According to a broadcast I've watched by Prof. Spitzer*, it seems that observing the law being broken in some place, makes people break it too.
Say someone see a sign saying "no graffiti allowed" and behind it a wall with graffiti on it, and say someone else has put an advert on the first's windshield - he will more likely throw it on the ground right away than dispose of it in a trashcan. I suppose it is something to do with "Status-Quo", it signals that the law is a joke around that area and so you will act accordingly.
Now, back to the topic - when your peers misbehave, you will more likely misbehave. This seems to be in direct relation to the graffiti example.
I have also read, in a book by Steven Pinker (The Black Slate), that youngsters learn to behave from their environment and not their parents.
What their parents are able to do however is to be careful about who they let their children hang out with.
Yes, it seems that bad behavior is contagious - this is another expression of what seems to be in the human nature; When in Rome...

*link, in German: http://www.br-online.de/br-alpha/geist-und-gehirn/geist-und-gehirn-manfred-spitzer-gehirnforschung-ID1240404245825.xml

But nevertheless he managed to stay afloat, though still bathing in his filth...

You are correct. The right way to do it is like any scientific study: double-blind (though I guess it would be hard to keep the real test a secret in such a long term), control-group testing.
This is far better than just policy makers changing ALL school education programs by assumption, according to "some research" they thought was right.

1. It doesn't help to test ONE school.
2. The "control-group" school should be altered in a "harmless" way, to remove doubt that it is merely the change (to whatever) that raises interest, thus performance (people like new stuff, just because they are new)
3. Brain-researchers should be involved, since they are dealing with brain development (and therefore also learning). But they should not just give the idea and bail.

But I think this would hard to do, if only because of the public opinion, i.e. "OH MY GOD, MY KIDS' SCHOOL IS A GUINEA PIG". (but they are anyway, but there isn't any method or path to improvement and advancement).

Better yet, if you're indeed using a virtual machine, just disable CONFIG_MTRR on the kernel.
(Processor type and features -> MTRR support, from menuconfig)

Granted, this will decrease your X windows performance with AGP/PCI cards (that is, with any modern hardware). If you're using virtual machines as a way to host many servers on one iron, this is possibly a non-issue. Though I don't know what effect it has on gigabit ethernet cards, for example. It may be similar.

On desktop machines, like many posters said here, if you're root then you're root, end of story. I don't like the "sudo" approach that doesn't use a password to protect the access - it's just a wide open hole. But some will happily sacrifice ease of use on the expense of security...

Well, the upside to that is the internet, which "created" the problem also holds the solution, i.e. server-based games such as WoW, which is doing fine the last time I checked.
The technological environment has changed and now the industry has to adjust, this is the same old story that happens again and again throughout history.

I don't think that would be the worse. After Saddam was caught he was no longer a threat to Israelies.
Yeah, maybe someone would've spit on him or cursed him or maybe more than that, like would have happened in New York.

Anyway the WORSE that could happen to him would be by his own people which he prosecuted. (see: Benito Mussolini)

Nope, that came later: goatse... tubgirl... 2g1c...