Actual Stupidity
the Activia refund
In a column titled “Artificial Stupidity” that accuses liberals of being poorly-educated dolts indoctrinated by Marxist college professors, the received wisdom is that it is best not to commit any particularly stupid mistakes lest that title come back and bite you in the buttocks. Apparently, that memo never made it to the desk of Hoohah Institution fellow Tom Sowell who, in a column of that very name, whips up a whopper which I am sure will tickle (no, no, not that way!) all you SadlyNauts.
A woman with a petition went among the crowds attending a state fair, asking people to sign her petition demanding the banning of dihydroxymonoxide. She said it was in our lakes and streams, and now it was in our sweat and urine and tears.
She collected hundreds of signatures to ban dihydroxymonoxide — a fancy chemical name for water. A couple of comedians were behind this ploy. But there is nothing funny about its implications. It is one of the grim and dangerous signs of our times.
Dihydroxymonoxide is a fancy chemical name for water? Sadly, no! Dihydroxymonoxide would be two hydroxyl radicals (O-H) bonded somehow with a single oxygen atom and whatever this concoction would be called, if it could even exist, it wouldn’t be water, which using this nomenclature would be called dihydromonoxide.
But let’s cut Sowell some slack here. He probably wrote his column after a wanking session over one of those Hydroxycut advertisements and he had boobies, bikinis, naughty bits and Hydroxycut on his, er, mind.
Wait – we’re “poorly-educated dolts” now? I thought we were over-educamated idiiots. Goddamn it’s hard to keep up anymore.
HO-O-OH accurately describes my usual reaction to one of Sowell’s columns.
The success of Candid Camera-type stunts are proof of Liberal Fascism.
dihydroxymonoxide
I knew Keebler wouldn’t leave the Hydrox cookie alone!
By the way, TinTin, better correct this Urban Dickshunairy entry:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dihydroxy%20monoxide
Guess who considers the Hoover Institution to be an academic and intellectual arsenal?
Hitch
Everyone’s stupid so you shouldn’t do nothing nohow.
Oh, you think you’re so damn fancy with your ‘books’ and your ‘periodic table’ and your gay as lists of ‘what stuff is called’.
What Thomas Sowell is writin’ about is the sort of truth you find in the Bible and the Constitution, at least what I hear of ’em on the radio.
The pride of Ouachita Baptist University.
It is one of the grim and dangerous signs of our times.
True indeed. Along with jeans sagged low, all that hippy-hop music, from your first cigarette to your last dying day, that rhymes with P and that stands for Phool.
I can haz syndikated column now?
Pity Sowell doesn’t accept comments.
Yeah! Those PC liberals! Always contradicting science and saying the earth was created in 7 days! Always saying evolution is “just a theory” and demanding schools teach “both sides” of the evolution “debate”! Why, I’ve even heard some of them say that the world is only 6,000 years old! Can you believe that?
had boobies, bikinis, naughty bits and Hydroxycut on his, er, mind.
You say that like it’s a bad thing…
A woman with a petition went among the crowds attending a state fair, asking people to sign her petition demanding the banning of dihydroxymonoxide. She said it was in our lakes and streams, and now it was in our sweat and urine and tears.
She collected hundreds of signatures to ban dihydroxymonoxide — a fancy chemical name for water. A couple of comedians were behind this ploy.
Well, die-hard Conservatives Penn & Teller had a camera crew get signatures, though not at a fair, and a kid did it for a science fair, both of which are easily verified via Google, wikipedia, Snopes, etc. Woman getting hundreds of signatures at state fair I can find no evidence for. The whole column is a smorgasbord of half-remembered but unresearched and uncorrected POOP, and as such is a prime example of the type of ignorance he abhors.
Look you’re missing Sowell’s point. The people at the state fair were dumb. And everybody knows that if you’re looking for politically correct, overeducated liberal types, you go to the state fair….
You can comment on Sowell at http://townhall.com/
It’s often quite a lot of fun, though I’ve never seen a single one of those columnists answering.
It really disturbs me that the Republicans have worked so hard to minimize the importance of an education, while simultaneously encouraging complaints about affirmative action.
