I love Weird Al.
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Archive of entries posted on 22nd November 2019
IMAO Time Machine: Santa Answers – Part I
RightWingDuck posted this in 2005. — The Editors
Posted by RightWingDuck as a favor to Santa Claus.
Santa has been kind enough to answer questions for the fans of IMAO. You folks have no idea how special you are!
Here are just some of the questions that you asked Santa along with his special one of a kind answers….
Ask Santa – A special IMAO session
Question: Santa – Since Christmas has not been cancelled due to a strike or labor costs, I assume that your elves are non-union. Am I correct?
Posted by The Man
Ho, ho, ho. You are so The Man. yes, you’re right. I don’t use union labor. This explains why products from the North Pole seldom break down.
You know the secret – hiring the right people You should interview one of my foremen Elves – like Juan Garcia. Or the other Juan Garcia. Unfortunately, this year I did lose some elves when they decided to go get some work rebuilding New Orleans.
Ho. Ho. Ho.
Question: Santa – I would really like to have Chucky Schumer’s head on a pike for Christmas.
Is that doable?
Posted by jimmyb
Ho ho ho. Oh, Jimmy B. You ask for that every Christmas. I’d like to say yes to you, but only if that is also the wish of Chucky Schumer himself. Otherwise, I’ll have to bring you your second choice – Barbra Streisand Sings Her Favorite War Protest Love Songs.
Ho. Ho. Ho. Merry Christmas, little Jimmy.
Question: Oh Santa…I have a weakness for furry, overweight men, with bags full of neat toys – Does Mrs. Clause ever let you out, other than Christmas time?
Posted by Wonder Woman
Ho.
If you like getting frisky, may I suggest you use something besides the invisible jet? Really, lady, you’re not hiding anything. You’re on the naughty list this year and I didn’t even have to do any spying. Mrs. Claus and I enjoy each other’s company very much. Thanks for asking.
Ho. Ho. Ho.
Continue reading ‘IMAO Time Machine: Santa Answers – Part I’ »
Love Solar
The Similarity Is Striking
Doesn’t he get it? Royal Family step in AGAIN and force Prince Andrew to cancel junket to Bahrain that he was planning to take just 48 hours after ‘stepping back from public duties’ – as the Queen and Charles tell him ‘it’s not a good idea’
Daily Mail | November 21, 2019Prince Andrew was last night forced to pull out of a work junket to Bahrain this weekend after being persuaded by his family that it was ‘not a good idea’ in light of this week’s dramatic events.
The beleaguered royal had planned to fly to the Middle East to attend an event connected with his Pitch@Palace initiative – less than 72 hours after being forced to step down from royal duties over the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.
But hours after the Daily Mail contacted Buckingham Palace to say it was about to reveal details of Andrew’s foreign jaunt, sources said he had decided to cancel it.
I, too, was planning an all-expense-paid junket to Bahrain on the monarchy’s dime, and Buckingham Palace said it wasn’t a good idea. Well, well. Small world.
Future Headline
The Analytical Rodney Dill: Ifs, Ands, or Bots
I’m putting this out there in hopes that some Google bot or something will scoop it up and it’ll go viral.
Note to liberals:
If you look around the room and can’t spot the Electronic Voting Machine … then you’re the Electronic Voting Machine.
“Smell Ya Later,” Losers!
The feel-good story of the week.
Were Other Humans the First Victims of the Sixth Mass Extinction?
Phys.org / November 22, 2019 / Nick LongrichNine human species walked the Earth 300,000 years ago. Now there is just one. The Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis, were stocky hunters adapted to Europe’s cold steppes. The related Denisovans inhabited Asia, while the more primitive Homo erectus lived in Indonesia, and Homo rhodesiensis in central Africa.
Several short, small-brained species survived alongside them: Homo naledi in South Africa, Homo luzonensis in the Philippines, Homo floresiensis (“hobbits”) in Indonesia, and the mysterious Red Deer Cave People in China. Given how quickly we’re discovering new species, more are likely waiting to be found.
