Boom! Adam mentions us being topical, and I get into topical mode. (And a potential crash, what with the onomatopoeia.) If I still updated my That's Fucked Up blog, this would totally be the next entry.

I've long given up on CNN.com providing useful news. As of late, it's become tabloid-esque sensational stories. But this morning, I found an entertaining (in a sad way) article about Obama's address to school children. Here's the scoop: On Tuesday, the President is going to give a nationally-televised speech to students. He's going to talk about the importance of working hard and staying in school. Cool, sounds good.

There's one other thing. Along with the speech, the Education Department plans/planned to distribute an exercise that originally asked students to discuss "what they can do to help the president." Okay, not the best wording, I agree. But they changed it to how the students can "achieve their short-term and long-term education goals." Regardless of the prompt, the students would write a response, the teachers would collect that response and then return it at a later date. All of this is an effort to get students to feel accountable for their goals. Cool, sounds good.

So, to recap: The President is giving a speech encouraging students not to drop-out of school. And, oh yeah, there might be some assignment tacked on to help them realize their goals. I wonder which of these two points the conservative opposition is going to harp on...

Many conservative parents aren't buying it. They're convinced the president is going to use the opportunity to press a partisan political agenda on impressionable young minds.

"Thinking about my kids in school having to listen to that just really upsets me," suburban Colorado mother Shanneen Barron told CNN Denver affiliate KMGH. "I'm an American. They are Americans, and I don't feel that's OK. I feel very scared to be in this country with our leadership right now."

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a possible contender for the GOP's 2012 presidential nomination, said Friday the classroom is no place to show a video address from Obama.

"At a minimum it's disruptive. Number two, it's uninvited. And number three, if people would like to hear his message they can, on a voluntary basis, go to YouTube or some other source and get it. I don't think he needs to force it upon the nation's school children," he told reporters at the Minnesota State fair.

Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer released a statement this week accusing Obama of using taxpayer money to "indoctrinate" children.

"The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the president justify his plans ... is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power."