I mean, here, education is the single greatest opportunity the fucking world hands a man or woman, and these nimrods are all about “oh no! Books are dangerous things!” while the people they nominally support would ALL be helped by a nice sized dose of science and math education, which would give them a leg up on the competition for good paying jobs which history tells us will only become scarcer as the years pass.
But no, it’s about the nigras and Messicans taking their broom-pushin’ jobs away!
And everybody knows that if you’re looking for politically correct, overeducated liberal types, you go to the state fair….
Liberals do love themselves some deep-fried butter sticks! (As long as there’s no transfat in the cooking oil).
Thanks, Sub. I lifted TinTin’s chemical analysis and posted it there under the heading “HEY! MORON!”
I always take my Hennessey with a splash of dihydroxymonoxide. It’s the pip.
If you freeze dihydro monoxide I hear that there’s a game you can play on it with big heavy stones and brooms, but that’s probably an urban legend.
but that’s probably an urban legend
It curls my toes to think of it.
It really disturbs me that the Republicans have worked so hard to minimize the importance of an education, while simultaneously encouraging complaints about affirmative action.
Even a relatively small amount of actual education would put the Republicans out of business. That’s why they hate it so much.
Case in point: Tom Sowell writes a column, beating his drum about how stupid liberals (wtf?) are because they might want to ban a substance that doesn’t exist. Your average conservative dope will read that and think “by gosh, he’s right, liberals are dumb”. An educated person would take a second to verify what that chemical compound really is. An educated person would also realize that signing a petition, believing you are banning a harmful substance in your own drinking water, doesn’t necessarily make you a liberal. An educated person would think something like, “What kind of stupid asshole would try this tactic to prove a point which cannot be proved with this tactic?” An educated person would read Sowell’s column and think “What an idiot–Pwned by the very thing he bemoans in his column, which he didn’t bother to research!”
Well, then, we’ll just sweep all discussion of it away…
Well, then, we’ll just sweep all discussion of it away…
And in the end, the point you make is equal to the point you take.
This kind of shit is fun, but I bet if you went to the Southern Baptist Convention and began passing around petitions against government-sponsored mitosis or to ban unregistered gametes, you’d play the same game.
My favorite prank as a kid was to walk around to random stranger and accuse them of being bilateral and a homo sapien.
This column reminds me of the chain email from a couple of years ago, urging people not to eat margerine because it is “One moelcule form beeng plastik!!!111!!!!”
OHNOX! PLASTIC?
Who believes this shit?
Some people somewhere were manipulated by being given bad, unverified information and an appeal to emotion and asked to take some action on it, so he writes an article chock full of bad, unverified information and appeal to emotion and expects his readers to take some action on it? Yipe?
DHMO.org calls it dihydrogen monoxide, I call it hydrogen alcohol.
Two hydroxy radicals bounded to a single oxygen atom? That would be Trioxidane.
Well, then, we’ll just sweep all discussion of it away…
And in the end, the point you make is equal to the point you take.
If y’all had any self-respect, you’d stop making puns. They make you sound like a hack.
They make you sound like a hack.
It’s just the luck of the draw.
My favorite prank as a kid was to walk around to random stranger and accuse them of being bilateral and a homo sapien.
I hear that works best with thespians. Especially the ones that masticate.
If there’s anything this blahg needs, it’s more talk about stones and putting things on the button. Also too, HARD.
Oh no, the Washington Post editorial page is either about to has a sad or will turn on the giant newshole vacuum so that no one ever sees this:
The Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl literally falsified documents released by the Colombian military and by local press by adding in words not present in the original documents which suggested that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez had been aiding the so-called “leftist” FARC narco-guerrillas in neighboring Colombia.
Now the general in charge of the U.S. Southern Command says he has seen no ‘government-to-terrorist’ connections between Venezuela and Colombian rebels.
Again: “We have not seen any connections specifically that I can verify…”
Fuck you, Fred Hiatt. And double fuck you, Jackson Diehl, you cheap lying sack of shit fraud.
Time for the David Horowitz / Glenn Beck brigades to break out their hand-wavy list of X generals in the military who are known to be Islamocommunistical Obamanazis.
I hear that works best with thespians. Especially the ones that masticate.
Unless they’re matriculating. Things get bloody messy then.
