Archive of entries posted on 23rd September 2019

You Could Never Have Built That

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Home Depot Co-Founder: Bernie Sanders Is the “Enemy of Every Entrepreneur”
FOXBusiness / June 24, 2019

The co-founders of Home Depot believe if Bernie Sanders were president when they tried to open their business in 1978, the home-improvement retailer may never have existed.

In an exclusive interview with Neil Cavuto, Bernie Marcus and Ken Langone explain why.

“Home Depot is the poster child for capitalism,” Marcus said.

…

When asked about Bernie Sanders’ plan to have Wall Street pay for $1.6 trillion in student-loan debt, the two had a few things to say about the self-proclaimed socialist’s plan.

“[Bernie Sanders] is the enemy of every entrepreneur that’s ever going to be born in the country and has been born in the past.”
— Bernie Marcus, Home Depot co-founder

Langone agreed, “if the people in America today … if they want to know what the future holds for them following Bernie Sanders, go to Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, Eastern Europe. Guess what? It doesn’t work.”

Instead of backing people who have gotten rich helping others do-it-themselves (never a popular concept for socialists), Bernie has come up with this brilliant plan: take your money, take the wealthy’s money, and punish everyone involved! Including those who want to do it themselves.

Note: The following is NOT from the Babylon Bee:

Sanders Unveils $2.5 Trillion ‘Housing for All’ Plan
The Hill | 09/18/19

White House hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday released a $2.5 trillion plan to guarantee housing for every American.

Sanders said the plan would “guarantee every American — regardless of income — a fundamental right to a safe, decent, accessible, and affordable home” and would be paid for by a wealth tax on the top one-tenth of 1 percent of income earners.

“There is virtually no place in America where a full-time minimum wage worker can afford a decent two bedroom apartment. At a time when half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck, this is unacceptable,” he said. “For too long the federal government has ignored the extraordinary housing crisis in our country. That will end when I am president.”

Sanders’s plan seeks to invest $1.48 trillion over 10 years in the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund to build and maintain 7.4 million “quality, affordable and accessible housing units” that he says will eliminate the gap in affordable housing for the lowest-income renters. It would also invest another $400 billion to build 2 million mixed-income social housing units.

I’ll evade Godwin’s Law by just pointing out that Russia and China have also had “mixed-income social housing units” for those who displeased the government.

IMAO Time Machine: Fun Facts About the 50 States: Delaware

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This is a reposting of one of Harvey’s classics. There’s a link to the book in the sidebar. — The Editors

Welcome to Fun Facts About the 50 States, where – week by week – I’ll be taking you on a tour around this great nation of ours, providing you with interesting, yet completely useless and probably untrue, information about each of the 50 states.

This week, grab your pumpkin catapult, because we’re taking a trip to Delaware, so let’s get started…

