Dear America...

It has come to my attention that you're just not paying attention. The following is a partial list of things that you could know with a bare minimum of effort - and should know, considering how often you seem to bring them up in conversation:

1. Lemmings do not commit mass suicide. Ever. Period. Nor do they follow each other blindly around any more than any other stampeding group of animals does.
2. Humans do not use only 10% of their brains. (Well, maybe a lot of people do...)
3. Whirlpools - in bathtubs, sinks, toilets, etc. - in the southern hemisphere do not spin in the other direction. Coriolis force is very real, true. But its effects are far too small to be relevant to a body of water like a sink or a bath, unless your tub is a few hundred miles in diameter.
4. The word "sushi" does not refer to seafood.
5. The Great Wall of China is not the only human structure visible from space.
6. Eating turkey does not make you tired. Tryptophan, although it is a natural sedative, does not act on the brain unless it is taken on an totally empty stomach. With no protein present. There's all sorts of protein in turkey. And who has an empty stomach on Thanksgiving?
7. Your hair and fingernails do not continue to grow after you die.
8. Al Gore never claimed to have invented the internet.
9. The day after Thanksgiving is not the biggest shopping day of the year. It may have the highest amount of traffic, although that's arguable, but sales-wise it's almost always beat by all four days of the two weekends before Christmas (and occasionally by other days as well).
10. Reading in dim light or sitting too close to the TV will not damage your eyesight.
11. A person who gets what they deserve does not get their "just desserts." They get their "just deserts."
12. The suicide rate does not rise during the holidays.

That's a start. I expect progress here, America. Don't disappoint me.