Kat I swear swear by Neutrogena hand cream in the little tubes. My hands get so dry they hurt if I don't moisturise them after washing them, and it's the only thing I've found both unscented and strong enough to help right away.

Y'know, it's sad when Levi Johnston starts looking like a responsible parent. ::shudder::

I'm trying to understand why the UK has government-funded religious schools to begin with. I can't find anything that makes sense to me.

Well it does not really make sense, but there are historical reasons. I'll let someone from the UK, but think of all the arguments we get for vouchers in the U.S. If we had a voucher system they would be used to pay for religious schools. And the UK has an established Church... Why do we have the healthcare system we have? It makes no sense, but there is a long history that lead to it.

Yeah, I'm reading up on the history of the UK school system, to try to understand.

I really wish I could just start smacking girls in the back of the head and that, somehow, this would help. I couldn't be in that environment, Kat, without doing violence.

I know girls date assholes but I just wish they could make the discovery BEFORE they decide to have kids. Grrr.

State funding of religious schools often developed to enable control of religious education.

In France, where secularism is one of the three pillars of the public school system, they also fund private schools, including religious schools.

Now I'm reading about the history of British education, and something mentioned teachers wearing academic gowns and my brain can't decide whether to picture Hogwarts or Goodbye Mr. Chipps. But this seemed to answer most of my questions about the religious schools. [link]

Huh. According to the link education for the poor and working classes started out mostly religious, and when public funding became significant, it went equally to religious and secular, so by the time there was any type of guaranteed right of education, publicly funded religious instruction was ]reading between the lines] too fundamental to the UK system for anyone to consider eliminating. It really it is similar to the way private insurance was embedded into the U.S. healthcare system.

In France, where secularism is one of the three pillars of the public school system, they also fund private schools, including religious schools.

There are four school systems in Montreal - English Protestant, English Catholic, French Protestant, French Catholic.

I had a random Buffista encounter today! I was crossing the street to get to my bus stop and in the middle of Michigan Ave I ran into Brenda, who appeared to be doing the same thing. Brenda if it hadn't been the middle of Mich Ave I would have stopped to chat.