Delaware state flag
The state flag of Delaware features two male figures labeled “Liberty and Independence”, memorializing a popular comedy team of the day.
  • Delaware is a small state located in the Northeastern U.S. in the New England region. Which is much like Old England, except with fewer spam-loving Vikings.
  • At its widest point, Delaware is 35 miles across, which means – in THEORY – that the state could contain Michael Moore’s ass.
  • The world’s largest frying pan was built in Selbyville, Delaware, in 1950 for the DelMarVa Peninsula Annual Chicken Festival. It’s 10 feet across, holds 800 chicken quarters, and is the only reason Michael Moore might try to squeeze his ass into Delaware.
  • Delaware was the first state to ratify the U.S. constitution in 1787. This is why people from Delaware are always wearing big foam fingers and shouting “we’re #1!”
  • Can’t blame ’em, I guess. It’s not like they have any sports teams to get excited about. Although the ones who don’t read so well sometimes make a fuss over “their” basketball team the “Dover” Nuggets.
  • Delaware shares a semi-circular border with Pennsylvania, which marks the perimeter of the area guarded by the official state pit bull that’s chained up in Wilmington.
  • The official state bug of Delaware is the ladybug, an insect easily identified by its red back, black spots, and 6 tiny foam fingers.
  • Delaware is the only state in the U.S. without any national parks. They were all eliminated as part of the plea bargain after Smokey the Bear was indicted in Delaware on arson charges.
  • Delaware is the second smallest state in the U.S. It actually WAS the smallest at one time, but then they gave the state Pit Bull another 10 feet of chain.
  • Although the log cabin was invented in Delaware in 1645, only one log cabin remains intact today, the rest having been eaten by ladybugs.
  • The state bird of Delaware is The Blue Hen chicken which is known for it fighting ability. During the Revolutionary war, a single Blue Hen once defeated an entire platoon of French soldiers.
  • Unfortunately, the French were fighting on America’s side at the time, and it would’ve cost us the war if they hadn’t been rescued at the last second by a brigade of lady bugs.
  • The first settlers arrived in Delaware 11 years after the arrival of the Mayflower, because the men in charge wouldn’t stop to ask for directions.
  • The official state song of Delaware is “Our Delaware”, recorded by Chuck Berry in 1972.
  • Wait… I’m thinking of “My Ding-a-Ling”. Never mind.
  • The highest point in Delaware is a mere 442 feet above sea level. Despite the lack of mountains, Delaware DOES actually have a ski resort, located 5 miles north of Munchkin City.
  • The first permanent colony on Delaware soil was New Sweden, which quickly died out because none of the other colonists could understand a damn word they said.
  • I mean, how were THEY supposed to know that “Vhee zee cuoorfa hooffa heemun!” meant “Help us! We’re starving!”?
  • A common sight on Delaware beaches are horseshoe crabs and shuffleboard lobsters.
  • Delaware’s official state colors are “Colonial blue” and “buff”, which is just completely gay.
  • The Delaware Indians were the most advanced and civilized of all the tribes in America until the White Man came, gave them smallpox, and stole their oil.
  • Henry Heimlich, inventor of the Heimlich Maneuver, was born in Wilmington, Delaware. He developed his famous live-saving technique quite accidentally, while researching ways to sneak up behind people and punch them in stomach.
  • Poodle Beach in Delaware was voted America’s Gayest Beach for 10 consecutive years. It’s annual Drag Queen volleyball competition attracts thousands of… Hey! Is that Tom Cruise?
  • Sussex County, Delaware, is home to the annual Punkin’ Chunkin’ contest, where people use homemade catapults to throw pumpkins as far as they can. Prizes are awarded for distance, accuracy, and the pumpkin that most resembles Ted Kennedy’s fat head.
  • Many residents of Delaware enjoy eating “scrapple”, a dish made from cornmeal mixed with pigs’ hearts, livers, snouts, tails, and other parts too disgusting to be eaten on their own. If you’re given the choice between eating scrapple fried or baked, choose suicide.
  • Delaware does NOT charge a sales tax on consumer purchases. It DOES, however, tax the earnings of prostitutes, since that’s technically considered a “rental.”
  • The test for a driver’s license in Delaware is to turn your car around without any part of it leaving the state.
  • No one in Delaware has a driver’s license.
  • During World War II, 12 concrete towers were built along the Delaware coastline so that observers could watch for the approach of German submarines. 1,000 yards away. Underwater. In the dark.
  • Why yes, it WAS a union job. How did you know?

That wraps up the Delaware edition of Fun Facts About the 50 States. Next week we’ll be wondering if that’s a leather coat that guy is wearing or if he’s just another senior citizen with a tan as we visit Florida.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go throw myself off a cliff so that I don’t have to eat this plate of scrapple.

[The complete e-book version of “Fun Facts About the 50 States” is now available at Amazon.com. If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download free Kindle apps for your web browser, smartphone, computer, or tablet from Amazon.com]

Socialist Butterflies

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Socialist butterfly: A person who is politically active not through deep convictions, but as an adjunct or aid to their social life.
— The Urban Dictionary

Its natural habitat being, well, socialism:

“And then there’s the Butterfly,” Alice went on, after she had taken a good look at the insect with its head on fire, and had thought to herself, “I wonder if that’s the reason insects are so fond of flying into candles ― because they want to turn into Snap-dragon-flies!”
“Crawling at your feet,” said the Gnat (Alice drew her feet back in some alarm), “you may observe a Bread-and-Butterfly. Its wings are thin slices of Bread-and-butter, its body is a crust, and its head is a lump of sugar.”
“And what does it live on?”
“Weak tea with cream in it.”
A new difficulty came into Alice’s head. “Supposing it couldn’t find any?” she suggested.
“Then it would die, of course.”
“But that must happen very often,” Alice remarked thoughtfully.
“It always happens,” said the Gnat.

