Too Stupid for Words category archive

Some Republican is alarmed that Democrats might force something French down our throats–the metric system.

Steve considers:

But I do understand the Republican fear of the metric system. It would bring them into the 18th century, and that was certainly a scary place to be. Why, there was a revolution back then, with real live tea parties . . .

It just keeps coming, fast and furious.

Why is my telly vision subjecting me to an advertisement for a homeopathic remedy for doggy pain?

Homeopathy is crap. But it appears to be really lucrative crap.

Oh. My. Goodness.

I am now waiting for Court TruTV to start a new “World’s Dumbest” series.

Via Atrios.

An off-duty Dover police officer, who attempted to restrain a reckless driver at the Dover Mall, had his foot run over when the car’s three other occupants tried to flee arriving officers, police reported today.

The mopes are in the pokey.

On top of everything else, one of them hit the officer.

Stupid goes all the way to the bone.

. . . why is it that whenever conservatives want to attack President Obama they invoke George W. Bush?

And Bozeman, Montana, is determined to make it more so. It is demanding that applicants for public jobs surrender their user names and passwords to social networking sites:

Speaking with a local Montana TV news station, City attorney Greg Sullivan says Bozeman takes privacy seriously. But he defends the burg’s log-in grab. “So, we have positions ranging from fire and police, which require people of high integrity for those positions, all the way down to the lifeguards and the folks that work in city hall here. So we do those types of investigations to make sure the people that we hire have the highest moral character and are a good fit for the City,” he said.

Giving up your user name and password violates the terms of service for most social networking sites.

As my three or four regular readers know, I regularly point with derision at those whose think what they do in cyberspace is somehow secret or private. But Bozeman is out of line here.

I have been to Bozeman. It’s probably not a good idea for them to artificially narrow the pool of prospective public employees.

It cut Dan Froomkin loose.

Supposedly, his column didn’t “work” any more.

Mr. Froomkin just had a consistent history of getting things right.

My three or four regular readers know that I have quoted him frequently and that his analyses just as frequently turned out to be spot on.

Apparently, being spot on doesn’t fit with the Post’s editorial policy these days.

All they have left in their stable of regular writers who’s worth a damn is Gene Weingarten.

It’s one thing to watch a newspaper die. It’s quite another to watch one kill itself.

I was thinking earlier today on just how the wingnut reaction to everything seems to be to monger war. When all you believe in is a hammer &c., I reckon.

Noz had similar thoughts.

I will grant that killing people occasionally solves problems, but it really doesn’t serve well as a first resort.

That’s “deep end” as in “off the.”

. . . the Kleberg County (Texas–ed.) commissioners on Monday unanimously designated “heaven-o” as the county’s official greeting. The reason: “hello” contains the word “hell.”

“When you go to school and church, they tell you ‘hell’ is negative and ‘heaven’ is positive,'” said the 56-year-old Canales, who owns the Kingsville Flea Market. “I think it’s time that we set a new precedent, to tell our kids that we are positive adults.”

Via Wait Wait.

Duncan explains.

Advertising, advertising everywhere, nor any thought to think.

Advertising, advertising everywhere, and Twitter use will shrink.

She’s (Jen Diaz) closing in on 100 followers of her business account, people she hopes to turn into customers for her store, Oh Scrap, after its grand opening.

“It is such free, great advertising,” she said of the microblogging service. “People who don’t use it are at a disadvantage, especially with the younger crowd.”

(snip)

But businesses around Charlotte – ranging from Fortune 500 powerhouses such as Duke Energy to restaurants such as Matt’s Chicago Dog – are joining the social networking site.

Via McClatchy.

Apple has banned another program from its iPhone Apps store.

This program, called Eucalyptus, goes directly to Project Gutenberg, a highly respected repository for public domain ebooks, to allow the user to download ebooks. I have, in fact, often used Project Gutenberg, downloading books by Mark Twain, R. Austin Freeman, and others.

