President Obama’s Back-to-School speech to students

Step aside Tony Robbins? Well, apart from it being on a topic that’s not properly the business of the federal government, President Obama’s “no excuses” back-to-school message to students was a welcome one about achievement, work and responsibility–and the lessons of failure. When kids hear that they can achieve great things without an elite background, and see examples besides, it’s always an uplift.

The best bit:

[A]t the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.
Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s really great stuff, the kind I like my own nosepickers to hear. Now we can get back to the real business of the federal government–that of picking a state bird.