— Lewis Carroll, Through The Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There

Fake News You Can Use

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People are always harping on about how bad fake news is. But fake news is actually good for you.

First, consider that there are two types of people when it comes to fake news. There are those that believe it. And there are those that don’t. I’m the latter, which makes me feel good because it lets me know how smart I am. And laughing at the people that believe the fake news makes me feel good because laughing makes me feel good.

Laughing makes you feel good, too, by the way. Go ahead and try it. I’ll wait.

* * *

See? That felt good, didn’t it. It felt good for me too, because I was picturing you reading this on the Internet, stopping and suddenly laughing because someone told you to. The thought of you doing that made me laugh. So I laughed.

You felt good from laughing. I felt good from laughing at you. We both win!

Anyway, about fake news. Some people have a hard time telling what’s fake news and what’s not fake news. But it’s not that hard, really. Here are ways to tell the difference between fake news and real news.

  • If it involves the Illuminati, it’s fake. Yes, the Illuminati is real, but the one you always hear about controlling everything is fake. The Illuminati doesn’t control everything. We are … um … The Illuminati is just a group of people that sit around and, um, smoke cigars or something, while dressed like Thurston Howell, III.
  • If you read it on IMAO, it’s true. There are no exceptions to this.
  • If that crazy aunt of yours posted it on Facebook, it’s fake. Unless she posted a recipe for chocolate cake. That’s probably real. The best way to find out if it’s real is for her to bake you a cake. Next time she posts a recipe of something yummy, leave a comment asking her if she was going to bake one this week, then drop by. She’s crazy, sure, but she does know how to cook.
  • If it aligns with your political beliefs, it’s real. Unless you’re a stinking hippie liberal. Then you’re just a stinking hippie liberal who believes fake news.
  • Check Snopes.com to see if it’s real. If Snopes says it’s fake, check the details. For instance, if yes, the person did say that, and yes, the context was as described, and yes, a video does exist of the statement, but the person is a liberal and it doesn’t fit the narrative so it’s false, then it’s true. Be careful, though, as Snopes has been reported to have actually got a fact-checking correct. Reports of this are unconfirmed and are probably fake news.
  • If it appears on Babylon Bee, it’s true. There are no exceptions to this.
  • If you are asked to forward it to all your friends, it’s fake. But not as fake as that one friend. You won’t believe what she said about you.
  • It you saw it on CNN, it’s fake. There are no exceptions to this.
  • If you saw it on Fox News, it’s probably fake, too. Just assume it’s fake and you’ll be okay.
  • If you read it on the Internet, it’s fake. Nothing on the Internet is real. There are no exceptions to this.

Now that you know what’s real and what isn’t, forward this to all your friends. They’ll thank you.

Let me take a minute and ask you, if you’re able, to click on the link in the sidebar about “Helping Out Harvey.” It would be appreciated.

Some Silliness To Cheer Up Your Monday

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Nobody did segues better than Monty Python.

.

Praline: After a few more of these remarks, I shall be appearing in a sketch, so stay tuned.

Cut to policeman.
Policeman: It’s the uniform that puts them off. That and my bad breath.

Cut to judge in full long wig and robes and a QC also wearing wig and robes.
Judge (matter of factly): We like dressing up, yes…

Cut to Inspector Praline.
Inspector Praline: Hello again. I am at present still on film, but in a few seconds I shall be appearing in the studio. Thank you.

Cut to studio. A door opens. Inspector Praline looks around the door.
Praline (to camera): Hello.

(He walks in followed by Superintendent Parrot and goes to desk):
Mr Milton? You are sole proprietor and owner of the Whizzo Chocolate Company? . . .

Song Parody: Disaster Election

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[To the tune of Billy Joel’s “Downeaster Alexa”]

♩♩♪

Well I’m in this disaster election
And I’m losing to blockheads around
While Obama’s, of course, on the Vineyard
And renaming it “Barack Island Sound.”

I took on Beto and the Mohawk yesterday
Leftists moaning “Get the hell out of Bernie’s way”
Frightened the yokels, then he bought another home
Too proud to work, I let my minions work the phones

So I could
Run my disaster election
And I go where the pockets are deep
There’s compliance out there where I canvas
And a good shepherd can’t fail his sheep.

