Overnight Open Thread

Alrighty let's get down to it. Last call for the weekend.

Kids Today and Their Stupid Fashions

If it's not jeggings, it's the w-necks and the nerts.

And yes pants will be required for tonight's ONT.

Going To Camp Wingnut 2011?
Dan Collins at POWIP is putting together a conservative-friendly camping-palooza this August in Northeast Vermont. The idea is to have a nice week in cabins amid beautiful scenery where conservatives and their families can hang out in a friendly atmosphere. Sort of like CPAC minus all the wonkery.

Cabins, with WiFi, run $800/week for either 6 or 4 (I believe there is a Vermont 9% accommodations tax on top of that). They include kitchenettes, though there is a lodge that serves meals and a tavern. Activities include fishing (there’s nice trout in these parts), canoeing and other boating, bicycling (there are some wonderful trails in the area), hiking, and golf within a half hour’s drive. It’s probably easiest, if you are going to fly, to go to Burlington, VT (BTV Airport), but you could fly into Montreal, particularly if you’re coming from elsewhere in Canada or from overseas.

Breitbart Being Sued by Shirley Sherrod
Given that she seems to be ground zero in the whole Pigford scandal this seems like a bad idea. Now she's open to all kind of legal deposing by Breitbart and I'm guessing he's got a whole list of unpleasant questions to ask.

3 Things About Islam You Probably Didn't Know (But Should Know)

Al Gore Predicted Ice-Free North Pole Within Two Years
But given his track record I'm going long on polar ice.

The Goracle made the same prediction to a German audience in 2008. He told them that “the entire North Polarized cap will disappear in 5 years.”
5 years?… What will Santa do?
But, this wasn’t the first time Gore made his ice-free prediction. Gore’s been predicting this since 2007. That means that by next year the North Pole should be completely melted.

Oh noes: How I Accidentally Went On A Date With A Hobo Killer
Of course she says this like it's a bad thing albeit not a deal-breaker.

We continued to chat and he apologized for his English being less than perfect. I made a small (innocent!) joke, meant to make him feel better and lighten the mood: “Well, unless you’ve killed a hobo or something, I think we’ll get along.”

Well, guess what? Guess who killed a hobo? Right.
“Actually,” he began. “I feel the need to tell you this.” He then launched into a sad, scary story about defending himself against a drunk homeless man in the streets of Cuzco.

Is Modern Fantasy All Nihilism and Edginess?
Here Leo Grin complains that most modern fantasy authors seem more concerned with 'edginess' and going against convention than telling a good satisfying story.

Honor is replaced with debasement, romance with filth, glory with defeat, and hope with despair. Edgy? Nah, just punk kids farting in class and getting some giggles from the other mouth-breathers.

It’s quite rich to see many of the guys writing fantasy today being praised for (to once again quote Publisher’s Weekly talking about Joe Abercrombie) successfully exposing the “madness, passion, and horror of war.” How soon we forget that some of the early work of J.R.R. Tolkien — the man who pioneered the selfsame High Fantasy now being dragged “down into the gutter” to make it suitably “edgy” — was penned while he sat in the trenches of World War I, even while most his closest friends were being killed. Tolkien later wrote the a sizable amount of The Lord of the Rings during the Second World War, while worrying about two of his sons as they headed off to do their part.

And on a related note the term 'dwarves' seems to be overtaking 'dwarfs'. And apparently this is all due to Tolkien's influence. He explicitly invented the new plural to capture a sense of antiquity:

It may be observed that in this book as in The Hobbit the form dwarves is used, although the dictionaries tell us that the plural of dwarf is dwarfs. It should be dwarrows (or dwerrows), if singular and plural had each gone its own way down the years, as have man and men, or goose and geese. But we no longer speak of a dwarf as often as we do of a man, or even of a goose, and memories have not been fresh enough among Men to keep hold of a special plural for a race now abandoned to folk-tales, where at least a shadow of truth is preserved, or at last to nonsense-stories in which they have become mere figures of fun.

How Did Dinosaurs Have Sex?
As best we can tell very awkwardly and carefully. Also be careful if you google this - Rule 34 applies.

The Abbey Road Live Cam
Watch live video of the famous crossing that the Beatles made famous. And people escaping death while trying to re-create the famous photo.

There Can Be Only Three!
So Hollywood is planning a reboot of the whole Highlander franchise. But this times it's going to be different the same:

Summit plans to expand on the original “Highlander” premise of immortals hunting each other through the ages. The new pic will center on the immortal Scottish swordsman Connor MacLeod, who must confront a murderous barbarian — the last of his kind — who lusts for a fabled prize.

6 Famous Artists You Didn't Know Were Perverts
Superman, Archie, Gore Vidal, and Gene Roddenberry?

Weekly AoSHQ Commenter Standings
Top 10 commenters:
1 [416 comments] 'Vic' [58.39 posts/day]
2 [362 comments] 'Kratos (Ghost of Sparta)'
3 [338 comments] 'curious'
4 [326 comments] 'garrett'
5 [293 comments] 'Soothsayer has a problem with Wang Dong'
6 [256 comments] 'FlaviusJulius'
7 [255 comments] 'Merovign, Bond Villain'
8 [250 comments] 'runningrn'
9 [246 comments] 'kbdabear'
10 [240 comments] 'iknowtheleft'

Top 10 sockpuppeteers:
1 [77 names] 'kbdabear' [10.81 unique names/day]
2 [55 names] 'Cicero'
3 [55 names] 'garrett'
4 [50 names] '18-1'
5 [47 names] 'Romeo13'
6 [44 names] 'Fish the Impaler'
7 [43 names] 'andycanuck hey-ho hey-ho free the nickless and logprof two'
8 [40 names] 'toby928▒: Free nickless the still-banned (99.174.64.43)'
9 [39 names] 'fluffy'
10 [32 names] 't-bird'

The group. Yeah.

Tonight's post brought to you by disappointing Valentines

Notice: Posted by permission of AceCorp LLC. Please e-mail overnight open thread tips to maetenloch at gmail. Otherwise send tips to Ace.

posted by Maetenloch at 09:22 PM

| Access Comments