April 15, 2007

Not Exactly The Office Lexicon, But Whatever

mangum: (v.) To falsely accuse someone of a heinous crime with the malicious intent to destroy that person's life.

Idea from John Podhoretz.

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Posted by Chris at 03:12 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

March 06, 2007

Hot Rear End, Plush Ride - Yeah, There Won't Be ANY Long-Term Psychological Damage From This

Later that same show, they were discussing this story about a Romanian man who gave his daughter a 'wannabe' name:

A Romanian luxury car enthusiast has named his daughter SLK after the Mercedes model.

. . .

Ica Mladin, the head of the local register's office, said: "This man walked into the office and said he wanted a birth certificate on the name SLK Caldarar.

"We found that very odd and tried to make him change his mind."

But the father insisted, saying he loves cars and if the baby had been a boy he would have been named BMW.

Mr Caldarar said: "The SLK is one of the most famous models of the Mercedes class; it's expensive and beautiful.

I've written about this moronic phenomenon more than once (here, for instance), but Kristi makes exactly the same point I make here:

KRISTI LEE: I'm gonna step in here and take a wild guess the guy doesn't have a chance in hell of ever owning an SLK or a BMW.
but Tom provides the punch line:
TOM GRISWOLD: He came up with the idea to name the baby after a car moments after he learned he'd gotten the Escort he was with pregnant.

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Posted by Chris at 01:51 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

March 03, 2007

And Then She Inadvertently Didn't Step On The Brake

DMV Office Destroyed By 80-Year-Old Driver:

Police in Deerfield Beach said no one was seriously injured after an 80-year-old woman crashed her car into the town's Department of Motor Vehicle offices.

The Florida Division of Motor Vehicles released surveillance video on Tuesday that shows about a half-dozen customers seated and waiting for service at a service desk.

The next instant, a white, four-door sedan driven by the woman crashes through the office's floor-to-ceiling glass window, shattering glass and sending chairs and customers scattering.
I suppose it's too much to hope that she was there for a driving test?
Police said the woman, Theresa Smith, inadvertently stepped on the gas while pulling out of a parking space. She was charged with careless driving.
Oh, well.

Posted by Chris at 04:33 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

January 26, 2007

I'll Take 'Driving While Blind' For $1000 Please, Alex

While I was on the road at lunch today, this lady pulled out in front of me without really looking, forcing a minor evasive maneuver on my part. As I passed her, I noticed her front license plate:

Jesus Christ is the answer
I'm a Jeopardy! fan, so naturally I thought of the question:
What do people scream at you when you drive?

Posted by Chris at 06:12 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

January 23, 2007

Ironically, He Was Coming From Nurenburg

Sorry, I lost the link to this story, but you can probably find it on Reuters somewhere:

BERLIN (Reuters) - A 46-year-old German motorist driving along a busy road suddenly veered to the left and ended up stuck on a railway track -- because his satellite navigation system told him to, police said Sunday.

The motorist was heading into the north German city of Bremen "when the friendly voice from his satnav told him to turn left," a spokesman said.
And here's the dead giveaway that the article was written by somebody who isn't him/herself German:
Several German motorists have crashed their cars in recent months, later telling police they were only obeying orders from their satnavs. [emphasis added]

Posted by Chris at 06:21 PM | Comments (2)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

October 19, 2006

At Least They'll Be Kept Out Of The Gene Pool For Awhile

For some people, it seems that the major purpose of their life is to serve as a counterexample. Here we teach the lesson "Don't Accept An Offer To Sell Stolen Crap Back To The Guy You Stole It From:"

Brothers Jared and Cooper Colwell and two other men were sleeping at their home in Midvale, Utah last Tuesday, when a pair of ski-masked crooks busted into the house and demanded everyone's cash, wallets, and cellphones. Sounds like your typical home invasion, except for the fact that Jared thought he recognized one of the burglar's voices -- it sounded like a friend of theirs named Randall Talbot who had previously crashed at their pad for a few weeks. Figuring they had nothing to lose, the men texted Jared's cellphone with a message saying "Randy, I really want my phone back; I'll pay you $300 for the phone right now" (must have been a Treo). If you're stupid enough to rob your friend's house it stands to reason that you might be stupid enough to collect a ransom on the stolen merchandise as well, and sure enough, Randy and his partner-in-crime Justin Brooks agreed to a meeting at the local Smith's store. As you've probably guessed by now, the Colwells immediately called the cops, who were there to greet Randy and Justin as they emerged from behind a dumpster at the rendezvous point
[H/T Fark via Engadget]

Posted by Chris at 05:10 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

October 17, 2006

Don't Pay The Healerman / Don't Even Fix A Price

/ Don't pay the healerman / Until he gets you to get up and walk to the other side.

I suppose if Chris de Burgh were to remix his 1982 minor hit Don't Pay The Ferryman (lyrics) today, he'd have some lyrics changes along the lines of the above, because it would seem that he now fancies himself a faith healer:

In an interview with Gloria Hunniford on BBC1's Heaven and Earth show, the Lady In Red singer insisted that he had cured a man suffering from a swollen ankle by simply touching the affected area.

He said: "I have found myself able to cure people with my hands.

"I met someone in the West Indies who was not able to walk. I put my hands on him and he was able to get up.

Lest you think that's a one-off, he also saved his wife from paralysis after a riding accident:

In 1993 he revealed that he had warned his wife, Diane, not to move her spine if she should break her neck in a riding accident.

The following day Diane, the inspiration for Lady In Red, fell off her horse and adhered to his advice, saving herself from paralysis.

Don't move your spine if you break your neck - brilliant! Too bad the regular medical community hasn't thought of that!

Oh, wait - they have.

But he doesn't want to make a big deal about it:

"I know the tabloids will get excited by this so I try to play it down."
Which, no doubt, is why he mentioned it IN A BBC INTERVIEW!

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Posted by Chris at 02:15 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

October 13, 2006

Dangerous Stupidity, Full Disclosure

It would be disingenuous of me to chronicle dangerous stupidity the way I do and not admit to an episode of my own, so here goes. I was going to take my wife's car to the shop yesterday morning, since it had been starting with more and more difficulty over the previous few days (I was fairly certain it was either a dying battery or some other electrical problem).

Sure enough, when I tried to start it, it was deader 'n hell. I started my car, dug the jumper cables out of the back, connected the batteries together (taking care to do so in a safe manner), and waited. Thirty seconds later, my wife's car cranked right over. I disconnected the cables (taking care to do so in a safe manner), threw them in the back of the car, backed out of the garage, closed the door, and headed off down the street.

