Archive of entries posted on 11th March 2020

Wednesday Night Open Thread

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Some artists only have one really big hit. Jonathan King hit top 20 in November 1965. He had a Top 40 (barely) Adult Contemporary hit in 1971, but this was his only hit on the Hot 100. He did have some influences in the recording studio on songs that weren’t his. He produced some 10cc until 1975 (just in time for them to hit big). He was the first artist to use the “Ooga Chaka Ooga Ooga” bit with “Hooked On A Feeling” (as later done the hit version by Blue Swede). He wound up in jail over child sexual abuse from incidents in the 1980s.

[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?

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

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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, the natives will be tricking us into believing that buckeyes actually come from the annual shedding of the male deer’s eyeballs as we visit Ohio. So let’s get started…

Ohio state flag
Ohio’s state flag is the only one of the 50 states’ which is a pennant shape, rather than rectangular. Sorta like that kid you went to school with who thought that being the only person with a mullet made him cool.
  • Ohio became the 17th state on March 1, 1803 and was originally populated by people who were improperly whacked by the Detroit mob and dumped into Lake Erie.
  • The state flower of Ohio is the Scarlet Carnation, more popularly known as “the cheapskate’s rose.”
  • The first ambulance service in the US was started in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1865 as a method of promoting physical fitness among lawyers.
  • Cleveland, Ohio is home to America’s first traffic light. The idea was borrowed from the French “war light,” whose green, red, and yellow signals told French citizens whether to flee, surrender, or collaborate.
  • Ermal Fraze invented the pop-top can in Kettering, Ohio, which replaced the older, less reliable method of opening cans – outraging a Muslim into suicide-bombing it open for you.
  • Singer Dean Martin was born in Steubenville, Ohio, and was the last non-Frenchman to sincerely believe that Jerry Lewis was funny.
  • The cash register was invented in Dayton, Ohio in 1879 by James Ritty. The first model consisted of a locking drawer attached to his wife’s cleavage.
  • “Hang On Sloopy” is the official state rock song of Ohio, which narrowly beat out “Smack My Bitch Up.”
  • Although Ohio’s state nickname is the “Buckeye State,” long-time residents still prefer the previous nickname of the “Big Red Dangling Nuts State.”
  • Ohio’s name comes from an Iroquois Indian word meaning “Lake Erie’s on fire again.”
  • Founded in 1869, the Cincinnati Reds were the first professional baseball team. The second professional team wasn’t created until 1870, which may explain why the Reds won their first 130 games by forfeit.
  • Akron, Ohio was the first city to use police cars. Coincidentally, it was also the first city with a donut shop.
  • Cincinnati was the first city with a full-time professional fire department, originally consisting of 25 Dalmatians with bladder-control problems.
  • Akron, Ohio is the rubber capital of the world, annually producing enough of the material to supply rubber chickens to every crappy prop comic on earth. Or to supply one Carrot Top show.
  • The American Federation of Labor union was founded in Columbus, Ohio. It offers all the high-quality corrupt thuggery you’ve come to expect from East Coast unions, but with a pleasant mid-western accent.
  • At the age of 77, Ohio senator John Glenn became the oldest man to visit outer space aboard the space shuttle Discovery. The ship was grounded for six months afterwards while crews worked around the clock to get the “old person smell” out of it.
  • Cleveland, Ohio, is the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is located across the street from the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Museum.
  • Ohio is the nation’s leading producer of greenhouse and nursery plants. None of which are marijuana. And no, I don’t know where you can get any. Now get away from me, you stupid hippie!
  • Canton, Ohio, is home to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. There’s no doubt in my mind that Terrell Owens will make it in there someday – if he stops at the front counter and pays for an adult admission ticket.
  • Neil Armstrong was born in Wapakoneta, Ohio, and became the first man to walk on the moon. The second man to walk on the moon… eh… who cares about THAT loser!
  • Born in Dayton, Ohio, the Wright Brothers invented the airplane in 1903. Their accomplishment was was largely ignored until they invented the scantily-clad stewardess in 1905.
  • Americans have elected seven presidents from the state of Ohio. If we elect three more, we’ll get a coupon for a free Speaker of the House.
  • The hot dog was given its name by concessionaire Harry Stevens of Niles, Ohio, after discovering that people weren’t interested in buying his “snouts & sawdust sausages.”
  • 50% of the United States population lives within a 500 mile radius of Columbus, Ohio. The other 50% lives with a profound sense of relief.
  • Charles Kettering of Loudonville, Ohio, invented the automobile self-starter in 1911, which was a huge improvement over the old method of grabbing the engine block while peeing on an electric fence.
  • In 1839, Charles Goodyear of Akron, Ohio, developed the process of vulcanizing rubber. Prior to that time, rubber could neither live long nor prosper.
  • Teflon was invented by Roy Plunkett of New Carlisle, Ohio, in 1938 after he followed a recipe for homemade glue typed up by his dyslexic secretary.
  • Oberlin College was founded in 1833, with the goal of becoming the first interracial and coeducational college in the US. It took a lot of persuading to get people to part with perfectly good tuition money only to be forced to rub elbows with filthy Irishmen.
  • Civil War General and US President Ulysses S. Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio. His only notable accomplishments were getting really drunk and killing people. Which means that if Ted Kennedy had ever become president, we’d have had a different portrait on the $50 bill.

