Beloit parks commission burns bunnies alive

The first daffodil of the season.


As expected, they went with easy instead of ethical. Lee Fassett and Robb Baller (Beloit Parks guys) are assholes. Lee is a liar. Our group was promised, by Lee, that we would be notified of when/where they would burn, so we could walk through the area and inspect for nests. We would have had a shot at saving some. Lee, however, informed us that he doesn't intend to keep this promise, because he's too "busy". Their behavior illustrates that no matter how they try to dress Beloit up, it's a city with no heart and no ethics. We are NOT done with this issue.

On a completely different note, a homeschooling update: It continues to go very well, and we are both having so much fun learning! L. picks things up so quickly, except her multiplication facts. She memorizes poetry--hard poetry--like it's going out of style, but she doesn't have any interest in memorizing her mult. facts. Other than that, though, it's all great.

We are really loving the Singapore Math. It does a fabulous job of teaching application of math. She is learning it so well and really enjoys most of it. She still loves her history. Language doesn't thrill her, but she tolerates it and "gets it" pretty quickly. She's doing very well with spelling and writing. We will be starting keyboarding and Latin soon.

We have started working with the seven step scientific method and will continue with this quite intensively all the way through her schooling. My goal is that, eventually, every single thing that comes into her little brain will be filtered automatically through the scientific method, giving her the exceptional logic and necessary skepticism that seems to be absent from most Americans today.

Our first experiment was extremely simple, and we will continue to build and tweak this one for a while. We purchased two small, identical flashlights. Her hypothesis was that batteries used in the refrigerator would last longer than batteries used at room temperature, because the cool temps would help them last longer like they do for food. Our first trial (obviously deficient in sample size which we haven't gotten to yet) resulted in her hypothesis being unsupported, as the batteries in the flashlight at room temp outlasted the batteries in the flashlight in the fridge. We've identified some potential flaws in the study, so she has refined the study, and we will start another trial tomorrow. We will continue to identify weaknesses and redefine this. Once we get to a point where it's solid and we can confidently say her hypothesis is either supported or unsupported, we will move on to a series of new experiments.