Archive of entries posted on 7th May 2019

Tuesday Night Open Thread

Posted by on

Old songs are the best.

[The YouTube]

That’s actually the oldest version of that song I could find. It’s not the original version; it was recorded before the original version. Xavier Cugat with Don Reid — not the one from The Statler Brother; now I want to play a Statler Brothers song — recorded it before it debuted in “Jubilee” though Cugat’s recording was released later. The big hit came later with a recording by Artie Shaw.

Anyway, what’s been on your mind? Got something you’d like to share? A topic to discuss? It’s Tuesday Night Open Thread.

Who wants to start?

Deplatforming Is Not The New Book Burning Because Deplatforming Is Carbon Neutral (an Editorial by Harvey)

Posted by on

After Facebook banned several prominent “far right” authors and Louis Farrakhan – who was just as surprised at the label as you are, but less so than the Washington Post, apparently – some people were offended. And when people get offended, sometimes they write without thinking things though. Like President Trump, who, in a fit of pique, decried Facebook’s decision as “censorship” that needed “monitoring and watching closely”. Which it technically wasn’t, but the tweets made liberals angry, so The Donald gets a pass from me.

But I’ve also heard Facebook’s deplatforming described as “the new book burning”, and friends, I can’t let that one go, because there is a world of difference between the two activities. It’s like comparing apples and oranges. This is America. We don’t eat orange pie here.

Book burning is a horrible, tragic event for a lot of reasons. Most importantly, the carbon footprint. You burn a book and you know what gets released? Carbon! Deadly, deadly carbon! And probably other toxic chemicals from whatever books were made of back when people used to make books. Most likely lead and unobtainium, if I know my history.

When you deplatform someone, it’s a carbon-neutral event. All that gets released into the atmosphere are pixels, which are made from light. This means they’re actually GOOD for the environment. Light is renewable, just like solar power and wind and even coal – once we learn how to clone dinosaurs. Kicking Paul Joseph Watson to the curb is probably keeping the Statue of Liberty from being washed away by rising oceans.

Another tragedy of book-burning – books are printed in specific, limited quantities. Every time you burn a book, you come that much closer to having it disappear completely. You might at well burn a bald eagle or a panda.

But when you deplatform, you’re not really destroying anything, you’re just preventing new horrible things you disagree with from being made in the first place. And since the second law of thermodynamics says that pixels can neither be created nor destroyed, you’re actually just repurposing them to create words that DO deserve to be read on the internet. Like the ones you’re reading now. It’s not censorship, it’s pre-emptive recycling.

One of the saddest parts of book burning, though, is that many books that get burned by hateful radicals are seminal, innovative works created by iconoclastic thinkers whose works are decades or centuries ahead of their times. Their brilliant insights confuse and befuddle the lesser members of their benighted societies, causing them to fly into primitive, destructive rages which erupt in a mania of fire. Imagine Nero as the Incredible Hulk. Now fill Europe with him and have him hate Galileo. That’s the book burner mentality.

Thankfully, deplatforming is nothing like that. It’s the necessary task of our intellectual guardians to shut down crackpot notions created by dangerous lunatics who are so out of step with our intellectuals’ best current thinking, it’s like they live in a different century. Their crazy ideas imperil all we hold dear. We can’t behave like confused children in the face of these threats. We need to confront the danger. Kill it with fire. We need to act like a cross between a politician and a superhero, and encourage entire continents to address these singular hazard likewise. That’s the proper mentality for deplatformers.

Finally, I leave you with this thought: book burning hurts real people who put real work into their real creations. Deplatforming doesn’t hurt anyone that you’ve ever met, so they’re probably not even real as far as you know or can prove. They’re probably just those bots that you keep having to check boxes to prove you’re not one of.

And as long as Facebook doesn’t think you’re one of them, you certainly don’t have anything to worry about.

Harvey is a non-disabled Navy veteran accidentally hired to fill an affirmative action quota at IMAO.us. He is also the author of such books as “The Nerodible Hulk” and “Unobtanium: a Book-Maker’s Guide”.

—–

< Facebook Bans AOC, Bernie Sanders, For Repeatedly Promoting “Murderous Ideology” Of Socialism

Ask IMAO: Answers #1

Posted by on

We recently offered to answer your questions, any questions that you had. It seems you had some. It also appears some of you might have been expecting us to answer them at the time you asked the question. Like, right then. And yea, we’d like to do that.

The truth is I have duties around the IMAO offices — the drink machine won’t fill itself — so I didn’t get to answer them until after hours. But, don’t worry, we will answer all your questions as time allows. We may not be able to answer the same day, or the next day, or even the day after that, but we will answer your questions as soon as we’re able. Because IMAO Cares!TM

So, here are the answers to the first group of questions. Pay attention. You might learn something.

Wendy
Wendy: Why are pickup trucks called “pickup”? Not even thestraightdope has a good answer so I beseech you to enlighten me.

