Shit that Pissed me off – 10/3

All this Hatred of the Common Core

The particular article I linked to calls it “Obama’s Common Core” even though the President had nothing to do with it.  However, if you are conservative and don’t like something in government, you need to blame it on Obama.

Common core mathematics actually tries to teach kids how to do math the same way we already do it in our heads.  As has been explained every time someone new complains about Common Core.

Suddenly, the whole thing has become a liberal vs. conservative thing.  Look at how these liberals are messing up education with their weird math stuff!

Look at all these liberal numbers! Screw diversity! We are in a post-racial-numbers society!

Common core is a tool kids can use to learn math.  Any good teacher will tell you that it is not the only tool and the more tools we give kids, the better the odds will be that they can learn.

Common core isn’t turning your kids into Democrats!  Obama doesn’t want your kids to be bad at math.

He just wants them to commit voter fraud!  They don’t teach that in Math class.

Twin Cities’ Oldest Independent Bookstore is Closing

Businesses close all the time and it sucks.  I think it’s a shame to watch the collapse of independent book sellers, though.

I’m not saying I know how to save them.  Even if I never bought a book on Amazon (I hardly ever do now but I certainly did in the past), the fact is eReaders and online bookstores have permanently altered the industry and businesses like The Bookcase can’t keep up.

Will there still be a few shops like this out there?  I would imagine so.

But most of them are going to close.  The industry has left them behind.

Sometimes I don’t understand why were are all so in love with the free market.  The free market is a heartless system that will destroy your business if something better comes along.

And trust me – something better almost always comes along.

Reality Star Blames the Holocaust on Evolution

One of the seventy-five Duggar children has gone on record as saying that evolution is bad because of Hitler.

Look, even if the holocaust was a direct result of Darwin’s theory of natural selection (it wasn’t), that fact would not invalidate the theory.

A side effect of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is that we can’t travel faster than the speed of light.  I’m really annoyed by that fact because I really want faster than light travel to be a real thing.  But that doesn’t mean the theory is wrong.

The real reason Han couldn’t make the jump to light speed? Physics.

Now what if Einstein’s theory of Relativity had somehow inspired Pol Pot?  Would we then use that to argue that we could, in fact, travel faster than the speed of light?

No.  That would be stupid.

Why, then, do we suffer fools to make the same argument about evolution?  I mean, we can’t stop them.  I get that.  But we can call them foolish.  We don’t have to be polite about it. Their opinion is illogical and stupid and we don’t have to treat it with respect.

Star Tribune Runs Transphobic Ad

This may come as a shock to some, but I’m not angry at the paper.  They make money by running ads and they are supposed to be impartial. I want them to run ads supporting political perspectives I support so I feel I need to accept they will run ads for perspectives I think are hateful and stupid.

I’m very angry at the people who ran this ad because they don’t know what the fuck they are talking about.  They are using scare tactics to confuse the real issues and they should be ashamed of themselves.

The thing is, I think this ad serves a very positive purpose in that it brings to light ugly and completely misinformed perspectives on this issue.  It allows those of us who actually understand something about Trans issues to confront these people because now we know who they are and what they are capable of doing.

The problem I have with people who are angry at the paper is I think their anger is best directed at the idiots who produced the ad.  And thanks to the ad, we know who those people are.

Antonin Scalia Once Again Proves Why He Shouldn’t Be On the Supreme Court

What bothers me most about Scalia is his biases are so completely transparent.  He views religious law as more important than secular law.  He feels that our country can favor one religion over another.  He feels the Constitution is a Christian document.

And he doesn’t see the danger in that point of view.  He doesn’t see that one day this might not be a Christian nation.  If he (and his pal Clarence Thomas) get their way, someday we might all be subjected to a different ideology that wants to determine what the rest of us are allowed to do.

Why doesn’t everyone understand that corporations are people? Why am I the only one who sees this?

For all my issues with the Democratic party (and I have a lot of them), I will keep voting for Democratic Presidents because a Republican President will put guys like Scalia on the bench over and over again.  The culture wars, unfortunately, are going to be fought in the Supreme Court.  And I don’t want any more people like Scalia creating precedents that favor one religion over another, one sexual preference over another, or one party over another.

That said, I hate that the court is a politicized object now.  Judges shouldn’t be placed there because of ideology.  They should be placed there because they are really good at their job. I would favor more judges like Sandra O’Connor.  I didn’t always agree with her but I don’t think she ruled based on ideology.

Antonin Scalia seems to rule solely on ideology.  And I think his ideology is that of a scuzzbag.

Edge of Tomorrow Didn’t Come out on DVD This Week

It comes out next week.  And I thought it was this week.

So when I went to the store, it wasn’t there yet.

And I wants it, precious.

I know.  First world problem.

For those of you who haven’t seen the film (and there are quite a few of you), there are a lot of good reasons to give this film a try.  But here’s the best one:

Tom Cruise dies.  Over and over and over again.  The movie is like Groundhog Day if the groundhog existed for no other purpose than to kill Tom Cruise.

What’s not to love?