I wish someone would explain tides to me.  It makes sense that the side of the earth facing the moon would have a water bulge, but I've never really understood why the opposite side of the earth has one, too.

The antipodal bulges are usually depicted as about the same size.  Is this close to accurate?  If so, can someone tell me why?

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As for public education -- I'm a liberal myself.  Anyone who argues that compulsory public education is the answer to the U.S.'s education problems -- when public education is failing so miserably right now -- is out of their mind. 

I would argue, however, that the minuscule money that's allocated for teachers' salaries (attracting only those who can't get a more lucrative job elsewhere) and educational materials, and the massively unpleasant discipline problems that public school teachers have to often deal with, are significant reasons that public education is failing so egregiously.

I really don't know what the root of the problem is.  I went to a lower-middle-class elementary school with 40+ students per class and mostly dedicated teachers, and most kids there got a reasonable education from that school.  Later I went to a middle-middle-class high school and most kids got a reasonable education that way, too (class of '64).  My feeling is that my experience was typical for that era; what's changed in the last 40 years to vastly lower the quality of public education, I really can't say.

I *do* agree that home schooling makes more and more sense these days -- to avoid the colossally nasty behavior of the bullies and the cliquies, the mind-numbing boredom that smart kids (and probably most others) have to endure in the classroom, and the poorly trained teachers who barely know their subject matter, not to mention how to teach.  (Note the huge resistance teachers' unions have mounted against proposals that all public school teachers pass a minimum competency exam in many states.)

I would love to run a school for gifted kids, giving them all the things I wish I'd had in school but never came close to until going to college.  (My model is the most memorable book I read as a child, "Children of the Atom" by Wilmar Shiras.  Anyone else read that?)

--Dan