"The gas of life"

UTAH
Some parents in Utah County are pressing their school district to stop spreading “false educational ideas,” reports the Salt Lake Tribune. What might a false educational idea be? The notion that the word “democracy” defines our system of government. To parents who belong to a group called “Utah’s Republic,” which advocates a strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, democracy is not what we’ve got here in America; the proper word is “republic.” Perhaps the group would like the Alpine School District to change its mission statement from “Educating all students to ensure the future of our democracy” to “Educating all students to ensure the future of our republicans.”

SOUTH DAKOTA
The South Dakota House of Representatives one-upped Utah, however, by passing a resolution recently that urges public schools to teach “astrology,” reports climateprogress.org. Astrology was cited along with a variety of other events that can “effect (sic) world weather phenomena …” including “climatological, meteorological, astrological, thermological, and cosmological” processes. The Legislators called for schools to teach a “balanced” view of global climate change, and, by a vote of 36-30, gave credence to the deniers that climate change is happening — “global warming is a scientific theory rather than a proven fact.” The legislators added that the increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are really a good thing because CO2 is not a pollutant but “the gas of life.” Comments on the blog ranged from, “Is this a joke?” (it was not) to “Don’t they read the Bible? I thought that the Old Testament advised strictly against astrologers,” and, “I don’t know about climate change, but I think they have indeed proven that evolution does not take place in South Dakota.”