Dave Kellam

A state senator from Texas wants to send Body Mass Index information home on student report cards. Senator Van dePutte is proposing a state law requiring schools to weigh students, compute their body mass index, and send that information home on their report cards.

Sounds like it would do wonders for the kids. We have this stereotypical vision of Texans, courtesy of television, the movies and the president but I honsestly can’t see parents being so dumb they don’t realize their kid is fat.

But, it can’t hurt to look at a potential scenario one year from now:

Billy Ray Jr: Lookee pa, it says I’ma passin the fourth grade!
Billy Ray Sr: Holdup son, this number here says you’re fat.
Billy Ray Sr: Move o’er in the light here a bit.
Billy Ray Jr: But Ma says I’s justa little husky.
Billy Ray Sr: Sweet Lord in Heaven boy, you’re big as a prime steer!
Billy Ray Sr: You’re a goin’ on the Atkins.

Honestly, do they need to give the teacher’s something else to do? Can someone tell me that there aren’t other areas in education that woud benefit from the time spent weighing each child in the class, computing a bmi and adding it to the child’s permanent records?

When you spend most of your life in Canada, you tend to forget that it’s kind of weird that our milk comes in plastic bags (via Cynical-C). To us it’s no weirder than picking up a jug or a carton full of milk.

It also never really seemed wrong to be leaving the bag open in the fridge. I guess it’s probably not safe if as long as you’re not performing some sort of science experiment.

The current Conform Project series just ended, so I decided to try a different process while I work on a new backend for the site. I’d like to take this moment and introduce you to the new Conform Project group on Flickr. The group is open to anyone who wants to participate (you can get a free account with 10mb of upload/month).

To take part, grab a conform image from the Flickr group (or the conform tag) or one of the first series images from the Conform Project site. Use that image as a base for the new one that you create. Upload it to Flickr, give the image the tag *conform* and add it to the group pool. Use your description or comments to link to the original image that you used as a base and/or add a comment to the original piece.

The Oscar nominations were released today.
Jamie Foxx is nominated for best actor and best supporting actor. As far as best pic goes, The Aviator is a bit too frantic to win, Clint Eastwood is depressing, I’m assuming Ray is a character piece, if the voters are in a sappier mood they’ll go with the feel-good Finding Neverland, otherwise they’re likely going through a midlife crisis and will go with the lighter Sideways.