By 10,000 years ago, they were all gone. The disappearance of these other species resembles a mass extinction. But there’s no obvious environmental catastrophe—volcanic eruptions, climate change, asteroid impact—driving it. Instead, the extinctions’ timing suggests they were caused by the spread of a new species, evolving 260,000-350,000 years ago in Southern Africa: Homo sapiens.
We’re number one! Whoo-hoo!
Optimists have painted early hunter-gatherers as peaceful, noble savages, and have argued that our culture, not our nature, creates violence. But field studies, historical accounts, and archaeology all show that war in primitive cultures was intense, pervasive and lethal. Neolithic weapons such as clubs, spears, axes and bows, combined with guerrilla tactics like raids and ambushes, were devastatingly effective. Violence was the leading cause of death among men in these societies, and wars saw higher casualty levels per person than World Wars I and II.
Old bones and artifacts show this violence is ancient. The 9,000-year-old Kennewick Man, from North America, has a spear point embedded in his pelvis.
9,000-year-old men generally have it coming to them.
The ability to cooperate, plan, strategize, manipulate and deceive may have been our ultimate weapon.
Works for Democrats.
The incompleteness of the fossil record makes it hard to test these ideas. But in Europe, the only place with a relatively complete archaeological record, fossils show that within a few thousand years of our arrival, Neanderthals vanished. Traces of Neanderthal DNA in some Eurasian people prove we didn’t just replace them after they went extinct. We met, and we mated.
Elsewhere, DNA tells of other encounters with archaic humans. East Asian, Polynesian and Australian groups have DNA from Denisovans. DNA from another species, possibly Homo erectus, occurs in many Asian people. African genomes show traces of DNA from yet another archaic species. The fact that we interbred with these other species proves that they disappeared only after encountering us.
Yecch.
Our elimination of other species probably wasn’t a planned, coordinated effort of the sort practiced by civilizations, but a war of attrition. The end result, however, was just as final. Raid by raid, ambush by ambush, valley by valley, modern humans would have worn down their enemies and taken their land.
Yet the extinction of Neanderthals, at least, took a long time—thousands of years. This was partly because early Homo sapiens lacked the advantages of later conquering civilizations: large numbers, supported by farming, and epidemic diseases like smallpox, flu, and measles that devastated their opponents. But while Neanderthals lost the war, to hold on so long they must have fought and won many battles against us, suggesting a level of intelligence close to our own.
{Spikes the ball}: Better luck next time, Neanderthals! {Pulls out handgun and iPhone and revs up SUV with babe in miniskirt and TV in console} Call me when you get these. LOL!
Straight Line of the Day: China Is Exporting Killer Autonomous Drones to the Middle East. Meanwhile…
Straight Line of the Day: China is exporting killer autonomous drones to the Middle East. Meanwhile…
DoD Warns China Exporting Killer Autonomous Drones to Middle East
Flight Global | 06 November, 2019 | Garrett ReimChina is exporting unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) to the Middle East which are capable of launching autonomous attacks.
That’s according to the Pentagon’s top leader, US defense secretary Mark Esper, who gave a speech about artificial intelligence at the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence public conference on 5 November.
. . .
China is developing autonomous UAVs as part of an effort to militarily surpass the USA and its allies, says Esper. AI could make autonomous UAVs cheaper and more lethal, he adds.
“Beijing has made it abundantly clear that it intends to be the world leader in AI by 2030,” he says. “While the US faces a mighty task in transitioning the world’s most advanced military to new AI enabled systems, China believes it can leapfrog our current technology and go straight to the next generation.”
China has already started selling autonomous UAVs to foreign militaries, says Esper.
“As we speak the Chinese government is already exporting some of the most advanced military aerial drones to the Middle East, as it prepares to export its next generation stealth UAVs when those come online,” says Esper. “In addition, Chinese weapons manufacturers are selling drones advertised as capable for autonomy, including the ability to conduct lethal targeted strikes.”
