Testing the Limits of Stupidity

A group of people protest the FCAT by demanding Florida Governor Jeb "Jeb Bush" Bush look in their eyes. They are obviously psychic witches trying to mesmerize him with trickery.

High school serves two purposes in students' lives: first of all, it prevents them from spending all day smoking pot in their friend's bathroom, instead forcing them to smoke pot in a public school's bathroom. Secondly, high school teaches them all the important information and wisdom needed to live a meaningful and useful life of repetitious factory assembly line boredom, assuming "knowing the capitol of South Dakota" counts as "important information." Many people go through their lives without having to think about the capitol of South Dakota or even traveling within a 500-mile radius of the cursed state whose sole source of revenue derives from interstate billboard advertising such famous tourist attractions as "the World's Largest Bedpost" and "the World's Wettest Pool of Water." I label these people as "the fortunate members of society." High school additionally teaches students that pretty much every day of their life will involve a test of some kind. When you encounter a "ONE WAY ONLY" street sign, do you pass the test by traveling in the correct direction, or do you fail the test by instead driving into the sign and claiming it jumped out in front of your car? When your boss passes you over for an important promotion, do you pass the test by continuing to live your hellish, mundane life and continuing to work, or do you fail the test by instead burning down your cubical and firing sniper shots from the top of a water tower? These are life lessons that can only be learned in high school or perhaps by watching colorful late night Cinemax movies that involve people getting naked for no readily apparent reason.

This intricate system of tests and learning procedures recently came under fire in Florida, America's hotbed of political excitement, the state full of old people too stupid to vote and young people too stupid to pass tests. Governor Jeb "Not Jed" Bush Jr. Sr. III Esq. recently passed a bill forcing Florida high school seniors to take a standardized, statewide test which requires them to not only know how to print their name, but additionally color in little circles with a number two pencil. Like any time anybody does anything anywhere, this event resulted in a large protest from students and parents too stupid to realize that nobody would really pay attention to their protest.

Florida test foes call for moratorium - About 2,500 protesters gathered outside Gov. Jeb Bush's office Thursday, demanding that he suspend a statewide assessment test as an unfair roadblock that keeps some high school seniors from graduating. The protesters also said they were trying to organize a boycott of Florida orange juice, the state lottery and Florida's Turnpike toll road until Bush gives in on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that the group of protestors consisted mostly of students who failed the test and their immediate family members who want their kids to grab a high school diploma so they can get the hell out of the house and become successful Dreaded Best Buy Product Replacement Service Plan salespeople. According to the article, "protesters have said that an unfair percentage of those are minorities," which seems to be the sticking point in this great testing debate. I initially thought these groundless and ludicrous claims were groundless and ludicrous, but after a deep and insightful look into the issue at hand, I began to see the other side of the coin. That coin was located underneath my toilet, wedged between the carpet and shower, and I can thank a couple six packs of Killian's for allowing me to open my eyes to this brave new revelation.

This pie chart proves whatever I've been trying to prove in the previous few paragraphs.

Think about the Florida testing procedure as a whole and try to tell me it does not discriminate against minority students. For example, in order to pass the test, you must answer a majority of the questions correctly. It's common knowledge that minorities are not in the majority, so how can they possibly be expected to do so? Once you look at the test in this way, you can easily see the underlying fundamental flaws. If the majority of people were minorities, then perhaps the statewide test would hold some merit. However, until that happens, this procedure favors non-minorities. Governor Jeb "George Bush Jr. Sr." Bush should perhaps consider changing the test in heavy minority-populated regions to favor the minority of students who compose the majority of the population in such locations. For example, Botswana-American students may be a minority in Florida, but they could be a majority at Roddy Piper High School in Alachua County, so the test should change to reflect this. Instead of requiring the students to answer a majority of questions correctly, they should answer a minority of questions correctly. If this is not feasible, then the multiple choice test questions should have a majority of correct answers to choose from (as opposed to a minority), thereby making the test more fair, as demonstrated in the following example:

EXAMPLE QUESTION: What is the number 5?

A) 5
B) 5
C) 5
D) George Washington

As you can see here, answers A, B, and C are all acceptable, thereby tipping the tables towards a minority-favored testing system. How should a minority student expect to know what it's like to live the cushy, middle class life of a majority student? Until the Governor figures out a way to change his skin color and transform his native country's national flag into some mess with over 30 distinctly different colors and symbols which change on an hourly basis, he will never be able to understand what it's like to be a minority. If by some miracle Jeb "Bush" Bush suddenly does become a minority, I certainly hope he sells the movie rights of his life and gets Martin Lawrence or Chris Rock to play his black counterpart.

Hollywood's unflinching look at the minority culture.