An hour later, my son, preparing to leave for school, entered the garage to find my car still running.

Fortunately, he was way smarter than I was, as he immediately slapped the button for the garage door opener and retreated back into the house.

Everybody's fine, but damn was I stupid.

Posted by Chris at 05:09 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

August 09, 2006

Intoxicants 1, Mel Gibson 0

You've all heard by now about Mel Gibson running afoul of the axiom in vino veritas, but there's something about this whole incident that bothers me. My panel of experts concurs wholeheartedly - a BAC of 0.12% should not make you drunk enough to do and say what Gibson did.

I can think of two possible explanations for this discrepancy: first, that the BAC was fudged to make it appear lower than it really was. I don't see why the police would do this; first of all, it's evidence tampering. Second, if they wanted to give him a pass, they wouldn't have tested him in the first place. Take him home, say "Good night, Mr. Gibson, try to be more careful next time," end of story.

The other - and I haven't heard anybody say this, so let me be clear that I'm just pulling this out of my ass right now - is that Gibson had something else on board.

Posted by Chris at 09:20 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

June 07, 2006

It Was A Domestic Dispute. Couldn't He Have Used A Pillow?

There are ways to suppress the sound of a pistol shot. However, none of them involve a potato:

Experts say using a spud as a silencer is urban myth -- but that didn't deter Shane Thompson.

During a domestic dispute, Thompson carved a hole in a potato with a spoon, stuck the barrel of his gun inside and threatened to shoot the mother of his child, Miami-Dade police said Friday.

. . .

The vegetable, while rich in carbs, does not make an effective silencer, police say.

The myth dates back to mob murders of the 1920s and has persisted through movies and word of mouth.

''It was fine in Dick Tracy, but in real life, it's not true,'' said Miami-Dade Sgt. Bob Hoelscher, a longtime firearms technician who is not involved in the case.
Too bad this didn't happen in Pennsylvania - maybe Thompson could get a cell next to McArthur 'Juice' Wheeler (from my favorite psychological study):
In 1995, McArthur Wheeler walked into two Pittsburgh banks and robbed them in broad daylight, with no visible attempt at disguise. He was arrested later that night, less than an hour after videotapes of him taken from surveillance cameras were broadcast on the 11 o'clock news. When police later showed him the surveillance tapes, Mr. Wheeler stared in incredulity. "But I wore the juice," he mumbled. Apparently, Mr. Wheeler was under the impression that rubbing one's face with lemon juice rendered it invisible to videotape cameras ( Fuocco, 1996 ).

Posted by Chris at 01:31 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

June 05, 2006

And These Are My Brothers, Quasar And Pulsar

Where do I start? OK, these two Einsteins started out as shoplifters. Then they became vehicular homicide-ers. But no matter what, they can't escape their moronic names:

The driver of the SUV, Tiara Maria Smith, 20, faces two counts of first-degree vehicular homicide, a charge of feticide, running a red light, speeding, riding with an unrestrained child and other traffic offenses, Whitaker said.

Shoplifting charges were also pending, Whitaker said. A store security tape needed to be viewed, he said.

The SUV overturned in the crash, ejecting Nebula McNeely, 42, who was airlifted to a hospital, where she and the 7-year-old were treated, Whitaker said. [emphasis added]

'Nebula McNeely, 42?' Who names their kid that? I didn't think LSD was that widely available in 1964.

Posted by Chris at 05:21 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

April 26, 2006

He Had To Use The Chain Saw - His Cutting Torch Was Out Of Fuel

Bonus double WTW! Presented without further comment: Man sets self ablaze using chainsaw to open gas tank

An Ottawa man is in serious condition and was airlifted to the burn unit at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto after accidentally setting himself on fire yesterday morning while trying to cut open a gas tank with a chainsaw.

The Ottawa Fire Department said 62-year-old Stanley Hill had been doing some cleanup work on a rural property at 4679 Ridge Rd., off Walkley Road, about 10 a.m. when, they believe, a spark from the saw caused a small explosion and a flash of fire to spread up his body and head.

White Trash Wednesday

It's White Trash Wednesday! Take the whole tour:

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Posted by Chris at 06:55 AM | Comments (3)
Category: White Trash Wednesday

Life Imitates A Bad Redneck Joke

White Trash Wednesday

Old joke:

What's the last thing a dumb redneck says before he dies?

"Hey, y'all, watch this!"

Maybe this guy didn't die, but it wasn't for lack of trying:

FORT PAYNE, Ala. -- A Georgia man was hospitalized after jumping from the side of Alabama's DeSoto Falls and plunging 150 feet before hitting the water.

The leap wasn't a suicide attempt since several witnesses reported that prior to the plunge, the man yelled, "Watch this."

Tim Whitehead, superintendent of DeSoto State Park, said 23-year-old Jason Carter of Trion, Georgia, jumped from the east side of the canyon around 3 p.m. Monday. He was airlifted to Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee, after rescue personnel spent three hours removing him from the canyon. Carter, who was treated for a back injury, was reported to be in stable condition yesterday.

It's White Trash Wednesday! Take the whole tour:

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Posted by Chris at 06:10 AM | Comments (6)
Category: Life Imitates...

February 09, 2006

Having A Blast On Super Bowl Sunday

White Trash Wednesday

Bonus White Trash Wednesday Thursday today, as few things are more WT-ish than homemade fireworks and explosive mishaps involving same:

According to authorities, Norman Frey and his girlfriend planned to set off some homemade fireworks at a Super Bowl party Sunday.

Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson says the couple blew up their car while transporting a balloon filled with explosive gas. Robinson says it's amazing they weren't killed.

The balloon contained acetylene, the gas used in welding torches.

What a shame. They didn't even get to the part where they'd say "Hey, y'all, watch this!"

Posted by Chris at 08:30 AM | Comments (0)
Category: White Trash Wednesday

January 26, 2006

At $50 A Pop, That's 48,000 Lap Dances He Can No Longer Afford.

This year's edition of Business 2.0: 2005's 101 Dumbest Moments in Business features an update to a previous post:

In October, American Express sues Savvis CEO Robert McCormick for $241,000 in charges he racked up on a visit to New York strip club Scores. Savvis places McCormick on unpaid leave after he admits to the visit but claims that he charged less than $20,000.

I knew all that (plus some details not mentioned in the Business 2.0 blurb), but this is new:

He later resigns, accepting more than $600,000 in severance but forfeiting almost $3 million in preferred stock.
This makes his opportunity cost $2.4 million, almost ten times the amount of the Scores tab! And that doesn't even count the ass-reaming he's going to get from his wife's (presumed) divorce lawyer.