That wraps up the Ohio edition of Fun Facts About the 50 States. Next week we’ll be wondering why the musical didn’t mention tornadoes and trailer parks as we visit Oklahoma.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta go find an electric fence so I can start my car.

[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]

Biden Locates Voter He Hasn’t Kneaded, Sniffed, Threatened, Insulted, or Challenged to a Push-Up Contest Yet

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Phlegm at eleven.

Pets Can Be Socialized

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“From now on, no more selfish water dishes. Water will be collected, with me in charge of distribution.”

“Gee, it’s hot out! Can I have some?”

“Uhhhhhhhhhh . . . Nah. There’s only so much.”

The Illustrated FrankJ: J. Fred Mugged

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Created by Comrade Chairman Obama
Based on FrankJ’s list — available in T-shirt form!

Straight Line of the Day: “If It Ain’t Brokered, Don’t Fix It” Is One Possible Theme for the Democrats’ Convention. Others: …

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Straight Line of the Day: “If It Ain’t Brokered, Don’t Fix It” is one possible theme for the Democrats’ convention. Others: …

Who is the best Top Cat cat?

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We will head to the cartoon world for this week’s “Best” poll.

Multiple cats, choose one.

Polls close Sunday March 15 at 9:00 am.

TC, Benny, Spook, Choo-choo, Brain and Fancy-fancy

Who is the best Top Cat cat?

  • Top Cat (62%, 47 Votes)
  • Benny the Ball (22%, 17 Votes)
  • Brain (7%, 5 Votes)
  • Choo-choo (4%, 3 Votes)
  • Fancy-fancy (4%, 3 Votes)
  • Spook (1%, 1 Votes)

Total Voters: 76

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Random Thoughts: Democratic Primary and Color-Struck Baby

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It seems like Biden is suffering from dementia, but at least it’s not so bad he thinks socialism is a good idea.

I can’t believe Bloomberg listened to Bernie about how billionaires can buy elections. That guy doesn’t know anything.

My guess is Amy Klobuchar would have been the Democrats best shot out of all the viable candidates they had. Biden is the next best.
But they’re probably going to lose either way unless the economy tanks.

It’s funny; if you took one of those “Which Democratic candidate do you agree with most?” quizzes, you would get Bloomberg if you were anything other than a crazy lefty, but, still, nobody liked him.

Right before Buttigieg dropped out, I think I finally cracked the code on how to say his name. It’s “boot-edge-edge”, but you have to say the “edge-edge” part as fast as possible and kinda slur it together.

Life is precious and fragile and always worth fighting for.

So like millions of times a year, people engage in the reproductive act, create new life, and then just kill their offspring?
Maybe people shouldn’t do that.

Why do all these people mourn what happened to Warren but don’t say a thing about Klobuchar who wasn’t terrible?

This was the first presidential election where a major candidate was younger than me but all the candidates finally settled on are older than my parents.

I think the thing that finally did Warren in is that she’s terrible.

Does Tulsi Gabbard know she’s still in the race?

Bernie Bros need to give more latitude to Warren supporters and understand that they never really believed in progressive causes and were happy to stop Bernie.

I think a Biden/Klobuchar ticket would be pretty strong, but after 2016 I’m still pretty sure I know nothing.

I probably spend 99% of my time thinking about temporary things and only 1% on things that are eternal, but it’s a start.

I guess all the mewling about billionaires makes more sense if you think each one is walking around with enough money to make everyone wealthy when in fact their combined wealth is just a drop in the bucket of government spending.
I’m not sure this is a small point. People like Elizabeth Warren keep claiming they can pay for everything by taxing billionaires which is insane when you do the math, but maybe some people when you say “billion” they think “infinity dollars.”
Billionaires are nothing compared to government spending. If you confiscated all their wealth, that won’t even get you through one year. They can’t fund Medicare for All and all your other giveaways. They can’t even start.

If I had one million dollars, I’d give one million people one million dollars and then steal it all back and be even richer.

