Can Sikhs carry their knives onto airplanes? If so, I think I'll wear a kilt and claim the right to take my sgian dubh along. It is also of critical cultural importance.

They take away the dull knife pilot Patrick Smith carries (from the airline's first class service!), but perhaps they allow Sikhs and Muslim terrorists a religious exemption. ("My religion commands me to bring down the plane by attacking with a box cutter!")

Idiocy in its finest form. Sheesh.

"A cake knife is a "deadly weapon" but a deadly weapon is merely the Sikh symbol for "the power of truth to cut through untruth". If that isn't reason to ban it from public schools, I don't know what is. Nevertheless, if you're taking a cake to school, ask a Sikh classmate to cut it up for you."

LOL.

Did you know that the average teacher graduates in the lower third of their class? That's according to a study commissioned by the AFT (a teachers union ).

Lower third from an Ed program - not chemical engineering or something - Education.

This indicates that the average teacher isn't capable of college lever school work.

It also comports with what everyone knows, but is too polite to acknowledge, about people who go into public education - they're typically not very smart.

Public school teachers are often people who are weak minded and emotionally immature. They like working with kids because they're intimidated by other adults. Not all of them of course, but enough that we're left with the public education system that we have today.

Stupidity, bureaucracy, one pretty much equals the other. They still haven't figured out that criminals like that little girl just don't care about the rule book.

Which reminds of many moons ago when they talked about the ban on "drug paraphernalia", and the guy who ran the local head shop changed the name of the roach clips to Bible Page Turners.

I guess nobody told the powers-that-be about tweezers, kitchen scales, brownie mixes, coke can bongs, etceterah, etceterah, etceterah.

Stuff like this just reinforces my view that the purpose of public schools today is not education, but indoctrination. Rule #1 in the dictator's handbook is that a stupid, gullible populace is an easy-to-control populace.

Followed links at Steyn, found one last Kopechne joke!—

I was overseas when Senator Edward Kennedy died, and a European reporter asked me what my “most vivid memory” of the great man was. I didn’t like to say, because it didn’t seem quite the appropriate occasion. But my only close encounter with the Lion of the Senate was many years ago at Logan Airport late one night. A handful of us, tired and bedraggled, were standing on the water shuttle waiting to be ferried across the harbor to downtown Boston. A sixth gentleman hopped aboard, wearing the dark-suited garb of the advance man, and had a word in a crew-member’s ear, and so we waited, and waited, in the chilly Atlantic air, wondering which eminence was the cause of our delay. And suddenly there he was on the quay, looming out of the fog. He stepped aboard. The small launch lurched and rocked, waves splashed the deck, luggage danced in the air, and the five of us all grabbed for whatever rail was to hand as the realization dawned that we’d been signed up for a watery excursion with Senator Kennedy.

The knife of truth cutting through untruth? Nonsense.

The Kirpan is a symbolic reminder of their origins as part of the warrior caste of Hinduism. The turban makes a pretty good helmet, too.

My Sikh friend explained that there are so many Sikh farmers in Canada because that's what they would do between wars. Literally, they would beat they swords into plowshares.

Also, Sikh regiments were among the toughest and most feared military units of World War II.

So, to be consistent, we shouldn't be letting them bring a reminder of how good it is to stab people to elementary school. Sheesh.

This is just a symptom of what is happening to all of us under the burgeoning power of our Nanny State (part of what it means, apparently, to live in a "Woman's Nation").

Whaddya mean think? They ain't bein' paid to think!

Keep in mind, Jay R, that political correctness & zero tolerance, like Marxism, were invented by men. The president of the Christina District School Board is also a man, as it turns out (George Evans, by name). Radical feminists have a lot to answer for, but purging all of them from government would barely put a crimp in the march of the Nanny State.

You remember what Madame Mao said about dogs & biting, right?

Martin,

Yes, barely a crimp. Let's purge as many as we can, and see how big a crimp it is.

Systems expand when there is no pushback at the edges.

Oh come on! The knife isn't the weapon! The cake was obviously a targeted attack at the girl's classmates. What if it contained peanuts or tree nuts and someone had an allergic reaction? What about flour, eggs, sugar and milk? What if a child had an allergic reaction? What if a child is on the gymnastics team and on a no carb diet and refuses a piece of cake and emotionally traumatizes the cake-bringer and creates a hostile classroom environment? What if the cake was home made and grandma didn't wash her hands before she baked the cake? What if the cake was dropped? How do we know the baker/dropper followed the 3 second rule?

