Life in 3D

A realm of pissed off that I don’t visit often

A school district in Philadelphia has been spying on it’s students – in their HOMES!

According to the suit, the school district in the hoity-toity suburb of Lower Merion Township issued laptops to its high school students for them to use in class and at home. These laptops came with a catch, though: They were outfit with software that allowed the district to turn on the computers’ webcams whenever they wanted and record what was going on.

Really?!?!  Are you fucking kidding me!!?!  Who in the HELL came up with this fucking harebrained idea??  I have never been an advocate of students needing computers in high school for class, much less school resources being spent on laptops, software, tech support and all the other crap that goes along with them when that money could be used for art, teachers, sports and extra curricular activities.

Sure, have a class with computers in it for the computer programing classes, or animation, whatever.  Or have them in the library for research, but I can’t see the need to provide every student with their own laptop.  Apparently, the reason for students having their own school issued laptop was so they could be spied on.

Incredibly, the school district allegedly saw nothing unusual about this and actually disciplined a child, Blake Robbins, for “improper behavior in his home,” using photo evidence gathered surreptitiously from the webcam as part of its case. It’s unclear so far if the school was also collecting other information like emails and web browsing activity. Either way, the district didn’t disclose to the students or their parents that there would be any monitoring via the webcam.

So, we have unknown persons who are able to turn on the webcams whenever they want.  And since those same persons probably have access to the list of who has what laptop I am going to guess that they were able to look any time they wanted to at say, the cheerleaders in the school, or maybe the jock football players and capture screen images of them in various stages of undress.

Personally, if this was my child that this happened to, I would be in a state of pissed off that I rarely visit and stay in long enough to hurt someone very badly.  Who the HELL do these people think they are that they can just spy on underage kids whenever they want to?  I would like to see each and every person involved in this brought up on criminal charges, fired, and then thrown in jail for a very long time.

Schools are supposed to be a place for our kids to learn, they are NOT replacements for the parents and for this district to decide that they somehow have a right to do this is unfathomable.  It shows that they are completely out of touch with reality and have no place in education or in dealing with kids.

Everyone of these idiots should be thrown in jail.  I want to know the times, dates and computers they activated and who did it.

I will bet dollars to doughnuts that this system was abused in a very big way.

Yet another reason I’m going to do homeschooling.

Don’t know much about history

And if North Carolina has it’s way, it’s students will know even less

As the North Carolina curriculum stands now, ninth-grade students take world history, 10th-graders study civics and economics and 11th-graders take U.S. history going back to the country’s founding.

Under the proposed change, the ninth-graders would take a course called global studies, focusing in part on issues such as the environment. The 10th grade still would study civics and economics, but 11th-graders would take U.S. history only from 1877 onward.

So, our children don’t need to learn about the founding of our country until 11th grade because it’s not relevant to current history?  Please tell me how our fight for freedom, the right of self determination, and throwing off an oppressive government is not relevant to today’s situation?  By 11th grade most of these students are already going to be set in their ways and not really interested in history because most will be planning for life after high school.

Also, how can you teach the history of what happened after the Civil War unless you have an understanding OF the Civil War?  This is an asinine idea that it is unimportant to teach history along a historic time line that shows cause and then effect.   There were reasons that led up to the Civil War and repercussions that echoed for generations such as the formation of the KKK and the National Rifle association, Jim Crow laws and, eventually, the civil rights movement.

To ignore the Founding Fathers and cover it with something along the line of “The US was formed in 1776 when we fought the British and then wrote the Constitution…” (which is what most students I have encountered think) is not only inaccurate, but does a huge disservice to the men and women (yes, there were women that risked all) who fought to form the greatest country the world has ever seen.

But those considering the proposal say kids will still learn the basics.

“The students are in school for 13 years,” said Garland. “They certainly are taught U.S. and North Carolina history in middle school.”

Garland says they’re making this curriculum revision process very public to get as much feedback as possible.

Now, granted I don’t have any kids but my mom was a teacher (History, English, Debate and US Government)  so I might be outdated on how many classes kids take today.  That said, my thoughts on the subject go along these lines.  Our students in middle school should focus on US History, Math, English and World History, and PE – that should be all through middle school.  That’s five classes and leaves a class open that can be filled in with electives or with a class on State History for one year and then electives the rest of the time.

High school should continue US History, Math, English and Government/Civics/Debate all four years with the other two classes being electives.

When we have kids getting out of High School who think that Vietnam happened in the 80’s – yes, I went to college with a girl who thought that.  Worse was that none of the other kids in the class had any idea what years it DID happen – it tells me that our schools have drifted way too far off course of what they should be doing which is making sure kids can think for themselves and understand how our government is supposed to work.  How bout instead of worrying if kids learn proper social justice, how to use a condom and making sure they are not only racial sensitive, culturally diverse, and ecologically aware the schools instead just teach them how to research a topic on their own, use their brain for something other than just regurgitating what is on a test, and then they can have all the self esteem they need from actually passing the class rather than being told all the time they are good no matter what.

My last question is this – Since the Department of Education was formed, government spending on education has gone up 400% and yet we have cutbacks in the school systems, test scores are dropping, and many schools are charging kids fees to participate in extracurricular sports and activities.  Where did all that money go?

OMFG!!!

Jim Trafficant is out of jail and planning his revenge… by running for Congress???

Former U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. of Ohio, who was released from prison four months ago after serving a sentence for racketeering, tax evasion and bribery, is planning another run for Congress in 2010.

The guy was a scumbag when he was in office and is proving to be a scumbag out of office if the article is correct.

He also said his conviction was politically motivated and that he is “a very bitter guy” who is seeking revenge against the “suckers” who helped put him in prison.

Maybe we need a new Constitutional amendment that says if you were convicted of a felony you cannot vote or run for office.  Right now many states will allow a convicted felon to vote upon completion of his sentence, but I can’t say I agree with that.  You broke the rules of society and once you’ve done that you should lose some of those privileges permanently.  Like the right to vote, carry a conceiled weapon or even own a gun.

You broke the rules, you pay the price.  Trafficant thought the rules didn’t apply to him.  For those of you who don’t know about Jimmy “The Rug” Trafficant here is the Wiki entry on him.  Suffice it to say that this is the kind of man I wouldn’t buy a used car from, much less vote into a public office.

While he has always tried to wrap himself in the flag and claimed that everyone who opposed him is out to get him, and the charges are all part of a huge vendetta against him, the truth is that he’s just another Huey Long, just not as bright or as successful.  The worst part of it all though is that when he ran for Congress WHILE IN JAIL 15% still voted for this jackass.

Makes me fucking sick.

More bowing

This time to the mayor of Tampa

Weasel Zippers asks why he would do something this stupid and I think I have the answer – besides the obvious one that he is a moron.

I am going to bet that his thoughts on it are “Gee, she’s Asian so the respectful thing to do is bow” which to me says that for all the talk of moving beyond race and judging people by the quality of their character, Obama’s vision is literally skin deep.

Welcome to the world of the left.