The whole list is definitely worth a read.

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Posted by Chris at 12:31 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

October 25, 2005

More High Rollers Should Read My Blog

Because I detailed the life lesson "Never Ever Ever Run A Tab In A Strip Joint" almost a year and a half ago:

Because at the end of the night, when you're all liquored up and hormoned up, they can pretty much charge you whatever they want. And your options are limited:
Mitchell Blaser, who is the Chief Financial Officer of the Americas division of insurer Swiss Re, filed suit on Tuesday demanding that strip club Scores pay back the $28,000 because that does not accurately reflect his spending at the Manhattan nightspot.

Well, Savvis Communications CEO Robert McCormic will see Blaser's 28 large and raise him $214,000:

Meet the lap dunce.

He's a married Internet mogul who ran up a $241,000 tab at Scores and then stiffed American Express on the bill - claiming it was more padded than one of the strip club's busty beauties, according to a lawsuit.

Savvis Communications chief executive Robert McCormick, who hails from the "Show-Me State" of Missouri, allegedly charged the mind-blowing sum to his corporate card two years ago.

But when the bill came due, the father of three girls refused to pay, insisting he didn't spend more than $20,000 at the East Side pleasure palace. [emphasis added]

I love how dude cops to spending the twenty grand. That's gotta make his wife happy. Let's go inside for a little analysis:

[Scores spokesman Lonnie] Hanover could not provide an itemized breakdown of how McCormick and his buddies managed to spend a quarter of a million bucks - but he had a guess.

"I am sure we are going to find out it was mostly gratuities to dancers," he said. "He didn't get 1 million dances [of course not - that would have been a $50M tab - ed.]. Apparently, they gave out thousands of dollars to girls."
So let's run the numbers. Four guys (from elsewhere in the article) for six hours (guess) gives us ten grand per guy per hour. Yeah, I can see that, but I kind of wonder about the mechanics of it. Where do you swipe your credit card on a naked chick, anyway?

Oh.

Never mind.

Posted by Chris at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

September 07, 2005

Unfortunately, Cletus Is Still In The Gene Pool

I gotta figure this truck was stolen, because I can't see any self-respecting Caucasian-Refuse-American doing this with his own truck...

(Not sure why the embedded video isn't working. Try the external link below)

Launch in external player

It's White Trash Wednesday! Take the whole tour:

Posted by Chris at 06:57 AM | Comments (5)
Category: White Trash Wednesday

August 10, 2005

Dude Is Most Appropriately Named

(SondraK explains the title)

More local dipshittery. This criminal mastermind had a plan to steal over 22 large from the store where he worked:

A local grocery store employee was formally charged Monday with theft in connection with the loss of about $22,000 from the store safe.

According to an affidavit of probable cause, David W. Todd used his work keys to unlock the safe at the Georgetown Square Scott’s Foods, 6310 E. State Blvd., and took about $4,911 cash on Aug. 1 and $17,222 in cash plus $3,103 in checks Aug. 2.

On both days Todd, 22, of the 5600 block of Woodshire Drive, walked the bags of money to his car and went back to work, court documents said. When he got off work about 6 a.m. each day, he went home with the money, court records said.
Dammit! He was so close! What tiny error did he make? What stroke of luck allowed the long arm of the law to reach out and pinch him?
A store security manager called Todd and told him a surveillance tape from Aug. 1 showed him taking the money from the safe and then walking out the front door, court records said. While talking with Todd, the security manager received a call from a bookkeeper who reported a second loss of cash and checks on Aug. 2, court records said.
They had a camera connected to a VCR covering the safe! How could Todd possibly have anticipated that? Have you ever heard of such a forward-looking security measure?

Posted by Chris at 05:27 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

July 27, 2005

Perverts Of The Caribbean, Anyone?

You can't stop Local6 today, you can only hope to contain them: Police: Naked Man Uses Flashlight To Flash:

A 32-year-old man in Clermont, Fla., is accused of standing naked in the window of his home and using a flashlight to expose himself to people passing by, police told Local 6 News.

Three men called police Tuesday to report Daniel Cioffi was exposing himself.

When officers investigated, the Walt Disney World employee told investigators he was using the flashlight to clean cobwebs. [emphasis added]

Sing along with me, now... "It's a small dong aaaafter all, it's a small dong aaaafter all..." I wonder if he knows this guy?

Posted by Chris at 05:48 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

July 26, 2005

Why Do You Think They Call It 'Dope?'

Because it makes you do stupid shit like this:

A teenager was robbed at gunpoint in his home in the 3900 block of Fredericksburg Road — and then arrested when officers arrived and found drugs throughout the house, police said.

The teen was released Monday morning on bonds totaling $7,000.

A girlfriend found Stephen Knight, 17, on his bedroom floor at about 9:40 p.m. Sunday, bound with a belt and a strand of Christmas lights, police said.

Knight told investigators he was home alone when three young men forced themselves in by pointing a gun at his head, according to a police report.

The men stole about $30 worth of marijuana, a 42-inch plasma television, and Knight's cell phone and wallet, the report states.

Knight told police the men then hog-tied him with the string of lights.

It turned out that the thieves, whom police still are looking for, snagged only a portion of the pot in the home, according to the report.

Officers found a glass jar with 82 grams, or about 3 ounces, of marijuana inside a safe Knight opened for them, a marijuana plant growing under a heat lamp and one ecstasy pill, police documented.

Posted by Chris at 04:12 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

May 25, 2005

If He'd Gotten Any Closer, The Automated Defenses Would Have Taken Him Out

I have told you before - if you attack a cop with your car, expect to get your ass shot:

(Angola-May 24) -- An Indiana State Police trooper who was being dragged by his arm after a routine traffic stop shot a motorist Tuesday.

State police say Trooper Andy Smith pulled two vehicles over at a rural intersection in Steuben County after he apparently saw them recklessly passing other cars in excess of 90 miles an hour.

Police say the driver of the first vehicle never hesitated when Smith ordered him to turn his car off. But they say when he approached the second one, a gray pickup, Clayton Bolding, 21, began to wrestle with the officer.

Police say Smith reached into the truck to try and turn the vehicle off, but the suspect hit the gas and started dragging the officer. Smith was able to reach his revolver and fired three shots, one of them striking Bolding, who then kept right on driving through the yard and into a red barn.

This is dangerously close to the Secure Undisclosed Location (where, in fact, we will soon be doing what we normally do on Memorial Day weekend), but all my neighbors' whereabouts were accounted for.

