I thought I had outrun the idiot brigade when I changed schools, but...here I stand a very angry man. Today, after my first class there was an internship fair with a lot of businesses sporting their new fancy free pens and clipboards. So, this was a place with a lot of traffic, and so all the hippie bastards decided that today would be the perfect day to spread the word that "Bush" needed to get his "imperialistic" ass out of Iraq, and to get our soldiers back home.

I think I might be one of the last sane people in college who actually still supports the war in Iraq. I say sane because I know for a fact that there are some insanely stupid people who support it as well, and I'd like to disassociate myself from said people.

Back to my point. Back in 2003 over 65% of Americans supported entering Iraq. Today's approval rating of the war has tanked to right around 35-30%. I am the exact opposite. When the war was beginning, I thought it was stupid to give Saddam an ultimatum.

If everyone was afraid that he was hiding anything, why the FUCK tell him when you're going to go look for them? SUPRISE HIM! Think about it, it's like sex. If you KNOW a girl doesn't want to have sex with you, why would you announce the time you're going to make a move? You don't! IT'S CALLED RAPE. Or for the more sensitive: surprise sex.

After we invaded, everyone started whining about how the US didn't go along with what the rest of the world wanted. All of a sudden, everyone was a fucking UN expert and started saying that the US went without any allies or any support. Out of no where people actually cared about the rest of the world's opinion.

I say, the US doesn't have to kiss Europe's ass everytime it feels the need to carry out international policy. It's extremely helpful if Europe lends their support, but if they don't then fuck 'em we're not the biggest economy in the world because we asked for Europe's permission.

BUT! We entered...and people began to forget their loyalty to Europe and the rest of the world. Americans started getting up and shouting that they don't want to be there anymore. All of a sudden the world's opinion didn't matter anymore. I mean who gives a shit if we invade, fuck up a whole country into chaos, and then leave because we don't want to get hurt anymore. NO ONE THINKS! Do you think the world is going to thank the US for pulling out now? NO! They're gonna hate the US even more, wrecking a country and leaving it to rot.

I say we stick it out and take responsibility for our actions. Fuck the people who keep saying that we should never have been there, WE'RE THERE!
(On a side note, WMD's were found buried in Syria. Why is this relevant? Syrian president and Saddam are extremely close allies, and if you look real closely you wont find a single nuclear plant anywhere in Syria. Just thought I'd let you guys know).

Back to the topic, we invaded get the fuck over it. It's not like you can hop into your handy dandy time machine and waltz back in time to save the world from this monstrosity "Dubya" unleashed.

The fact of the matter is that most college students are sheep when it comes to politics. And the biggest voices in America are on the left (that's just a matter of political stance liberals want change, conservatives want to stay the same). So, when some lefty tells everyone that we need to get outta Iraq, everyone else says "I've been saying the same thing since like...forever!"

My point from all this is that liberals and leftys aren't the "open minded" individuals they attempt to make themselves out to be. Setting aside american political party agendas, I'm not arguing a conservative standpoint, which would BE to cut and run out of the situation in order to priveledge OUR OWN well being. I'm arguing a point so left on the scale that these so called "revolutionaries" don't even see it.

They're told that Democrats want to leave Iraq, so it's down with Bush and down with free thinking. The only reason Dems want to get out is because it's a GOP war. If the Dems started the war, they'd take the current GOP stance, and vice versa. The party's stance has NOTHING to do with politicians personal opinion..everything's about getting votes and playing the party war.

So, all these so called "revolutionaries" who refuse to be affiliated with a political party because none of them are "radical" enough, they're complete fakes and pussies. They have no mind of their own, and they kill puppies.

So seriously people, think about what you're doing before you join the congo line of idiots.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the American education system is in shambles. Of 27 "industrialized" nations the United States ranks 24 in education. And although this may not seem so alarming, I'd like anyone out there to name 27 industrialized countries. Such a test will either prove that people in the US are terrible at geography, and therefore prove my point of a failed education system. OR, you'll find out that there aren't 27 industrialized nations in the world today.

That begs the question, who are these 23 other countries that have a better education system? Countries that most college students are unaware even exist. Belarus, Estonia, Latvia all rank ahead of the United States. Countries that need to spend amazing amounts of resources just to keep their economy afloat seem to be able to afford a better primary education than the nation which boasts the ability to fight two simultaneous wars.

I've been meaning to write this for a long time now, and I couldn't because I could not find a justifiable reason why we ranked so low. But today I was browsing through the files of collegehumor.com (I know, I'm not helping the cause) and it hit me. There was a picture posted on the site. The picture was of a letter written to the parents of a high school student by his teacher. A portion of the letter:
Alex consistently defie[s] me. During class he contradicted me numerous times when I insisted that the length of one kilometer was greater than that of one mile. Every other student in class accepted my lesson without argument, but your son refused to believe what I told him, offering such rebuttals such as, "You're lying to the class," and commanding other students to challenge my curriculum.
Although he was correct, Alex's actions show a blatent disregard for authority, and a complete lack of respect for his school. In the future, Alex would be better off simply accepting my teachings without resistance.
Please see to it that your son understands this.

Now of course this example cannot be applied to all circumstances around the United States, but it does bring up question: How often does this happen? How often is it that a teacher is so incompetent that they cannot garner the respect of their students? Worse yet, how often do these teachers get away with being incompetent?

In this case Alex was knowledgeable enough to refute the teachings. And of course this makes for a funny situation in which a teacher is caught not even knowing the relationship between kilometer and mile. The problem is when geography teachers mash all the eastern european nations into "EASTERN EUROPE" and dismisses the whole area altogether due to their lack of knowledge in the area (happened to me).

Or when a math teacher who has never taught a course before, or even learned the curriculum before, but is forced to teach a class while learning it at the same time because last year's teacher quit (happened to my brother).

The problem also stems from the system itself. California school districts get money for every student that sits in a seat and graduates high school. So, schools are more than happy to overload the classrooms, hell they're making bank. And has anyone ever noticed that when standardized tests came marching through town, that there was a sudden movement, on the school's part, to create posters telling students to eat a healthy breakfast, and to get a good nights rest before going to class.

Standardized tests that determine what portion of the state's money goes to the district. And a week after these tests have been administered, these posters and signs disappear. The fact of the matter is that our education system can care less about how well they're breeding "tomorrow's leaders".

If teachers want to keep their jobs (which pay shit by the way), they will prep their students for the standardized tests, be it relevant to the real world or not. Schools reward teachers based on their students' performances on standardized testing.

This ramble has led me astray from my original intent, which is to find out why the American education system is so poorly performing. So here's a list:

1. Teachers aren't paid enough.
Any profession that mays a lot of money will attract the best in that field, or at least the most ambitious. So, if teaching kids how to play tennis pays more than teaching kids math, you're definitely going to end up seeing more and better applicants to teach tennis. Solution: PAY TEACHERS MORE! Get some fucking competition for those jobs so that people like Alex wont have to deal with a teacher who knows less than the students.

That's it. It all boils down to the fact that the pool for hiring teachers has become extremely desolate. My old high school deemed it necessary to provide every classroom with a 3 thousand dollar computer projector. 90% of my teachers never used it. Hell, if the administration didn't have their heads up the superintendant's ass they might have had the intelligence to ask each teacher if they needed one or not. And with the extra money they could have afforded to pay said teachers more, so that they actually felt a need to impress their bosses.

Wishful thinking I suppose.