Archive of entries posted on 1st August 2020

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

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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 to follow the yellow brick road out to Kansas, so let’s get started…

Kansas state flag
In 1952, this design replaced the old Kansas state flag, which consisted of a blue background behind a wicked witch and four flying monkeys.
  • Kansas became the 34th state on January 29th, 1861 because America needed to meet its Affirmative Action quota for stolen Indian land.
  • Kansas was originally populated by people from Iowa who just couldn’t handle that state’s hectic, fast-paced lifestyle anymore.
  • The state bird of Kansas is the meadowlark, whose beautiful song failed to impress Simon during an American Idol audition.
  • The state flower of Kansas is the sunflower, the seeds of which are highly poisonous and can only be cured with high doses of steroids.
  • At least according to the Major League Baseball Player’s Union.
  • Kansas lies along the eastern edge of Colorado, but sometimes sneaks across the border in the dead of night to steal the occasional mountain.
  • Kansas normally maintains a constant temperature of 72 degrees all year long, but sometimes impish tornadoes mess with the thermostat when no one’s looking.
  • At just over 4,000 feet, Mt. Sunflower is the highest point in Kansas.
  • And yeah, they stole it from Colorado. Dirty, thieving Kansasians!
  • Members of the Kansas Board of Education voted to outlaw the teaching of evolution in Kansas schools to avoid offending monkeys who were outraged at the suggestion that they evolved from hippies.
  • The state song of Kansas is “We’re Not Too Crazy About Newton’s Theory of Gravity, Either.”
  • The state motto of Kansas is “Flat, boring, and full of wheaty goodness. We’re like America’s snack cracker!”
  • The word Kansas comes from a Sioux Indian word meaning “Probably not a good place to build a ski resort.”
  • Cawker City, Kansas is home to the world’s largest ball of twine. It contains over 300 miles of string and 73 slow kittens.
  • Kansas has a population of 2.6 million people, but surprisingly, NONE of them have ever seen “The Wizard of Oz,” and they’ll just stare at you blankly if you refer to someone’s dog as Toto.
  • The state tree of Kansas is the cottonwood tree, which is used to make very splintery T-shirts.
  • The first female Mayor in the U.S. was Susan Salter, elected in Argonia, Kansas in 1887. However, she was soon driven out of office due to a scandalous affair with her intern, Marvin Lewinsky.
  • No relation to Monica, although he WAS rumored to occasionally wear a blue dress.
  • The dial telephone was invented by Almon Stowger of El Dorado, Kansas and was a vast improvement over earlier models which required the user to make different animal noises for each digit.
  • The 34th President of the U.S. – Dwight Eisenhower – was born in Abilene, Kansas. His portrait was removed from the dollar coin in 1979, but still remains on most Chuck E. Cheese game tokens.
  • In exchange for the relatively low income tax rate, citizens of Kansas are required to spend one week each year working in one of the state’s wheat mines.
  • Kansas has the lowest suicide rate of any state in the US, mostly because there’s nothing high enough to jump off of.
  • The state sport of Kansas is WheatBall, which is even less exciting than it sounds.
  • The state constitution of Kansas guarantees its citizens the right to keep and bear tornadoes.
  • Mostly as a defense against any flying monkeys that might their way over the rainbow from Oz.
  • Kansas has the largest population of wild grouse in the U.S. These birds are also known as “prairie chickens” or “meadow Frenchmen.”
  • There are over 500 caves in Kansas. The fact that Bruce Wayne owns all of them does NOT prove that he’s Batman.
  • Last year, Kansas grew 500 million bushels of wheat, which, if it were all made into bread, would be enough to feed Michael Moore lunch.

Well, that wraps up the Kansas edition of Fun Facts About the 50 States. Next week I’ll be out shopping for moonshine in Kentucky.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go play a game of WheatBall… yay.

[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]

And Now: Un Tune by Les Garcons de la Plage

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Paris.

From Phys.org:

Floating in Place
Sea level rise may seem a distant threat, but resorts and other tourism operators are already considering how they can stay near the coast and operate above the water. On the Caribbean island of Barbuda, resort huts have been built on stilts.

Because of . . . . hurricanes?


The aim is to keep tourism viable in the same place it has thrived for decades, while minimising damage from higher water levels.


Seasteading is one answer to this conundrum. The idea to build settlements on platforms at sea originated with the hope of creating more sustainable and equal societies away from land.

???????????? Blacks, white, reds, yellows, rich, poor, living in homes on stilts offshore on sustainable agriculture? Wh….?

The technology is still being developed, while researchers consider the engineering, legal and business implications.

Yeah, I’ll bet they are!

Bringing the Beach to You


The urban beach is a concept that’s growing in popularity worldwide. It involves creating sandy areas in towns and cities by importing sand onto concrete. There may also be artificial pools and fairground rides. Each one has different features. There are family-friendly options, and those catered to adults, with cocktail bars or restaurants.

The opportunities for hedonism are still there, but instead of travelling miles to enjoy it, it’s right on your doorstep. Less travel means less carbon emissions, and urban beaches might help ease pressure on the real coast.
Perhaps the most famous urban beach is the Paris Plage. Since its opening in 2002, Parisians and summer tourists have been able to lounge under palm trees on the banks of the river Seine. It cost over two million Euros to create and has since been extended due to its popularity.

The Nottingham Riviera is an attempt to recreate this success in the UK. The landlocked beach in the middle of the city has sand and water, amusement arcades and beach bars.

The urban beach is becoming an industry in itself, with companies specialising in fake beaches that can be built as seasonal fixtures or permanent areas. If reaching the coast becomes too arduous in the future, these examples could provide everything needed for a seaside experience without the sea.

Gotta bring the beach — at great expense — nearer to your home town . . . . . because of . . . sea level rise? . . .

If I’m Lyin’, I’m Dyin’

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Hand to God, these are unedited comments that IMAO (not me personally) received in one email. I edited out gobbledygook in between, but not the wording.

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Sexism, Baby! King’s College Cements Stereotypes About Women in Politics Based Solely on Sex

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… And referring to “girls”? Can all the rest of us do that?

Women Political Leaders Key To “More Equal and Caring Societies”
King’s College London / July 31, 2020

The report shows that when women are able to exercise political leadership, there are gains not just for women and girls but for the whole of society.

The main findings of the report include:

• Women policy makers prioritise issues that benefit the most vulnerable in society, such as healthcare, welfare and education. As such, more women leaders seem to make for more equal and caring societies;

• Women may be more likely to focus on these issues because they have greater experience of deprivation, and because they are often responsible for caring for others;

Men aren’t? Citation, please?

• On average, women work harder than men to represent their constituencies,

Just curious: how was this measured?

which is linked to a stronger sense among voters that government is responsive to their needs;

• Increased representation of women in elected office is associated with counteracting corruption and focusing resources on the quality and consistency of public service delivery;

• States where women hold more political power are less likely to go to war and less likely to commit human rights abuses;

So they will do it; they’re just numerically less likely. Got it.

• Women bring collaborative and inclusive leadership styles into political environments that are often characterised by division and one-upmanship.