From Betsy Newmark: When College Board announced that they were adding a writing component to the SATs, critics alleged that there was no way to legitimately grade the writing of that many essays each year and that the test would devolve down into writing formulaic essays. Well, now an MIT professor has written a paper outlining what students need to do to game the test and present the illusion of

On the heels of the Howard Kurtz article, Online, Churls Gone Vile, which I gently mocked here, particularly for referencing the word “douchebag” as “feminine hygiene product,” (considering the actual obscenity that one encounters in newspapers), blogger Kathy Sierra of the site Creating Passionate Users, which is about coding, has been subject to a variety of vile comments and threats.  This has caused her to cancel a teaching engagement at

Not one to trust the local media, I took to the streets of Denver to find out just how effective this week’s economic boycott on behalf of undocumented workers has been. Finding 1:  Hispanic hookers working the Val Verde “Yacht Club” all present and accounted for—except for Lupe, who is out with “bad cold sores.” Finding 2:  “Rico Pollo” restaurant on Alameda reports no decline in business.  “Everybody loves the

Carter:  “I think this meal would be far more tasty were we to get rid of that ridiculous blintz—and were we to make sure the cheeseburger was sufficiently humbled and didn’t presume to interfere with the rich commingling of the rest of the cuisine, which I have on good authority is far more sophisticated.”*

Michael Ledeen—everyone’s favorite tool of the global Zionist conspiracy—takes issue with a seemingly “coordinated” meme being floated by the legacy media in the wake of the Iranian “capture” of British sailors: Time Magazine talks about the Revolutionary Guards in the same misleading way as the BBC. After pointing out that the British hostages were taken by the Revolutionary Guards Naval Forces, Time “explains”: The IRGC is a powerful, separate branch

“You know, what the lily-white Establishment forgets, while it’s trying to pillory me with ‘questions’ about my Native American ancestry, is that I have other claims on systemic oppression.  Namely, that I am part Black.  And my ties to the ‘hood frightens the fascist bourgeois witch hunters even moreso than does my red man’s blood.  Because as a Black, I am Revolution writ large.  I am America’s history of oppression. 

One person described Nagin as a racist and a women’s sanitary product. Quickly!  Bring the smelling salts and a glass of brandy!  Loosen my corset!  Open the window!  Don’t crowd me!  Give me room to breathe! What is spreading this Web pollution is the widespread practice of allowing posters to spew their venom anonymously. If people’s full names were required—even though some might resort to aliases — it would go

“Last Mustang Ranch Building Destroyed”: The last remaining building on the grounds where the infamous Mustang Ranch brothel once stood went up in flames Sunday. The 48-room, 20,000-square-foot structure known as the Mustang Ranch II annex was destroyed as part of a firefighting training exercise. “It’s out with the old and in with the new,” said a woman who goes by Air Force Amy, who once worked there. “The day

Jonathan Chait weighed in yesterday on conservative skepticism toward global warming, claiming that as evidence accrues to support the idea that human activity contributes in substantial part to the phenomenon, conservatives actually stiffen their stance against the evidence: The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a study, with input from 2,000 scientists worldwide, finding that the certainty on man-made global warming had risen to 90%. So, the magazine asked

Last night, I got to see the Hoodoo Gurus on their first US tour in 13 years.  And with the exception of frontman David Faulkner’s hair, they still got it.  They were every bit as good—if not better—than in this 1985 live clip of “Like Wow, Wipeout!” This live clip of “Middle of the Land” rocks also.