How George Lucas Killed My Childhood

[High Praise! to NRO and Transterrestrial Musings]

In “Phantom Menace” you learn that the much-beloved Jedi order is merely a bunch of glorified, emotionless U.N. Peacekeepers, lopping off heads with rainbow-colored lightsabers to defeat any system’s self-determination and maintain a galactic bureaucracy that makes the Obama administration seem minarchist by comparison.

I’ll take the Sith. I’ll take the cool red lightsaber.

Pencil Sharpening, Snooty Artisan Style

I think this works because he stays completely in character the whole time, never once veering from that vaguely self-important “handcrafted attention to detail is the only really important thing in life” tone of voice, no matter what words are coming out of his mouth.

[CAUTION: contains some adult language]


[Vimeo direct link]

But at Least They Won’t Have to Get Their Own Insurance

Facing dire financial straits, Illinois’ backlog of unpaid bills has now grown to a whopping $8.8 billion.

If it gets any worse, they’ll have to move back into Wisconsin’s basement.

Fix the Blame, Not the Problem

[High Praise! to Liberal Logic 101]

Link of the Day: IMAO Artist-In-Residence Updates Blog

[High Praise! to 4of7 of Little Worlds]

Two great new works of art have been posted. Have a gander.

Inspiration Comes From Many Sources

As for his wild speculations in the commentary, all I can say is that I’m still busy living it up, plundering the high seas, and threatening to kill my cabin boy in the morning. Sorry, no dramatic battles with Spaniards, giants, or Sicilians here.

Sheesh! Artists… always with the drama…

[Think you have a link that’s IMAO-worthy? Send it to harvolson@gmail.com. If I use your link, you will receive High Praise! (assuming you remember to put your name in the email)]

Wisdom of the Day: Portrait Christmas Horse

Merry *mumble*

An Alabama state senator introduced a bill that would allow teachers to say “Merry Christmas” to their students.

The ACLU is now demanding a separate bill to allow the students to listen.

Obama Warned Us – The Future

We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it.

BARACK OBAMA, speech to joint session of Congress, Sep. 9, 2009

“I’m shooting for it looking like that eyeball-tower thing from that one ‘Wizard of the Rings’ movie.”

You’ve Been Judged!

Anonymiss of Nuking Politics picked her favorite punchlines to “Bing Has Revealed That the Top Internet Search Trend for 2013 Is…

Click here to see if you made the cut.

If you did, you should probably email Keln about becoming a guest blogger there.

If you didn’t, Anonymiss has got another straight line for you to practice on.

Keep trying. No one likes a quitter.

Straight Line of the Day: You Can Tell Hillary Clinton Is Gearing Up for a 2016 Presidential Run Because…

Works like this: I feed you Moon Nukers a straight line, and you hit me with a punch line in the comments.

You can tell Hillary Clinton is gearing up for a 2016 presidential run because…

New Polls Show Approval of Obamacare Skyrocketing

Well, the first 87 speeches on Obamacare didn’t work, but the 88th seemed to have been the charm. A new Gallup poll shows a 30 point increase in Obamacare’s popularity. I guess it was Obama’s message of “you’re stuck with Obamacare and there is nothing you can do about it” really resonated with people. I mean, we had a disastrous website launch and the anger over Obama’s lies about people keeping their plans, but some adviser to the president must have said, “I know what to do: Give another speech!” Whoever that guy was, give him a raise; he really nailed it. I even like Obamacare now. SarahK and I were all angry about losing the health insurance plan we liked, but after Obama’s speech we’re all like, “How can we be fixated on how Obama directly harmed us when we have a $600 million website that’s now almost working?”

So how much do you love Obamacare now thanks to Obama’s latest speech?

Word

BigBookOfWordsSo, what’s the Word of the Year?

Depends on who you ask. Is it “selfie,” “tweaking,” or some other silly word?

Well, if you ask Merriam-Webster — I think she used to appear on Happy Days — it’s “Science!”

Really.

How did they pick that word?

This year’s list was compiled by analyzing the top lookups in the online dictionary at Merriam-Webster.com and focusing on the words that showed the greatest increase in lookups this year as compared to last year. The results, based on approximately 100 million lookups a month, show that the words that prompted the most increased interest in 2013 were not new words or words used in headlines, but rather they were the words behind the stories in this year’s news.

So, “knowledge about or study of the natural world based on facts learned through experiments and observation” is what people wanted to know.

That had to be a shock to the people that thought that “science” meant “Al Gore said it.”

Other words on the list?

  • “Cognitive,” which, I think, is a wine.
  • “Rapport,” which is someone who wears his pants around his knees.
  • “Niche,” who said “Out of chaos comes order.”
  • “Metaphor.” What’s a metaphor? To keep cows in.

There are more. You should learn these words. Because words are good things. We use words every day. In fact, this whole things I’m writing uses words. And no words were harmed in the creation of this blog post.

Well, not permanently harmed.

Random Thoughts: Happy Holidays, Potatoes, and Batman

Never got the people cheering on Elan Gale. Just seemed like a guy with unhealthy anger issues. Comes off better that it was a hoax.

I’ll agree to say “Happy Holidays” if we can also end the fiction that Kwanzaa is an actual thing.

Whatever adviser it is that keeps recommending Obama say things should be fired.

“Daddy, she said it’s holiday music; I thought it was Christmas music.” How do you explain “happy holidays” to a 3 year old?

“People say ‘happy holidays’ but mean ‘merry Christmas’ but they don’t want to actually say ‘Christmas’ since most people celebrate it which makes it oppressive.”

You can make fun of the “War on Christmas,” just don’t pretend there isn’t a lot of idiocy associated with avoiding saying Christmas.

People make fun of us for electing a sack of potatoes governor of Idaho, but it never get in our business or raises taxes.

I’ve finally reached the acceptance stage on Ben Affleck as Batman. I’ll never be the same again, but I have a certain level of peace.

Look Out for That Wind Turbine!

Rumors are leaking out that Google is working on designing a practical flying car.

They should work on a flying pig, then Obamacare might finally work.