50 Replies to “The Children Are Our Future”

  1. The tree octopus is just another victim of global warming, I guess. I remember the days when you could pretty much count on seeing a tree octopus flying gracefully through the rain forest, with its distinctive cry “su-zu-kee, su-zu-kee,” scattering the clouds of flying armadillos, another species that have pretty much succumbed to the unnatural warmth of our present climate.

  2. In the early 1980s I worked the Franklin River logging show on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Even then there were no such octopi to be seen at all. We frequently remarked on that in the bunkhouses: “See any tree octopi down by the shore lately?” “Nope. They haven’t been seen in these parts for years.”
    It’s a tragedy that we didn’t take note of their declining numbers while there was still time to do something about it.

  3. I’m with you, Kate. God help us.
    I’m constantly trying to challenge kids in the classroom, hoping they don’t tattle tale on me and enrage their parents, who were the kids on whom the future depended in the last generation.
    As in the HRCs, truth is no defense in the classroom. If the parents don’t like what a teacher says, the teacher can find him/herself in the dock.

  4. Imagine the outrage when Al Gore figures out that in making his bit of advertising he manged to overspend when he could have just built a website and achieved the same results? He only needed to co-opt more people in the education system…. Oh right…. He covered that already.

  5. Where’s the proof that the alleged study actually happened? Where was it published? Perhaps the article is a test of adult “internet literacy”.

  6. This caused me to recall the many times trolls demand “a link”. As if that is some kind of verification.
    But then Climategate/CAGW was constructed upon this shaky foundation….appeal to authority.

  7. I see no difference between kids believing in tree octopi because they saw it on the web and adults saying global warming exists because they it on CBC and read it in the G&M.
    At least on the web kids will be able to see and read the opposite opinion. At least they have a chance and a resource like the web to find out the truth.

  9. Ah…Octopus paxarbolis eat cats, don’t ya know. My two cats are scared to death of them. I can tell because they hide under the bed.

  10. I understand that there remains a flock (gaggle) of Tree Octopus near the source of the Qu’Appelle River
    in Saskatchewan only because they feed on Saskatoon berries which in turn, thrive in the Qu’Appelle River Valley soil, only because the Sasktoon bush roots thrive on the potash and oil, on which floats the province of Saskatchewn.

  11. But if your educational establishment’s mission is to turn out unquestioning, compliant, gullible, young apprentice marxists overloaded with lots of fake self esteem and sanctimonious superiority thanks to their indoctrination ….?

  12. If the happenings at our Canadian universities in the last few years are any example, building a bunker is good advice.
    Universities today are bastions of freedom of speech and thought only if you have a left-wing point of view.
    Peter, thanks for the morning smile.

  14. This story is not entirely truthful in the part that the educator made up tree octopus.
    Actually, tree octopus was an invention of Discovery channel and used in their series about future evolution. I have the series stashed somewhere in the basement and probably can find the DVD if need be.
    In the episode about future wildlife they introduced a giant squid traveling through the forest. Giant squid had a headache from inhaling spores of some fungus and was (!) sneezing, helping spread the fungus. Around him the tree octopae (?) were jumping from branch to branch like gymnasts.
    Screw the giant squid! I watched in disbelief – can the ‘scientists’ be that daft? To accomplish those jumps the octopae needed branches growing in parallel to each other, located at absolutely equal intervals.

  16. Yeah, but wouldn’t you hit oil, uranium, or potash if you dig in Saskatchewan? Even the last Saskatchewanian(sp) to dig a bunker had it dug in Carp, Ontario. That was before he sold the Canadian aerospace industry down the river.

  17. wayne richards..
    what wistful memories you evoke of the arboreal splendours that so recently adorned the B.C. coast but are alas disappeared into the mists of memory…
    as a fellow logger i well remember my first and last sighting of the ‘sidehill gouger’ with his limping awkward gait and distinctive call(‘woo woo woo’..so eerily similar to ‘pick up the haulback’ in logger parlance)….with a sadness in my heart i remember a rigging slinger saying to me..’look well on yonder bird young bead setter…this noble denizen of the coast range is not long for this habitat nor nay the earth itself’….

  19. You people are all looney!
    There is no such thing as the Tree Octopus, and I can’t believe that you are foisting such nonsense in public. That photograph of the Tree Octopus in the tree is obviously Photoshopped. You make a mockery of science and scientists.
    Every school kid knows, or should know, that arboreal mollusks have been extinct for decades, due to encroachment of the Polar Cow on the coastal rain forests during the Great Global Cooling and micro-mini-sub-ice age of the 1970’s, depriving the Tree Octopus of its already scarce food sources.

  20. “…and booming populations of its natural predators, including the bald eagle and sasquatch.”
    These kids are all going to journalism school.
    I am seriously thinking of ordering that poster. (Kate, design some posters. “We don’t need no Stinkin’ Giant Fans”; “You might be a liberal”; “The Children Are Our Future and etc.”)

  21. John Rambo @6:20 (that’s a very manly name BTW) – I absolutely agree. You need to import a bride from some third world country, preferably someone who only understands enough English to obey simple comands such as “Sit!”, “Roll over!” and Cook!”. Be sure you’ll be able to return her if she gets uppity, and beware of Eastern Europeans, I’ve heard some terrible stories.

  22. That’s funny, but it might help open some kid’s eyes, just as the “spaghetti harvest” did a few decades ago, and “War of the Worlds” did with radio.
    I’ll admit, I’ve been sucked in to a few April Fools tricks. Those things just catch you off guard, and they really sharpen your reaction time.

