State of the Union Address: January 23, 2007

[Vedder]

At first I saw the title and thought it was another "State of the Yinion" post... color me disappointed.

[Fhqwghads]

After reading some of the bullet points, all I can say is this fucking retard needs to be impeached and removed from office. The majority of the US populace disagrees with the handling of his war in Iraq, and most of Congress also disagrees with it. He's basically sticking up both middle fingers to everyone and saying "fuck you, I'm doing what *I* want. I don't give a shit about what you think." You know what, Dubya? FUCK YOU right back. How the hell can this asshole continue to drive the country when the massive majority is saying "change directions, jackass!" The more this country is flushed down the shitter, the more flabbergasted I am at how poorly this country's governmental structure handles this type of situation.

If this moron is allowed to continue with his cowboy attitude, we're going to be so deeply alienated from the rest of the world that wandering outside our borders will result in anything from spit on to kill on sight. There should be some sort of cockpit ejection seat integrated into the presidential chair in order to rapidly abort leadership gone as badly as this one has. I seriously will not be surprised when someone shoots this fucker in the head to rid the country of any further idiotic decisions. It would probably be the best thing that could happen to this country right now, because apparently public opinion means nothing to this retard and he plans to continue wading through the shit he's created, oblivious of the stench. With the way things are now, he's probably going to be the most hated president this country has ever seen.

[Kenai]

After reading some of the bullet points, all I can say is this fucking retard needs to be impeached and removed from office. The majority of the US populace disagrees with the handling of his war in Iraq, and most of Congress also disagrees with it. He's basically sticking up both middle fingers to everyone and saying "fuck you, I'm doing what *I* want. I don't give a shit about what you think." You know what, Dubya? FUCK YOU right back. How the hell can this asshole continue to drive the country when the massive majority is saying "change directions, jackass!" The more this country is flushed down the shitter, the more flabbergasted I am at how poorly this country's governmental structure handles this type of situation.

If this moron is allowed to continue with his cowboy attitude, we're going to be so deeply alienated from the rest of the world that wandering outside our borders will result in anything from spit on to kill on sight. There should be some sort of cockpit ejection seat integrated into the presidential chair in order to rapidly abort leadership gone as badly as this one has. I seriously will not be surprised when someone shoots this fucker in the head to rid the country of any further idiotic decisions. It would probably be the best thing that could happen to this country right now, because apparently public opinion means nothing to this retard and he plans to continue wading through the shit he's created, oblivious of the stench. With the way things are now, he's probably going to be the most hated president this country has ever seen.

The problem is that as fucking annoying and stupid as he's being, he's not doing anything (apparently), that they can impeach him for, and thus he's going to get off scott free. Of course, there are already several new laws in the works to prevent this type of thing from occuring a second time, but that's not going to help now, of course. There might be more public outcry if the U.S. populance as a whole wasn't so amazingly ignorant of International Affairs in general ("Why did 9/11 happen?" "Evil terrorists did it!" "Yea, but WHY did they do it?" "Because they are EVIL! Duh!"). Bush represents the epitome of U.S. flaws in dealings with the rest of the world, and has fucked up U.S. relations so badly that it will likely take us decades to dig ourselves back out. It's really amazing how few people as a whole comprehend it, I'm hoping that maybe we can make up some amends after he's out of office, but who knows what's going to happen between then and now...

[Raineer]

f by 6th grade someone says "i hate math but I really like art" STOP TEACHING THEM MATH. Likewise for someone who's interested in science but not art. It's not rocket science to know that someone will learn what they are interested in anyways, plus that's what they want to do with their life.