♩

They’ve got bills to pay and children who need clothes
I know they think I care, but why God only knows!
Blue-collar voters aren’t what they used to be
But I got people back of them who’re backing me.

So if you see my disaster election
And if you’re “woke,” and looking for your free meal
Get a life; I am trolling The Apprentice
Got no use for news that is real.

♩

Now what drives my disaster election?
The media, more and more every year.
Since they told me they’d help sell my whoppers
And there’s no lack of gaslighting here.

I was obeyin’ like my father did before
Can’t make a living just obeying anymore
There ain’t much future for a man who bucks D.C.
But bucks are flowing to left candidates like me. . . .

[Lie, Lie, Lie, Oh! . . .]

♩♩♪

Inspirational Way To Start The Week: 5 Fun Facts About You

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Every day, it has been estimated, between one and five of your cells turns cancerous and your immune system captures and kills them. Think of that. 
A couple of dozen times a week, well over 1,000 times a year, you get the most dreaded disease of our age, and each time your body saves you.
Our bodies are a universe of 37.2 trillion cells operating in more or less perfect concert more or less all the time.
. . .
Ben’s field is orthopaedics, so he loves bones and tendons and cartilage the way other people love expensive cars or excellent wines. “See that?” he says, tapping a small, smooth, very white obtrusion at the base of the thumb, which I take to be a bit of exposed bone.
“No, it’s cartilage,” he corrects. “Cartilage is remarkable, too. It is many times smoother than glass: it has a friction coefficient five times less than ice.
“Imagine playing ice hockey on a surface so smooth that the skaters went 16 times as fast. That’s cartilage.
“But unlike ice, it isn’t brittle. It doesn’t crack under pressure as ice would. And you grow it yourself. It’s a living thing.”
. . .
“Bone is stronger than reinforced concrete,” says Ben, “yet light enough to allow us to sprint.” All your bones together will weigh no more than about 20 lb (nine kilograms), yet most can withstand up to a ton of compression.
“Bone is also the only tissue in the body that doesn’t scar,” Ben adds. “If you break your leg, after it heals you cannot tell where the break was. There’s no practical benefit to that. Bone just seems to want to be perfect.”
Even more remarkably, bone will grow back and fill a void.
“You can take up to 30 centimetres of bone out of a leg, and with an external frame and a kind of stretcher you can have it grow back,” Ben says. “Nothing else in the body will do that.”
. . .
Altogether, you are about 40 per cent muscle if you are a reasonably slender man, slightly less if you are a proportionately similar woman, and just keeping that mass of muscle uses up 40 per cent of your energy allowance when you are at rest and much more when you are active. Because muscle is so expensive to maintain, we sacrifice muscle tone really quickly when we are not using it.
Studies by NASA have shown that astronauts – even on short missions, from five to 11 days – lose up to 20 per cent of muscle mass. 
. . .
In the second or so since you started this sentence, your body has made a million red blood cells. They are already speeding around you, coursing through your veins, keeping you alive.
Each of those red blood cells will rattle around you about 150,000 times, repeatedly delivering oxygen to your cells, and then, battered and useless, will present itself to other cells to be quietly killed off for the greater good of you.
Altogether it takes seven billion billion billion (that’s 7,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000, or seven octillion) atoms to make you. No one can say why those seven billion billion billion atoms have such an urgent desire to be you.

— You Cure Yourself of Cancer 24 Times a Week … Without Knowing It
The Mail On Sunday | 21 September 2019 | Bill Bryson

A Sincere Request from Frank J.

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So, I’m still kind of in shock Harvey is gone now.

It’s been what? Over fifteen years he’s been blogging at IMAO? Of course, for a number of years now, IMAO has been much more him than me. It’s really hard to imagine the blog without him. Though I’ve basically abandoned it from lack of time, this blog has given me so much–I only have my family because of it–and Harvey was the person with the humor and dedication I could trust it to. I still remember how he beat me in an early contest on doing top test lists I did against my readers to prove how great I was; it was a humbling experience that I learned absolutely nothing from.

Still, he has to move on, and I certainly understand that. He has his own family and life to take care of. So I ask of you, if you’ve ever enjoyed IMAO, please hit the PayPal button in the upper right sidebar. That goes straight to Harvey and he is in some financial need right now. Let’s give him a going away gift he deserves.

Thank you.