  24. Cal, you beat me to it. The fabulous spaghetti harvest is the classic of this genre. We conservatives have been dining out on the “dihydrogen monoxide” joke for twenty years. There’s no difference between the tree octopus and gun control, except the credentials of its proponents.
    Certification does not equal competence, information does not equal knowledge, the map does not equal the terrain and to quote an even older source of wisdom, “the poor will always be with us”.
    As will the burning stupid, apparently.
    What is worthy of note here is that some group of unemployable wankers, aka “researchers”, reportedly managed to get funding from the US Dept of Edumacashun for a “study” of this already extremely well known fact. Proving once again that the US government has far too much money available, and federal bureaucrats are a pack of gullible idiots with far too much time on their hands.

  26. Sarah Palin shot the last one while she and George W. were out on an Oregonian Safari.
    You all never read the news do you?

  27. Most students “simply have very little in the way of critical evaluation skills,” Leu said.
    Make no mistake about it, that is *precisely* what liberals want. The agenda in schools today is purposely designed to ensure that Canadian kids do not question anything they are fed, and it continues into adulthood.
    Otherwise how would the NDP or the Liberal Party ever get votes?

  28. Ok, at the risk of invoking a blog rule that says I automatically lose, I’ll say this:
    The Big Lie

  29. Wayne Richards, John Begley,
    Nothing like the smell of fresh F and B in the morning! Wayne, Did you follow the Duke’s investment advice?

  30. What do they taste like? Are they better dutch oven basted in their own ink? or grilled? side of potatoes or rice?

  33. “Life is a race between education and disaster” **
    —–Dewey
    **
    Put 2 dollars on disaster..

  34. Old news. Funny to see an article pointing out the inability of students to discern whether or not a source of information is legitimate, on here, though. Apparently, it’s been an issue for a long, long time.

  35. I saw this story last week and had similar thoughts as those expressed in the comments here.
    There are strong parallels between believing in the Tree Octopus and:
    – Believing in Global Warming
    – Believing that Sarah Palin is beyond stupid
    – Believing that Big Gov’t is the answer to all of our problems
    – Believing that public sector workers are all altruistic & noble whilst private sector workers are all greedy and dishonest
    – Believing that the Toronto Maple Leafs will eventually win the Stanley Cup again
    In all of these cases, there is STRONG anecdotal, and often direct, evidence to the contrary but much like a devout belief in a religious cult, once those convictions are embedded in the brain it’s incredibly difficult to remove them.

  37. Did Euelle Gibbons not die from eating an infant tree octopus, mistaking it for the mother of all pine nuts?

  39. This is why I don’t believe we descended from monkeys. Monkeys would have figured that out ages ago.
    Modern Western society has failed in raising and educating children. We’re in trouble.

  45. Another proud product of our educational system: a grown man who thinks “cluebat” is “a big word”.
    Thanks for being honest; this certainly helps explain why you reject evolutionary theory. I’ll see about finding you a book which lays out the general narrative without using any 7 letter words. Of course, the fact that the word “evolution” is itself 9 letters in length will probably make the task rather difficult. Perhaps, if you’re willing to take a few grade 6 English courses, you could muddle through something like this:
    http://www.amazon.com/Daniel-Loxton-Author-Illustrator-Evolution/dp/B0037XDJ2S
    Give it a shot. Just highlight anything you can’t understand, and I’ll be happy to go over it with you afterwards.

  46. Hey Alex,
    Have the guys who refer to themselves as brights when explaining the evolutionary timeline-thingy figured out how come we have humans and monkeys yet we don’t have any dinosaurs here as well?
    I’ve always wondered where that fits into the time/space continuum?

  47. “Have the guys who refer to themselves as brights when explaining the evolutionary timeline-thingy figured out how come we have humans and monkeys yet we don’t have any dinosaurs here as well?”
    You’re joking, right?
    First off, if you want to know what “the brights” have and haven’t figured out, you’re better off asking them. It’s always best to go to the source.
    Secondly … are you honestly unfamiliar with the idea of “extinction”, or are you just trolling?

  48. I can’t believe a facetious comment turned into a troll-a-thon.
    Or maybe I can if Alex is involved.
    Get a sense of humour and read a book.
    And I’m still right.

  49. I got a shocker last week, when my girlfriend’s 23 year old son admitted he didn’t believe in the American moon landing. For one thing, he’s anti-American. For another, he works with a bunch of Calgary rag-heads, who want to re-write history, with the rag-heads getting credit for inventing everything.
    His #1 piece of evidence is, of course, the US flag is flapping in the wind.
    It takes all kinds. If everyone had common sense, there would be a serious decrease in the exchange of money and goods. It would almost certainly bring the economy to a grinding halt.

  50. Despite spending way too much time online, I’m beginning to think that electronic information sources have a lot of problems. To create online misinformation, all that is needed is to create a document, photoshop some photos for “evidence” and put it on a website.
    To create a book with misinformation is a lot harder, especially if one wants it to have a wide distribution. Also, books can’t be changed once they are in circulation whereas information on webservers can be altered at any time thus making certain views of history much easier to implement. One of the reasons that I save anything that might be of significance in the future and have terrabytes of stuff that I might need to delve into if the “original” data disappears.
    Whenever I’ve engaged in teaching, I’ve told people to question everything including what I tell them. Skepticism appears to be disappearing as I find people seem to be a lot more inclined to believe information they get from what they consider an authoritative source. Independent thinking doesn’t seem to be taught in schools any more probably because statists want a compliant population that will unquestioningly accept whatever information they’re given.
    I seem to have been born with a built in BS detector which has served me well all of my life. I know I drove many of my childhood schoolteachers crazy with my need to check everything myself, especially when I found a lot of what they were teaching was either incorrect or oversimplified and thus technically incorrect. Enhancing the function of peoples innate BS detectors would seem to me to be one of the primary goals of education although I’m sure that self-styled political “elites” wouldn’t see the benefit.

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