I guess what I'm saying is I'm surprised someone was allowed to bring in a cake in the first place but if it's OK, were they expecting the kids to grab a hunk with their grubby little fists?

And I have a scar on my leg where my brother stabbed me with a plastic fork. He was 3, I was 5, we got over it.

"...the guy who ran the local head shop changed the name of the roach clips to Bible Page Turners."

You know why they call 'em "roach clips?" Because potholders was already taken! (snort.)

Isn't Education the current MRS degree?

You can always cut your cake with dental floss. Sounds like the school system needs to learn about that.

Keep in mind, Jay R, that political correctness & zero tolerance, like Marxism, were invented by men.

Huh? Which men?

Here's a little bit about the original zero tolerance folks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Christian_Temperance_Union

Why wasn't the teacher brought up on charges for brandishing/using a deadly weapon?

"You know why they call 'em "roach clips?" Because potholders was already taken! (snort.)"

Dude, that's really.......wait. What?

"A cake knife is not a "deadly weapon": It is a kitchen utensil."

This is almost sickeningly contemptible nonsense, part of a culturally-fed mass ignorance. Weapons consist of anything usable as a force-multiplier. Some are more suitable than others. We Federal contactors cannot, literally, have a NERF GUN at work for a game put on by the Safety Council - a hundred feet from a field of 2-to-4-pound granite rocks.

Millions of Americans cannot understand what a weapon is. That is why TSA confiscates tweezers, and legions of hysterical people get crazy about guns. Gee, I bet somebody who just read the word "gun" thrilled with fear.

Meanwhile, someone thinking clearly can put you in the ground with a pencil - or a ball-point pen. This isn't cause for gibbering terror. It's cause for dealing with life, which is not pink and fuzzy everywhere you look.

From the State of Delaware's curriculum website under Design Principles:

"21st Century Learning – the ability of to use skills, resources, & tools to meet the demands of the global community and tomorrow’s workplace. (1) Inquire, think critically, and gain knowledge, (2) Draw conclusions make informed decisions, apply knowledge to new situations, and create new knowledge, (3) Share knowledge and participate ethically and productively as members of our democratic society, (4) Pursue personal and aesthetic growth.(AASL,2007)"

Source:

http://www.doe.k12.de.us/infosuites/staff/ci/DRC/design_principles.shtml Note: This is the source of the curriculum taught at the Christina School District.

Question.

Why do you need to teach students critical thinking in the 21st century when adult teachers avoid applying that skill by substituting regulations instead?

Hopefully, graduates of the Christina School District, having mastered critical thinking, do not wish to apply for a job as teacher there. They are overqualified and would not be hired.

There's a horror story for you: for the government run health care as well as it handled social security, the post office, the schools, the "war" on poverty, medicaid, medicare, the federal budget, the "war" on illegitimacy, etc.

These geniuses may want to reconsider their position on euthanasia because before long they'll be at an age where they are considered an overburden on health care cost.

Meanwhile, someone thinking clearly can put you in the ground with a pencil - or a ball-point pen. This isn't cause for gibbering terror. It's cause for dealing with life, which is not pink and fuzzy everywhere you look.

-Radwaste

What about the hands? Shove your nose up into the brain - dead, punch you in the center of your throat - dead, unless a doctor happens to be standing by with a knife and tube.

Punch a guy directly below the sternum and a small peice of cartilige will break off and lacerate the spleen puncture the heart and diaphram and they'll die from internal bleeding

Three ways to kill a human with a single fist and less than ten pounds of pressure

"Three ways to kill a human with a single fist and less than ten pounds of pressure."

Obviously, then, the proper course of action is to ban the use of hands in the classroom. No, don't suggest it to them...

I stand by what I've said before: Zero-tolerance rules aren't for the safety of students: they're for the safety of the administrators. To keep them from having to actually think, and reason, and be responsible for a decision.

Well, then, let's take this to the next level:

Who asked for schools to be administered in this fashion?

...they're for the safety of the administrators. To keep them from having to actually think, and reason, and be responsible for a decision.

And from being sued when snowflake skins a knee.