Less funny but more obscure would have been to call it by the official IUPAC name, oxidane. Or by its CAS number 7732-18-5.
by adding in words not present in the original documents
Like how the Constitution suddenly contains no language about “promote the general welfare”?
Or by its CAS number 7732-18-5.
Isn’t that your mom’s number?
I thought that’s what I copied off the men’s room wall.
“It’s just the luck of the draw.”
Home from work, so it’s time for a shot, rocks. (Woodford Reserve, bad day at work…)
Like how the Constitution suddenly contains no language about “promote the general welfare”?
Or mandates “small” government? Yeah.
Thanks for the links, El Cid. Nice work to General Fraser.
Home from work, so it’s time for a shot, rocks
Don’t you mean “in the house”?
I’m pretty sure that the original Constushun said anything that the gubmit did ‘for’ the people was socialism and un-Constushunal.
Oh no, the Washington Post editorial page is either about to has a sad or will turn on the giant newshole vacuum so that no one ever sees this:
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE.
Don’t you mean “in the house”?
Don’t YOU mean “in DA house”?
This blog really tickles me. Yes, like that.
Everyone should visit The Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division’s info page. I’ve often used it as a teaching tool. As Dragon-King Wangchuck points out, they refer to it as Dihydrogen Monoxide, but it hardly matters… precision in language is for pointy-headed liberal college professors who are wrecking our youth because they aren’t teaching them the proper names for things. Ummm… er… or how to think… and stuff.
Or by its CAS number 7732-18-5.
Isn’t that your mom’s number?
I thought that’s what I copied off the men’s room wall.
I thought those were her measurements…
“Don’t you mean ‘in the house’?”
Isn’t double-punning a Federal offense? (I may get hammered, though.)
I’m pretty sure that the original Constushun said anything that the gubmit did ‘for’ the people was socialism and un-Constushunal.
And that government of the people, by the people and f…HOLY SHIT! Lincoln was a socalits?
Hey folks, this just in from Gallup;
http://www.gallup.com/poll/126614/Americans-Say-Jobs-Top-Problem-Deficit-Future.aspx
When asked what the biggest problem facing us right now is, the American people respond thusly;
31% – Unemployment
24% – Economy in general
20% – Health Care
10% – Dissatisfaction with Government
8% – Federal Budget Deficit
HEY TEA PARTY – GO HOME AND FUCK YOURSELVES. NOBODY CARES.
Isn’t double-punning a Federal offense? (I may get hammered, though.)
It’s not federal–it’s still perfectly legal in the square states. Makes us feel like we smart as a whip.
I may get hammered, though
Three sheets to the wind, eh?
There is a website about dihydrogen monoxide:
Dihydrogen Monoxide – DHMO Homepage
Slightly OT (relates to stupidity and science), I made the mistake this morning of reading the comments to Jenny McCarthy’s latest diatribe against vaccines in the Huffington Post. Nothing sadder than parents proudly stating that they haven’t vaccinated their kids.
I don’t know about 3 sheets to the wind, but sometimes I get frisky and start to skip…
but sometimes I get frisky and start to skip…
Don’t hog all the fun.
Nothing to get excited about. It’s dihydrogen monoxide under the bridge, now.
Fixed.
Nothing sadder than parents proudly stating that they haven’t vaccinated their kids.
Ugh. You know what? I don’t give a shit if something happens to their kids–I consider it Darwinism in action. What does bug me is that it reduces herd immunity and puts kids who can’t get vaccines for medical reasons at risk. People who don’t vaccinate their kids are selfish, irrational assholes.
I don’t know if I can keep up with the puns any more — it’s HARD…
It’s dihydrogen monoxide under the bridge, now.
The bridge over anxious dihydrogen monoxide?
I don’t know if I can keep up with the puns any more — it’s HARD…
Here, I’m blanking my end.
oh no! Books are dangerous things!
That’s for sure. I got held up by a book last night! It stole my car, wallet and my virginity. It did all of this with a giant smile its face.
I don’t say it often enough — thanks to y’all for keeping me (relatively) sane! Time to go start work for the private client.
I don’t give a shit if something happens to their kids–I consider it Darwinism in action.
I wouldn’t care if the kids survived and the parents died, but that’s not what’s going to happen.
