In any case, we should stop teaching to a formatted multiple choice “test” and get back to the 3 r’s

Enough with the politics, bring on the blood & guts!

Even if you don’t, you need at least a high school diploma to join the u.s. military. I know that for a fact.

But having a degree doesn’t mean anything. Check out Jay Leno talking to the college kids on Jay Walking. Or listen to our politicians.

Someone told me a story about her kid having to write a report on a famous American in history. The kid said he was going to write about Davey Crockett. The teacher suggested he write about Daniel Boone instead because the assignment was to write about a “real american, not a fictional one.” Yikes, I thought. With teachers who don’t know that both men were real, no wonder this country is in the mess its in.

Not all Americans are like that though! The again, given the US has every possible climate, flat land, mountainous land or whatever, why would you want to know much outside the US? Youve pretty much got everything there!

Sorry, McCoy, but as an American myself, I have to agree with “thebigfrogg.” I’ve worked with plenty of non-Americans who were very well-versed in world geography, whereas most of the Americans I know can’t find the Middle East on a globe–much less Iraq or any other place we’re dabbling in.

Want more evidence of American ignorance? When the Olympics were in Atlanta, there was a news story about a man from New Mexico (my birthstate) who called the 800 number to order tickets. The phone rep said they couldn’t handle “international sales” on that line and tried to transfer him. After arguing, the NM guy got a supervisor on the phone.

The supervisor’s reply? Something close to, “Sir, old Mexico or new Mexico, we just don’t sell outside of America on this line.”

This was echoed by a report in 1989 showing that something like 3/4 of graduating high-school seniors that year thought you needed a passport to visit New Mexico.

Still not enough? How about the guy who worked next to me when I answered phones for Yamaha in California–a guy who couldn’t find TEXAS or NEW YORK on a map and who repeatedly sent American callers to overseas numbers because he didn’t know that Ft. Lauderdale and other such places were in America.

Yeah, most Americans are woefully ignorant about world geography, and about our OWN geography.

I’ll be honest and say I do use the word ‘bonkers’, but I am usually greeted with odd looks when I do so. I also say ‘golly’, ‘bajesus’ and ‘the cat’s meow’.

Also, wasn’t the wreckage of the bridge on Earth pretty much identical to the Brooklyn Bridge? I thought they made a clear implication that wherever they landed had at one time been NYC. I seem to remember someone making a comparison shot, but I don’t know where it is.

Dont paint us Americans as ignorant.

Try asking anyone else in the world where anyone else is and you’ll get the same result.

It’s human nature to only be concerned with your immediate local self.

In any case, I still say the entire series is a dream in an autistic kid’s head, ala ‘St Elsewhere’

And baby Kara is that kid. More than likely it’s Hera since she never speaks.

And when you’re old, complaining is all you’ve got ;)

Damn kids, get off my lawn ;-P