Update: I'm going to keep following this story, as details are changing:

Inconsistencies lie in the actions of Senior Trooper Lionel “Andy” Smith and his interactions with Clayton M. Bolding, 21, of Angola, before police say Bolding dragged Smith by his pickup and Smith fired several shots at the truck.

Sgt. Rodger Popplewell, spokesman for the Fort Wayne post, said May 24 that Smith reached into the pickup through the open driver’s door to turn off the engine after Bolding refused to comply with his instructions.

But a document filed in Steuben County Superior Court on Friday states that the vehicle was turned off when Smith opened the door and ordered Bolding to exit the vehicle.

The two tussled when Smith tried to handcuff Bolding and Bolding declared that he would not go to jail, the affidavit said.

. . .

Bolding pulled away and started the truck’s engine, and at the same time, Smith placed his left foot on the brake pedal and grabbed the steering wheel with his left hand, the affidavit said.

But Bolding put the truck in drive, stomped on the accelerator and drove 10 to 15 feet with Smith hanging on, half in and half out of the car, the affidavit said. Smith reached for his service weapon, then released his grip on the steering wheel and managed to get away.

“… At which time he had his gun in hand and fired approximately four rounds toward the vehicle until the vehicle cleared Trooper Smith and he perceived that the vehicle was no longer a threat to his safety,” the affidavit said.

No mention of the initial attempt to arrest was originally made. It's still damn stupid for Bolding to drive away from a state trooper, but it appears that our two subjects have a bit of a history already:

Of the nine times Bolding has received traffic citations in the past several years, Smith pulled him over twice, according to Steuben County court records. In May 2003, Bolding was found guilty of speeding, and in January 2003, Bolding was convicted of unnecessary use of a horn.

Posted by Chris at 07:37 AM | Comments (7)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

May 19, 2005

Like Yelling "Free Krispy Kremes!" At A Weight Watchers Meeting

Kelly at Time to Lean has some good advice on animal sacrifices (timely, too, as I'm going back to the beach in 21 days and 20 hours (not that I'm counting or anything)):

Of course, being attacked by a shark is a relatively rare phenomenon. However, Yahoo offers up a tidbit of advice when you're near to shark-infested waters. Here's a summary if you're too lazy to read: Don't sacrifice animals in the ocean. Always helpful to remember when engaging in your day-to-day animal sacrifice activities.

We'd better do the chicken sacrifice in the hotel pool instead. I think I'd rather pay extra for filter cleaning than become shark shit.

Posted by Chris at 12:17 PM | Comments (4)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

May 12, 2005

Short Attention Span Posting

Distracted by lots of shiny things so far today, and it shows:

The UAE cleverly catches a codeine smuggler using a dastardly new method: her own bloodstream!

A Schneider on Security post about whether showing 'all car bombings, all the time' on the news is the proper way to cover OIF attracts some truly chowderheaded comments:

piglet: He [Tiernan] only wants us to forget that there was no terrorism in Iraq before Bush took the "war on terror" there, and that the terrorists have been able to get huge amounts of explosives because the US army didn't care to guard them.
Since my definition of terrorism includes thugocracies, I would contend that Iraq was under terrorist rule from 1979-2003.
Michael Ahlers: All of this assumes the bombings in Iraq are acts of terrorism in the first place. The attacks seem to be aimed at strategic targets, not those which will impose a huge number of civilian casualties.
Bombs in markets. Coordinated attacks where a IED goes off, then terrorists ambush the first responders. Yeah, sure, strategic. Pull my other leg.

I have found my new favorite website: PETA Kills Animals (H/T doubleplusgood infotainment).

I was going to touch a few other bases, but something shiny just crossed my field of vision so I'd better post this while I'm still thinking about it.

Posted by Chris at 01:03 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

May 06, 2005

Take Your Break, Comrade... Or Else.

If you work at the local GM plant, and you choose to work during your break, your union bretheren won't like it:

General Motors Corp. and UAW Local 2209 are investigating an April 29 complaint that a union member wielded a two-by-four at co-workers who were voluntarily working during their break time at the southwest Allen County plant.

According to a report filed by the Allen County Sheriff’s Department, a witness told responding officers that “there is an ongoing problem” at the plant. “Those that choose to work during their breaks are harassed and intimidated by others who are in the union but do not agree (with) working during breaks,” the report states.

But why would you want to work during your break? Because there's extra money in it!

Working during breaks isn’t new, [president of United Auto Workers Local 2209 Don] Swegman said. When the production line is behind schedule, employees in that area are offered the chance to work during their breaks for overtime pay, which amounts to time and a half.

[GM spokeswoman Pam] Reese said the opportunity to earn extra money varies depending on the production schedule but doesn’t always fall on the same department. Swegman agreed.

The local union president said the company is within the parameters of its contract with the union when it makes such work available. [empahsis added]
It's extra money, the company's cool with it, the union's cool with it. What's not to like?

But some GM workers apparently resent those who choose to work during breaks. Union workers traditionally refer to people who cross picket lines to work as “scabs.” According to the police report, the workers who were intimidating others were calling them “scabs.”
I must have missed the point where the union rank-and-file decided to become communists, because the only possible explanation for this is that they want to punish people who work hard. And speaking of communists,
Catherine Mulder, an assistant professor of labor studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, said anytime that many people are working together, tensions will crop up.

“There are going to be personality conflicts,” she said. “It doesn’t seem like a big issue to me. It could happen in grammar school. It could happen anywhere.”

In fact, Mulder said, union shops often have less conflict than non-union shops because members have a sense of solidarity and well-defined work rules meant to ensure that people are treated fairly rather than rewarded based on how much management likes them.
Hey, prof, did you even hear what you said? '[R]ather than rewarded based on how much management likes them?' What about 'punished by their co-workers for trying to excel?'

This is yet another reason why unions have far outgrown their usefulness.

Posted by Chris at 03:57 PM | Comments (2)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

April 17, 2005

At Least They Knew They Could Outrun Their Victims

Maybe Fort Wayne really is the dumbest city in America, because shedding excess dumb-itude to surrounding counties is the best explanation for these yahoos:

Three Elkhart County men remained in the LaGrange County Jail on Friday, accused of holding up a buggy and robbing its occupants of $1.

. . .

About 9 p.m. Thursday, the three men were riding in a Pontiac Grand Prix on South LaGrange County Road 200 West, according to a written statement from the LaGrange County Sheriff’s Department. The Grand Prix blocked the road so that a buggy could not pass.

The men – two of whom wore masks – jumped out of the car and held the family in the buggy at gunpoint while they demanded money, the statement said. A man in the buggy threw his wallet onto the road.

