Wednesday Night Open Thread

Some artists only have one really big hit. T. Rex went top ten in 1972 with this one. Three other songs hit the Hot 100, but none made it higher than 67.

[The YouTube]

What’s been on your mind? Got something you’d like to share? A topic to discuss? It’s Wednesday Night Open Thread.

Who wants to start?

Medical Breakthrough: Electron Microscope Shows Coronavirus Particles Surrounded By White Blood Cells Becoming Irritable, Angry With Each Other, and Hogging the Remote

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

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, it’s time get stinkin’ drunk, float down the Big Muddy, and wash up on a sandbar with a hangover, because we’re headed to Mississippi, so let’s get started…


Mississippi state flag
The state flag of Mississippi is best described as a combination of the Confederate and French flags. Don’t count on them to win any wars for you.
  • Mississippi became the 20th state on December 10th 1817. Although the new state’s entry faced violent opposition, it managed to get admitted to the Union since people with lisps did not yet have the right to vote.
  • Mississippi has 82 counties, all of which have at least one town named “Bubbaville.”
  • Talk show host Oprah Winfrey was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi. The world’s largest couch was built there in her honor, just in case Tom Cruise stops by.
  • Chitlins were first served in Shuqulah, Mississippi, which – I assume – is home to a disproportionate population of the hopelessly insane.
  • Mississippi gets its name from the Chippewa Indian word “mici-zibi,” which means “River’s flooding again… WHY do these stupid white people keep rebuilding here?”
  • Mississippi has a population of 3 million people and 6 million teeth.
  • Singer Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi. Does anyone else find it ironic that he once had a hit song about shoes?
  • In a fight between Aquaman & someone from Mississippi, the Mississippian would lose, but he’d write a great blues song about the fight that would make millions.
  • Most people from Mississippi have several Confederate flag sticker on their cars. This doesn’t make them racist, it just means that they’re too poor to afford enough duct tape to hold their cars together.
  • If you’re in Mississippi and someone tries to mug you, just yell, “Look! Snow!” The mugger will become paralyzed with confusion and you can make your escape.
  • Although Mississippi is frequently the 50th ranked state in quality of education, it IS ranked #1 in the category of “boosting self-esteem for students in the other 49 states.”
  • The world’s largest Bible-binding plant is in Greenwood, Mississippi, and uses only genuine atheist-skin leather.
  • …And people wonder why I’ve never been to Mississippi…
  • The Stetson hat was invented in Dunn’s Falls, Mississippi, which is constantly being attacked by Texas Crusaders seeking to recapture their holy city.
  • Football player Walter “Sweetness” Payton was born in Columbia, Mississippi, and was the first athlete to appear simultaneously on boxes of “Wheaties”, “Gritties”, and “Chitlinies” cereals.
  • Petal, Mississippi is home to the International Checkers Hall of Fame. Requirements for induction include winning a tournament on a 5-jump, double-king combo move, and appearing on a “Chitlinies” box.
  • The Vicksburg National Cemetery is the largest national cemetery in America. Some people say that the Arlington National Cemetery is larger, but it’s stuffed with all them damn Yankees, so it doesn’t really count.
  • Legendary Football quarterback Brett Favre was born in Kiln, Mississippi. He was reputed to be able to throw a football hard enough to break a receiver’s fingers, but he only did that if the guy was late with his protection money payment.
  • Singer Jimmy Buffett was born in Pascagoula, Mississippi, but was banished after all the town’s salt-shakers mysteriously disappeared.
  • It was his own damn fault.
  • Mississippi is the only state in America that doesn’t offer personalized license plates. The state’s DMV figures it’s not worth it, since no one can read those big ol’ 6-letter words, anyway.
  • The fried peanut butter and banana sandwich was invented in Tupelo, Mississippi by Elvis Presley in 1945. He never patented his invention, and died in bankrupt obscurity in 1977.
  • It is NOT true that the Governor of Mississippi is chosen as a result of being the victor in a greased-pig-catching contest. They don’t actually grease the pig.
  • Actor James Earl Jones was born in Arkabutla, Mississippi, but soon moved to Coruscant to complete his Sith training.
  • Mississippi has the lowest percentage of high school graduates in America, since the graduation exam requires students to spell the state’s name without using the words “crooked-letter” or “humpback.”
  • During a hunting expedition to Mississippi in 1902, President Teddy Roosevelt refused to shoot a captured bear. This act resulted in the creation of the world-famous stuffed animal, the “Stupid Yankee Bear.”
  • In 1807, Aaron Burr was arraigned for treason in Washington, Mississippi, beneath the Burr Oaks. Optimists in the city have since planted a grove of Jane Fonda Oaks, just in case.