Mike Bloomberg has enough money to buy everyone in this country a used Xbox, so why doesn’t he? For one, there aren’t enough used Xboxes, and if one person started buying them all up that would cause their prices to inflate until they cost more than a new one.

It’s hard to quantify exactly how much wealthier we are than in the past. 100 years ago, average U.S. salary was around $1300. Adjust for inflation ($16,800) and average salary is about 3x that, so you might say we’re on average three times richer.
But if I offered to give you ten times your salary but you could only spend it on things that were available in 1920, would you take that deal? If you said no, then that suggests we’re at least 30x richer.
For the record, I would not take that deal. I like computers, and it’s possible one of my children would have died without modern health care.

The only way to prove the reason Elizabeth Warren’s campaign failed was because of sexism is for her to run again wearing a fake mustache.

The government can’t guarantee anyone anything. It can just confiscate other people’s earnings to pay for things, but it can still run out of other people’s money and run out of supply of whatever it is everyone has now decided they “deserve.”

How about a compromise: Don’t threaten to take people’s guns and then people with guns won’t threaten you back.

People are sharing that “give everyone $1 million” tweet and news report as “look out dumb this is” and yet people still keeping picking it up and missing the stupidity.
People want to believe billionaires are walking around with enough money to make us all rich.

You can’t pay for everything you want taxing the rich. We can’t even pay for the current proposal taxing the middle class.

Man, I’m worried for anyone this year whose income relies on tourism.

I work from home and we home school, so we’ve been ready for coronavirus for a while.
I also have a one year old with Down syndrome who we already worry enough about him getting sick with regular illnesses, so we’re not super cavalier here.

With this whole coronavirus thing, I’m worried about my mom. I mean, she’s not Democratic presidential candidate old, but she’s up there.

Batman came up with his persona when a bat flew in his window. I assume Green Arrow came up with his while making a left turn.

If the floor really was lava, the extreme heat would still kill you even if you were standing on a chair.

You can make a good college try to provide modern health care to everyone, but it will never be a “right.” In the U.S., people should really understand rights better than that; it’s essential to this nation continuing.
Modern health care is a privilege, not a right. Most people throughout human history lived without it. We only have it because of the labors of our ancestors. We don’t deserve it; we just got lucky what era we were born in.
I’m sure a hundred years from now, people will look back and not consider us lucky compared to what they have then, if it’s any consolation.
Thinking we “deserve” all our modern conveniences instead of being grateful for them is certainly the first step toward losing them.

Our grandchildren will be whiny and ungrateful for things we can’t even imagine.

No joke, I’m getting worried about Bernie and Biden and the coronavirus. They’re both very old and going around the country hanging out in crowds.
Can’t the rest of campaigning in 2020 be done via arguments on Twitter?

My 4yo’s new favorite phrase is “We’re all gonna die!”
Anytime anything goes wrong, she yells, “We’re all gonna die!”
It’s very cute.

Maybe it’s a little late to admit this, but while I got all the James Bond references in Austin Powers, I have absolutely no clue what his clothing and mannerisms are supposed to be parodying.

Maybe people do you think Biden has dementia but still think that makes him smarter than Bernie and more trustworthy than Warren.
I’m just saying the Democrats have a lot of terrible candidates and maybe everyone is grading on a curve.

People keep talking about Biden’s cognitive decline, but what about Bernie? People talk about how consistent he’s been, but that’s because it seems like he’s learned absolutely nothing since the early 80s. I think he has the same disease as that guy from Memento.

Maybe we should have a contest on what to call the virus and then start calling it Virusey McVirusface.

We use the alcohol in hand sanitizer to kill bacteria and viruses, but what happens if an Irish virus evolves that LOVES alcohol?
“Oh no! The hand sanitizer is just making the virus DRUNKEN AND ANGRY!”

Does it mean it’s not a crisis yet that for so many people, their reaction to the coronavirus is “This is a great way to dunk on Donald Trump!”?

Wealth of Nations was a pretty dry boring read, but man some bits of wisdom in it really stuck with me. One was really hammering the fact that a nation’s wealth is its labor and productivity. The gold money only represents that.
Smith talked about how just amassing gold would never make a nation richer — eventually all that would do is cause the value of gold to drop. Increasing wealth is increasing the productivity of the land and people a nation has.
A lot of socialists just think you can magically have whatever you want (“the money is out there!”) but the real question is how do you have the labor to make everything you want. The best answer to that, of course, is the capitalist system, the one adept at figuring that out.
Also, that all reinforces how we’re in for an economic hit with the coronavirus. If people can’t work, there’s no remedy for that. All the money in the world can’t get you goods if no one is producing them.
Anyway, just happy I learned anything from Wealth of Nations as my eyes were glazed over for 99% of it. The other real eye opening thing about it was the magic of banks, but I’ll save that for another time.

