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Happy Thanksgiving 2017!

Click the comic to see the source.

The turkey isn’t referred to as “India” in Turkey alone; the Polish do it too. It’s called diiq Hindi (“Indian rooster”) in many Arabian countries and “bird of India” in Russian.

I lived in Canada for decades, and thanks to bilingual food packaging, I know that the French word for “turkey” is dinde. What never occurred to me until I looked it up is that dinde is a compressed form of d’Inde, which means “from India”.

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The Current Situation

If you need a reason to be FOR net neutrality, just look at who’s AGAINST it

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, chances are that you’ve seen a lot of arguments made by well-known, well-respected people in favor of net neutrality. I’m going to turn things around and show you who’s arguing against it.

Rush Limbaugh

Limbaugh — the kind of guy who believes so much in the sanctity of marriage that he’s done it himself four times — spends an hour and twelve minutes throwing in every wingnut conspiracy theory into the debate. I strongly recommend you skim through this broadcast instead of listening to the whole thing from start to finish, because it’ll only make you dumber.

Americans for Prosperity, a.k.a. the Koch Brothers

Three things you should know about Americans for Prosperity:

  1. They’re an astroturfing organization funded by the Koch Brothers.
  2. Politifact has never given an Americans for Prosperity statement a “true” rating. Most of the ratings they’ve given them are “mostly false”, “false”, and “pants on fire”.
  3. Despite being funded by two of the richest men in the world, they can’t make a video with better production values than one made by kids in their parents’ basement.

Breitbart


The people who brought you Steve Bannon, the alt-right, and today’s toxic discourse would also like to kill net neutrality.

Megyn Kelly during her FOX News years

During her time at FOX News, Megyn Kelly has claimed:

  1. People needed to stop trying to take the whiteness away from “historical figures” like Santa and Jesus (who in her mind, looks like the barista at a really good coffee shop, and not the way he probably looked).
  2. A 15-year-old black girl manhandled by a cop deserved some blame for being “no saint.”
  3. Getting hit with pepper spray by cops is no big deal because it’s just “a food product.”
  4. That people in Colorado can commit voter fraud simply by printing out their own ballots at home.
  5. Net neutrality is yet another way the then-Obama government is trying to take more control over your life.

Stefan Molyneux

You may not have heard of this guy — and you should be grateful. He’s a grown man who spent 42 minutes on a rant about the live-action Beauty and the Beast, a paladin in the incredibly pathetic MGTOW movement (short for Men Going Their Own Way, an offshoot of men’s rights activism that advocates male separatism), has a strange beef with physicists, gets along swimmingly well with some of the alt-right’s darlings, and was one of the first people that Google Manifestbro James Damore ran to after getting fired.

Guess what he thinks about net neutrality:

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Anime scene of the day

Found via a Twitter account called “out of context animeeeeeeeeeeeee”.

Given the way a lot of anime storylines go, I can’t tell if the screenshot above is totally out of context, or if all the context you need is right there.

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Navy apologizes for “dongtrails” drawn with one of their airplanes

It sounds like a plot point from a movie titled American Pie: The Naval Academy Years, but it actually happened — the U.S. Navy had to apologize because one of their airplanes was used to create a giant contrail penis in the sky of Okanogan County, Washington.

In many coming-of-age movies, an authority figure has to apologize for the young protagonist’s inappropriate and tasteless actions, and the apology sounds so straight-laced that it becomes funny in context. The Navy’s official statement on the matter has pretty much the same effect:

“The Navy holds its aircrew to the highest standards and we find this absolutely unacceptable, of zero training value and we are holding the crew accountable.”

I have questions (of course I have questions!):

  1. Can we make “dongtrails” the official word for this kind of skywriting?
  2. Planes — especially Navy planes — aren’t like cars. You can’t just take one out for a spin without informing someone; you have to file a flight plan specifying where you’re taking off from, the route you’re taking, and where you’ll land. What kind of flight plan was filed for this jaunt?
  3. While the act shows terrible judgement and reflects poorly on the Navy, drawing a giant sky penis does require some precision flying, including a hairpin turn. I’m not saying that the people involved should go undisciplined, but perhaps their skills could be channeled towards better, constructive, and even tasteful directions.
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I like these new honest instructions on soup cans

This isn’t real, but it should be.

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“A Christmas Story”, 2017 edition

This photoshoppery would work equally well with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in Trump’s place.

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Dessert hummus is proof that we live in an age of wonders

While grocery shopping at Publix earlier this week, I noticed something odd on the packaging in the hummus fridge: the words “dark chocolate”. I thought that I was mistaken, but a closer look not only confirmed my first observation, but revealed even more oddball flavors.

I picked up the Boar’s Head dark chocolate dessert hummus, which is described thusly on its website:

For a limited time, experience a sweet indulgence with all the goodness you have come to expect from Boars Head Hummus. Our Dark Chocolate Hummus is crafted with only non-GMO project verified and gluten free ingredients. All-natural steamed chickpeas are blended with rich cocoa, organic sugar, and vanilla, to offer a smooth, creamy texture and a decadent flavor that pairs wonderfully with pretzels, strawberries, and more.

In case you were curious, it clocks in at 80 calories per 2-tablespoon serving, and the tub contains 8 such servings.

Beside the Boar’s Head dessert hummus was a selection from a company called “Delighted by Hummus” (“db” for short) with these flavors:

  • brownie batter
  • choc-o-mint
  • snickerdoodle
  • vanilla bean

If the name “Delighted by Hummus” sound familiar, it might be because you saw the Shark Tank episode in which its founder Makenzie Marzluff accepted $600,000 of VC money from Mark Cuban. Here’s a summary of what happened:

I’ll report on my experience with Boar’s Head dark chocolate hummus as well as with the Delight By Hummus ones when I get them. In the meantime, here’s some dessert hummus reading: