Many consider No Child Left Behind to be “the most negative brand in America.” Well, perhaps second most negative, after “Bush/Cheney”. So with sanity restored to the White House, it’s time to change this law, beginning with the changing of its Orwellian name.

According to a story in today’s New York Times, Rename Law? No Wisecrack Is Left Behind, the new Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, says of the despised Act, “Let’s rebrand it,” and “give it a new name.” The article provides a nice summary on how this wretched Act got its name (Bush trademark infringement, natch), and new efforts to change the Act and its name.

Over on the Eduwonk.com blog, you can compete in a rename-the-law contest and offer your own serious or snarky suggestions. Some examples of the latter include:

• Mental Asset Recovery Plan
• The All American Children Are Above Average Act (AACAAAA)
• Double Back Around to Pick Up the Children We Left Behind Act
• No Crony Left Behind
• The Act of Contrition
• Not Even We Think This Will Work Act
• Act to Help Children Read Gooder
• No Child’s Behind Left
• Mega-sized Multiple Choice Exam Act
• No Child Left Untested
• No Excuse Left Behind
• Teach to the Test Act
• The Child-Propulsion Act
• Another Administration, Another Education Act Act
• The Mess Bush Left Behind
• Texas Two-Step & Textbook Lobby Act
• The Unfunded Mandates Statistically Impossible Goals Act
• No Child Left a Dime
• Testing Companies Financial Enrichment Act
• No School Left Standing
• Don’t Task, Don’t Fail Act
• DADA: Dumb America Down Act
• The Sarah Palin Slipped Through the Cracks Literacy Act
• If You Are Smarter Than a Bush You Pass Act
• Rearranging the Deck Chairs Act
• Reach Out And Test Someone Act
• SEA — Standardize Everything Act
• The Voucher-Readiness Act
• The Teacher Held Hostage Act
• The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Act
• The Consumers of Tomorrow Act
• Leave No Inner Child Behind
• Disenfranchisement Panacea Act (DPA)
• No Child Gets Ahead
• Could We Start Again Please Act
• Dog Ate My Homework Act

For the sake of simplicity, I like the entry by Joe Williams: “It should be named Caitlin. Everybody seems to be naming things Caitlin these days. Or Caleb.” Here here!

GM needs to cut costs, create stronger brand messages with the consumer, and make better cars. By marketing fewer models under few brands, they should be able to sell more cars than they do now. The plan they need to submit to Congress today is a simple and inevitable one.

1. Get rid of, in order: Hummer, Saturn, Pontiac, Saab, Buick and GMC. This will allow them to focus the money they spend on R&D, manufacturing and advertising. Everything can be branded under the Chevrolet and Cadillac brands.

2. There is no “2″.

There is an old Indian saying, “When life hands you cows, make teapee”.

Via The Times:

India to launch cow urine as soft drink

Does your Pepsi lack pep? Is your Coke not the real thing? India’s Hindu nationalist movement apparently has the answer: a new soft drink made from cow urine.

The bovine brew is in the final stages of development by the Cow Protection Department of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), India’s biggest and oldest Hindu nationalist group, according to the man who makes it.

Om Prakash, the head of the department, said the drink – called “gau jal”, or “cow water” – in Sanskrit was undergoing laboratory tests and would be launched “very soon, maybe by the end of this year”.

“Don’t worry, it won’t smell like urine and will be tasty too,” he told The Times from his headquarters in Hardwar, one of four holy cities on the River Ganges. “Its USP will be that it’s going to be very healthy. It won’t be like carbonated drinks and would be devoid of any toxins.”…

…He insisted, however, that it would be able to compete with the American cola brands, even with their enormous advertising budgets. “We’re going to give them good competition as our drink is good for mankind,” he said. “We may also think of exporting it.”

Via Dom Nozzi:

Ben & Jerry created “Yes Pecan!” ice cream flavor for Obama.
They then asked people to fill in the blank for the following:

For George W. they created “_________”.

Here are some of their favorite responses:

- Grape Depression
- Abu Grape
- Cluster Fudge
- Nut’n Accomplished
- Iraqi Road
- Chock ‘n Awe
- WireTapioca
- Impeach Cobbler
- Guantanmallow
- imPeachmint
- Good Riddance You Lousy Motherfucker… Swirl
- Heck of a Job, Brownie!
- Neocon Politan
- RockyRoad to Fascism
- The Reese’s-cession
- Cookie D’oh!
- The Housing Crunch
- Nougalar Proliferation
- Death by Chocolate… and Torture
- Freedom Vanilla Ice Cream
- Chocolate Chip On My Shoulder
- “You’re Shitting In My Mouth And Calling It A” Sundae
- Credit Crunch
- Mission Pecanplished
- Country Pumpkin
- Chunky Monkey in Chief
- George Bush Doesn’t Care About Dark Chocolate
- WMDelicious
- Chocolate Chimp
- Bloody Sundae
- Caramel Preemptive Stripe
- I broke the law and am responsible for the deaths of thousands…with nuts

But who is Dom Nozzi? If it is true that you can judge a man by the company he keeps, then Dom can be summed up by this list of his friends as of 1966.

Of course, you may just want to judge him based on the fact that he maintains a list of his friends from kindergarten.

He is obviously quite mad.