“Honey, because of the coronavirus, the CDC says we’re all supposed to stay home and play video games.”
“I don’t think the CDC recommended we play video games.”
“Well, they heavily implied it.”

“Actually, if we’re home, there’s a bunch of home improvement projects we can do. Plus some spring cleaning.”
“Um… the CDC labeled those all ‘high risk.'”

Learned a new term today. While my wife was at our homeschooling co-op, our baby got accused of being “color-struck,” which is a polite way of saying “Your baby is racist.” So then my wife is running around trying to prove he isn’t racist. Feels like a premise from Seinfeld.

“He isn’t racist. You were just loud near him and he gets scared of loud people.”
“Uh-huh.”
“He lets Emily hold him, and she’s black too.”
tries to hand the baby to Emily, but he quickly turns around and clings to his mother
“Um… he’s a bit shy today.”
“Uh-huh.”

Tough world. He just turned one and he’s already CANCELED.
Well, if he’s racist, it’s not because of me. I showed him a book of people of different races and told him, “See all these people? Don’t hate them.”
I don’t know what else you can do.

Because some people are getting angry at this, I just want to be clear it was all done humorously. It’s a Christian co-op and we all love each other.
So we don’t get smoten.
And as soon as he’s old enough to speak, we’ll have him apologize for his racism.
The lady who accused are baby of being color struck also made it clear that 75% of our kids are definitely not racist, which I think is pretty good.

My 9yo overheard my wife and I talking about the election and wanted to know more, so I told her all the basic facts about Joe Biden — VP for 8yrs, etc. This did not satisfy her.
“But is he a good guy or a bad guy?”
patting her on the head “They’re all bad guys, dear.”

With Biden versus Trump, we’re going to have a presidential debate without one single coherent sentence.
Do we even need presidential debates? Wouldn’t it be more informative if they just fight it out every day on Twitter?

I fear to ask this, but will the coronavirus affect Baby Yoda?

There are two things that get me through the darkest times:
1. My faith in God and knowing He will always look out for this children
2. The sight of Baby Yoda

Everyone should hear this EconTalk podcast with Kevin Smith (not the filmmaker) of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma that is cash only (no insurance). It sounds like libertarian propaganda how big a difference that makes.
With actual prices and the lack of perverse incentives that’s invaded most other hospitals (which he goes into detail about) you end up with both cheaper prices and the doctors making more money.
And he notes he has many times gotten Canadians who find paying a few thousand less costly than waiting possibly a few years for “free.”
It would be nice if someone prominent was pushing a free market solution to health care–a core value of our country and the same engine that got flat screen TVs from $10,000 to $200–but right now there seems to be only people pushing more socialism or just shrugging.
The free market could also help college costs, but you’d have to get the government to stop trying to “help,” and that scares people.

The only reason Bernie is still in the race is so that he can weaken Biden enough that Tulsi can win.

I’d say the most annoying thing in Red Dead Redemption 2 is the weight mechanic. I have no idea how it works. It just seems like you have to keep stuffing your character’s face full of food at every opportunity or you’ll be losing weight.
I ate a steak and a can of beans; is that enough? There’s no feedback. Just keep giving food or he’ll become emaciated. Technically, it’s supposed to be possible to become overweight, but I’d guess you’d have to spend 99% of your time eating for that to happen.
Red Dead Redemption 2 has become one of my top ten games of all time, but that part is so so stupid.

Maybe if Biden’s people sit down and carefully explain to the Bernie Bros that all their ideas are stupid, they’ll be happy they lost.

The majority of Democrats are jamming Biden down the Democrats’ throat. Bernie Bros shouldn’t put up with it.

Bernie Sanders needs to run as an independent. The Democrats may think he smells funny, but I’m sure the rest of the country will vote for him.

COVID-19 Is Your Friend

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I know y’all are tired of hearing about the COVID-19 strain of Coronavirus. Me too. I mean, the H1N1 flu killed 12,469 in the U.S. alone in 2009, according to the CDC. But everybody is pissing their pants over COVID-19, which just yesterday reached 1,000 reported cases in the U.S. Not deaths. That number is 31. Total cases. Compare that to 60.8 million cases of H1N1 in the U.S. in 2009, and 274,304 hospitalizations.

So the panic is overblown, in relation to 2009. What’s different? Trump is president, not Obama.

But there is a good thing from all this weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. The Congresscritters are so concerned about COVID-19 that Congress might adjourn.

Members plan to raise concerns with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., at their weekly leadership meeting Monday afternoon, two sources said. It’s Pelosi’s decision whether to keep the House in session or make changes in the schedule.

[Source: NBC News]

And you were worried that nothing good could come from this.