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If Giraffes Lived In America...
Nation of Retards
How dumb are Americans? A fifth of you think most of the 9/11 hijackers
were from Iraq, which makes sense as 41% of you think the September
11, 2001, attacks were an Iraqi military operation. An elite 11%
were able to identify the chief justice of the Supreme Court.
If you’ve wondered who could possibly approve of Dick Cheney,
it is likely the same 10% who believe the American or British empires
predate the Roman Empire, or the 8% who chose "sports utility
vehicles" as the one thing that definitely does not contribute
to global warming.
Saddest of all, only 52% realize the United States has lost its
war on Al Qaeda or whatever we’re supposedly fighting somewhere
or another.
(here)
Our Stupefied Country
It's gonna be very very difficult to win elections if 25% of the
U.S. population think the sun goes around the earth...
IS OUR ADULTS LEARNING?....In a recent Gallup
Survey, only 35% of Americans said they believed evolution was
"a scientific theory well-supported by evidence."
Forty-five percent of Americans also believe that God created human
beings pretty much in their present form about 10,000 years ago.
A third of Americans are biblical literalists who believe that the
Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally, word
for word.
According to an NSF survey done in 2001, 25% of Americans think
the sun goes around the earth.
Take the test yourself: (here)
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Chance that an American adult believes that "politics and government
are too complicated to understand": 1 in 3 (here)
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Bad Word, Bad Bad Word!
Number of states that do not use the word "evolution"
in their science curricula : 5 [National Center for Science Education
Oakland] (here)
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Rank shared by Jesus Christ and Bill Clinton among
"the greatest Americans of all time," according to Americans:
13
(Luntz Research) (Harper's)
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Bad
Weather In the U.S.A. (great article!)
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A study of 556 seniors at 55 prestigious U.S. universities (Yale
and Harvard among them) found that 40% couldn't say when the Civil
War took place, even with these multiple choice answers: A. 1750-1800
B. 1800-1850 C. 1850-1900 D. 1900-1950 E. After 1950
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The National
Adult Literacy Survey says 23 percent of the 191 million adults
in America perform at the lowest reading proficiency level.
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Year in which Detroit presented Saddam Hussein with a key to the
city: 1980 (here)
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The average American adult spends 99 hours a year reading and 1,460
hours watching TV. That's two months watching TV.
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Number of Florida high school students who take physical-education
courses online: 1,204 --Florida Virtual School (Orlando) (here)
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There are 50 million uninsured Americans, and nearly 10 million
of them are kids. We do have 1 million insured dogs and cats. (more
here)
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45% of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the
September 11 attacks. (here)
President Bush: "I just can't make the claim of such a link."
(here)
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(Transcript from a whistle-blower lawsuit filed against pharmaceutical
companies Pfizer and Warner-Lambert in 1996, and unsealed last year.
The words are those of John Ford, senior marketing executive for
Parke-Davis.) Harper's 3/03
"I want you out there every day selling Neurontin. Neurontin
is more profitable than Accupril so we need to focus on Neurontin.
Pain management, now that's money. We don't want to share these
patients with everybody, we want them on Neurontin only. We want
their whole drug budget--not a quarter, not half--the whole thing.
We can't wait for them to ask, we need to get out there and tell
them up front. Holding their hand and whispering in their ear: 'Neurontin
for pain, Neurontin for everything.' I don't want to see a single
patient coming off Neurontin before they've been up to at least
4,800 milligrams a day. I don't want to hear that safety crap, either.
Have you tried Neurontin? Every one of you should take one just
to see there's nothing. It's a great drug!"
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From a list of subjects of film-footage requests
submitted to various image archives over the past two years; the
requests were made by researchers, television and film producers,
and teachers. List compiled by Williams Cole, published
in Harpers, March 2003
Prehistoric Times
Socrates
Jesus Christ (footage and photographs)
Columbus discovering America
George Washington crossing the Delaware
The Titanic sinking
Founding Fathers signing the Declaration of Independence
Jack the Ripper, from around the time of the murders
The Industrial Revolution, especially trains (circa 1830)
The American Revolution
People with skin complaints being burned at the stake
Clinton and Lewinsky having sexual relations
First lunar landing, shot from the moon (here)
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A brief from the composer who wrote the music for
the Fox News Channel's presentation of Gulf War 2:
Regarding the music for the evening news presentation of the war
in Iraq: "The creative brief in the first Gulf War had more
to do with the conflict of cultures and ideologies. It was the Islamic
or Arabic Fast versus the West, and so the conflict was set in those
tones. The second time it was more like they were trying to promote
the war the same way they would promote Terminator 3--it was like
"Battle of the Megaheroes." So the first time what I delivered
was vaguely militaristic and vaguely Arabic simultaneously. And
the second time it was just Techno-Ali vs. Frazier IV, we're-going-to-knock-the-crap-out-of-them
music." --Peter Fish in Harper's Magazine, February 2004 Harper's
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The Dead Kid Stays in the Picture
The following email was sent in March by Taylor Donahue, vice president
of production at Timely Studios to Anita Lavine, senior vice president
of production
To: Anita Lavine
From: Taylor Donahue
Subject: Location shooting for Codename Courage
Assuming the current situation with Iraq leads to combat activity
by U.S. troops, I suggest we get a small film crew credentialed
as press to shoot over there. This will solve some of the budget
vs. production-value problems we've discussed. In the best-case
scenario we can also get one or two of our leads over there in costume
to do a scene with the mayhem of real war as a backdrop.
Failing this, we can have the war as a back plate to use with blue
screen of our actors.
We'll be the only movie with a multibillion-dollar effects budget.
(here)
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