Too Stupid for Words category archive

Facebook would pretty much be the last internet place where someone should try to hide. After all, it defaults to naked social:

A fugitive fool who taunted cops on his Facebook page, “Catch me if you can, I’m in Brooklyn” – has been captured by U.S. marshals.

And guess where.

Victor Burgos was sitting at a computer with his Facebook page open . . . .

Via Dave Barry.

That’s orange as in jumpsuit, not orange as in pekoe.

A Tea Party (or Tea P-Arrrrrr!-ty) leader in South Carolina was arrested Tuesday for allegedly selling pirated versions of Microsoft software, Photoshop, and the Rosetta Stone language programs.

You can see them modeling their new jumpsuits at the link.

Why am I not surprised they would be agin’ guvmint regulations?

From Some Guy with a Website.

Twenty-two-year-old Aaron Pace was trying to donate blood and plasma at a local blood center in Gary, Indiana, when he was informed in an interview during the screening process that he was ineligible to give blood because he “appears to be a homosexual”.

He’s not.

The law on which this refusal was based dates back to the Reagan days, when AIDS was thought to be restricted to male homosexuals (and therefore was No Big Deal and the Wrath of God all in one) and no screening tests for HIV existed.

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

Mencken was right when he said, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”

A surfeit of stupid, reported by John Kass in the Chicago Tribune. Here’s one example:

Unfortunately, it appears that the crazed-avenger scenario has already happened. An Oklahoma woman in a town called Chouteau is charged with ramming another woman’s vehicle because she thought the victim was (Casey) Anthony.

“I said, ‘Oh my God, help me,'” Sammay Blackwell, 26, told her local News on 6. “She hit me again, causing my vehicle to flip two-and-a-half times, landing on the driver’s side, and I just laid there playing dead.”

Charged with assault and battery with a deadly weapon, the alleged Oklahoma nutball reportedly told police she’d been “trying to save the children.”

More stupid to come: As Steve Chapman points out in the same newspaper, bad cases make bad law:

Their proposals, all going by the name “Caylee’s Law,” are an understandable response to the acquittal of Casey Anthony of killing her 2-year-old daughter. Swearing when you stub your toe is also understandable, which doesn’t mean it will do your toe the slightest good.

(snip)

The point of these measures is retribution against a single villain who allegedly escaped the severe penalty she deserved. But a law specifically aimed at preventing a repeat of today’s notorious case will almost certainly be irrelevant to the shocking crime of tomorrow. In these instances, the unforeseen and surprising are the norm.

From the push for Caylee’s Law, you might assume the problem with American justice is that there are not enough criminal laws on the books. In fact, there are some 4,400 such statutes at the federal level alone, on top of thousands more enacted by the states.

And, as Chapman goes on to explain persuasively, the law of unintended consequences is likely to result in any “Caylee’s Law” ensnaring some innocent someone into an unwarranted felony conviction.

The problem with the Casey Anthony case is that the prosecution either did not have or botched the case (I’m suspecting the former–suspicions are not evidence).

And now the lynch mob is forming to string up someone–anyone–in retribution.

. . . don’t make lemonade in Midway, Georgia.

A. Barton Hinkle reviews the current standings in his TSA “Invasive Search Contest.” Here’s a nugget; follow the link for the full recap.

Also in April TSA officer Yolanda Smith, who works at Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans, was videotaped frisking 6-year-old Anna Drexel. And TSA officers including Joe Dunbar were videotaped last November conducting a partial strip-search of a 10-year-old boy at Salt Lake City International Airport. Situations like these are simply not acceptable, and I urge all of our members to contact their union reps to see if something can be done about this outrageous videotaping of TSA officers who are just doing their jobs.

Mr. Hinkle is looking forward to new invasions as a result of the current horsehockey over explosive implants.

Lord love a duck!

I knew that an MBA degree had been sullied, primarily by the actions of MBA degree holders, but this takes the cake.

USA Today reported that the University of Iowa is asking prospective students applying to their Tippie MBA program to submit their best tweet in place of a second essay. The winning tweet will receive more than $37,000 — a scholarship for a year’s tuition at the school.

The University of Iowa, Home of the Twits of Tomorrow.

Smoking too many tea bags destroys brain cells.

Absurd.

Relatives of a paralyzed war veteran said Monday the family plans to leave their suburban Augusta neighborhood after a home owners’ association objected to their new home plans because the house wasn’t large enough.

Their plans were for a 2,700 square-foot house.

I don’t think the big old Southern farm house at Pine View Farm has that many square feet; if it does, it’s just barely (see the banner–that’s it right there). I know that the largest house I have owned since growing up and leaving home was an 1800 square-foot three bedroom split, which was large enough to raise three children just fine with only occasional bloodletting.

Addendum, Later that Same Week:

Check out StevenD’s post on this. He goes in to much more detail and it’s even more infuriating than the short item I found in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution led me to believe.

(Link fixed.)

Where privacy is assured, except, of course, for the jokes.

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.