. . .
Esper sought to differentiate the US military from China by saying Washington would develop a set of military ethics guidelines, while still seeking funds from the US Congress to advance the use of AI.
“We will harness the potential of AI to create a force fit for our time. We believe there’s tremendous opportunity to enhance a wide range of the department’s capabilities, from the back office to the front line,” he says. “And we will do this while being recognized as the world leader in military ethics, by developing principles for using AI in a lawful and ethical manner.”
Horrors! Rules From the 1990s Are Perhaps To Be Enacted, Barring Any More Delays
When they’re handling your health care, they’ll move just as swiftly:
50,000 Food Stamp Recipients in Cook County May Have To Find Jobs Starting Jan. 1
The Chicago Tribune | November 20, 2019 | Alexia Elejalde-RuizAbout 50,000 Cook County residents who receive food stamps are going to have to find jobs next year — or risk losing their benefits.
Starting Jan. 1, food stamp recipients in Cook County who are able-bodied, under the age of 50 and not living with children or other dependents will be restricted to three months of food assistance in a three-year period unless they work at least 80 hours a month. They can also meet the requirement by participating in a work-related activity, such as job training or volunteering.
The vast majority of Illinois’ 1.8 million SNAP recipients — most of whom are either elderly, children or people with disabilities — are unaffected by the change. But it will be a huge shift in Cook County, where 50,000 of the county’s 826,000 food stamp recipients will be subject to work requirements for the first time since the federal rules went into effect in the mid-1990s.
State officials and social service groups worry people who struggle to find or keep jobs will be driven out of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as SNAP or food stamps, leaving them hungry and putting pressure on food pantries. They say there isn’t enough federal funding to help connect them with jobs.
“Quite frankly, a lot of the folks who are not able to meet those requirements will not participate in the program and just drop out,” said Grace Hou, secretary of the Illinois Department of Human Services. Single adults receive, on average, $200 a month in food aid.
And how will these folks who “just drop out” (choice is such a good thing!) recoup those lost gratuities?
Anyway, I’d suggest avoiding Cook County if you don’t want to become that alternate source of income. Everyone except Jussie Smollett seems to get mugged there.
Developing Story
You’re talking about trillions and trillions of dollars of destruction would have been done to our country with the Paris Climate Accord.
And it is so unfair. It doesn’t kick in for China until 2030. Russia goes back into the 1990s, where the base year was the dirtiest year ever in the world. India, we are supposed to pay them money because they are a developing nation. I said, “We’re a developing nation, too.” (Laughter.) “Why aren’t we. . . .” Under the WTO, China is called a “developing nation.”
— Remarks by President Trump at the Economic Club of New York, November 12, 2019 .
Guess it depends on what your definition of “I.S.” (international socialism) is.
JFK
No video this morning. I looked around for some that covered the different things I thought might be interesting, but I decided to get away from that. Do a search for the JFK assassination and you’ll see what I mean.
President Kennedy was shot dead on November 22, 1963. Over the years, I went from being a staunch believer in the multiple gunman theories to being someone that believes that Lee Oswald shot and killed the 35th president.
The “magic bullet?” Not so magic after you look at it and examine the path it actually took.
The timing of the shots? Much easier once you realize that Oswald’s first shot was deflected by a traffic light and it was the second that Kennedy was reacting too when the car came out from the sign. That wasn’t the first shot, but the second. Plenty of time between that shot and the fatal shot.
I won’t go on and on, but I’m satisfied as to who killed the president. I’ve done the whole conspiracy thing and grew out of it.
Maybe I’m just old. I’m nearly 20 years older than President Kennedy was when he was murdered, after all.
If you’re still into the conspiracy thing, fine. Go ahead. But if you do like I did and take a real serious look at everything, looking for truth rather than supporting evidence one way or another, I think you’ll end up like me.
Whether that’s good or bad is still to be determined.