I got held up by a book last night! It stole my car, wallet and my virginity. It did all of this with a giant smile its face.
From Amazon, I’m guessing?
I don’t give a shit if something happens to their kids–I consider it Darwinism in action.
I wouldn’t care if the kids survived and the parents died, but that’s not what’s going to happen.
I actually do care if the children of morons die because their parents are morons. My blood sugar is just low because I had gummy worms for lunch.
From Amazon, I’m guessing?
The Borders patrol is falling down on the job
OK, that one hurt.
Just for my own mental well-being, Evolution with David Duchovny is based on historical evidence, correct?
oh no! Books are dangerous things!
That’s for sure. I got held up by a book last night! It stole my car, wallet and my virginity. It did all of this with a giant smile its face.
Was it Liberal Fascism? He’s a sociopathic bastard.
Everything David Duchovny ever did was entirely evidence-based. Especially that one Larry Sanders episode.
From Amazon, I’m guessing?
YEs! This was the book that got me!
You liberals who blog here just prove my point. I can see behind your veiled rhetoric, the proof is in the blogging, so to speak.
In fact, just a quick read here and its easy to ascertain that you converse with the Obama administration general that is teh de-facto spokesperson for Hugo Chavez, your de-facto leader, that your code language of freezing substances for curling refers to testicular torture and toe curling that you engage in against our fine military all the while shouting out casting numbers across the pages for your allies in government to pick up and run into the wind — three sheets high.
We at the Hoover Institute have our proverbial real eyes on you.
based on historical evidence
It’s true! I actually defeated a whole horde of invading lizard beings with just a squeeze bottle of Selsun Blue! And it left my scalp minty fresh and clean!
We at the Hoover Institute have our proverbial real eyes on you.
Try opening them, Tom. It’s liberating!
YEs! This was the book that got me!
That book does indeed only have one boob…
“We at the Hoover Institute have our proverbial real eyes on you.”
Would that be Herbert or J. Edgar?
And it left my scalp minty fresh and clean!
But what about the flakes?!?!?!?!?
This dihydrogen monoxide stunt was something that Penn and Teller did about ten years ago. They had a show on HBO called “Bullshit!” I think. They were pretty good at debunking UFOs and creationism and other crap but I got the feeling that Penn Jillette was/is a Libertarian. Sowell is really slacking off if he is digging up this ancient story. Probably filed it this morning and then hit the bars early for happy hour tacos.
I can see behind your veiled rhetoric
Naked PENIS reference.
We at the Hoover Institute have our proverbial real eyes on you
Proverbs 17:24
Wisdom is before him that hath understanding; but the eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth.
Ahh, Tom Sowell. Lazy as shit, as always. Betcha a dollar Dr. Tom just C&P’d this from a wingnut chain e-mail without looking up a damn thing.
As for Sowell’s intellectuals R st00p1d argument(s), he’s the genius who wrote once that Sirhan Sirhan was friggin Iranian. STFU, Sowell.
But what about the flakes?!?!?!?!?
Town Hall is off to the right.
Jesus, I have a warm spot in Hell prepared for idjits who do the “dihydrogen monoxide” schtick, right along the fire pits reserved for purveyors of “The World’s Smallest Political Quiz”.
It’s an ultra-cheap shot, an ever-popular opportunity with self-superior assbags to have a “HURR HURR PEOPLE IS SO STOOPID” at someone else’s expense, while accomplishing jack-shit. Yeah, guys, the American educational system sucks shit, and we have a anti-intellectual streak several parsecs wide in this country.
So can we do something constructive about it, like maybe take people who sign the petition aside and explain to them what “dihydrogen monoxide” is and explain some simple chemistry to them and maybe, I dunno, HELP THEM? Fuck no, let’s laugh at the morons. Christ.
And yeah, the irony of conservatives who’ve spent decades shitting all over the public schools complaining about dumb Americans, well, irony doesn’t go far enough. Why does Thomas Sowell hate America?
I got the feeling that Penn Jillette was/is a Libertarian.
He is. And a BDSM enthusiast. I don’t know if one has anything to do with the other.
And actually, if it does, I don’t want to know…
He is. And a BDSM enthusiast. I don’t know if one has anything to do with the other.
Yes, they are related: you get tied up with your own ideas.
