I'd like to see some statistical basis for this, rather than a couple of anecdotes and what the media portrays. In addition, my experience with opponents of home-schoolers is that they are more worried about people being raised with political viewpoints contrary to theirs. Their concern for the kids and a quality education is minimal. But our country thrives on the variety of political viewpoints, not a hive-mind developed by a government education system.

Again, this is anecdotal, and not universal. Besides, it appears that Slashdot thrives on these type of people, so shouldn't we work to create more of them? There are plenty of these types of people in the public school system as well, and there are other ways to address these types of issues.

For the record, I was not home-schooled. I spent the middle half of my elementary education in a private school, and the rest in public schools. I have many friends who home-school, so I have seen the benefits compared to the alternatives.

For those that oppose home-schooling, do they seriously think that the government does a great job of educating children? I can't believe there are so many that oppose home-schooling, yet Slashdotters in general rail on the poor quality of the American education system.

To me, home-schooling is a great alternative. Parents in general care the most about their children, not the government. Obviously there are the exception (child abusers, etc.), but that's not necessarily an argument to ban all home-schooling outright.

Seems like as long as the children can pass the standardized tests (SAT, etc.), we should support it. In fact, studies have been done that show that home-schoolers often do better than public school students. For example:
http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000010/200410250.asp

Anecdotally, my sister found that some colleges actually prefer home-schoolers for this reason.

Not true, there is plenty of disagreement. You should read a book called 'Cracks In The Crescent', about a man who was a madrassa teaching assistant and muadhin (calls Muslims to pray) for Islam until he became disillusioned with all the discrepancies and contradictions. He provides countless examples to back up his point.

One of the more humorous examples is a story where he proves to several Muslims that Islam teaches that they will all go to hell.

...or rutting/shoving due to soft pavement from 100 degree or greater temperatures, failure due to diesel spills (very likely with high truck traffic) which breaks down the asphalt, etc.

Like I said, LCCA required. Asphalt does not answer all pavement woes (neither does concrete). Your defense makes it sound like you work for the asphalt industry.

I am a licensed civil engineer, and I think your statement (and the one prior) bears qualifying. The choice between an asphalt road and a concrete one should always be analyzed by a life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA), which takes into account the up-front cost of the road plus the maintenance costs. In Southern California, concrete will most often come out ahead in said analysis, especially given our traffic volumes and the traffic delay costs associated with the more frequent maintenance activities required by asphalt. We have concrete pavements here that are 50+ years old. In areas of high freeze-thaw cycles, an LCCA may produce different results. However, it should also be noted that the thump-thump of many concrete pavements today is due to a load-transfer failure between the slabs, something that in new pavements has been addressed with the inclusion of steel dowel bars between slabs.