Too Stupid for Words category archive

Violating a electronic confidence is still violating a confidence.

As a bonus extra, this also illustrates the corrosiveness of the self-righteous bigotry sometimes fueled by religion.

Wingnut twits.

’nuff said.

Lake Stevens (Washington–ed.) police say officers arrested the 35-year-old man earlier this month after he tried to break into a home for a second time to retrieve the cell phone he left the first time he broke in.

Given that one’s date of birth is likely a matter of public record, this would seem rather frivolous.

An actress is suing Amazon.com in federal court in Seattle for more than $1 million for revealing her age on its Internet Movie Database website and refusing to remove the reference when asked.

The actress is not named in the lawsuit filed Thursday that refers to her as Jane Doe. It says she lives in Texas and is of Asian descent and has an Americanized stage name.

I’m certain that the lawyers will make out all right.

Putting down persons in public usually draws attention.

Officials in a New Jersey school district are investigating claims that a high school teacher who is faculty adviser to a prayer group posted anti-gay remarks on her Facebook page.

A lawyer who was contacted by a parent tells The Star-Ledger of Newark that he saw posts by Viki Knox before they were removed and that he alerted the Union Township district.

I have long wondered why persons will believe stuff they read on the innerwebs when they wouldn’t believe the same thing if someone said it to them in person.

A former Atlanta woman filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against the Atlanta Police Department, contending an officer illegally seized her camera after she took pictures of officers kicking a man who was handcuffed and lying on the ground.

The suit said Felecia Anderson, 24, was living in the West End on Oct. 14, 2009, when she saw APD officers raiding her neighbor’s home. When she also saw officers kicking and dragging a man, she went home and got her camera.

As Anderson filmed the incident from the sidewalk, officers ordered her to stop, threatening to arrest her, the suit said. Anderson complied and began walking back to her house.

One of the officers came up behind Anderson and demanded that she turn over her camera, and he seized it when a startled Anderson dropped it on the ground, the lawsuit said.

They then deleted the pictures and arrested her for walking without a license. (Go read it yourself if you don’t believe me.)

This time, it involves students at Emmaus High School (Emmaus, Pennsylvania–ed.) and a specific website, a photo-image board packed with pornographic images of young women from all across the country.

Apparently, there were several young ladies from EHS texted naked photos to their boyfriends. The boyfriends then posted those photos on the internet without their girlfriends’ consent.

The story quotes a sophomore girl as saying, most wisely,

“I think a lot of the girls are really upset about it and wished they didn’t do it, but in my opinion, it’s like their own fault for sending the pictures to people, if they didn’t want them out, they shouldn’t send them in the first place,” sophomore Emily Sowers said.

Sure, the boys involved acted like scum.

This surprises you how? They are teen-aged boys, a demographic not renowned for good judgment. (Nor, for that matter, are teen-aged girls, or this would not have happened.)

Maureen Downey reports:

In one of the most contradictory conversations of my week, I fell into small talk with a woman at a sports field and it came up that I am from New Jersey. She told me she knows nothing about my home state except what she sees on “Jersey Shore,” which is her children’s favorite reality TV show. Later in the conversation, she told me that she would never would have allowed her kids to watch the Obama speech had it been shown at their private school.

OK, I thought, your kids can’t hear Obama talk about the power of education but they can watch a crass TV show that venerates drinking . . . .

I do not believe that this will work out as expected.

Authorities say non-violent offenders in southern Alabama will have a new choice: Go to jail, or go to church every Sunday for a year.

(snip)

The city judge in Bay Minette will let misdemeanor offenders choose to work off their sentences in jail and pay a fine; or go to church every Sunday for a year.

If offenders select church, they’ll be allowed to pick the place of worship but must check in weekly with the pastor and police.

I wonder whether they will also be required to put something in the offertory.

I just received a letter from a car dealer thanking me for all the time I’ve spent with them “discussing my transportation needs.” You can see it here (JPG)

I have never set foot in the establishment; indeed, I have only a vague notion of where it is, though I have no doubt driven by it many times.

I certainly would not do so now.

It has demonstrated that it is as honest as, well, a car dealer.

The local rag is all over surprised upon discovering that pro football players make money from personal appearances:

City social workers wanted to inspire local youths this summer by bringing a celebrated NFL player to town, a Super Bowl champion who came from a background similar to many of the at-risk children he would try to reach.

The gesture cost taxpayers $40,000.

The management team for Anthony Hargrove, formerly of the New Orleans Saints, charged $30,000 for three two-hour sessions over his nearly weeklong stay, which included other appearances with local children. Other costs associated with the visit – meals, a banquet with community leaders and hotel rooms for Hargrove and five others – totaled about $10,000.

My two or three regular readers know that my level of cynicism as regards pro and semi-pro college football is about to burst out of the top of my thermometer like the mercury measuring a fever in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but, as my mother would have said, honestly!

As the actress said to the bishop, “Professional means you get paid for it.”

In other news in today’s local rag, sky blue and apple red.

Afterthought:

Whether or not it was a wise expenditure is a different issue, but was not really addressed in the gee-whiz-look-over-there story. If it keeps one kid out of jail, the visit likely paid for itself.

The family that put the fun in dysfunctional, all out there on Facebook so we can watch.

Favorite color: Orange.

What started as feud over a Facebook post turned physical in Cobb County (Georgia–ed.) and ended in a woman’s arrest.

Rage from the machine:

A Washington lawyer is accused of throwing a live power line at another motorist during a road-rage incident in the wake of Hurricane Irene.

Christine O’Donnell proclaims, I am not a twitch.

The amount of dumb-stupid it takes not to be able to understand Bill Nye is mind-numbing.

It’s not a reflection on the host. He’s doing his job, following the Fox party line, and dumb-stupid is the only weapon they have.

Via C&L.

See the second item.

One more time, the internet is a public place.

Duh.

Facebook is ending its Deals program, which offered the site’s 750 million users discounts similar to those offered by daily deals site Groupon.

Facebook said in a statement Friday it decided to end Deals after four months of testing. The service will wind down in coming weeks. It was available only in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego and San Francisco.

Frankly, I doubt that Groupon itself has any staying power. When using coupons hits reality show status, the end cannot be far behind.

Think Flip This House and real estate.

You really must read the whole thing to contemplate the depths of inanity it portrays:

Raised in a $1.5 million Barrington Hills, Ill., home by their attorney father, two grown children have spent the past two years pursuing a lawsuit against their mom for “bad mothering” that alleges damage caused when she failed to buy toys for one and sent another a birthday card he didn’t like.

The alleged offenses include failing to take her daughter to a car show, telling her then- 7-year-old son to buckle his seat belt or she would contact police, “haggling” over the amount to spend on party dresses and calling her daughter at midnight to ask that she return home from celebrating homecoming.