Basil
While first sold in 1924, the 1925 version of the Ford Model TT was the first commercially sold truck with “pickup” in its description (“Ford Model T Runabout with Pickup Body”). However, that’s not the real reason. The actual reason is because they’re used to pick up Southern chicks.

HokieGomer
HokieGomer: What is the sound of one hand clapping?

FormerHostage
FormerHostage: *swish*

Basil
That’s correct. See? Hang around IMAO long enough and you’ll know all the important answers, too.

FormerHostage
FormerHostage: How many Zeno’s Paradoxes are there?

Basil
None. You can’t understand the paradox until it’s read to you. That takes time. Because sound does not travel at infinite speed, there is a delay between the description of the paradox being spoken and your hearing it. By the time you hear the first half of it, the speaker has proceeded beyond that. By the time you hear that part, the speaker has progressed further. You will never hear the full paradox read to you. Therefore, there is not one.

FormerHostage
FormerHostage: How many excuses does Hillary have for her loss?

Basil
None. By the time you begin to count them, she has more. By the time you add that count, she has even more. You are never able to count them all. Therefore, there is no answer. Meaning there is no excuse for her loss.

FormerHostage
FormerHostage: If a Democrat had an original idea, how long before it died of loneliness?

Basil
Trick question. No Democrat has ever had an original idea.

FormerHostage
FormerHostage: Which is denser? A material that can absorb neutrinos or Sally Kohn?

Basil
That question.

FormerHostage
FormerHostage: Is Robert Mueller a traitor or the last hope for “democracy” as of…
…
…
mark!

Basil
Leave Mark out of this. He’s done nothing to you.

HokieGomer
HokieGomer: What is heavier? A pound of feathers or a pound of lead?

Basil
A pound of gold.

CayleyGraph2015
CayleyGraph2015: Does the Bacon/Tofu system keep track of who’s voted by IP address, by WordPress account, or something else?

Basil
Your IMAO or WordPress account, if you have one, is the primary tracking. If you don’t, or aren’t logged in, it then defaults to IP address. But what you really want to know is how to vote more than once. Simple: register as a Democrat.

CayleyGraph2015
CayleyGraph2015: CayleyGraph2015 said what?

Basil
That’s what everyone said after reading your very first comment at IMAO.

CLIFFY
CLIFFY: Did Clarence Thomas and the authorities ever figure out who put that pubic hair on his coke can?

Basil
No. But I know who did. Don’t worry though; I’ll never rat on you.

c64wood
c64wood: If you work in a hospital, can you call in sick?

Basil
Yes, but if you work in a mortuary, you can’t call in dead.

zzyzx
zzyzx: Where are my car keys?

Basil
That’s not your car.

CLIFFY
CLIFFY: Meghan Markle, Prince Harry welcome first child: It’s a boy! Could he be the Anti-Christ?

Obama
Sorry, that job’s taken.

DamnCat
DamnCat: Why are blackberries red when they’re green?

Basil
Science!


walruskkkch: Are humans the only animal that can comprehend its own mortality?

Basil
Some humans can’t even do that.

Oppo
Oppo: Did you guess this was going to happen?

Basil
No, I wasn’t guessing. I knew.

Dohtimes
Dohtimes: I’m really bad at math. Will there be any answers involving math?

Basil
Exactly zero. Wait.

Harvey
Harvey: Whatever happened to Right Wing Duck?

Basil
Nothing. He’s always been that way.

CLIFFY
CLIFFY: Biden mistakenly claims Margaret Thatcher, who died in 2013, is worried about Trump. Is Biden the real Clown?

Basil
There is nothing real about Joe Biden.

CLIFFY
CLIFFY: When will IMAO start banning me like facebook does?

Basil
We won’t have to. We can make you leave on your own.

CLIFFY
CLIFFY: Cory Booker wants to require federal license for gun owners. Does that mean I would have to take down all 40 3-D printed guns I have mounted on my walls? smh

Basil
Yes. When you replace them with even more and bigger guns that you print.

CLIFFY
CLIFFY: I will never watch another Kentucky Derby again now because of that stupid dis-qualification. My gut is telling me that a bunch of Democrat Political Hacks are running that committee that disqualified Maximum Security. Is it because maximum security is what Hillary, Obama and others will be in some day?

Basil
No, it was because they each own several Country Houses.

DamnCat
DamnCat: Please answer provide step 2.
1: Steal underpants
2: ?
3: Profit

Basil
Share the secret and cut into my profits? No way.

We hope that enlightens you, and makes you feel just a little bit smarterer. After all, that’s what we’re here for.

If you have more questions you’d like us to answer, just leave a question in the comments, or email us at our address: ask.imao.anything@gmail.com.

If you leave a question here, and others answer your question in the comments, great. We’ll skip those. Unless they get the answer wrong. Then we’ll give you the correct answer. And, we’ll answer the remaining questions, and the questions that you email us, in a future column.

Ask IMAO anything. Because we know everything!