Seems the issue is that, among it’s other umpty-ump thousands of titles, the site contains Sir Richard Burton’s (no, not that Richard Burton; the sober one) translation of the Kama Sutra.

The Guardian reports:

However, not only does Eucalyptus not actually contain the book itself – users would have to actively find it and then download it – but the same title is already accessible through a number of other popular ebook applications for the iPhone, and even through the handset’s web browser.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Kama Sutra, it is sort of a poetic Indian “how to” of sex and love. Only a teenaged boy could find it at all prurient.

Of course, a teen-aged boy can find the Hanes catalog prurient.

Is Apple hiring teen-aged Mac fanboys to run the Apps Store? Inquiring minds want to know.

The straight and narrow . . . minds:

Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. made his first public comments today about the university’s suspension of the campus Democratic party club.

“That club still has the right to exist,“ Falwell said, although it cannot use the university’s name in its activities.

Furrfu.

Includinding Yellowstone National Park. And Zion. And Bryce Canyon. And Grand Canyon. And Kolob Canyon. And Shenandoah. And several others.

There is no freaking reason on or off Earth that anyone needs to pack heat to visit a National Park.

Unless I guess the gun is his Viagra.

I visited the parks. Brendan made the phone call.

(When I read this story, I thought I was back in high school in the olden days when the fight was over boys having long hair.)

A local school district, which is down the road a piece and on the right, mandates that girls wear skirts or dresses at graduation.

Christiana High School senior Morgan McQueen does not wear skirts or dresses, and she does not want to start now just to attend her graduation ceremony.

But that’s what the school says she has to do.

High school graduations in this part of the world are usually held outside to accommodate the crowds and normally take place on a broiling hot day–even if all the surrounding days are cool, graduation day is broiling hot. It’s a law of nature.

Unless it’s cold and downpoury (it’s never just rainy on graduation day–on graduation day, it doesn’t rain, it monsoons–another law of nature). Then the ceremony is held in a broiling hot, steamy gym whose HVAC is incapable of dealing with the crowd.

Also, what the students wear will be covered by polyester graduation robes which are designed primarily to cut costs while raising the skin temperature by five degrees (I know the robes are polyester–I have two of them left over from various kids hanging in the attic), since polyester is to air circulation as a space suit is to a vacuum.

Let ’em wear shorts and halter tops (remember halter tops?) under their gowns if they want.

That would probably still be more formal than what they wear to school every day.

Addendum, the Following Tuesday:

They’re making an exception for the girls who are protesting. The girls have to wear slacks and ties, like the boys. They are going to “study” the graduation dress code.

The ACLU is looking at the case.

Put butter on it. The dress code is toast.

Words fail me.

As my mother would have said, “The biggest nothing.”

Addendum:

The Booman.

Afterthought:

If mustardgate is all they got, they truly got nothing.

Delaware Supreme Court Chief Justice Myron T. Steele, the national face of Delaware’s powerful and highly respected courts, used his state e-mail account Monday to send a sexually suggestive video to 38 men.

That’s what the home computer is for, for Pete’s sake.

The video is here. Any grunt-level employee would have already been fired.

Sure, the BCS system is stupid, but this is even more stupider.

Republicanism: Slogans looking for a cause.

Texas Rep. Joe Barton likened college football’s Bowl Championship Series to “communism” Friday, even as he made the case that the system is what it is because of money.

In his opening remarks during a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s commerce, trade and consumer protection subcommittee, Barton — the panel’s ranking Republican — recalled the hearing he held on the same matter several years ago.

“That time, I had hoped through a spirit of volunteerism, the BCS would decide to go to a playoff system,” he said. “That hasn’t happened yet. It is interesting that people of good will — I think everybody on whatever side of the issue is a person of good will — keeps trying to tinker with the current system.”

“It’s like communism, you can’t fix it.”

And the cause they find is . . . .

. . . . college bowl games?

Furrfu.

H/T David Dayen via Facebook.