Wednesday Night Open Thread

Every so often, people try to say my name and most of the time they get it wrong. It’s not a common name, but it’s one that’s been in the family for, well, I don’t know how long.

The name is more common in the U.K., where some of my family came from in the 1600s. And I suppose most of you that heard the name — before you heard of me, at least — heard of it from U.K. entertainment channels. Actor Basil Rathbone — no relation — was famous for playing Sherlock Holmes, though he had many other roles over the years. And, of course, there’s the John Cleese TV series “Fawlty Towers” in which he played a character named Basil Fawlty.

My name is pronounced like those pronounce it. Or pronounced it, since Basil Rathbone has been dead for a while.

If you still don’t know how to pronounce it, I’ll let these clips from Fawlty Towers explain. You can jump to 1:59 if you don’t want to watch the whole thing.


[The YouTube]

So what’s been on your mind? Got something you’d like to discuss? It’s Wednesday Night Open Thread, and you have the floor.

Who wants to start?

I’m Buying Stock in a Company That Makes Rubber Gloves

The Transportation Security Administration said this week its gearing up for what the agency is calling its “busiest summer travel season ever.”

Swell. If I wanted to get groped, I’d go backstage at a Joe Biden rally.

And That’s Just One Tiny Segment


[How Difficult is the Salmon Ladder from Ninja Warrior?] (Viewer #1,777,862)

I’m a huge Ninja Warrior fan. If you’ve never seen the show, you might find this video less interesting.

Link of the Day: Yes, Paste Pot Pete

[High Praise! to Sheldon Comics]

The Anatomy of Stan Lee

[title reference link]

[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)]

Trump Truths: Nightmare

President Trump has a recurring nightmare: Nancy Pelosi is giving all the evidence she has of Trump covering up Russian collusion – and Trump’s not allowed to laugh out loud.

Cut This

[High Praise! to Freedom Is Just Another Word]

UC Berkeley Bans Constitution as ‘Hate Speech’ Over ‘3/5 Person’ and ‘Indians not Taxed’

Berkeley is finally putting a stop to the hate crimes of the Founding Fathers

BERKELEY (AP) – The University of California, Berkeley, announced that it would no longer permit copies of the United States Constitution to be possessed, distributed, or posted on campus, as passages in the document which refer to African-American slaves as “3/5 of a person” and Native Americans as “Indians” are of an offensive nature and constitute impermissible “hate speech,” as defined by the official UC Berkeley speech code.

Dean of Students Jeffrey Edleson explained the rationale behind the policy change during a recent press conference.

“Students come to UC Berkeley out of a love of knowledge,” said Edleson. “Out of a desire to expand their horizons, to become wiser, more thoughtful human beings. We, the administrators of this educational facility, take our responsibility to create that growth-friendly environment very seriously. But there’s a difference between walking a hard, uphill path in pursuit of an education, and walking a path filled with land mines. Make no mistake – hate speech is a land mine that kills a student’s drive to learn and grow. Our students shouldn’t live in a world where their curiosity can be killed by the hatefulness of others. Think of our speech code as a minesweeper.”

A minesweeper that is, by some accounts, sorely needed at Berkeley. Studies show that 76% of the students who drop out do so in self-defense after being exposed to hateful words.

One survivor of the experience, Mitzy Anderson, who is neither African American nor Native American, but who self-describes as “very sensitive” to the feelings of both, explained her visceral reaction to the Constitution.

“I was walking across campus the other day,” said Anderson, “and passed by a College Republican table, and they were giving out free copies of the Constitution. I thought ‘that’s the thing that makes people have free speech. I should read that.’ So I took one, and before I knew it, I was reading the ‘I’ word. Ouch! Then there was the part about how African Americans only counted as 3/5ths of a person. SO offensive. 3/5ths is 60%, which, ironically, is what I’m getting in my history class. But at least I’m getting an A in math. Also in my Grievance Studies classes.”

“I very nearly dropped out in self-defense after that experience,” said Anderson, “I mean I was REALLY offended. Fortunately, with this new policy in place, I’ll never have to fear being terrorized that way again.”

