insurance is through COBRA - I wouldn't have paid for my annual physical and semi-annual dental checkup this summer, and I would be subject to preconditions, if not for Ted Kennedy.

Health care reform must pass, and let that be his legacy more than any family relation.

This was originally comment, but by the time I finished saying everything I felt needed saying (and by the time I'd reiterated it incessantly to make sure I was understood, as I neurotically tend to do), I realized I'd written a diary.

There's a lot of anger out there and frustration over Obama's apparent leap to the center. I've thought about writing about FISA, but the fact is what can be said has been. By the time I got up the confidence to write something, the lines were drawn and that was that.

Well I'm getting in on the ground floor of this Wesley Clark hullabaloo. Thanks in advance for reading. I'm a bit nervous but here it goes:

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I was in the attic of my house a little after 2:30 PM yesterday afternoon, my bedroom, a place and time that will remain burned in my memory until the winding moments of my breathing. I was writing a piece of satire that I planned on publishing to Facebook shortly thereafter, when my mother yelled up to me from downstairs and delivered to me the gut-imploding news. News that I could not feasibly comprehend until at least an hour and half later, and even then it felt like an exaggerated nightmare. News that physically brought me to slump in my chair and stare down at my floor with eyes dimmed and approaching unregistered tears. News that hit the ceiling with the same internal affect one would similarly receive if someone personally close to them had tragically passed on.

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