Apparently, people aren’t hunting anymore, and to fix that, some states are allowing hunting classes in schools. I can’t say immediately this is really a good idea in the age of school shootings, but at the same time, I wonder if maybe it is exactly what we need to reverse the trend of thinking that guns are only to be used for killing people – whether out of vengeance, desperation/depression or self defense. Schools should be places where children get an education in things that will help them in life – i.e. the fundamentals like math, science, reading and writing. This is especially true when we are falling behind other countries while the world is flattening due to globalization. However, there is a place in school for social development too, and if schools can find the time in the day for it, it might be helpful to expose children to guns so that they aren’t so taboo and underestimated in their power.

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For the second time this winter, I have woken up like a kid on Christmas morning only to end up with disappointment stealing my joy. (In case you are wondering, neither morning was Christmas morning). As I went to bed last night, I again checked my computer and weather.com, and saw that they were predicting 1-2 inches of snow by morning commute time for New York City, followed by another 4-6 inches before noon.

But what did I find when I woke up this morning and scurried to the windows in my pajamas?

RAIN!!! MORE DAMN RAIN!!!

Honestly, how long can weathermen and weatherwomen pull this scam? I must have checked weather.com four times yesterday to make sure the forecast hadn’t changed for Monday, and sure enough, it never changed - each time inflating my dreams of skipping to work in the fresh snow before it turned into big gray heaps on the sidewalks.

That is four more times than I normally ever check the weather on a Sunday. Sometimes at work during the week I check it once before going to buy my lunch to decide if I need to really bundle up or not, but generally I MIGHT check it 4 times during an average a week. Yet, thanks to their meteorological propaganda, I checked it FOUR TIMES in one day. I can only imagine how many times school kids checked the Greater New York weather yesterday on TV or online.

The meteorological powers that be must make a fortune this time of year - all from taking an average rainstorm and turning it into the “BLIZZARD OF [insert year here].” I once took a fishing trip to Titusville, Florida near Cape Kennedy and stayed in a hotel room that looked right across the water at the space shuttle launch pad. Since there was no launch planned, it was just any other hotel room in Florida that had a nice view. But if we had been there during a launch, the nightly rate would have at least tripled for the same room. Our fishing guide said that sometimes to boost the economy, NASA postpones launches for a day to give a nice boost to the local economy due to all those people to staying in Titusville for just one more night to see a shuttle launch.

That’s what I think meteorologists must due for their stations and websites - from the National Weather Service down to this guy. They claim snow to quadruple the hits on their site or ratings of their station. Hell, maybe we should just let The Onion take the place of USA Today so that we can say that everyone always reads the news.

*Global warming sucks too, but this is all meteorologists’ fault.