The men took the wallet and fled the scene, police said. It contained $1.

. . .

A Topeka police officer stopped the car and arrested its occupants, it said. Police also found the handguns, which had been thrown from the car.
I've been to Topeka, Indiana; when they say 'A Topeka police officer,' I'm pretty sure they meant 'The Topeka police officer...'

OK, let's total this up:

  • three handguns: $600.
  • take: $1.
  • Net: $-599.
Looks like they're down about $199.67 per guy. But, hey, amortize that over three years in jail, and it's a loss of only $66.56 per guy per year. Most airlines don't get that kind of ROI.

Posted by Chris at 05:53 PM | Comments (2)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

April 04, 2005

Phuket, I'm Gettin' The Hell Off This Plane

Passengers let off 'unsafe jet':

British tourists are returning home after about 400 people refused to get back on an aircraft they said had fuel pouring out of one of the wings.

Passengers demanded to be let off the Phuket Air plane at Sharjah airport in the United Arab Emirates.

. . .

Dr Peter Hill, who was on board with his family, said "fuel was spewing out of the right hand wing".

Dr Hill, from the Isle of Wight, told the BBC the plane which had stopped for refuelling looked old.

He said: "There must have been 50 or 80 people on the right hand side of the plane screaming, absolutely panicked.

"We were just worried that the whole thing was going to ignite. It was just unbelievable."

An engineer was called to sit beside a passenger and see the fuel for himself, he said.

When the engineer's face "went white", he said, the plane was stopped.
This kind of reminds me of one of the first times I flew on a commercial airliner. It was an extremely hot and humid day, and as we taxied out to the runway, smoke (I thought) began to pour out of all the overhead vents. I looked back at where the cabin crew had strapped themselves in, but none of them appeared to care. Moreover, no other passengers even noticed what I was seeing.

I figured "Hell, somebody has to tell them," so I hit the call button. A few seconds later, one of the attendants appeared and asked what was wrong. I pointed to the vent, and, in as calm a voice as I could muster (but which was still undoubtedly three octaves higher than usual), asked "Is that normal?"

To her credit, she didn't roll her eyes as she replied "On a day like this, it's not unusual for condensation to fog up the vent air." To her further credit, I didn't her her mutter "Fucking noob" as she worked her way back to her jump seat. To her further further credit, she didn't contemplate legal action, like Phuket Air appears to be doing:

In a statement issued on Monday, Phuket Air said ground staff overfilled a fuel tank and some fuel was spilled.

Steps were "immediately taken" to clear up the spillage, it said and the flight had "no technical or mechanical problems".

It said the flight was cleared for take off and taxiing for departure when "a small number of passengers left their seats and moved towards the front of the aircraft causing affray".

The pilot was forced to abort the take off, it said. The airline is considering legal action against the passengers involved [emphasis added].

Update: It happened again:

A PLANE involved in two fuel-leak scares was at the centre of another drama yesterday.

The Phuket Air flight had to return to London several hours into a journey to Bangkok, because of a mechanical problem.

On Sunday many of the 200 Britons aboard the same Boeing 747 were terrified as fuel was seen flooding across a wing.

Two take-off attempts were aborted in the United Arab Emirates and some people left stranded.

Eventually the plane flew to Gatwick and then had hydraulics trouble.

Yesterday, with the fault apparently fixed, it set out at 8.30am.

The "same problem" flared up again, said Phuket Air, and the 747 was back at Gatwick by 11.37.

Posted by Chris at 05:12 PM | Comments (2)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

March 30, 2005

He Pulls Out A Car, You Pull Out A Gun - That's The Allegan County Way

Wanna run from the cops in Southwest Michigan? Be prepared to take a bullet, then do hard time:

A Holland man was sentenced for assaulting a police officer and fleeing and eluding during an August 2004 incident where he was shot three times by police.

Thomas Lee DeJonge, 39, pleaded guilty in February to fleeing and eluding and pleaded no contest to assaulting a police officer.

Allegan County Circuit Court Judge George Corsiglia sentenced DeJonge to between three and 10 years in prison for the felonies.
. . .
According to state police, the incident began when deputy Mike Mshar tried to stop a vehicle southbound on M-40 because its taillights weren't operating after dark. DeJonge did not respond and didn't pull over, fleeing west. He also drove into the deputy's' vehicle, forcing him off the road. At that point, deputy Todd Vanderhulst took over the pursuit and followed the vehicle down a two-track in the woods off 138th Avenue in Laketown Township, where it was wedged against a tree.

The deputy got out of his patrol car to call DeJonge out of his vehicle and DeJonge responded by shifting into reverse and accelerating. Vanderhulst fired five shots, hitting DeJonge three times.

This next quote reminds me of the Menendez Defense ("But your honor, you must show mercy for this man who killed his parents - he's now an orphan!"):

DeJonge's lawyer, David Dodge, filed a motion asking Corsiglia to ignore the Michigan sentencing guidelines in the case because of the severe pain and physical problem s DeJonge has suffered since the shooting.

"I have unspecified nerve damage," DeJonge said. "Burning sensations in my thighs."
Would it be overly cynical of me to suggest that after a couple of weeks at I-Max, the burning sensation now in his thighs will move a bit higher and around to the back?

It's White Trash Wednesday! Take the whole tour:

Posted by Chris at 12:08 PM | Comments (2)
Category: White Trash Wednesday

March 25, 2005

Heyyyyy, Duuuuude, What Does THIS Button Do?

I'm all filled with confidence that Russia can keep proper track of its nuclear arsenal, thanks to this story from the Moscow News:

A serviceman of the strategic missile unit in Russia’s Siberia has been detained for smoking marijuana while on duty and selling drugs to his comrades, the Interfax news agency reported.

A warrant officer at military unit No 28151 of the Glukhov Guards Division of the Strategic Missile Forces was detained on March 23 while selling marijuana to fellow soldiers. He did not resist arrest and military police chose not to place him in custody demanding a written pledge not to leave his unit instead.

During questioning the serviceman confessed that he had smoked marijuana for over a year, both in joints and through a home-made pipe. He also said that he had repeatedly been on combat duty while under the influence of drugs. [emphasis added]

Commanders of the unit were quick to announce that the soldier had no access to the ’nuclear button’. They said the warrant officer served as a technician at a communications post.
OK, maybe that guy didn't have access to The Button, but who else did he sell to?

Posted by Chris at 08:24 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

March 23, 2005

I'm Kickin' My Ass!

