I would replace Jordan with Martin (maybe). The quality of work is so much better IMO. I think he is really cutting edge, not the typical "farm boy saves the world", his writing seems to incorporate more realistic depictions of human relationships and uncertainty of life. Characters are deeper, some who you might detest at one point you later sympathize with and "almost" consider to be good, deep down. The material of Martin's books is pretty mature. Incest, rape (and rape of what we would consider children), some other pretty violent stuff...so from that aspect it may not be appropriate for high school...

What's even worse in an academic environment is all the PhD's that seem to think just because they have a PhD in one subject any opinion they express about any topic is an "expert opinion."

Yeah, you can blame SBC for taking maximal advantage of a market, but that's what they do. Everyone knows that. The government there let the fox into the hen house. The hen house didn't get left open by accident, rather the government invited the foxes in.

Now, one can get all pissed that the fox ate the hens, but the government has the responsibility to look after the best interests of whatever its supposed to be looking after. Not only did the government fail in this case, they failed to such a degree it seems intentional.

Yeah. I'm getting the same thing. Could it only be available to citizens of certain countries e.g. US, available at a later time, or is the slashdot post just full of "it."

You stay away from my mom.

If all of these things are familiar to the American people and still a good chunk of them support the current administration, and still there is no widespread expressed outrage over these issues, the only logical conclusion is that most Americans are fuckwits.

You may be an American, but you don't sound like one, because most Americans are aware that there is the possibility of a difference of opinion on political issues that does not really mean that everyone that disagrees with you is a "fuckwit". Intelligent people do disagree. Here in the US I know many people of quite different political stripes that have quite different politics.

Do you wonder how that is possible? I will briefly explain how it is possible. The world is exceedingly complex. Many things are going on all the time. A single person is not big enough to encompass, let alone comprehend, all the facts that conceivably are relevant to his political views. Therefore, people select. They have no choice but to select the facts they deal with. They also rank facts by importance. Furthermore, they interpret the raw facts differently. Some people look at certain surface facts and discern (or think they discern) obvious behind-the-scenes machinations. Others look at the facts and look at the interpretations of the first group and roll their eyes at the "conspiracy theory". Still others take these first two groups for neglecting certain other, even more important facts. And so it goes.

No person has a grasp on the big picture. The big picture is beyond us all, much as we make an effort to grasp it. Most importantly, the big picture certainly does not consist of that particular list of concerns that you and I imagine all your friends think it must consist of. If you have been entranced by a particular set of facts thinking that this set of facts is definitely the most salient set of facts, that this is what's really important, and that anyone with a different list of salient facts is a cretin and a devil-worshipper, then the explanation for this may be that you are hanging around too much with the same incestuous group of like-minded people and that if you want to grow mentally you should get out more and contact some people with different views. Get some fresh air.

I hope you aren't statistics majors. Without knowing more about the results, its hard to say whether or not the sample is large enough. Lots of valid statistics in science is done on even smaller sample sizes.