Wednesday Night Open Thread

Some heroes go years without being recognized.

[The YouTube]

What’s on your mind? Got something you’d like to share? It’s Wednesday Night Open Thread.

Who wants to start?

Yippie Ki Yay, Luckless Robber

In Michigan, an Arby’s worker chased a robber in her car, cornered him at a river bank and held him at gunpoint until police showed up.

Note to criminals: maybe you shouldn’t target a restaurant whose logo is a cowboy hat.

If He Were Thin and Wore an SS Cap, That Laugh Would Be Creepy Instead of the Jolliest Thing I’ve Ever Heard

[How to turn a Coke bottle into a deadly arrow airgun] (Viewer #1,534,293)

Weaponizing a soda bottle without using Mentos. Pretty impressive.

Link of the Day: Don’t Know if This Is Relaxing or Frustrating. The Ocean Sounds Are Nice If You Just Want to Open the Page, Though

[High Praise! to Neatorama]

Build Sandcastles Online (Quick, Before They Wash Away!)

[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)]

They Self-Identify As an Institution of Higher Learning. I Suspect They Might Be Passing

Brown University is implementing a change to its graduate school application that will allow applicants to “self-identify” as persons of color.

My color would be green, since this idiocy makes me rage like the Hulk.

[title reference link]

Truer Words…

[Submitted by slapout (High Praise!)]

Straight Line of the Day: President Trump Announced that Millions of Acres of National Park Land Will Now Be Used for…

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

President Trump announced that millions of acres of national park land will now be used for…

The Illustrated Frank J: Oh, I *Wish* Government Were This Benevolent

[source]

America Plays Chess While They Play Calvinball

Pope Francis said the nuclear-arms race has become “irrational and immoral“.

True, but Iran & North Korea would be that even if all they had was spitballs.

[title reference link]

Random Thoughts: God and Taxes

How much brain-eating partisanship do you have to be infected with to care about this CFPB stuff?

It’s theoretically possible to have extreme political views and not be an asshole.

Democrats taking a strong stand on Conyers and Franken could lead to getting rid of Trump, but morals for politicians is just for campaign speeches — its not an actual thing that influences your actions.

Remember when the NYTs decided that an extremely tiresome editorial about “assault weapons” that added nothing to the debate was important enough to put on their front page?
These guys like to pretend they’re influential when all they’re doing is preaching to a shrinking choir.

At some point, those of us who never thought to drop our pants in front of random women are going to start to feel like the weirdos.

It’s weird seeing how in other countries Netflix has lots of network American shows listed as Netflix Originals. You’d didn’t make The Good Place, you liar!

Regardless of how you vote, I think it’s fair to say that if you were at any time a Roy Moore supporter, you should feel really bad about yourself or you’re a partisan sociopath.
Politics has been overtaken by people who don’t actually care about anything other than the fight.

I think society is finally putting out a strong statement that sexual assault will not be tolerated from anyone who isn’t an elected official.

If you’re not going to do anything about Franken, shut up about Roy Moore. No one needs your nuanced take on sexual assault.

I was considering sexually harassing some women in the future — it sounded like a fun activity — but now I’m thinking that’s a bad idea. Going to take up woodworking instead.

The left screeching about the GOP tax bill means absolutely nothing because they would screech about it no matter what. But imagine if they were all “This is a GREAT tax bill!” That would creep me the hell out; it would be like the Twilight Zone.

I’m so convinced that everyone on both sides talking about the tax bill are being completely dishonest that I’m almost sure the bill doesn’t even exist.

“This tax bill will raise the deficit, starve millions of poor people, and resurrect Hitler as an unstoppable werewolf.”
“Okay, but let’s get to the nitty-gritty: Exactly how much will my tax bill be lowered?”

Oh no! They’re taxing overwrought political rhetoric no one takes seriously! Millions will die!

America is a country of about 400 million spoiled rich kids and I’m sick of all your whining.

It’s the contention of the ones constantly spewing hate and bile that they care more about people.

kneeling in front of a broken Statue of Liberty on the beach*
“You maniacs! You cut taxes too much! Ah, damn you! Damn you all to hell!”

What does the Bible say about taxes? I remember God warning Israel about having a king because the king would take their stuff and boss them around. Should have listened to Him.
My guess about taxes is that God would much rather us take care of each other voluntarily. There’s quite a bit in the Bible about that.
Anyway, I think it’s biblically accurate to say you should never get righteous about the money you demand at gunpoint.

I don’t know if this is a good tax bill. I also know you don’t know. But no one is going to let that get in the way of some good old fashioned partisan screeching.

I thought that Trump winning over Hillary might help end partisanship by showing how stupid it was to rally behind either terrible party, but partisanship has just got dumber to match Trump.
It’s as if the thinking is “Trump is so terrible, we can still beat him without moderating ourselves at all!” but that thinking is wrong. It is very very wrong.

If I had a billion dollars, I’d probably invest it. I think you could live a long while on a billion if you were careful with it.
And think if I had two billion dollars. That would be twice as good. I might buy a new car (even though economically it’s smarter to buy a two-year old used car).
Probably the worst thing about having a billion dollars is then Bernie Sanders would be on your lawn yelling, “You’re a bad man. You’re a bad man for having a billion dollars.” I’d spray him with a hose. Probably one with a fancy nozzle.

“Come at me, bro!” I taunt, knowing I can run very fast.

The tax bill seems kind of dumb, but all you left-wingers sound like Alex Jones when ranting about it.

Can’t believe all the people claiming the Bible demands a higher tax rate and that it definitively states that Die Hard is not a Christmas movie.

I don’t know if it’s relevant to taxation, but remember Jesus’s parable where the money is taken away from the guy with the least and given to the guy with the most because the guy with the least was an idiot?
Anyway, if you think the Bible clearly says “Take money away from the rich!” not so much. There are lots of warnings if you are rich (which, from a historical perspective, is everyone in this country) but I don’t think you’re supposed to worry about other people being rich.

“I AM THE LAW!!!” -Judge Dredd and Trump (probably)

I like when my wife makes the kids bacon and then they’re bad and don’t eat their bacon because then I have bacon sandwiches for lunch.
I don’t know how much bacon costs. I hope it’s cheap.

To solve the problem, have we tried locking the Capitol building and filling it with bees?
I don’t really understand what the problem is; I’m just wondering if we’ve tried bees.
Why are you staring at me? Okay, I’ll try explaining this slowly: BeeEEeeEEeeEEees

Got that fabled iPhone X. It says on the box “Examine your heart before you hold this phone, for whoever touches it and is unworthy will surely die.”
I haven’t touched it yet.

Our political parties are two giant turds and I don’t know why anyone wastes time arguing which one is more appetizing.

“What are you in for?”
“Manslaughter. How about you?”
“Rape. Sexual assault.”
-Senators conversing in the Capitol building

Our political parties are basically prison prison gangs—something that allows awful people to organize against each other.

What if we stuffed a large coat and pair of pants with rats so that it was vaguely human shape?
Just trying to help the RNC come up with a better candidate than Roy Moore.

If I were writing the Trump presidency, my ironic ending would be a nuclear war where the only survivor is Judge Neil Gorsuch.

Why are we talking about anything other than the tax bill that’s going to kill everybody?

Cartoon of the Day – Debt

Michael P. Ramirez
[Michael P. Ramirez]

Ramirez nails it.