“Also,” added Anderson, “I really think they need to ban students from Indiana, too. I’m just not comfortable around people whose home state’s name is 86% racial slur.”

In a late update to this article, Mr. Edleson informed us that campus administrators expected to have that policy in place by month’s end.

CORRECTION: Jeffrey Edleson is not the Dean of Students at Berkeley. He is the Dean of the School of Social Welfare at Berkeley

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< Trump to Sign Border Wall Compromise: 2000 Miles in Exchange for a Study to Determine the Wall’s Gender

Straight Line of the Day: The Best Part About President Trump’s Visit to Japan…

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

The best part about President Trump’s visit to Japan

The Illustrated Frank J: Moon!

[source]

Ask IMAO Anything: Answers #11

We don’t have a lot of answers to offer this time because we don’t have a lot of unanswered questions. Oh, we got questions, but y’all did an excellent job of answering most of the questions, making it easy for me.

The few I have were either not answered (for shame!) or were emailed in — Yay! Somebody wrote me an email and it wasn’t a Nigerian prince — I’m answering now.


walruskkkch
walruskkkch: How much later my Lord?

Basil
We have arrive at the appointed time. Now ask your question.


Francis
Francis: How is a person with only one hand, handcuffed?

Basil
If the suspect is wearing a belt and the loops are strong — heavy duty jeans, for instance — connecting the bracelet behind the back as far to the opposite side as possible usually works. Or, using an ankle will work, but that makes it hard to walk if you need to transport on foot very far. If you have a belly chain, that makes the whole thing really easy.

Even easier is knocking him in the head. On accident, of course. You might have to accidentally do it a couple of times just to be sure.


CayleyGraph2015
cayleygraph2015: What’s the runner-up for the day that’s so bad it’s commonly thought of as the Monday of weekdays?

Basil
Tuesday. This week, for instance, Tuesday was the Monday of the week, since I had Monday off.



Rihar: Who runs Bartertown?

Basil
Master Blaster run Bartertown. Now, lift embargo.


Thanks — and bacon! — to everyone who answered questions in the comments last time.

  • walruskkkch
  • thebrickmoon
  • CLIFFY
  • wr104
  • tankdemon
  • DamnCat
  • HokieGomer
  • zzyzx

If you have a burning question, grab a fire extinguisher and put it out. Then, sort through the rubble and whatever is left, send it to Ask IMAO Anything. You can leave it in the comments and someone will answer it here. Probably. Or, email Ask.IMAO.Anything@gmail.com and I’ll answer those next time.

Get you some smarts. Read IMAO, ask questions, and get an education like none other. Ask IMAO Anything. Because we know everything.

Random Thoughts: Fast & Furious and The Silmarillion

The far left seem to have this religious faith that if they endorse mean things like food being thrown at people then that will only happen to people they don’t like. It’s anti-vaxxer level stupid and irresponsible.

After careful thought and consideration, my wife and I have decided to watch all the Fast & Furious movies. They sound stupid and fun.

The Democratic presidential primary is a bunch of rich people telling you not to trust rich people and you should listen to them.

I don’t get why all the talk about college seems to be on loans and not about how you make colleges cut costs which is why kids have to get those huge loans. They’re the ones that inflated their costs to ridiculous levels.
Of course, the way to make college cut costs is to make it harder to get loans and thus cut off the money spout that allows colleges to inflate costs in the first place.
That’s why I couldn’t fully cheer on that billionaire paying off the loans. Great for the kids that year, but not for the kids next year. The problem won’t get better until we stop throwing money at it.
The solution, of course, is to stop having special government backed loans. People don’t want that. How about you can’t have government backed loans except for colleges that accept price controls. Price controls are horrible, but it’s already a distorted market.
Really, I’m just for what will finally make the college squirm. If they like what’s going on, you have a bad solution.

I put “you should throw milkshakes at people you disagree with” in the same category as “racism is good” in that to argue against I have to use arguments that seem patronizing to even have to say out loud and I’ll get a bit angry someone is so stupid I have to bother.

