Toni,

They've always been there and you're right, the Internet just lets them out!!

Well who would have thought? that the massive tax we pay just to travel by car in our big country would not find more who opposed it, it remains my view travel should if any thing be subsidized not overly taxed, that the week end drives of my childhood helped small country towns survive, and that halving the tax may just help outer city areas grow as places to live while still working in the city's

Belly,
The Academic hangers-on would have us believe the IQ is going down but my suspicion is that they desperately try to avoid using the less sexy terms of Pragmatism & common sense.
IQ is something they could pull the wool over our eyes with but they can't with common sense.
have you noticet how few high IQers' are actually in meaningful occupations ?
When they say IQ, they don't say in what field, I mean intelligence is found all over the place & all kinds of constructive occupations. Having a high IQ is no automatic guarantee for becoming a useful member of society. You just have to look at some of them & you can literally see their uselessness.

Individual it has been my ,lifelong view IQ is no measure of common sense, it does not surprise that some talk of a decline is current,we have all seen the checkout person who can not workout change we older people instantly do in our heads,computers think for us, some rush of to research things we know without help,media dumbs us down too,I without surely needing to remind you, share very little of your views but understand truth may be in the middle between us.

Perhaps truth is that Individual is not an academic but maybe Belly is.

Truth is a non academic unable to quickly count money at a supermarket checkout can easily change their flat tyre in the supermarket carpark, while an academic maybe cannot change a tyre and has to call for assistance.
Why is it so?

JF Aus no way I am other than a jack of all trades,but you raise a point worth looking at all my life civil Engineers have shown little skill in simple things,my views are based on having an inquiring mind and trying to find better ways to do things