Another method of solving this complex problem revolving around solving not-as-complex problems could be to offer a "minority version" of this standardized test. Technically this would make the standardized test highly unstandardized, but as James Dean said before riding his motorcycle off the cliff at Dead Man's Curve, "rules for standardized tests are meant to be broken." Now I don't want anybody out there to get the false impression that I'm an experienced social worker who has years of field experience working with minorities under my belt, mainly because I don't have a belt and if I did, I would certainly not cram years of my life under it. However, I have seen many movies on HBO that revolved around either black people or hit comedian mastermind Paul Rodriguez and his hilariously insightful comments regarding the Hispanic-American lifestyle. Oh yeah, and I also watched five minutes of that canceled sitcom starring Margaret Cho, so that should prove to you I'm either familiar with minorities or I really enjoy praying for my head to explode like a cantaloupe crammed with C4. According to all Hollywood movies and television shows I've seen about minorities, their lives are full of constant strife and agony which deal with the following crucial topics:

ACCEPTIBLE HOLLYWOOD TOPICS ABOUT MINORITIES:

1) Drugs / crime
2) Sports
3) Being poor
4) Being the victim of racism

Please keep in mind that movies and television never lie, so I have absolutely no reason whatsoever to doubt the accuracy of these subjects. If you are a minority and do not deal with these three issues on an hourly basis, then something is terribly wrong in your life and you should notify various movie producers in California of your quandary so they may pay to move you into a neighborhood full of heroin, basketball, and welfare handed out by white people who hate you, thus fulfilling your recommended media stereotypes. The problem with the Florida standardized tests centers around the fact that they were not created for Hollywood minorities, thus making it impossible for many of them to pass. I recently obtained a copy of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test and found myself shocked and appalled at the types of questions asked. For example, look at this example FCAT question that I chose as an example:

EXAMPLE QUESTION IN EXAMPLE: Mary's wealthy proctologist dad recently bought her a $36,000 SUV for her 17th birthday. Mary decided to drive this $36,000 vehicle 28 miles to her friend Zoe's house, which is located 34 miles away. If Mary traveled at 48 miles an hour and had to accelerate to 87 mph for three minutes while she talked on her cellphone and did her nails while applying makeup and putting in Dave Matthews Band CDs, what time did she arrive at Zoe's house to watch that one episode of "Friends" where Joey got hired by the really kooky boss that had the kooky social quirks?

See? They're friends, which is why the show is called "Friends!" Do you get it? That works on so many levels.

This question simply cannot be answered by many minorities, as they can't watch "Friends" because they're too busy avoiding drugs and crime while practicing basketball and worrying about money and being oppressed by the white janitor in their apartment complex. This must be the case, as I've never seen a minority-based movie where the characters stopped to watch the show "Friends," and Hollywood's portrayal of minorities cannot be racist because this portrayal inherently deals with racism, so therefore it's technically impossible for the movies and TV shows to be racist. The FCAT needs to adopt itself to these highly dynamic, individualized, unique minority lifestyles which are exactly the same no matter what movie they're featured in. I have used my official SA Thinktank, which is actually a couple of pasty white scientists trapped inside a large fish tank, to brainstorm up some appropriate questions that would appeal to minorities in an acceptable Hollywood-sponsored fashion:

EXAMPLE FCAT MINORITY QUESTION: Your father was recently beaten to death by evil racist white cops who had no motivation to do so except for the fact that they were evil and racist. You must walk 10 miles to his funeral because your brother recently stole the family car and sold it for some mysterious white powder labeled "DRUGS." If you run at 7 mph, and take two breaks to duck and dodge incoming drive-by automatic weapons fire, then what is the number 5?

A) 5
B) 5
C) 5
D) That one episode of "Friends" where Ross dated the kooky chick who had kooky social quirks.

Not only will the new and improved semi-non-standardized FCAT appeal to minorities and help them pass high school, but it will also fulfill the generic Hollywood stereotype which has helped fat white movie producers make so much money. This is clearly a win-win situation and will definitely prevent people from protesting Governor Jeb "Not a George" Bush's reign of institutionalized terror. Oh, and if you're one of the people who are currently protesting the FCAT by boycotting "Florida's orange juice, the state lottery and Florida's Turnpike toll road," let me explain to you that 2,500 people failing to purchase juice or scratch-off lottery tickets probably won't have whatever desired effect you had in mind. I'd instead recommend purchasing a sniper rifle and finding the closest water tower, as all the good test-failing students should.

CUIDADO: CALIENTE

Ryan "OMGWTFBBQ" Adams here on another wonderful Goldmine Tuesday. Rather than spout off with a bunch of nonsense like usual, I need to show you something.

That ladies and gentlemen, is "art". Stop laughing. STOP IT. A fellow named Øyvind Suul has a website up with lots of this wacky stuff displayed. I can't look at it too long, or I get nightmares during the day. Anyhow, the goons took it upon themselves to begin their own art with the piece pictured above. Those pictures give me day terrors too, but in a good way.

So if you'd like to enjoy the forums version of art click here, but make sure you are wearing your trendy black turtleneck first.

– Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka (@TwitterHasBannedAllMyAccountsEver)