That wraps up the Mississippi edition of Fun Facts About the 50 States. Next week we’ll get tricked into whitewashing fences by Tom Sawyer when we visit Missouri.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go pour me a big ol’ bowl of Chitlinies for breakfast.


[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]

Link of the Day: Wisdom From Ben Shapiro

The government is a giant, lumbering idiot. Sometimes we need a giant, lumbering idiot. Almost always, we do not. And those who have used this pandemic response — one of the rare times we need a giant, lumbering idiot to intimidate people into preventing mass infection of one another, and to borrow the money necessary to redress the injuries thus incurred — as a rationale for a government-run “new politics” should have their heads examined.

— Stop Pretending Pandemic Politics Are the New Norm
Townhall.com | April 1, 2020 | Ben Shapiro

Submitted for Your Approval: The Future — Fact or Fiction?

Submitted by Slapout:

Straight Line of the Day: Joe Biden’s Answer: “The Pompetus of Love.” The Question: …

Straight Line of the Day: Joe Biden’s answer: “The Pompetus of Love.” The question: …


Best of Bond Villains: Dalton – Lazenby Edition

Time for another best of Bond, James Bond villains edition.

We are combing both Timothy Dalton and George Lazenby because so few films are involved. Also, two from the Living Daylights. We need to make it interesting.

Franz Sanchez -Robert Davi – Licence to Kill

 

Ernst Stavro Blofeld – Telly Savalas – On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

 

Brad Whitaker – Joe Don Baker – The Living Daylights

 

General Georgi Koskov – Jeroen Krabbé – The Living Daylights

 

Who do you prefer?

  • Ernst Stavro Blofeld (62%, 68 Votes)
  • General Georgi Koskov (17%, 18 Votes)
  • Franz Sanchez (17%, 18 Votes)
  • Brad Whitaker (5%, 5 Votes)

Total Voters: 109

Loading ... Loading ...

 

Poll will close on Tuesday April 7th at 10:00 pm.

 

 

Random Thoughts: Pandemic and Journalists

I want to be like Jesus, so I never apologize.
I mean, I assume Jesus never apologized since he never did anything wrong. I guess I could also never do anything wrong to be like Jesus, but I think when trying to be more Christ-like, you need to be realistic.

So how are toilet paper manufactures handling this toilet paper stupidity? It seems like at some point someone has to raise prices until supply and demand stabilize.
Bad things happen when things are priced below their actual value, and right now toilet paper (and some other goods) are obviously priced well below their actual market value.

I thought that Marvel New Warriors thing was a lame joke some right-winger made up.

I can’t believe we actually need the government to give a giant handout and they can’t figure it out. They’re like that character from the Lego Movie who wants nothing other than to build a spaceship and you finally say, “Okay. We need a spaceship.” and he just freezes.

What if we need to eat more bats until we find the bat with the cure in it?

The government is going to send everyone enough money to buy an AR-15 — a nice one with like a scope!

So do socialist just hate all landlords?
I swear, there has never been anyone in all of human history more entitled and privileged than socialists in first world countries.

People don’t just need money. They need work.

Just got in the mail my renewed concealed carry permit, which is kind of ironic.

Rooting for Trump to fail right now is just plain evil.
Even the dimmest view of Trump has to admit a lot more people would be hurt now by Trump failing now than by him serving a second term.

Is anyone actually surprised by the jobless claims? Did you hear about the pandemic?

The proper name is “the Chinese Spanish Flu.”

Though completing the census sounds fun, don’t do it! It’s a trick by the government to try and count everyone!
I’m tired of these clearly unconstitutional government overreaches.

Dogs who tilt your head sideways when you don’t understand things, has that every worked?
“Oh. Now that I rotated everything twenty degrees, it’s all clear to me.”

A lot of people excited about reporting USA is supposedly the most coronavirus cases (believing China’s numbers).
Such weird times.

The point of journalism is to be objective and report the news, which they suck at. But instead journalists seem to think their job is to influence people to their point of view. Which they also suck at.

One of my favorite things right now is my 9yo daughter has started playing around on the piano until she figures out various video game theme songs. She now does a great version of the Legend of Zelda theme, Zelda’s Lullaby, and the Luigi’s Mansion theme.
Another favorite thing is that my 4yo, despite never having seen Arrested Development, does a pitch perfect imitation of Lucille being surprised by Gene Parmesan that she does whenever she’s excited by something.

