Dumb Professor Edition: Teacher Flunks Student Because He Says Australia Not A Country

It's true that Australia is a continent, but contradicting a
now fired New Hampshire online college professor,
Australia is a country, which any bozo knows. 

A woman named Ashley Arnold was pursuing an online sociology degree at Southern New Hampshire University.  

She definite did her homework, but her professor sure didn't.

One of her assignments was to compare a social norm in the United States with that of another country. She picked Australia and got to work, and handed in her paper on time. Excellent!

Um, no. Her professor gave her an F for the assignment. Here's why, in the words of our glorious professor. "Australia is a continent, not a country."

As BuzzFeed, which broke the story, and everybody else knows, it's both. Yes, it's a continent. And any bozo will tell you it's also a country. Arnold sent the professor an email, supplying a few references from reliable sources that tell us that indeed, Australia is a country.

This definitely nutty professor was not having it, though. This is the snippy reply from the professor:

"I will gladly re-examine your week 2 milestone project report. But before I do I want you to understand that any error in a project can invalidate the entire research project. Research is like dominoes. If you accidentally knock over one piece the entire set will also fall.

Australia is a continent; it is not a country. That error made it nearly impossible for you to accurately complete your week 2 research outline correctly. As I mentioned above, I will look over your week two paper once again and see if you earned more credits that I gave you."

In other words, the nutty professor says no dice, you messed up.

Arnold,  perplexed, told Buzzfeed: "With her education levels, her expertise, who wouldn't know Australia is a country?......If she's hesitating or questioning that, why wouldn't she just Google that herself?

Good question. But, always the trouper, Arnold conducted a very, very easy follow up research project, one that a first grader could do, but apparently the professor could not.

Online college student Ashley Arnold
insisted that Australia is a country. She's
right, but a professor gave her an F because
the professor somehow doesn't believe
Australia is a country. 

She found the official Australian government web site, and found on that site a link to "About Australia." She sent it to the professor.

One clue that Australia might be a country is the top headline on that "About Australia" web page. That headline is "Our Country."

Arnold included that link with a snippy email of her own. It read:

"Australia is both a country and a continent. It's the only country that is both. I provided a resource in in the first email that clarifies that for you. If you need further clarification Google or the SNHU Shapiro Library has that information for you. 

Again, I mean no disrespect but my grade is affected by your assumption that Australia is not a country when in fact it is. Thank you and let me know if I need to provide further resources proving Australia is a country."

The professor then relented, sort of: She replied to Arnold via email: "Thank you for this web address. After I do some independent research on the continent/country issue I will review your paper."

Arnold also filed a report with the university, because she said she doesn't want to fail because she picked a country that IS a country, and doesn't want her online classmates to be similarly screwed.

BuzzFeed contacted SNHU, which was not happy when it learned about the professor's stupidity.  "At SNHU, we hold our professors to a high standard of excellence and strive to provide high-quality degree programs for all students.......On this question, the student is right. We take this concern seriously and our academic team is working to resolve the matter."

It turns out that resolving the matter involved SNHU firing the professor, says the Manchester (New Hampshire) Union Leader. 

The professor, who has not been identified at Arnold's request, was let go, according to Lauren Keane, a spokesperson for SNHU.

"We deeply regret the interaction between our professor and our student have apologized to the student and refunded her for the class," Keane said. The class costs about $1,000

Going forward, the class will now be taught by another professor, who presumably knows basic geography and considers Australia a country.

In an added gesture, SNHU wished Australia well in the current 2018 Winter Olympics. Being an obvious country, Australia is competing there.

As for why the original professor was confused, Arnold theorized that the professor was fairly old. "When did Australia become a country? Maybe she thinks it's still part of England," Arnold wondered to Buzzfeed.

Australia became an independent country 117 years ago. The fired professor is not that old.

Oh, well.

How Trump Will Try To Stay In Office Indefinitely

Among the very, VERY few instances of actual voter
fraud uncovered in last November's election was this woman
who voted for, yes, Donald Trump twice because she really,
really wanted him to win. 

I know, I know, it's like this blog is turning into all Trump, all the time, but you have to hand it to the guy, he sure knows how to dominate all aspects of one's life.

Kind of like a nasty flu bug.  

The latest, of course, is Trump's Big Plan to investigate his whackadoodle premise that he lost the popular vote through voter fraud.

His insane claim is that he lost the popular vote in the election by three million people because the election was marred by up to 5 million illegal voters.

Everybody knows that's hooey, of course, and the first impulse is to chalk it up to Child Trump's super fragile ego and the need for adoration.

It's that of course, but he knows what he's doing.

I know I sound conspiratorial, but this "investigation" is part of his big plan to make sure he stays in office for eight years (and either continues on beyond that or one of his evil minions does.)

Everthing Trump does is stagecraft and this is, too. The big investigation will "reveal" widespread voter fraud, but it will be, forgive me, trumped up, bogus allegations against lots and lots of people who have had the gall or will have the gall to vote while black. Or vote while Hispanic. Or vote while poor. Or Muslim.

You get the picture.

So, his compliant GOP Congress creatures will go along with this and come up with all kinds of new laws to ensure blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, gays, the poor who tend not to vote for the likes of Trump won't be able to vote at all. Meaning Trump will take millions of potential votes away from any would-be opponents of his.

This isn't just me coming up with this conspiracy theory. I'm seeing it from a lot of observers.

One example is the New Republic, which points out that Trump's "investigation" will "reveal" the reality (really! not alternative facts!) that there are indeed outdated voting rolls and people who are registered to vote in two states.

Voting districts have ways of making sure these outdated voting rolls don't result in fraudulent voters, or that somebody who is registered in one state doesn't go back to the other state and vote again.

I'm all for bipartisan efforts to make sure voter record keeping is correct and that things be kept up to date in voter precincts, but that's not what's happening here.

Republicans will use the outdated voter rolls, et al  to say that voting fraud could occur, so they'll pass laws to make sure people who usually cast ballots for Democrats,  like I said, racial minorities, etc.) can't vote and thus hand a re-election to Trump.

As the New Republic notes: "That's ultimately what Trump's investigation will be about: surfacing just enough information to destabilize the truth, which is that practically nobody voted for Clinton illegally. At the same time, it will give Republicans at the state level and in Congress the ammunition to try to make sure Trump doesn't lose the popular vote again in 2020."

I can see the GOP heading that way already, with their voter suppression moves in places like North Carolina and Texas.

And it's really telling that Republican congress creatures, when asked about claims by Trump there were three to five million illegal votes in November, would not agree the idea is absurd, and just mumbled a bunch of well, maybes.

Of course, if we really wanted to make everything as small-d democratic as possible, we'd make voting easier for everybody, not harder.

That won't be the case because a bunch of cruel, delusional, throw back old white men want to cling to power.