That's enlightening.

You can't be a complete moron to graduate high school here (the math, literature and science classes are advanced enough to ensure that), but then the flipside is that an impressive number of students don't graduate (I don't have a firm stat, but I vaguely recall ~30% being mentioned when I was in high school).

On the bright side, if you do graduate, then you will have gotten something out of high school.

Wait, Germany is a country? I thought it was some type of an STD: Oooh not again! I am having another breakout of Germany in my pants! ;-p
I call it, the Blitzkrieg when it happens suddenly like that.
(Joking! :D)
There are less educated people every where. I for one loved maps from grade 1 and knew where Germany was a long time ago. Some kids hate maps/history, and school standards aren't really the best (and from what I hear aren't getting better).

It's not that they're compete morons, it's just that geography isn't taught in a systemic way. So students can be very good at literature, maths, science, etc and not have much background in geography. History classes usually incorporate some geography, but it just really isn't taught much in US schools.

I can vouch for this. Geography is not much of a priority, although they do lightly touch on this in history class. The last time I had a lesson in world geography was in the fourth grade, but I think they expect students to study up on the subject on their own time. That's what I did

When you have Universal pictures and Dreamworks behind a movie which name is "Cowboys & Aliens" you now that everything has gone through the pipe.

I wonder who will produce/distribute "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter"?
United Artists ?

Please, don't lump all of America with the USA. We Canadians, Mexicans, Argentinians, etc. don't have anything to do with this Abraham Lincoln biopic. Thank you.

Also please don't assume that all of us in the states actually approve of this tripe or had anything to do with this. I can't wait until this vampire fad fades *headdesk*

It is a surprise.
May be the book is good, I hadn't tried, so I can no tell.
But the title is so cheesy as can be.

Anyway, I got the feeling that all is a big prank.
At the amazon's page you can read: "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" ?! WTF !

It's actually pretty damn funny. Quite faithful to the original book, only now with more zombie hunting.

Ah - opinions on its faithfulness vary *widely*. But it does actually exist.

USA isn't the only country that has crazy, crazy artists. We're just the only country *all* the other countries pay attention to. Which means that embarrassments like this move get noticed when they really shouldn't.

It also doesn't help that our media loves to give all the attention to the crazies either, and can get it on foreign tv. :/

Yeah.

We obviously need to have fewer bored reporters and more productive workers. Also more jobs, but just about everywhere needs more of those right now.

I think this also has to do with big media not wanting to invest money into doing into research and would rather fill up the news with whatever crap they can find.

Here is US media in a nutshell from the most reliable source in news :P (warning for language):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U4Ha9HQvMo

why is it surprising that the reviews are positive? Because the title and topic is silly?


Because if that's the reason, I think there's a good chance (100%), that you might be insane.