Our wonderful government schools

This is as pathetic as it is embarrassing...

Young Americans Shaky on Geography smarts -- AP

WASHINGTON - Despite the wall-to-wall coverage of the damage from Hurricane Katrina, nearly one-third of young Americans recently polled couldn’t locate Louisiana on a map and nearly half were unable to identify Mississippi.

Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 fared even worse with foreign locations: six in 10 couldn’t find Iraq, according to a Roper poll conducted for National Geographic.

I realize that for Americans under 24, instant messaging, Lindsay Lohan, and American Idol constitute the center of the known universe but COME ON!!!

• One-third of respondents couldn’t pinpoint Louisiana on a map and 48 percent were unable to locate Mississippi.
  
• Fewer than three in 10 think it important to know the locations of countries in the news and just 14 percent believe speaking another language is a necessary skill.
  
• Two-thirds didn’t know that the earthquake that killed 70,000 people in October 2005 occurred in Pakistan.
  
• Six in 10 could not find Iraq on a map of the Middle East.
  
• While the outsourcing of jobs to India has been a major U.S. business story, 47 percent could not find the Indian subcontinent on a map of Asia.
  
• While Israeli-Palestinian strife has been in the news for the entire lives of the respondents, 75 percent were unable to locate Israel on a map of the Middle East.
• Nearly three-quarters incorrectly named English as the most widely spoken native language.
  
• Six in 10 did not know the border between North and South Korea is the most heavily fortified in the world. Thirty percent thought the most heavily fortified border was between the United States and Mexico.

How does one reach the age of 24 and not be able to find Iraq and Israel on a map? How little attention must you be paying to the world around you to be two years past college and still not be able to locate India on a map of Asia?

Surely everybody has watched one episode of the national news in the last year. You can say little else complimentary about CNN but they do have good maps to go along with their miserably slanted news coverage.

And these are the self-absorbed morons who'll be electing the next 15 or so presidents...Heaven help us.

This is what happens when the Federal government takes control of local schools out of the hands of local communities. You end up with politically correct, feel-good, outcome-based education in which positive self esteem passes for actual learning. Don't think this is a coincidence. Stupid, distracted, self-involved kids grow up to be stupid, needy, easily manipulated adults. What better voting block for Liberals than a population of ignorant, emotion-driven, idiots whose attention spans fail them while reading a bumper sticker.

Informed, involved, thinking students grow up to be informed, rational, achieving adults. Liberalism cannot easily find a toe-hold in private or very good, locally controlled public schools because Liberalism depends on a critical mass of the populace being ignorant and uninformed. In schools in which actual learning takes place, where children are forced to learn things like American History, Math and Science, the King's English, and yes even World Geography (and not the politically correct versions), student's eyes are opened to how the world really is rather than how Liberals want them to think it is.

Take the Geography test found at the site below and see how you do. I got 9/10. It's not as easy as you might think but still, I would think that at least Americans in the 9th grade or so should have most if not all this information.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12594142/