A Time of Rememberance

You probably already know, but as I write this, it is the day of the 10th anniversary of the attacks on the United States by terrorists. September 11th, 2001 was a day that changed all of America, for the rest of time.

What prides me about this country is that as a country, we did not strike back with the same violence that struck us. We instead did something good for the countries that were home to the terrorists. We sewed the seeds of democracy, in hopes that their lives would improve. Many people would have simply dropped bombs on the Middle East, but we took this approach of inducing peace.

This year as well, we found and killed Osama bin Landen, founder of the extremist group, Al Qaeda. While many people applauded his death, with many shouting “USA!! USA!!” in D.C. after news arrived of Osama’s death.

I’m glad I live in such a proud country, and I’d like to pay my respects to the soldiers that worked to defend our freedoms, those who just were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and killed by the plane crashes, as well as the families who lost loved ones 10 years ago.

We will never forget.

Animated flag image by 3DFlags.com

National Day of Silence speaks out in the wrong way, ineffective

Today, at my school, and thousands of other schools around the nation, students participated in a Day of Silence. It is a silent protest to bring to light “anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in their schools.”However, silence is an ineffective tool against discrimination. Continue reading “National Day of Silence speaks out in the wrong way, ineffective”

Kent started school finally

Yep, today was the Kent School District’s first day of the 2009 – 2010 school year.

The source of the delay in state was a teacher strike, which our own G. Liu discussed in a post right here.

The pure source of the teacher strike, the absolute root of the issues G. Liu stated as the source of the strike is money. The Kent School District’s lack of it. Kent lacks money to pay for building refurbishments that add classrooms, to pay for new teachers, and other issues.

The other problem is that Kent has way too much property covered by them. This specific point means that their schools are packed. There’s also 4 grades packed into the high schools, and 6 packed into elementary schools. Tahoma’s scheme of K-5 in Elementary, 6 and 7 in Middle, 8 and 9 in Junior High, and 10-12 in Senior High works very well. It provides a gradual approach to High School for students and gives a more gentle narrowing of schools. Tahoma has 4 elementary schools, 2 middle schools, one junior high and one senior high (as well as a “High School Alternative”). Kent has 28 elementary schools, 6 middle schools and 5 high schools.

Kent School District is about to be the next GM, going through an awkward “restructuring” to solve their problem. (GM still makes lousy cars though.)

Hopefully though Kent can survive at least until December without further strikes.

Carbon Counting

If you’re curious about how much Carbon Dioxide is in our atmosphere RIGHT THIS SECOND, then there is now an online counter that was unveiled in New York today. It will provide you with a live counter of the approximate metric tons of CO2 in the atmosphere right now.

The link is: http://bit.ly/LH5GC

The website wasn’t unveiled just today, but in New York, everyone gathered around a billboard that will update itself.

Polar Graph racism?

This joke surfaced while I was talking with Darren yesterday. He claimed that polar graphs were racist. It sounded absurd at first, but just wait and you’ll find out more about this.

After hearing that statement, I decided to Google search this. The only result I found was that “polar graphs…show patters of racism”. That was the only explanation I got, so I decided to go to the Wikipedia Reference Desk for Mathematics.

I posted my question there, and waited. After a day, here’s some comments I got:

There is nothing inherently race oriented in the definition of polar graphs. Specific instances of polar graphs might be considered racist.

Presumably because they are based on Poles – that’s as worthy of the word “joke” as the likelihood that Fermat had a solution to the Riemann hypothesis.

Did a manic-depressive invent those ?

I would have said that Cartesian graphs are more racists than polar ones.

Clearly a revolutionary approach is needed.

If you want to read all the activity that question has generated, go here.

Peace out and ha-ha!

–DEATHGLEANER