Remember Pac-Man? I saw a video the other day that explained how the ghosts behaved as they did.
What’s been on your mind? Got something you’d like to share? It’s Wednesday Night Open Thread.
Who wants to start?
Archive of entries posted on 31st July 2019
Res Ipsa Loquitur
After threatening to break up Facebook if elected, Elizabeth Warren’s campaign spent over a million dollars on Facebook ads.
If she’s saying Facebook is evil, I can’t think of better proof than them taking her money.
Everyone Has an Origin Story, Some Are Just Too Embarrassing to Tell
[Gaining Super Powers] (Viewer #4,535,389)
Link of the Day: Don’t Know If They’ll Get “Make America Great Satan”, Though
[High Praise! to Genesius Times]
Democrats sue Iran over right to use ‘Death to America’ as 2020 campaign slogan
BONUS LINK:
[High Praise! to Ammo.com]
Milton Friedman: The Forgotten History of the Godfather of Conservative Libertarianism
I’m a little more Ludwig von Mises/Henry Hazlitt/Friedrich Hayek/Murray Rothbard, myself, but I give Friedman credit for doing a great job of producing soundbites on talk shows. Search him up on YouTube, you’ll see what I mean.
[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: Proof
After spending a billion dollars on his investigation, Robert Mueller was unable to produce any evidence that the flamboyant, high-profile billionaire in the White House was secretly Iron Man. Heck, he couldn’t prove he was Batman, either, and they found a cave under the West Wing.
New Forbidden Word
AOC Hits NYT Best Seller List With “Economics For Dummies”
“Never has a book been more accurately titled, except they misspelled ‘by'”
During her interview, Ocasio-Cortez discussed her experience with economics and the inspiration for this book.
“I’m smart. Like, super-smart, OK?” said Ocasio-Cortez. “I have a degree in economics from Boston University. Do you have one? No. That means you’re a dummy. So in order to talk to you about, like, economics and stuff, I have to talk down to you, like I would to a dummy or the salesjerk who sold me my $625 black Manolo Blahnik stilettos and kept calling me ‘miss’ like my marital status was any of her business.”
Sales of the book are brisk and reviews generally positive. However, there does some to be some categorizational confusion for the work. Although Ocasio-Cortez insists she wrote it as “a manual for dumb people who want to get smart, like, like me,” and pitched its marketing toward university-level economics courses, most of the sales are coming from bookstores and Amazon.com, where the book is routinely categorized under “humor”.
While online reviews were generally pithy, such as “If you aren’t a dummy, this book will make you one,” reviews such as this one from Amazon were also typical:
“Brilliant satire of the ‘for Dummies’ series’s patronizing simplicity. The tongue-in-cheek self-seriousness of such sentences as ‘Unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs‘ are the giveaway hints that even high school remedial econ flunkers will recognize as the smiling wink and nod of pretend idiocy the gives away the game with near Pythonesque exaggeration. Perhaps TOO exaggerated though, as no one could be this pig-ignorant of basic economics and still be smart enough to remember to breathe.”
Ocasio-Cortez herself, however, said that she was not actually aware of the “for Dummies” franchise. Rather, she chose the name out of the honest contempt she feels for anyone who would know so little about economics that they would come to her for advice.
To be fair, anyone who fits that description thoroughly deserves contempt. Assuming they exist.
—–
Straight Line of the Day: A Giant Pile of Plastic Trash Was Found Floating in the Pacific. The Obvious Solution…
Works like this: I feed you Moon Nukers a straight line, and you hit me with a punch line in the comments.
A giant pile of plastic trash was found floating in the Pacific. The obvious solution…
The Illustrated Frank J: With Apologies to Procyons
Random Thoughts: Baltimore and The Babylon Bee
Trump’s supporters take license from the president’s behavior to be awful people. Trump’s detractors take license from the president’s behavior to be even worse people.
*Bernie Sanders walks up to a death row inmate being marched to the execution chamber*
“I know you’re probably a little busy, but why don’t you quickly fill out this absentee ballot.”
Sure the Clintons killed a lot of people back in the day to secure their political power, but I don’t think it’s fair to judge that based on modern standards.
“I’ll swallow your soul!”
-Disney executive looking at a beloved animated feature and contemplating a live action remake
You’re going to be right most of the time if you just assume the thing everyone is getting outraged by is overblown.
I got my first likes for a course I made in Mario Maker 2. I feel so accomplished.
I find the tutorials for level design on Mario Maker 2 quite fascinating. It’s just interesting to here the heuristics on what make an enjoyable level spelled out.
It reminds me of how I played a director’s commentary mode of Portal that explained how levels were shaped by tester feedback. The Companion Cube came about because so few solved a puzzle that required them to carry around a cube from the beginning of the section.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
-Bozo the Clown
Giving the left credit for being right about racism feels a bit like if someone fired indiscriminately into a crowd and then you give him a thumbs up because one of the people he hit ended up being a pedophile.
Winchester is 6 months old now. I don’t know what challenges lie ahead, but I feel so lucky he has three older siblings that are obsessed with him.
#ChristianPrivilege
Being used to absolutely no one caring when you say “I’m offended.”
When I first married, we lived an hour for Orlando. We bought a season pass to Disney World and went many times, usually ending in Epcot for dinner. I am looking forward to eventually going back with all my kids, though.
Man, it was nice exploring Disney World with no rush. If you didn’t have time for something, you’d just say, “Eh. I’ll see it next time.” Also met other season passers who knew all these hidden little secrets about the park.
I’ve been to Baltimore once. All I remember is I had a crab cake. I think it was good.
There. I’ve contributed to the discussion.
My 3yo drew the solar system. I love how she strove for color accuracy. I mean our seas somehow ended up purple (wrong crayon?), but she specifically didn’t color in the sun (because it’s white).
Student loan forgiveness doesn’t make sense to me unless it’s the colleges paying back the loans.
I had only contact watched Veronica Mars—my wife binged it multiples times and I just caught bits and pieces of each season here and there—but the new season on Hulu was great. I think that’s the first Hulu original I’ve watched.
My wife is very upset by the ending while I don’t have the emotional investment.
The assertion is that Trump, who constantly yells at everyone who disagrees with him, maybe yells at minorities a bit more. All I can say to that is “maybe?”
No matter how much Trump lowers the bar, the Democrats limbo right under it.
“I know how to defeat Trump: We’ll rally around how great Baltimore and Al Sharpton are!”
Even more than 2016, it seems like 2020 will be a contest of who is trying to lose more.
Why are the Democrats trying to reverse Milkshake Duck Al Sharpton?
Man, four kids is a lot of kids. Interestingly, it makes me feel wealthy.
If they can get Beyond Meat to be cheaper than meat, then you have something. Until then, it’s just a novelty.
I get that some people do take The Babylon Bee headlines seriously–no matter how ridiculous they are–as happens to The Onion and others. But the only reason the The Babylon Bee gets dinged for it is that The Onion happens to be more well known.
You could clearly label ever piece satire, but when you’re explicitly told that a clearly satirical headline is satire, it starts you on the wrong foot with the audience, like you thought they were too dumb to figure it out.
I still remember the first time Snopes really went after
The Babylon Bee, which was before I started writing for the Bee. It was for the article “CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine To Spin News Before Publication” which I refuse to believe anyone thought was real.
Still, the Bee ended up getting a warning from Facebook because the Snopes dinged them as fake news. It was insane.
Desist, Popinjay
New trend: young men going to nail salons for pedicures.
Fine. Then my new trend is bringing back “fop”, “dandy”, and “macaroni”.