The far left have given up trying to convince anyone of anything. They’re just shrieking children wanting to indulge their own id.

You’d think the left would be much more motivated than the right to make sure violence is never on the table.

My daughter wanted to know how to play Backgammon so I looked up the rules online and… wow. I’ve been working on Windows drivers all day; I don’t need anything that complicated.
I’ve seen Backgammon boards throughout my entire life, but I realized I’ve only ever seen it actually played twice—once in real life and then John Locke played it once on Lost.

I saw the Akira anime many years ago, but I didn’t really get it. I remember there were motorcycles and then someone grew really fat and big for some reason.

Working on Windows drivers is fun because apparently basically no one works on Windows drivers. If you have a question, you either end up through Google on a OSR forum entry or you’re on your own, bud.
“Hmm. Wonder if I can find an example of this Windows driver API function being used… Nope. No one in the entire internet has ever used it.”

I haven’t bothered figuring out how to do a driver debug setup (which is complicated and involves something called a crossover cable), so I’m doing what I call “black box” debugging. It either work or it don’t. If it don’t, I stare at the code and try to guess why.
It’s just a user mode driver, so can’t do too much damage unless you really push it. I have done a kernel mode driver before. That’s fun. One call out of order, and it’s BSOD. Do not test on a computer you care about.

Time for me to rant about The Silmarillion. I thought “hey, this will be some neat background stories that add color to the The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.” I was wrong on so many levels.
First of all, it’s not stories. It reminded me most of early parts of Genesis, but that’s overselling it. It’s more like J.R.R. Tolkien wrote Wikipedia-level plot summaries of stories only he ever read.
There’s barely any description of anyone or anything. A person that’s been mentioned for a hundred pages will die with the sentence “he was slain.”
The Silmarillion is also a constant vomit of names you have no idea how to pronounce and have no idea how to keep track of.
Example sentence:
“There was small love between the Edain and the Easterlings, and they met seldom; for the newcomers abode long in East Beleriand, but Hador’s folk were shut in Hithlum, and Bëor’s house was wellnigh destroyed.”
You’re constantly like “Have I seen these names before, or are these new ones?” It’s impossible to follow unless you keep a notebook with you and keep referring back to it. There are thousands of names of people, places, factions.
Also, important people tend to have multiple names for some reason, which Tolkien moves between at reckless abandon just to make things more confusing. At times, this seemed like an Andy Kaufman-esque joke on me.
Also, Tolkien doesn’t like commas for some reason, which means you’ll confusingly have two made up names jammed together and mistakenly thing they’re one name.
“with the hilt-shard of Narsil Isildur cut the Ruling Ring from the hand of Sauron”
And that was a bad example sentence, because that involves things you’ve heard of and care about if you’ve read Lord of the Rings. 90% of what’s in the book has no direct bearing on anything from Lord of the Rings.
The main story is about these powerful rocks or something called the Silmarils made from some powerful pre-elf. Then Morgoth (also Melkor, because confusing), the Satan of Middle Earth, takes those rocks. Eventually he is defeated when everyone decides to defeat him.
I’m making this sound way more interesting than it is.
You do get a little bit more background on Sauron, but not much. Early on he decided to follow Morgoth because he… wanted to be evil, I guess. You don’t get really any color on that.
In fact, you get no more background details about anything you would actually care about. The very last part give a bit more details on the rings and the One Ring, but not much.
For instance, I was curious about the hobbits and how they ended up in their peaceful, isolated existence. Hobbits are literally mentioned on just one page. “There were hobbits. No one paid attention to them. Eventually one of them got the One Ring.” That’s it. That’s all you get.
Maybe more details on wizards like Gandalf and what’s their deal? Nope. Last ten pages it just says wizards appeared for some reason and were kind of powerful. No more details.
But if you wants hundreds of pages of mechanical description of the not very relevant adventures of Elrond’s great grandfather surrounded in a sea of names you can’t pronounce, The Silmarillion has you covered.
So, just for Tolkien super fans. Strangely, I now want to reread it because I think I’ll understand it better the second time.