OK, so my previous story was a bit of a reach for WTW. Let's try this one: a Michigan man stabbed himself to death and tried to pin it on his neighbor:

An autopsy revealed a twist in a local deadly stabbing investigation. Police in Missaukee county believe a man stabbed himself to get his neighbor in trouble. The stabbing happened around 1:30 Saturday morning in Lake City. Police say 19-year-old Chris Seward got into an argument with his neighbor . . .. Seward later called 911, saying the neighbor stabbed him. Investigators think Seward stabbed himself twice in the chest while on the phone with the dispatcher. Autopsy results confirm the injury was self inflicted.

OK, what do you think I ellipsed out of the previous paragraph? What momentous argument would cause a man to stab himself and try to make his neighbor take the fall, and what thought process would make him think that was a winning play? Think hard!

. . . over a bottle of alcohol.

Update: Patrick heard about the story and commented on it at about the same time I was writing this post. His link to the Cadillac News includes a lot more information, and this tidbit which should surprise precisely no one:

Christopher Seward had been consuming large amounts of alcohol Friday night and early Saturday prior to his death, which police are ruling as accidental at this time.

Posted by Chris at 04:32 PM | Comments (0)
Category: White Trash Wednesday

March 21, 2005

With Any Luck, This Chowderhead Will Learn A New Meaning To 'Getting Rear-Ended'

This would have been a perfect White Trash Wednesday story, but I didn't want to subject the innocent victims to the embarassment of being featured on WTW. If anybody ever deserved the death penalty for DUI, it's this mental defective:

A Fort Wayne driver accused of causing a fatal crash and two hit-and-run crashes Tuesday had alcohol, cocaine and Benzodiazipam in his system, according to probable cause affidavits filed Friday in Allen Superior Court.

Todd A. Bebout, 45, was arrested on a preliminary charge of reckless homicide, eight counts of operating a vehicle while intoxicated, two counts of criminal recklessness and two counts of leaving the scene of an accident. leaving the scene of an accident.

Bebout was released from a hospital Thursday where he had been treated for injuries. He was booked into the Allen County Lockup and bail was set at $709,500 Friday.

Tests on Bebout’s blood and urine samples showed he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.15 percent, almost twice the legal limit for driving. Cocaine and Benzodiazipam – a depressant used therapeutically to produce sedation, induce sleep, relieve anxiety and muscle spasms, and to prevent seizures – were also detected, probable cause affidavits said.
. . .
Police determined Bebout’s Dakota hit the front passenger side of the Villager, which was going south on Hessen Cassel. Both vehicles veered into the path of a Chevy pickup traveling north on Hessen Cassel.

The driver of the Chevy pickup was not injured.

The fatal crash ended Bebout’s erratic cruise around the southeast part of the city, court documents said.

The Dakota was swerving toward children waiting for a school bus in the 4000 block of South Monroe Street about 7 a.m., court records said. The children provided descriptions of the vehicle and driver that matched Bebout and his vehicle, probable cause affidavits said.

The Dakota struck a Chevrolet Caprice parked on the east side of the street and kept going. Paint left on the Caprice and Dakota matched each other, the affidavits said.

Twenty minutes later, the Dakota left the road and traveled through a yard before crashing into a house at 5121 Oliver St. The damage was severe enough that the integrity of the structure is at risk, the affidavits said.

. . .

According to the Indiana Department of Correction offender database, Bebout was convicted in Allen County in 2001 of cocaine possession and battery by bodily waste.

Bebout’s driver’s license had been suspended for one year as a part of misdemeanor OWI charge in 1991. It was suspended again in 2002 when he failed to appear in court for a speeding charge in 2002.

The period of that suspension was not clear, but Bebout received an infraction this month, before Tuesday’s crashes, for driving while suspended, according to court records.
I hope I don't have to explain what 'battery by bodily waste' means.

Posted by Chris at 04:00 PM | Comments (3)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

Colder Than A Well Digger's Leg - Or A Meth Cooker's Hand

One of these days, some crank-head's going to get killed doing this, and I'm going to laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh:

Police in Defiance County, Ohio, evacuated residents living near Mark Center early Wednesday after someone tried to steal anhydrous ammonia from a 1,000-gallon tank, which then leaked its contents.

The leaking gas created a low-lying cloud that spread up to a half-mile from its origin at Hicksville Grain Co. Residents living in a two-mile radius from the grain elevator were asked to evacuate about 1:40 a.m., Sheriff David J. Westrick said.

When police arrived at the Hicksville Grain branch in Mark Center, 9589 Main St., they found that someone had tampered with the 1,000-gallon tank in an apparent attempt to steal the gas. A valve was damaged and most of the tank’s contents escaped, the sheriff’s department said.

. . .

The gas is used by farmers as a fertilizer but is commonly used to manufacture methamphetamine. Anhydrous ammonia is also a dangerous material that can freeze body parts and lungs on contact. No one with similar injuries had reported to any local hospitals as of Wednesday afternoon, Westrick said.
Of course, when it happens, somebody innocent will undoubtedly also be hurt, so I won't even be able to laugh.

Bastards.

Posted by Chris at 03:25 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

March 10, 2005

Jobs I Couldn't Do, Part II

Earlier today, I showed why I couldn't be a vet. Now we see why I couldn't be a firefighter:

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) -- A woman being carried out of a burning house put a gun to a firefighter's head and pulled the trigger repeatedly but was out of bullets following the shooting death of her boyfriend, police say.
because I'd be turning the bitch around and dumping her right back in the burning house.

Apparently that would be against established Fire Department procedure.

[h/t: Fark for this story and the last one]

Posted by Chris at 05:10 PM | Comments (3)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

Pit Bulls Is Stupid

A pit bull - sorry, 'Staffordshire bull terrier,' which is pretty much the same thing (the U.S. version commonly called a pit bull is more accurately known as an 'American Staffordshire bull terrier,' or 'AmStaff,' or 'LetGoOfMeYouStupidFucker') - was so crazed by its 'chase and attack' instinct that it impaled itself sword-swallower-like on a stick just two inches shorter than it is:

Two-year-old Millie nearly choked to death on the piece of wood after it was thrown by owner John Hurst, 65.

It stuck in the ground at an angle like a javelin and the Staffordshire bull terrier ran straight on to it at full speed with her mouth open.

Shocked John and his wife Wendy, also 65, frantically tried to pull the half-inch-thick stake out.
OK, maybe 'impaled' isn't quite the right word, because technically it went straight down the canine Braniac's esophagus:
Special cameras and X-rays revealed the wood had gone straight down her throat and through the passage to her stomach — the oesophagus — MISSING her vital organs.

