As school districts begin creating their budgets for the 2008-2009 year, the rising price of diesel is affecting the bottom lines of schools all over the nation, as more and more money needs to be allotted for gas purchases for all those big yellow school busses.   As I’m sure you’re aware, school budgets are often somewhat tight is it is, and the skyrocketing price of fuel isn’t helping any.   An article in the Lincoln Journal Star highlights the issue.

As of the end of March, the district had spent $422,260 on diesel fuel. Its budget was $393,950.  Officials predict they’ll spend another $170,740 through the end of the fiscal year.

And as prices go up and up, more money is taken away from other parts of the budget to keep the busses going.

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

Katie Halper:

Necklacing Returns to South Africa, Tutu Calls for Peace, and History Repeats Itself

Ted Kennedy’s Malignant Brain Tumor: Sad News, But the Work Goes On

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Nicole Hughes:

Bush’s Food Aid Package Promotes Use of GMOs

Gas Prices Exceed Those of 1973 Oil Crisis

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Andy Kondrat:

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Could Cost US 38 Trillion Annually

USDA Budget Squeeze Forces Agency to Stop Tracking Pesticide Use

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Jon Popham:

Brooklyn Bridge Birthday Celebration!

Smokey the Bear: Environmental Icon

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Giulia Rozzi:

Suicide Tourism in New York City

Kristin Davis and Her Solar Powered Home

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Gina Telaroli:

Media That Matters Film Festival Premieres on May 28th

Top 10 Ways Indiana Jones Saved the World: Part #1

The USDA has announced that due to budget constraints, it is unwillingly shutting down the only national public survey that tracks and measures pesticide use on crops.   Looks like we need Food & Water Watch more than ever now.   Because the report soaked up $8 million of the USDA’s $160 million annual budget, it’s just not a feasible expense anymore, even though the agency admits the data is “actually needed” by the public.

From the Contra Costa Times, probably the only newspaper in the world to have printed my name (and even then in the Walnut Creek Journal insert, but still),

Eliminating the program “will mean farmers will be subjected to conjecture and allegations about their use of chemicals and fertilizer,” said Don Lipton, a spokesman for the American Farm Bureau.

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Yesterday the Senate ensured that our government would be able to operate through September 2008 and that troops in Iraq would get more money, but not to come home. The bill approved 556 billion dollars for the budget and 70 of that is to be spent on Iraq. Democrats were working to get a withdrawal clause attached to the 70 billion but failed and the bill, with no plans to leave Iraq, passed by a vote of 76-17.

The House of Representatives could vote as early as Wednesday to approve the Iraq war funds. When the House passed its version of the budget bill on Monday, it specifically prohibited any new money for Iraq.

But with the Democratic-controlled Congress hurrying to recess for three weeks and Republican Bush promising to veto any budget bill that does not have money for the Iraq war, the House is expected to relent.” We need to pass this spending bill, with troop funds, without any strings and without any further delay,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said.The Senate’s assistant Democratic leader, Dick Durbin of Illinois, who opposes unconditional Iraq funding, said the latest batch of money could keep the wars running through May or June.If Congress does provide the $70 billion, it would boost the overall cost of the two wars to about $670 billion so far. [The Financial Times]

Now seems like the appropriate time to post the trailer to Charles Ferguson’s documentary about the Bush administration’s involvement in Iraq, No End in Sight:

By Giulia Rozzi

Looks like more hard times for low income mother’s and their kids.

According to Feministing Bush’s proposed spending on the Womens, Infants and Childrens Program (which provides food vouchers to low-income women and their children up to age 5) would leave roughly half a million people in the lurch.

Meanwhile prices for milk and cheese have increased leaving many WIC members struggling.

For more on the WIC program visit http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/