clunker, aerodynamic , rally its forces for the coming election

Clunkers
By JAMES MCWILLIAMS
In the wrong hands, a sturdy, aerodynamic book can do as much harm as good.


ARE PARENTS ACCEPTING A CLUNKER?
John Merrow blogs in Taking Note: why do parents accept educational practices that put the educational health and safety of their children at risk? I am talking about how schools go about measuring academic progress: how they test. I can’t begin to count the number of conversations I have had with educators over the years about testing, conversations that always seem to begin something like this: “I know about the problems with testing, and I personally hate them, but that’s the system — and we have to have accountability.”




Labour Works to Rally U.K. Voters

The U.K.'s Labour Party promised to extend its version of "cash for clunkers" as it sought to rally its forces for the coming election.

The Los Angeles Times leads with, and everyone fronts, news that the $1 billion Congress appropriated for the "cash for clunkers" program may have run out in less than a week. The program was designed to increase auto sales by offering vouchers of up to $4,500 to consumers who traded in gas-guzzling vehicles for more fuel-efficient new trucks or cars.





Cuba Turns Clunkers Into Gold
By VICTORIA BURNETT

A new government rule allows Cubans to buy and sell used vehicles freely for the first time in half a century as part of President Raúl Castro’s economic plan.

Germany's Auto-Woes Fix: Scrap That Clunker!

By Adam Smith / London

Schemes that pay car owners to trade in their old autos and buy new ones are working — at least in Germany

clunker
n. Informal.

1. A decrepit machine, especially an old car; a rattletrap.
2. A failure; a flop.