Mr Tyler [the vet] said: “For a dog to get a stick stuck this far down is unheard of. If it had gone out of the oesophagus it would have killed her.”

Millie escaped with just a small scratch in her belly after a delicate op to remove the stick using forceps.
See, this is why I could never be a vet. I'd be inclined to say 'Sorry, this thing is obviously too stupid to live, and the next mistake it makes could hurt a human, so I guess it'll have to die.'
She is fit again only a week after the accident in fields near the Hursts’ home in Denmead, Hants.

Wendy said: “It is amazing. The stick is nearly as big as she is. We’d have been heartbroken if she died.”
But I bet your neighborhood would have been safer.

Posted by Chris at 04:26 PM | Comments (2)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

March 08, 2005

When They Said Pineapples Would Be In The Breakfast Buffet, I Doubt This Is What They Meant

Me loves me some local6.com again:

A cafeteria worker found a live grenade Tuesday morning on a counter where people typically order coffee and doughnuts.

The Opportunity Cafeteria had just opened when the unidentified worker found the grenade on one corner of the counter.

Officers from the Miami Police Department say the grenade was active with its pin still in place.

. . .

No other devices were found at the cafeteria.
See, that's the problem. If you want the really good stuff, you've got to get in tight with one of the employees and hit them up before they even open.

Posted by Chris at 07:33 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

February 16, 2005

No Report As To Whether His Last Words Were "Hey, Y'All, Watch This!"

In today's lesson - a live demonstration of which took place a couple of hours up the road from Dangerous Logic Galactic HQ, we learn the difference between a flak jacket and a bulletproof vest. A flak jacket is designed to stop relatively-low-velocity shell fragments - not bullets, or for that matter, shotgun pellets:

HOBART – A man whose friends initially said he was killed by gunfire outside a Gary liquor store actually died after he donned what he thought was a bulletproof vest and asked a cohort to shoot him.

A friend then shot Daniel Wright with a .20-gauge shotgun, but it turned out the vest Wright had put on Thursday was a flak jacket not designed to stop a bullet.

Wright, 20, was mortally wounded in the shooting and died later at a Gary hospital after two of his friends drove him there.

Why on earth would Wright have asked his friend to shoot him? Here's why:

Hobart police Lt. Leo Finnerty said Friday that Wright was going to join the military and wanted some battlefield experience. So he went to a field in Hobart with his friends, donned what he thought was a bulletproof vest, and then told them: “Shoot me. I’m ready.”

“He voluntarily put on the vest because he wanted to experience what a .20-gauge shotgun would do,” Finnerty told the Post-Tribune of Merrillville.

I'm inclined to think the Army is better off not getting this guy - someone who showed such spectacular bad judgement could be counted on to make a mistake that could get a lot of people killed. Sad that he's dead, but 'Death By Stupidity' is more common than we want to admit.

Posted by Chris at 12:14 PM | Comments (2)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

February 07, 2005

The Newest Portugese Export...

...seems to have hit Fort Wayne. You have probably heard the story of Portugal's Marco Guerra, who posted pictures of himself holding guns and various ill-gotten booty on his website, which included his name and mobile number:

Police in Portugal have arrested a teenager who set up a personal web page which featured photographs of himself posing with a machine gun along with cash he said he obtained through crime - as well as his full name and mobile telephone number, a report said.

. . .

Guerra can be seen on the internet site, which is still up and running, holding a nine-millimeter gun against his face, carrying a rifle and waving a machine gun in the air.

The site also includes photos of a table full of €20 and €10 notes and marijuana along with the statement that "through illegal or obscure deals you can live really well."

Homestead High School is in an affluent part of Allen County, so it's to be expected that the kids there are up on the latest European trends, but this is ridiculous (scroll down past the Churubusco garage fire):

A Homestead High School student stole textbooks and padlocks from the school and exhibited pictures of the items on two Web sites, the Allen County Sheriff’s Department said.

Homestead Assistant Principal Steve Lake told police Thursday about Web sites that show pictures of books and padlocks missing from the school.

. . .

The student told school officials that other people were involved in the thefts, but he did not name them. He admitted that he took the pictures of the items and posted them on the Web sites, the report said.

Posted by Chris at 04:54 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

January 26, 2005

Life Imitates 24, Again

This season of 24 opened with (literally - it was in the first ten minutes of episode one) the bad guys parking a pickup truck on railroad tracks to cause a passenger train derailment which would allow them to steal the macguffin from a passenger on that train.

Today's LA commuter train derailment was apparently caused by someone parking his Jeep on the tracks:

The smash occurred when a train struck a 4x4 vehicle at a crossing, derailing and "side-swiping" an oncoming train at 6am local time (2pm GMT).
. . .
Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca said authorities were speaking to the driver of the vehicle.

"It didn't appear that the vehicle had stalled," he said. "It appears that it was deliberately placed there."
And why was that?
Reports suggested that the driver had second thoughts about a suicide bid, leaving his vehicle at the last minute.
So instead of dying himself, he's now facing nine counts of (at the very least) manslaughter, which ought to to be good for a room upgrade at the Westin Pelican Bay.

Posted by Chris at 04:02 PM | Comments (2)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

December 08, 2004

Beyond "Don't Bring A Knife To A Gun Fight"

Once you've got that squared away, it's time for Lesson Two: "Don't Bring A Rifle To A Tank Battle."

This guy must have skipped muj class the day they discussed that:

Launch in external player

Posted by Chris at 05:06 PM | Comments (8)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

October 22, 2004

I Guess She's Not Quite Useful Enough. Or Maybe She's Just Not An Idiot.

Useful Idiot John Martinkus, apologist for the splodeydopes:

John Martinkus was seized in Baghdad last Saturday and held for about 24 hours before being freed. The 35-year-old reporter was released after his captors looked up his name on the Internet and accepted that he was a freelance journalist rather than someone working for the US-led coalition. He sparked outrage among government officials and former hostages when he said his captors would not kill people indiscriminately.

"These guys, they're not stupid. They are fighting a war but they're not savages. They're not actually killing people willy-nilly. There was no reason for them to kill me," Martinkus told reporters on his arrival at Sydney airport on Tuesday.

"There was a reason to kill [British hostage Kenneth] Bigley, there was a reason to kill the [two] Americans. There was not a reason to kill me," he added.
I wonder what his take is on whether they have a reason to kill kidnapped British aid worker Margaret Hassan:
[Hassan] begged Britain on Friday to help save her by withdrawing its troops, saying these ''might be my last hours.''