I 100% disagree with that right there, as much as I despise trig and the like, I am busting my ass to get through it, because I need to for the type of work I plan on doing after I get outta college, even though I won't be using it very much. This is a field that I didn't even consider until my freshmen year of college, I can't even imagine how far behind I'd be if I hadn't been taking basic algebra the last few years of high school. I'm sure that EVERYONE here has had situations plenty of times during their life where they wished that they didn't have to do something, or know something, but became a better or more knowledgable person from it. A 6th grader isn't going to know what they are going to be doing in 10 years, and a lot of times the people that have a harder time learning something, but learn it anyway, actually end up being some of the best people at it, because they had to try harder. Teaching them only a particular thing would simply be locking them into a particular field, god forbid they develop an interest in something else and haven't even learned the most basic of basic things about it, putting them years behind where they could have been with a little effort way back when. You can't just give up on something because it's hard or you don't like it (or let a kid decide to do that!...), there's too many people doing that already.

I can agree on some of your other points, but definitely not that.

Then make the deliniation point in High School. By then you should have a clue what you want to do, or at least know what interests you.

Your story doesn't apply, since you're telling me "i'm busting my ass to get through trig", you're not going to stand up and say STOP TEACHING ME TRIG, because you know it's important.

You can't teach everyone everything, some of us are blessed to be able to learn a wide array of topics (i'm one, but I can't stand literature, so i don't fall in the "everything" category either), some just aren't. We should stop forcing the issue so much.

[Kenai]

I don't think we are teaching everyone everything per se. I can understand not going into intense focus in any particular subject, sure, but that's why there are basic Core Curriculim (sp?) guidelines for every school system, and a ton of classes are considered electives. These are considered very basic applications to what a person would expect to run into throughout one's lifetime, and are essentially life skills for the day and age in most circumstances. I don't consider myself blessed to be good at every class, I hate math because I have an extremely hard time understanding a lot of the more complex stuff, and even if I work my absolute best I can't get an A in most math classes, which makes me extremely angry. I say that we already have the basic idea of what you say in place, despite it not being considered a mainstream or advised approach, 16 year olds do have the option of dropping out of high school, and no one makes anyone go to college for no particular reason, and if you do, you get maybe a few general courses, but then you start learning the things that are important or relevent to your particular needs and choices. It really starts to matter around then because by then people start to know what they want to do and were they want to go (or in my case, they start to look and wonder where), and coincidentally, that's when a lot more options and experience opportunities start to open up.

I'm not gonna try to say the current education system is perfect, but honestly, from what I see, a lot of our classes in grade school are a lot less harsh than most other industralized contries as it is (most get what we consider to be college courses in high school, as a core requirement), and like I said, a kid will NOT know, in fact no one will know, where that kid might go in 10 years. You can't just put them in very particular courses and gimp them at everything else just because they may or may not like something, it isn't close to practical. That's like letting them not eat anything but their (current) favorite foods, not only is the child missing out on what they might eventually find and like at some point later, but it could easily cause future complications.

[archibaldcrane]

If a student is interested in art, and not math, you'd goddamn better teach them some fucking math.

Not only does your "give up on math if they don't like it" strategy require a complete reworking of college admissions, since you need 3 years of HS math to get into college (where art education and training goes beyond "I like to draw cars!"), but it also leaves all these people with art training (and not nearly enough jobs for them) crippled in skill-sets because they can't perform multiplication that they need for non art jobs, to, ya know, live.

Not everyone can be good at Calculus.

99% of people can be decent at Algebra. Most students who are "bad at a math class" are that way because they don't have the skills that are necessary prior to that class. Kids suck in Algebra because they are bad at arithmetic. Kids suck at Geometry because their Algebra is flawed.

Kids need to learn math. And they are capable of it. Don't give up on kids because they "don't like it." The "foods they don't like to eat" analogy is apt. Schools can't count on parents giving a shit about their kids - they just can't. That is one of the reasons why privitization doesn't work.

[Daahan]

The high school that I went to was in a good neighborhood, had some of the highest standards in public schools, was clean, had a ton of smart kids, and was a great place to be.

My former teacher who still works there, who's now a good friend of mine, has told me about how the school has gone down the shitter because of No Child Left Behind.

A few miles East of the school is a neighborhood that's not that great and has a high school where a bunch of ghetto people flunk all the time, and now they have flooded to the school.

It really does suck no matter which way you look at it. Why do the good students have to put up with the morons that won't make anything out of their lives anyway?