Sounds like American university in some ways. College-aged coworkers in my department have told me some tales. Did you know that Shakespeare's Henry V was about Bush going to war with Iraq to steal their oil? Or that Clinton's statements on Saddam re: WMD were legit, while Bush/Powell/Rice/Rumsfeld's well-nigh-identical statements on the same were false, simply because Clinton cared more?
I'm told of wonderful places in my favored land, called "flyover country," where people actually learn things in school, and patriotism isn't the last refuge of the scoundrel, and folks actually care enough to help other folks without (or instead of) talking about it. I'd love to see it sometime. Until then, there's the dacha. Keep it up DF, sounds like you may have found an unwashed brain in your mechanic's shop.