On the windows machine I got because I absolutely had to have one for work, there was a row of buttons across the top. I guess they were intended to be media keys, since there was a template with e-mail, web and other stuff icons on them. But at the very top right of the keyboard, right where it would get banged when handling the keyboard, there was an evil key: the power off.

The first time I hit it accidentally, I swore and turned the darn PC back on. The second time, I swore louder. The third time, I threw it away. I would have preferred to shove it down the throat of the designer, but I restrained myself.

While I take this document seriously, I have a hard time thinking it will do what the scientologists want, even if it is adopted. Points 1, 2, and 3 would collectively prohibit "religious vilification" and the like. Point 4 would prohibit interference with freedom of religion. What if my religion requires me to vilify other religions? This is not a trivial point, as many religions require their adherents to work against other religions. Examples include the missionary years expected of a mormon, the anti-semitism in the koran, the anti-atheism of evangelical christian faiths in the US, etc.

Nobody can be free to practice religion without the freedom to vilify other religions.

Not needing to reboot the computer is a nice luxury, but still, turning it off to save the energy is a good thing to do when you're not using it. That's why I've got a low power server/gateway (see here -- low power and quiet!) for my home network that stays on all the time, and a laptop that I actually do stuff on.

Wow -- now I feel like I'm fitting in here. I remember reading board books to by kids by Sandra Boynton, including the one with hippos coming to a party ("One hippo all alone, calls two hippos on the phone . . . "). That was definitely better than counting by dogs -- the dogs book had all those barking noises that just have to be made. Don't bother arguing with a child that your throat hurts and you can't bark -- you'll lose.

Beloit school district, Beloit WI. See http://www.sdb.k12.wi.us/employment/ for a link to the page saying that they use the test, and https://gx.gallup.com/teacherinsight.gx for more information on the test.

So no, I didn't invent it. I have no desire to denigrate the teaching profession, only the people who select poorly educated sycophants to join it.

When I was trying to get a job in teaching, the hardest jobs to apply for were the ones that used a personality screening. I never got past that, it was obvious why -- the test was looking for suck-ups and yes-men, teachers who would do exactly what the principal said, and never rock the boat.

And isn't that one of the problems with education today? Not to brag, but I guarantee that I was in the 98th or higher percentile on my Praxis tests. But I know for a fact that other teaching students with me got jobs teaching math while I barely got interviews. People that barely can follow along with the book are going to do a better job of showing the joy of mathematics than I am? When the school is selecting for sheep and not smarts, what kind of teacher do they get? What kind of school do they get? And what kind of "educated" students do we turn out? Shit, shit and shit, of course.