Yeah, tough time for Biden campaign. Trump has this chance to look like a big hero and any time Biden speaks he just sounds like some random guy in the comments section going, “Here’s how I would have done it…”
I honestly don’t know what he can do that would actually help. It’s a tough hand for everybody.

In the darkest of times I cheer myself up by thinking of Hillary on election night 2016.

We’re showing our kids The Goonies. If they don’t like it, we’re getting new kids.

The Goonies was a good representation of how things were growing up for us Gen Xers. No helicopter parenting; instead we just ran around cave systems without supervision.

There’s no time right now to care about the sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden. We’ll get back to it in October.

I just tune out now when it’s reported what Trump just said. That’s because we have years now of him saying crazy stuff and also at least half the time the media is misrepresenting what he said. It’s pointless.

Libertarians are a bunch of psychopaths who think it’s possible for people to organize and work together without a big entity with lots of guns constantly threatening people with violence and imprisonment.

For some reason I have a lot of trouble with actors with three names. I just referred to “Patrick Neil Harrison,” and no matter how many movies he’s been in, I refer to that one guy as “that kid from 3rd Rock From the Sun” since I can never remember his name.

Zoom has been quite a blessing. Despite all this, our church can still meet together.
There are so many blessings like that of the modern age that it’s hard to keep track of them to be thankful.

The left needs to find a way to look less gleeful about the coronavirus thinking it’s an issue to use against Trump. The way things are going, Trump could completely screw things up and get re-elected because at least he’s not cheering on people dying.

There was no reason to jump on the “U.S. is number one in Coronavirus cases!” unless you’re so partisan it ruined your critical facilities.
It’s just another example of people thinking they have a great attack on Trump and then getting so over enthusiastic that they end up looking way worse than Trump.

Even if we’re yelling at each other about politics, we’re still all in this together. That’s being an American.

I love how all events confirm all my priors.

Trump could stab a man to death during a press conference, but if he then called a reporter a “doo-doo head,” that would be the lead story coming out of it.

No money in that relief bill should go to funding the arts unless it’s to ensure the next season of Baby Yoda isn’t delayed.

The way the news media is completely credulous about even the claims from brutal authoritarians in China because that currently goes with their partisan leanings is why I’m not looking forward to another Democrat as president.
The thing is, I don’t believe this grotesque media bias actually influences anyone. I doubt anyone is left trusting these people who don’t already drink the same Kool-Aid.

VidAngel has Tiger King. Maybe I can finally find out what everyone is talking about (my wife and I are very offended by Tigers so we were waiting for VidAngel so we could remove any images or references to them).

I dunno. I think for a free country dealing with a black swan like this, I don’t think we’ve done that terrible.

If the Trump press conference didn’t give people some new thing to yell at every day, they’d just be screaming at their cats.

“My grandma is trapped in a burning car and Trump is doing NOTHING!”
*Trump rushes to the burning car and pulls out grandma*
“Well, of course Trump saved her. She’s a RACIST!”

Journalists are convincing me that Trump doesn’t insult them enough.

I love my Baby Yoda tshirt, but it has some negatives. Random people will try to talk to me about it when I’m out and about (not a problem now), and my 1yo ignores me and instead tries to talk to the Baby Yoda on my shirt.

The only mask I have is a werewolf mask but I guess it’s better than nothing.

“Go to bed, sweetie. Mommy and Daddy are watching a show.”
“What are you watching?”
“A documentary about… tigers. Because we like to be educated.”

April Fools

We don’t often do April Fools gags here. We have done a few in the past, but we don’t usually. And, we aren’t doing one this year, either.

Google isn’t doing it either, because someone said it’s not respectful. After the September 11 attacks, it was okay. Well, yeah, that was nearly seven months later, but still, I could see some stick-up-their-butt folks complaining if someone tried something funny seven months after all this nonsense is done.

So, do we do April Fools joke on one another? I guess that depends on your siutation.

For instance, if you’re stuck in close quarters with your victim for an extended period of time, it might not be a good idea. Well, I suppose it depends on the joke, and what kind of day (or night) the other person has had.

If you’re up to it, the New York Post has some ideas. Of course, there are farts involved. Not real farts. They aren’t monsters. Well, maybe they are, but still, no actual farts.

If you decide to play some pranks on some people, share your experience here. Your hospital nurse may be kind enough to type them in for you, if the reaction is a little stronger than you expected.

Be safe. Have fun. And punch a hippie. Not just today, but every day.