After all, we voted for Bush...
Twice...

That reminds me of something Margaret Cho once said, looking at a map with the states colored red or blue. "Oh, how convenient. We now have a map to where all the stupid people are."

This is just embarrassing. Good lord.

But then again, they went to Texas. The "The President says Country X is a threat to the United States..." bit doesn't surprise me.

was the kid who said that a country who is not a threat to us should still be invaded because Bush says so.

Now I'm pretty scared.

Krygistan needs to be attacked, and NOW!!!

I'm a little scared right now.

But is it surprising?  I'd say it's disappointingly unsurprising...

This is amazing, absolutely amazing.

n/t

Selective editing.

Another possible three word answer:

Texas Educational System.

But never doubt the ignorance of some Americans...

I don't know how we can maintain global leadership when we have citizens that mistake Australia for North Korea.

I worked with someone who didn't know where the Atlantic Ocean was, even though she's lived 100 miles away from it her whole life.

but the crazy thing is that some of these people vote.

or anywhere, really, and asked people the same questions, you'd get a lot of the same answers.  I don't know why you assume this is "selective editing."  Obviously, seeing people being so ignorant and blindly obedient is highly disconcerting, but wishing it away won't make it so...

people don't have the confidence to tell a speaker that they think the paperwork is wack.

I work a lot with Europeans, and they all think New York City is the capital of New York State (it's Albany); LA is the capital of California (it's Sacramento), and Baltimore is the capital of Maryland (Annapolis! C'mon!). So, we do know some geography, but it's closer to home.

Although, at a county fair a few summers ago, the education booth workers said my friend and I were two of only three people who could name 3 bodies of water and 3 countries on a blank map.

You can be sure "No Child Left Behind" did NOT improve the results since then.

they put the cities in the correct states!  I have had people in the U.S. place my country of origin in Africa, Indonesia, the Caribbean, Australia and India.  Finally, I just say that I am from South America, but am not latina.  Big confusion and stares...

My faith in democracy is just a little bit shaken.

Name a country that begins with "U".

I blurted out Uraguay and Uzbekistan and forgot the good old USA!

I guess I think of our country as THE United States, so I file it under "T" or something.  Oh, forget it! :)

I frequently file it under A for America.  It happens.

Isn't that one of the countries that we should invade next? Haha.

Could've said USA, or UK, but my first thought was Uganda.  That doesn't make me feel stupid.  Hell, I actually know that there's a country named Uganda in East Africa.  How many American's know that?

The Uzbeks are members of the Coalition of the Drilling.

Maybe we can save ther political dissidents who are BOILED alive by our ally!

with it as Progressives? Talk about dragging a sea anchor when we try to get these people to vote (although a lot of them never vote, altogether too many DO vote, as you would expect, for elephantisis). The great unwashed modern peasantry, in the eyes of Republican schemers like Rove... but give them an emotional issue, whip them into a frenzy, and they will be indomintable. Remember that, for many of them, their ancestors were the free yeoman citizenry whose long bows won at Agincourt in the rain for good King Harry, whether they know it or not.

If we Progressives want to make a difference, its our responsibility to get out the message about civil liberties and the freedom of real democracy which has been trashed of late. I don't mean through the Internet in our usual way, but how do we get politicos, talk shows, even Oprah, to grab their hearts and minds (to coin a phrase) and educate them just a little bit to their civic duty? Eh?

As a country, we certainly deserve our fair share of criticism for our lack of geographic literacy, despite a greater than ever need to understand the world and all of its intricacies.  But this is a total hatchet job, with selective editing and some impossible scenarios.  I consider myself very fluent on world affairs, but I likely could not pick John Howard out of a lineup.  I actually cannot name the prime minister of Canada right now without wikipedia'ing it, and I had to think hard to pull Gordon Smith out of my head as the incoming British prime minister (is that correct?).  So these guys come to the US and pull out only the real nitwits to reinforce the world opinion that we are buffoons, reflective of the myopic, jingoist nature of our current administration--I imagine on the cutting room floor is footage of dozens of people who called them on their crap.  I wonder how the Australian on the street would fare with similar questions?  And I imagine any one of us could go to Melbourne, introduce ourselves as the governor of Virginia, New York, or Texas, and have a similar reception.  I would think the most important of this is for Australians and others to know this is a joke.  Sure we as a country have a long way to go, but this is not any more reflective of our country than Mel Gibson's father's politics is on Australian's views.

in other countries wouldn't be much better.

Volunteer in your local school system to help children who might end up like these sad folks.  I haven't been doing it long, just a couple years, but have been working at an elementary school with mostly underpriviledged children (some of whom come to school never having been read to or had even a book in the house). 

It's the most gratifying thing I've ever done.