Category: Rants

One of the reasons I like reading Bad Astronomy Blog is The Bad Astronomer‘s (aka Phil Plait) penchant for calling out states, school boards, educators and who-not trying to push alternative “scientific” theories into schools (which for the most part are fairly thinly veiled attempts at pushing a creationist teaching agenda). Phil does this really well.

I find it all quite amusing, ironic and sad all at the same time (the politicians and their bills, not Phil).

Consider this. You can hardly go a day without hearing someone bashing or criticizing the state of public education, or reading about the latest study on how kids in the US fare so poorly in compared to other countries. Everybody complains about the sorry state of public education in the US (despite the efforts of all the good teachers out there). Yet just about everywhere you turn, there is some politician out there who insists on dumbing down the curriculum even more. They create bills or rules that supposedly allow educators the ‘freedom’ to teach ‘alternative scientific theories’ (we all know what that means) at the expense of the real science.

It’s the Doomination of America I tell you. Doom! DOOM!

Think about it. Instead of letting teachers give kids a real education or trying to improve the state of public education in the country, they want to fill the curriculum with crap. I mean really, what are you thinking! The only thing kids are learning these days is how to pass those stupid standardized tests (and most of them aren’t even doing that!). You want to replace what little science they’re learning with crap and expect more students to pass??!!

Seriously, doesn’t that just make you want to go WTF?

WTF! WTF!

Don’t even get me started on the endless standardized testing and the idiocy that is “No Child Left Behind” either.

I like The Bad Astronomer. Phil’s my hero.

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I just wanted to offer my thanks to the US government for their immense wisdom in pushing DST back three weeks and making me wake up in the dark again. The extra two weeks of morning darkness I’ll be getting is just what I needed.

Thanks again.

Seriously, what’s with all the wailing and gnashing of teeth by the TV weather people over snow and how it’s all coming down weeks before the official start of winter? This morning I heard 3 separate weather people lament about all those places in the northeast and midwest getting dumped on and how winter doesn’t even officially start for another three weeks.

Really now, you’re supposed to be weather professionals. Snow is a fact of life in these places. The real story should be why hasn’t the snow come earlier like it’s supposed to? Is anybody living in a winter city really all that surprised they’re getting snow? Most of them are probably more surprised the snow didn’t come three weeks ago.

When it 30 cm of snow falls in a place like Charleston, that’s a worthy weather story. The snow that’s falling in the northeast and midwest? That’s just normal.

Just got an email saying the itinerary for my reunion trip in September has changed so that on the flight back, I’m supposed to be going from Edmonton to Denver to Washington Dulles and finally to Charleston. It’s almost 10 hours of flight time and 13 hours from start to finish (not including the drive to and from airports) and nearly double what it was before. Major suckage. Really, really major suckage.

It’s a far cry from the original Edmonton->Chicago->Charleston that I originally booked. I may have to call and see what can be done about switching it back to the way it was, if it’s even possible.