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RE: "Isn't he [President Bush] really saying that our engineers aren't good enough?"

We all know what happend on the Moon about ten years after Sputnik.

Well, I remember Sputnik.

I am sure glad Eisenhower was president and not George W. Bush.

We'd have imported Russian engineers and scientists to "catch up."

We'd have been told by Washington that the Russians are geniuses and we're not.

We'll I think it took three months to "catch up."

We'd have done it before Sputnik but politics (separate space from the military) had hampered space work -- meanwhile the Army had the vehicles that could have done it long before Sputnik. When push came to shove the Army did it.

I'm sick of hearing about how they are geniuses over there and we're not.

JasonC, where's the quantifiable proof? Anecdotal experiences are nice but where's the proof?

When I see it implied that they're geniuses and we're not I usually post links to India press articles criticizing higher education in India, too geared toward passing tests and not enough innovative thinking.

Then there's the Education Testing Service which suspended the Computer Science GRE in China and India a couple years ago due to widespread cheating.

Then there's my other memories of the Sputnik days (pre-PC) where annually on TV network news there were films of riots in India's universities because cheating on finals was not going to be allowed anymore -- year after year.