I'd like to answer the question posed to Miss Teen South Carolina. I'm not out to make fun of her. It's been done to death. Besides, I don't even know if I'm necessarily smarter than her. I've just had a lot more time to learn about these things and I've had weeks to think about the question. So, why can't a large percentage of "U.S. Americans" locate the United States on a map?

Because of Teachers' Unions. See, the Unions' priorities are:

1. Get a high salary for teachers
2. Increase job security for teachers
3. Push our pet liberal causes on everyone's kids
4. Teach the kids something

I have no problem with their #1 priority. It's natural to work for your own self interest. I work for me and you probably work for you. What our education systems should do is make sure our #1 (teach the kids) and their #1 (make money) are inseparable. You teach, you get paid. You teach well, you get paid more.

But that's not what the Unions do. The Unions have a completely different philosophy. They want to make sure a teacher's salary and job security can never be jeopardized by his behavior -- and it's working. Their success is evident in our inability to locate the U.S. on a map, or to explain what causes seasons, or to identify what's larger between an electron and an atom, and in our relative place in international education rankings.

I could keep going, but you know I'm right.