How would you do on Texas’ eighth-grade science test?
Give it a shot.
I got 44 out of 50 correct. Post your score below.
Also, to my surprise, one of my friends, Krissi Trumeter, criticized my old college friend, Sofia Resnick’s, recent article in the Austin Chronicle. What’s surprising is that they don’t know one another. Austin is […]

This is stupid.
Abigail Noel Fisher, 18, a white senior at Stephen F. Austin High School in Sugar Land is suing the University of Texas System, accusing the university of illegally using race in determining admissions.
Fisher is in the top 12 percent of her graduating class, not enough to gain her automatic admission under the state’s […]

Two videos everyone should see:
The first is Bill Moyers’ interview with The Yes Men, a group that gives the most absurd presentations at official functions — and get taken seriously — proving the gullibility and out-right stupidity of major government and industry leaders.
The second is a YouTube video from the Texas College Democrats about Senator […]

What You Missed If You Didn’t Read Today’s NYTimes

No need to worry about poor and elderly minorities being disenfranchised by new Voter ID laws. They’re disenfranchised by death before it becomes a problem, according to the Bush administration’s civil rights czar.
The Marines get fashion conscious.
The Maine Middle School Contraceptive Controversy: “It brings home the fact […]

And for good reason.
The Dallas Morning News is reporting that
More than 750,000 Texas drivers haven’t paid mandatory annual surcharges on their traffic violations, forcing them to drive without valid licenses and depriving the state treasury of nearly $620 million – much of which was supposed to be used for trauma care.
[…]

What you missed if you didn’t read today’s The New York Times:

In a story detailing problems with the Bush administration push for Medicare enrollees to utilize private plans for the new drug benefit comes this nugget:

In March, Sierra Health Services ended drug coverage for more than 2,300 Medicare beneficiaries with H.I.V./AIDS, saying they had not […]

I like McBlogger, but, unfortunately, it’s made itself into one of the many jackasses that have felt it necessary to comment on something it has no knowledge about.
Opinions are one thing. Actually paying close attention and then voicing an opinion is another. Stick to state politics, Mickey B.

I completely agree with Abu Muqawama:
Abu Muqawama has always been a big fan of the late French intellectual Raymond Aron. Aron, writing in his newspaper column for Le Figaro, believed it was the responsibility of the public intellectual to make a careful study of the issues at hand — economics, military strategy, etc. — before […]

Great column by John Noonan at The Daily Standard:
FOR NEARLY 200 years, cadets at the United States Military Academy have been guided by the “Thayer System,” a rigid structure of unyielding regulation, austere discipline, fierce loyalty, and strong emphasis on math, science, and engineering. The method is calculated to produce Army officers of the highest […]