Too Stupid for Words category archive

Poetry would require that an Olds Cutlass have been involved, but it wasn’t.

Authorities say a road rage encounter between two neighbors sparked a sword attack that left a northeast Pennsylvania man needing stitches and staples to close his wounds.

Those who do not know history are condemned to make fools of themselves in public.

See the Backmann roundup here.

Meanwhile, in Cloud Cuckoo Land (more at the link) of “the cloud” . . .

Bachmann, who officially launched her campaign yesterday in Waterloo, Iowa, told a Fox News reporter that she was proud to be in the town where John Wayne was from, because she embodies his ideals. Unfortunately for her, it turns out that the actor John Wayne was not from Waterloo, but serial killer John Wayne Gacy was.

Shortly after the gaffe, the Wikipedia page for actor John Wayne was altered to change his birthplace from Winterset, Iowa to Waterloo, apparently as an effort to cover for the misguided politician.

I don’t know where believing that changing a Wikipedia entry somehow changes history falls on the

scale. I think it manages to hit both ends at the same time.

My college freshman roommate took ROTC for a couple of years.

I remember his saying about some of the upperclass officers, “Give some people a flat hat and they think they rule the world.”

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

A gravely ill 95-year-old woman had to remove her wet diaper at an airport so that she could be patted down by security screeners and nearly missed her flight, her daughter said Monday.

It’s time to take away the TSA’s flat hats.

Well’ actually, Myspace. I didn’t know anyone still copped to using Myspace.

Marketing aside, it’s still Agony Airlines:

Days after a San Francisco International Airport baggy pants arrest, US Airways allowed a man wearing skimpy women’s panties, mid-thigh stockings and high heels to fly.

Later on in the story, the airline is quoted as saying it doesn’t have a dress code, leading one to wonder whether it just practices random acts of fashion policing.

You can learn more about the baggy pants incident.

Addendum, the Next Day:

Field goes where I considered going, but chickened out.

At least, not on the water:

It was around 10:30 p.m. Saturday in Bayville (NJ–ed.) when a 40-foot SuperSport boat traveling at a high rate of speed veered off the Toms River, crashed into and demolished a gazebo, and slid to a stop right in Ann Schuld’s backyard.

“I was absolutely shocked. I couldn’t imagine that a boat this big could end up so far off the beach,” Schuld said.

When I had a boat, I didn’t need alcohol to make it fun.

Plus, it can dangerous out there, what with the drunks and all.

Picture at the link.

You would have trouble getting a jet ski that far up the beach.

Now, satisfy your inner mercenary and play at being the nasty in the comfort of your video gaming room:

Coming soon to a TV near you: “Blackwater” the video game.

The Los Angeles-based interactive entertainment company 505 Games said this week it plans to roll out the game this fall under an exclusive licensing agreement with Erik Prince, the former Navy SEAL who founded the controversial security company in 1997.

Open laptop, insert foot.

An economic development agency has let one of its employees go over a Twitter post that suggested her colleagues knock off work early to play golf.

Social media specialist Vanessa Williams lost her job with the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. after she used the agency’s official Twitter account on Friday to tweet: “We start summer hours today. That means most of the staff leave at noon, many to hit the links. Do you observe summer hours? What do you do?”

(According to the agency, no one left early that day.)

“Social media specialist.”

Yeah.

Right.

I think that public agencies would be well-advised to avoid twits.

They don’t need to twit, the public doesn’t need them to twit (except possibly for “utility work 8th and Oak use alt. rte.”), twitting doesn’t advance their mission, and there’s an excess of twits in the world already.

And who wants their sewage utility on Facebook, for Pete’s sake? There’s enough sewage on Facebook alrea–oh, never mind.

Some persons don’t know how to act in public.

This one gets some time alone to contemplate his actions.

In what could be the first decision of its kind in the state, the (Virginia–ed.) appeals court Tuesday held that a threat posted on Myspace falls into the category of an “electronically transmitted communication” even though it wasn’t sent directly to the target.

Holcomb was convicted last year in Virginia Beach of knowingly communicating a written threat. He was sentenced to a year in jail, with most of it suspended. In his appeal, Holcomb claimed the writings were song lyrics and not intended as threats. However, he admitted at trial that the postings, if taken literally, “would be very horrifying,” the appeals court said, quoting Holcomb’s testimony.

Afterthought:

Back in the olden days, when I was a young ‘un, folks misbehaved behind closed doors.

Now they do it in public, then wonder why they end up in trouble.

It may not be fair that Kongress kritters are held to different standards from Kardashians and Hiltons and Lohans, who profit from prurience, but it is the way things are.

Congressman Weiner has created a frankenfurter monster.

He’s being charged with making terroristic threats:

Police say an eastern Pennsylvania teen upset about education cutbacks threatened on Facebook to kill local school board members.

A statement well due a big Bronx Cheer:

Dolt.

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,–
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”

Then he said “Good-night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,–
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”

A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,–
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;

But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;

And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

Citation.

Video via TPM.

Bordering on the absurd bordering.

Words fail me.

A cash-strapped southern New Jersey school district has decided to start charging student teachers to work there.

Medford appears to be the first school district in the state to take such a policy.

Update: Link appears broken at the other end. Here’s the newspaper story.

Oh, my.

Afterthought:

Free speech means you can say it, no matter how stupid and hate-full it is. It doesn’t mean that others are prevented from objecting to it.

Secret twits.

If were that girl’s parents, I would consider this juxtaposition to be most unfortunate:

The reality, not the reality show:

A college student–and 4chan enthusiast–was named today in a felony complaint charging him with the illegal online distribution of counterfeit coupons that were designed to look like legitimate ones made available through a marketing firm owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.

Details, but no coupons, at the link.

Aside:

I bet Newton Minow never imagined he’d live to see a wasteland so vast as to include “Extreme Couponing.”

Here.