Eric the Red

I recently completed my “senior survey” as part of my graduation paperwork. The Clark School of Engineering requires all seniors to rate their experiences while completing their degrees. I wanted to share my feelings on quality:

The best kept secret at the University of Maryland, College Park is how horrible the teaching at the math department really is. The textbooks are unreadable and the professors cannot communicate. I only had two (out of 7 courses) who could speak english clearly. My chemistry course was three hours of titrating per week….sound fun? Richard Feynman once stated that if one could not present physics in a way that allowed a freshman to “get it”, one has no business teaching it. The physics department could use some lessons from Dr. Feynman. Don’t erase the board while writing on it!!! You know who you are!!!

First of all, budget cuts in favor of groundskeeping and more research faculty ensured that the electives I was interested in were eliminated. As a result, I switched majors. For those who don’t know, CORE is a set of liberal arts courses that are categorized so students may choose which to take. Personally, I feel that CORE is too dispersed to be meaningful, although I was able to get some easy As and Bs.

The engineering school has no notion of career paths. This makes ‘elective selection’ (or lack thereof) a big issue for me. In spite of all the research and sports achievements that have been made over the last 3 years, the quality of education has fallen dramatically.

On the plus side, we have Fair Trade coffee, rennovated sports arenas and neat grounds for us to be mugged in! GO TERPS: ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM!!!

This past weekend we saw something I really like, but didn’t get much of: SNOW!!!

Here are more controversial “Muhammad” cartoons. Click below to see them all in a single strip.

I’m seriously considering producing some of my own. It’s easy to caricature people who make themselves in bigger and bigger cartoons every day of the week. So…if I can get a drawing scanned every week, I will post one per week.

Note that the image is very large, and may take some time to load.
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The Department of Justice was ordered to release certain documents related to the warrantless domestic surveillance campaign conducted by the NSA. A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Because of delays in fulfillinf the request by the Justic Department, EPIC sued.

The judge ruled:

“Under DOJ’s view of the expedited processing provisions of FOIA, the government would have carte blanche to determine the time line for processing expedited requests,” Kennedy wrote in his opinion.

EPIC requested an audit of domestic surveillance conducted by the NSA, some documentation regarding probably cause for the eavesdropping and documents establishing an idea of how the NSA used the information it collected.

Lets see if the govenrment produces the information or invents a reason why it should be kept under wraps.

Freedom is a good thing. Too bad the islamic world doesnt value freedom, as seen by the fury over recent newspaper cartoons.

I like the Danish response:

“I think everybody should realize that neither the Danish government nor the Danish people can be held responsible for what is published in a free and independent newspaper,” he told CNN’s Matthew Chance.

“It’s up to the courts to decide whether the law had been infringed; it’s not up to the government.”

I would like to thank the islamic world for proving the cartoonist correct. Why represent your religion as one that promotes peace when you can get your panties in a wad and riot? Its a classic case of freedom vs blind and unwavering religious zealotry. With each passing day, zealotry is shown to be the norm with the Islamic faith. The idea of free expression vs the lust for theological dominance at the point of a gun.

I like the words of Rabbi Shmuley Boteach:

But what we are saying is that the collective entity of Islam as represented by those who consistently speak in its name or take to the streets to fight its battles, are violent, and they are the new Islam.

This reminds me of the fuss over the Rachel Corrie cartoon that ran in the Diamondback on campus several years ago:

The fury was stupid then, its no less stupid now.

This cartoon will remain on this website indefinately. Complaints may be directed to 206-888-6119 or my email address.