So one thing I’ve learned from the first three Fast & Furious movies is that races are entertaining but car chases are boring. I think that’s because races have a clear objective and you understand how the protagonist is doing.
Car chases, on the other hand, have a vague objective (get away) and you never really understand how well the protagonist is doing and how close they are to achieving the goal. It’s just lots of movement.

Anytime someone asks “How are you doing?” and I say “I’m doing good. How are you doing?” and they say, “I’m doing well.” I clench my fist and mutter, “You think you’re better than me?”

Ben Shapiro radicalized me into a robot who has no feelings and cares only about facts. My kids are scared of me.

The one good argument for throwing milkshakes is that it’s counterproductive as I assume anyone who throws a milkshakes has bad politics that deserve to lose.
Of course, I don’t really follow politics over in Britain to know what the dispute was about. Probably about how crumpets are cooked or something.

Time for the 4th film, Fast & Furious, not to be confused with the 1st film, The Fast & The Furious. Now they’re too fast to bother wasting time on articles and too furious to speak in full sentences.

“I have an idea: Let’s wait for the truck to stop before we rob it.”
*Vin Diesel stares at me and then throws me out of the moving car*

BTW, I’ve decided “Fast & Furious” refers to the two titular characters, Brian Fast and Dom Furious.

Little Winchester’s laughs are the best, but he’s still very sparing with them. If he were more economically oriented, he could get me to pay $20 for one.
He’s 4 months now and rolling both ways—so semi-mobile. So far he’s been pretty much on the normal scale for all the early developmental milestones.
Side to side is easy. It’s moving forward that’s hard.
He’s working at it!

With Down syndrome, one of the common problems is low muscle tone, but Win hasn’t had too much of a problem there. He was a little behind the curve on head control, but he seems to really be working on that.

When young people going door to door give up after my first “no”, I feel like I need to correct them.

I think a way to improve social media is you’re are allowed to pick five things you can get angry about. If you’re seen getting angry at other things beyond your five, you’re a weird angry person and kicked off.
I just suspect a lot of people are often screaming about things that would be like 20th on their list or lower if they actually had to list out things that made them mad. Pick a few things to get angry about and focus.
This probably wouldn’t improve the abortion debate, but everything else would probably get quieter.

My big complaint about the Resident Evil 2 remake is that when you hit start at the title screen, there is no voice announcing “Resident… Evil… 2.” It disappoints me every single time.

I’m promoting a new political philosophy called “insectionality” where if you disagree with me you get attacked by a swarm of bees.

So, how are they going to introduce the X-Men into the MCU?
“You know all those people who are born with super powers but we never mentioned them until now?”
“Yes.”
“Well, now we’re mentioning them!”

The X-Men are kind of dumb, though, when they’re in a universe with other superheroes.
“Thanks for saving me! So how did you get your superpowers? Super serum? Gamma radiation? Magic rock?”
“I was born with them.”
“What?! That means you’re a mutant! I discriminate against you!”

My 3yo being silly:
“Look, daddy. I put Mercury next to Earth! And I’m putting craters on Jupiter!”
Yep, that is not an accurate solar system, you silly billy.
I did have “Actually” her though to tell her that Mercury can often be the closest planet to Earth.
Craters on a gas giant is just childish nonsense, though.

“Hey, King Snake, what’s with the colors?”
“I thought I’d make myself look just like a coral snake so everyone thinks I’m poisonous. Genius, huh?”
“Um… I don’t think you got it quite right.”
“Eh. It’s close enough.”

I finally tried out that Snapchat baby filter.

Probably the biggest problem with solar panels is they’re frigging ugly.
“Want to install solar panels on your house? It will save you money!”
“What color are they?”
“It’s called ‘insect wing.’”

I love how other countries try to use “cowboy” as an insult when in fact that is the highest compliment in the U.S.

They’re Here to Help

A study from environmental advocacy organization NextGen Climate found that the median 21-year-old college graduate in the class of 2015 will lose over $126,000 in income over her lifetime to climate-change-induced costs.

$200,000 if the government tries to fix it.