Slashdot is like Playboy- nobody reads it for the articles.

Science of course! Pretty graphs never lie!

Well you don't know very much then. Lets see what early 20th century physicists published landmark papers in Nature: Rontgen, Chadwick, Meitner, Davisson...

Nope these guys never did any real science, just stamp collectors all

Twilight vampire? Please. Anne Rice variety, such as Lestat or Marius, are by far superior to Edward. Not only do they have freaky vampire sex, but they are completely unkillable. The sun just bronzes their skin. The Christopher Pike variety are actually my favorite (basically zero weakness) but no one has read "The Last Vampire"

That is an absolutely silly idea, that identical test scores means identical potential. First of all, after a certain amount, the scores are nearly identical. With the way the tests are graded, one question can be the difference between a 760 and an 800 on the SAT. Can you really say that the person who got the 800 SAT is better? Too many qualities outside of a test need to be considered. What if the 760 grew up in an inner city neighborhood, and was working 2 jobs in highschool to support his single parent? An essay is a perfect opportunity to explain the circumstances of what makes you you and what you have to offer. Drive, ambition, ideals, character, motivation are all important characteristics in the admissions process at a place at MIT, and they look for people with more than just good test scores. They know that the same test scores can belong to two widely different people-maybe even one they want and one they don't.

If they had been clever, it would have been Joint Services Protocol 404. No one can find THAT file, let alone leak it

I agree. Have mandatory "classics" to read, but have the students read a number of novels of their own choice to write a report on (or even explain to the rest of class as a final project). A great way to go about this is to create a list of "eligible" books that are of the level you are considering and let the students choose. That way, nobody is forced to read something they truly don't want, and the students can explore if they so choose. I had a teacher who let us do this in high school and it was unbelievable how many more students read their books instead of using cliff notes, and how many enjoyed the process. The only potential problem is that the teacher needs to have read most of the books to adequately grade the reports. (or just decrease the size of the lists)

Minor point: we did not have "war to help them out," helping them out was a side effect of the war. Before (and during most) of WWII, the extent of the holocaust was unknown and what was known was largely disregarded.

Yeah and she drank a potion to make herself appear dead in order to run away from her family. When that failed she killed herself. Perfect example of a very intelligent and mature 14 year old...

I don't know what school you went to, but I've only seen standard analog clocks in every school building I've been in. Heck even most office buildings that I've seen still have analog clocks.

An active effort to dumb-down America? I call bullshit. Do you have any evidence for that besides the fact that Fox News says stupid things? It seems to me that a widespread brain leak has been occurring in most of the western world, where science has lost the popularity it had gained (somewhat) during the 60s. A few weeks ago NPR was talking about a train going through Germany trying to get kids interested in science. The founder is very concerned about the slow degradation of GERMAN intelligence and interest in science. We aren't the only ones with this problem

Screw apologies, I only want Turing to be recognized, by the state, for his achievements. Sure he was wronged but he is dead now. However, getting him knighted would be a huge in 1)informing more people about his contributions 2)making sure his contributions will never be forgotten