Overnight Open Thread (7-10-2012)

The Complete Guide to Troll Arguments

Ah who am I kidding - no one reads this crap. So how about some kittehs instead?

And for you freaky word-loving-nancy-boy-types here are part 2 and part 3. Let's just say that a certain Mr. A. Sullivan has practically made a career off of this argument.

Bad Idea Jeans 2012: Let's Apply Title IX to Science Enrollment

Because guaranteeing opportunity for women somehow always means reducing opportunities for men.

Quotas limiting the number of male students in science may be imposed by the Education Department in 2013. The White House has promised that "new guidelines will also be issued to grant-receiving universities and colleges" spelling out "Title IX rules in the science, technology, engineering and math fields." These guidelines will likely echo existing Title IX guidelines that restrict men's percentage of intercollegiate athletes to their percentage in overall student bodies, thus reducing the overall number of intercollegiate athletes.

Best case scenario is that engineering schools invent a new major, Holistic Engineering, with minimal math requirements that they can fill with women to keep the quota for male students high. This will keeps the feds off their back, lets the geer geeks interact with girls, and since the 'holistic engineers' won't ever actually build anything, no one will die. Win-win baby.

Coups 'R' Us

While the Atlantic's James Fallows was fretting that the Supreme Court might carry out a 'coup' against the government by not upholding ObamaCare, it turns out that back in 1991 he was wishing for an actual military coup:

Fallows wrote: "I am beginning to think that the only way the national government can do anything worthwhile is to invent a security threat and turn the job over to the military."

...According to our economic and political theories, most agencies of the government have no special standing to speak about the general national welfare. Each represents a certain constituency; the interest groups fight it out. The military, strangely, is the one government institution that has been assigned legitimacy to act on its notion of the collective good. "National defense" can make us do things-train engineers, build highways-that long-term good of the nation or common sense cannot.

Why don't the plebes ever get that a dictatorship is necessary?

Conversations Starters at John Adams-Fest

If you're a newbie, here are a few ice-breakers to avoid those awkward silences.

Have you been to the bathroom yet?

You simply can't have a John Quincy Adams party without an alligator in the bathroom. The president had a pet gator, which was gifted to him by the Marquis de Lafayette. He kept it in a tub in the East Room, claiming that he enjoyed watching "the spectacle of guests fleeing from the room in terror." If you're looking for cheap entertainment, stock the tub with an inflatable gator (or splurge on a real one). Then sit back and enjoy the show.

Plus it's never really the wrong time to yell out 'Lets' all go skinny dippin' in the Potomac!!!'

The First Photo Ever Posted on the Web

Posted by Tim Berners-Lee himself back in 1992:

The pretty ladies in the image are members of a parody band comprised of CERN laboratory employees -- yes, the same lab in Geneva responsible for the recent discovery of the Higgs Boson. Adoringly known as Les Horribles Cernettes (The Horrible CERN Girls), the group shares its initials with a certain particle accelerator.

Ah that Delightful Middle East:

Islamic Law: Beautiful Women In Mosque Offensive

"It is offensive for an attractive or young woman to come to the mosque to pray (O: or for her husband to permit her), though not offensive for women who are not young or attractive when this is unlikely to cause temptation." -- 'Umdat al-Salik (Reliance of the Traveller) F12.4

Sure she could wear a burqa but the faithful still might be tempted via their burqa-dar.

How To Debate Jordanian-Style

Never rebut unless your point has a caliber that begins with a 4.

What Do You Do When Your Record Label Won't Negotiate Digital Rights?

Well if you're Def Leppard , you re-record your entire back catalog. And it turns out that exactly copying yourself from 25 years ago is harder than you think.

While the business side seems cut and dried, Elliott says the creative part of recreating songs that date back 25 years or more is not. "You just don't go in and say, 'Hey guys, let's record it,' and it's done in three minutes," Elliott notes. "We had to study those songs, I mean down to the umpteenth degree of detail, and make complete forgeries of them. Time-wise it probably took as long to do as the originals, but because of the technology it actually got done quicker as we got going. But trying to find all those sounds...like where am I gonna find a 22-year-old voice? I had to sing myself into a certain throat shape to be able to sing that way again. It was really hard work, but it was challenging, and we did have a good laugh over it here and there."

Scandis in the Wild Part XIV

Know your enemy, learn their ways, and harvest responsibly.

The Yahoo AoSHQ group. You know the way.

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posted by Maetenloch at 10:31 PM

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