July 5, 2004 by s.z.

Family Circus: The Day After Today's Cartoon  (See it here) It's a beautiful 5th of July morning.  Mommy, clad in a formfitting purple robe, is standing on the front porch and looking longingly at the road -- oh, if only Jeffy would go play in traffic!  Jeffy, wearing his usual Purple Pajama of the Presidency, points in our general direction and says, "Is the sky gonna put on some more fireworks tonight?" Analysis: Jeffy (Dubya) is asking when Dick Cheney is going to tell somebody else to f... off,  punch out a member of the press, try to strangle John Kerry, or announce that Saddam was responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing. For evidence, I cite a Wash Post piece entitled "Cheney is asset and liability on GOP balance sheet ": One GOP official, exasperated with Cheney's continued talk about Iraq's supposed arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, compared him to the Japanese guerrillas who filtered out of the jungle in the 1950s, not realizing World War II was over.   Oh, and Cheney is thought to be an "asset" because he can tell Kerry to f... off, while not actually being Bush, and because, as a Cheney aide put it, "Suburban moms like that strong tough guy protecting their kids."   (Yes, Cheney aides apparently think that Suburban Moms are incredibly stupid.)  Cheney is a liability because nobody likes him: Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, said the risk of Cheney's campaign appearances in swing states is that he "will raise the profile of the things that people don't like about Bush," including secrecy and the administration's case for invading Iraq. A CBS News/New York Times Poll last month put Cheney's favorable rating at 22 percent, compared with 39 percent for Bush. Cheney's unfavorable rating was 31 percent — nearly tripled from 11 percent in mid-2002. Bush had a 79 percent approval rating among Republicans, while Cheney's was 48 percent.   Prediction:   A suburban mother will ask Cheney just how he is protecting her kids, and how much Halliburton is making on the deal.  He will tell her to f--- off, and that her kids are ugly, smells jerks who don't deserve any protection because they're probably liberals, and therefore members of al Qaeda.  Bush will sadly announce that Cheney is bowing out due to health concerns, in that Karl Rove threatened to kill him if he didn't. Okay, I'm tired from all of the fireworks and "Twilight Zone" marathons.  I'm sure you can come up with something better. P.S.  While I couldn't make Jeff Keane draw a Dead Grandpa strip for Glenstonecottage, I did find this, which is the next best thing (see the last strip on the page). 4:13:29 AM

"Why Does the Left Hate the SATs?" I have written to Bill O'Reilly, suggesting he lead a boycott against Germany in relation for Sadly, No's appropriation of Doug Giles from patriotic American bloggers.  But while we're waiting for Bill to announce that he's not going to buy another bratwurst or Volkswagen until Germany apologizes for allowing Canadian deserters to steal American wingnuts, I have decided to talk matters into my own hands and critique the work of Seb's dream girl, Amber Pawlik.  This week Amber writes about the latest outrage committed by those insidious liberal universities: the new essay portion of the SAT. The educational establishment – the College Board, from the influence of the universities – has turned the one method to judge student’s raw talent and ability, the SATs, into a method to judge their political views. For 2006, the SATs are being overhauled. Foxnews.com reports about the new SATs: “Gone are the verbal analogies. New on the scene is more reading comprehension and writing, including a timed essay requiring students to take a position on an issue.” This should raise a red flag for any rational person. Why would a college admissions test encourage a high school student to state their viewpoint? Yeah!  I'm sick and tired of hearing the viewpoints of young people.  They should all just keep their damned mouths shut until they discover a cure for cancer, like Amber did. The university has long been in the business not of training rational, productive minds but of indoctrinating their viewpoint. Their thuggish tactics to silence conservatives and all other dissenting viewpoints are well known and well documented. Yes, the Virgin Ben wrote a whole book about it -- and it turns out that their thuggish tactics to silence Ben included accepting him at Harvard Law.  The bastards! This just goes one step further, and allows the university to screen conservatives before even entering. They're now doing mental health evaluations as part of college screening? Oh, Amber means that the SAT essays could be used to screen out conservatives.  You know, if the universities got the essays, and not just an SAT score.  Unless Amber is saying that young conservatives will do poorly on this section, since they all suck at writing.  Which, from what I've seen at Young Conservatives.com, seems to be true enough, but we still shouldn't tar a whole group with the same brush, Amber. A college entrance exam should be based on those objective things that indicate how well a student will do in college and in life. A young student aspiring to be a doctor has little to no need to be able to “take a stand on an issue.” They need to demonstrate intelligence, a willingness to be responsible for information (get tested on it), and an ability to develop a wealth of knowledge in their field. A young student aspiring to be a doctor should model himself on those robo-medtechs from the sci-fi movies. Oh, and regarding Amber's point about a college entrance exam should measure objective things, she fails to quote this portion of the Fox story: "It also incorporates additional math questions, adding about half an hour to the total test time.'  But she's a product of liberal public education, which, as she pointed out, doesn't demand performance, but instead just allows students to "discuss their arbitrary opinions."  So I guess we can't expect any better of her. “The change came partly in response to complaints from colleges that the old SAT was too coachable and based more on memorization and drills and had strayed too far from subjects actually taught in school. The College Board, which administers the SAT, wanted the test to be more compatible with today's curriculum.” [,,,] The schools are not in the business of training students for rational, productive purposes anymore. To teach students how to read properly or think properly is spit on as “petty bourgeois.” As Amber noted, the New SAT includes "more reading comprehension and writing."  So, it's trying to measure how well students read and reason.  But once again she's proven her point about students not being taught to read or think properly these days. Notice the language from the foxnews.com article, in which they accused the old SATs of being rote, boring “memorization and drill.” This has been the smear on rational education for decades from progressives, followers of the educational theory started by John Dewey. But what the FoxNews article actually claimed was that the test was being changed because it was seen as too "coachable," thus allowing well-off students could to pay for extensive SAT prepping to raise their scores, and so the exam didn't measure "raw talent and ability," like Amber said it should.  The left has waged a war on the SATs for a long time. First, they cried that the tests were racist, and that by design white students would do better than black students. After failing to win over the public with that argument, they have now resorted to gutting the SATs from the inside-out. Why does the left hate the SATs? Because they are evil non-people who hate everything that is good and decent, Amber. College officials should seek the best and brightest in high school applicants. They should look for students with the best academic record, proven success and interest in the field they want to go into, and maybe once upon a time, SAT scores. Instead, college admissions today look for bogus things, such as students who are, “well-rounded." Yeah, looking for students who can offer more to the campus than just book smarts is, like, bogus, man.  Now, with this new change, not only are they going to find students who are likely to become political activists and make political careers, but the guess-work is done for them: they can pick students without morals and values of their own, and will easily fit the university’s agenda.  The new SAT format should be seen as affront to rational education and an urgent stimulus to break the monopoly of government-run education. Okay, if I were grading Amber's viewpoint essay, I'd give it a C (you know, if she were a high school student).  Her writing isn't that bad, comparatively speaking, but her use of logic, her ability to marshal facts to support her case, and her originality of thought are sub-par.  She will never become a political activist or make a political career, and she seems to have no morals or values.  Sadly, I don't see her doing well in college or in life.  I blame her liberal public education, which apparently led her to think that it was enough to just voice an opinion. 3:03:20 AM