We at the Hoover Institute have our
proverbial real eyesmouthnozzles on your anuses .Fuqst for obvious reasons.
Um, see above. Very top of the page.
Is Tom talking smack about my elitist PHONE?!
An educated person would also realize that signing a petition, believing you are banning a harmful substance in your own drinking water, doesn’t necessarily make you a liberal.
Are you kidding? Conservatives like toxins in their drinking water! Puts hair on your chest! If God didn’t want us to consume industrial pollutants, why did He put them in our faucet, COMRADE?
Keep your government hands off my municipal water supply!
the irony of conservatives who’ve spent decades shitting all over the public schools complaining about dumb Americans
I still can’t get over that he engages in everything he decries, and yet so clearly doesn’t see it. Seriously, that is the dumbest excuse for a column, utterly fact-free and illogical, nothing logically follows from anything else and it’s all pulled from his fundament and somehow LIBERALISM is to blame? WTF? BTW, the science fair the kid won by getting 43 petition signatures was in IDAHO. IN 1997.
BILL CLINTON WAS PRESIDENT. Take THAT, libs!
What are they trying to prove again? That ordinary people don’t know shit about science? Well, that’s why we leave these things to the experts and have the peer review system for publication. Or we could just leave science education to the Texas schoolboard and our climate change policy to the Gallup poll. Whatevs.
Say, what if we sold the naming rights for chemical compounds to the corporations that are producing them as waste? Brand names are much less confusing. And more fun!
But then you’d end up with poisons called “Safer” and stuff like th…
Wait, whut?
We can trust the Free Market. I mean, they were honest enough with Anusol.
And a BDSM enthusiast
Personal research?
Ew, I think I just threw up a little.
That’s for sure. I got held up by a book last night! It stole my car, wallet and my virginity. It did all of this with a giant smile its face.
Poor Esteev… he was saving himself for Hannah Giles.
I didn’t realize that so many college-educated liberals attended state fairs. I’ll bet that there are even more at county fairs.
“Why does Thomas Sowell hate America?”
Because his epidermis is showing, and there is nothing he can do about it.
BWAH-HAH-HAHHHHH.
Good thing you can’t get conservatives to demand action against things with scary and misleading names. For instance, they would never be so gullible as to believe that “death panels” would be part of the health care system.
Didn’t they recently find out that Jenny McCarthy’s kid actually _isn’t_ autistic?
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2009/05/jenny-mccarthys-son-was-never-autistic/
(Tragically, he is still being raised by Jenny McCarthy, a condition from which he may never recover.)
She collected hundreds of signatures to ban dihydroxymonoxide — a fancy chemical name for water.
So his whole article is based on the premise that the “liberals” at this fair were soooo stooopid that they didn’t know that the petition was really just a joke banning water and yet, and yet, he feels the need to explain the joke to his readers. I guess he knows his audience.
Also the results of this little test can’t be considered scientific since we don’t know anything about the size of the petition girl’s boobies.
Wasn’t there a scene in “Reuben, Reuben” where a redneck beats up the sad-sack Welsh poet for calling him a heterosexual?
Now that’s the kind of scientific test we need more of!
Sowell has always been a moron, but not knowing what H2O is, well, that’s practically ridiculous.
Silly! Don’t you know that dihydroxy monoxide is
OHOHO ?
You see, the subtle Herr Doktor Perffesor Sowell is having a little joke. (Don’t look at the illustration atop the posting, please.)
Or does that paper he’s reading have some hot pix of ladies who are no better than they ought to be?
This dihydrogen monoxide stunt was something that Penn and Teller did about ten years ago. They had a show on HBO called “Bullshit!” I think.
Showtime, and its still on. They’re both libertarians to the degree of near-psychosis, but on topics where their political leanings don;t impinge too much they do solid debunking. To balance out this whole petition nonsense, they’ve done the same “experiment” and gotten dozens of good ol’ red-blooded American yahoos to sign petitions to give up the right to free speech.
“Although H2O3 has not been directly detected in biological systems, its chemistry in vivo has been a source of considerable speculation and its in vitro properties have been the source of considerable theoretical and experimental treatments.” http://www.rexroad.org/ab/img2.html
Well, I thought it was interesting.