The World is Flat

I'm about halfway through an intersting book by Thomas Friedman The World is Flat (http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/bookshelf/the-world-is-flat). I won't go into a synopsis, here, but the points I found intersting are:

1. We are not teaching our children what they need in order to compete in a truly flat world. In order to be competitive, we need to teach them how to LEARN and instill in them a live-long love of learning.
2. Our world-leading ability to innovate is decreasing and others, including writers in the NY Times seem to agree (http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/does-silicon-valley-face-an-innovation-crisis/)
3. We need a national vision and goal such as the one issued by JFK after the Russians beat us into space with Sputnik. Friedman's idea, and one which I tend to agree with, is that an excellent candidate for this goal is renewable energy and getting the US not ony off our dependence on mid-east oil, but on oil in general.

I sure hope that in the next couple of months, US politicians can focus on something truly important, such as global warming, or improving the US' ability to compete in a flat world instead of just feeding us the kind of tripe that they have in the past in order to get elected.