The gaunt woman's wrenching televised statement delivered in between sobs puts new political pressure on Prime Minister Tony Blair's government, a day after it agreed to a U.S. request to transfer 850 British soldiers from southern Iraq to the Baghdad area to free American forces for new offensives against insurgents.
I'm guessing it would be something along the lines of "she's just a shill for the occupation."

Except that she isn't:

Hassan is believed to be in her early 60s and has done aid work in Iraq for nearly 30 years. She joined CARE soon after it began operations in Iraq in 1991, managing a staff of 60 Iraqis who run nutrition, health and water programs throughout the country.

She was a vocal opponent of international sanctions on Iraq and warned British lawmakers before last year's U.S.-led invasion that a conflict could produce a humanitarian crisis in a country already severely weakened by the embargoes.

The more cynical side of me thinks the average Australian wouldn't give a dingo's ass if the splodeydopes offed a moonbat like Martinkus, so they didn't see any point in killing him...

Posted by Chris at 06:12 PM | Comments (2)
Category: Splodeydope watch

October 04, 2004

Beware Your Routine

One of the problems with chronicling Dangerous Stupidity is the off-chance you'll be caught doing something Dangerously Stupid yourself. It makes you look doubly stupid, both for the Stupidity itself and for the reasonable expectation that you should know better than the Einsteins you're writing about, because you're allegedly paying closer attention. It is in the interest of pre-empting any such Smoking Gun-driven schadenfreude that I tell the following story...

I came into work yesterday (Sunday) here at the Imperialist-Capitalist-Running-Pig-Dog-Military-Industrial-Complex because we're way behind on our task improving the US Army's ability to kill innocent brown people and blow up mosques. I was coding away on my part of that task - the Widows and Orphans Targeting Processor - when the power went out. The lights came back on immediately, but my computer didn't power up when I hit the button. I don't know what irritated me more at this point: that an essential background process which had been running for three hours and had two more to go would have to be restarted, or the fifty alarms that I could hear all over my part of the building.

[In the first moment of blackout, the Alarm Gods gave to me:
Thirty UPSs,
Fifteen High Temps,
Eight Chiller Alarms,
And a paperweight that looks like my PC.]

A little investigation revealed that my half of my floor was the only one affected. After notifying the guard desk and being told that they'd paged the on-call Facilities guy but had not yet received a response, I figured it was a good time to go home. Three flights of stairs and a walk to the parking lot later, I realized that I had left my keys in my office. So I returned to the building and, without thinking any further than "oh cool, the elevator's already on this floor" (like I always do), hopped in. About one ohnosecond after the doors closed, I realized what a risk I was taking by riding an elevator into an area with dodgy power.

Fortunately, the trip to the third floor was uneventful. Unfortunately, the doors didn't open when I got there. Fortunately, the emergency phone worked and I was able to call the guard desk. Unfortunately, they were busy and it would be 'a while' before they could send anybody up to let me out. After what seemed like an hour, but was really probably about a minute, I got the bright idea of trying to pry the doors open a bit to see if I actually had made it all the way to the third floor. I stepped up to the crack, got my feet set, got a good fingerhold on both doors, and pulled.

The doors slid all the way open so easily that I fell out of the elevator. Boy, was I glad I actually was on the third floor.

Posted by Chris at 01:48 PM | Comments (5)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

But 'Adulterer, Adulterer, Pants On Fire' Doesn't Have The Same Ring To It

Not much more to add here but to say that sometimes people are really really dumb:

PINE BLUFF, Ark. -- A man who set his wife's pants on fire because he believed she was having an affair accidentally torched his mobile home and has been charged with arson, police said.

Officers said Leroy Brown, 19, perceiving that his wife had been with another man, set fire to the pair of pants he thought she was wearing at the time of the affair.

The burning pants started to singe Brown's fingers so he dropped the pants and the mobile home caught fire . . ..

Posted by Chris at 09:50 AM | Comments (3)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

September 13, 2004

You Can't Fight City Hall

But apparently you can crash your truck into it. From just up the road in KendalltuckyKendallville comes this one:

An intoxicated man rammed a pickup truck into Kendallville City Hall on Saturday evening, destroying the front door of the landmark building, police said.

Kenneth Barden, 42, of Kendallville crashed into the building at 234 S. Main St. in a 1993 Nissan pickup truck just before 6 p.m. The metal frame and glass door were destroyed and will cost the city about $15,000 to repalace, said Sgt. Dan Leighty of the Kendallville Police Department. There were no injuries.

Barden was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated and criminal mischief – both felonies – and criminal recklessness with a vehicle – a Class A misdemeanor. He was being held at the Noble County Jail in lieu of $9,500 bail.

Leighty had spotted Barden just before the crash as he was screeching the pickup’s tires. He followed Barden north on Main Street. A moment before Leighty planned to make a traffic stop, the vehicle made a sharp left turn and rammed into the building, Leighty said.

Barden told police he had problems with alcohol and wanted the city to do something about it, Leighty said.
Looks like he'll get his wish.

Posted by Chris at 09:31 AM | Comments (4)
Category: Local Stuff

August 05, 2004

Good Thing He Wasn't On Trial For Public Indecency

local6.com has the best stories, because even though they're an Orlando TV station and this story happened in Pennsylvania (what, Florida isn't weird enough for them?), they have today's winner in the What Not To Do In Court contest:

UNIONTOWN, Pa. -- Something smelled rotten when Michael Hanczyk showed up in court to fight a drunken driving charge. Authorities say it was the booze on his breath.

A judge stopped a hearing Tuesday and ordered the 42-year-old Hanczyk to take a field sobriety test after he and others said they smelled alcohol on Hanczyk's breath.

"Everyone smelled him," said district attorney Nancy Vernon.

A breath test indicated that Hanczyk had a blood alcohol content of 0.296 percent, more than three times the state's legal limit, Vernon said.

Posted by Chris at 10:54 AM | Comments (5)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

June 09, 2004

Drugs Bad! Scientology Good!

Control the children and you control the future. The corporate shell game that is Scientology Inc. knows this, which is why they're trying to distract us with something shiny...

Anyone listening to a classroom talk by Narconon Drug Prevention & Education is unlikely to recognize the connection with Scientology; the lessons sound nothing like theology . . .. Narconon is an efficiently run program with a well-received anti-drug message for grades three to 12. Its popularity with kids and teachers cuts a wide swath -- from the posh suburbs of Malibu to the urban classrooms San Francisco. Speakers pepper their presentations with personal tales of drug abuse and redemption and emphasize the importance of knowing how drugs affect the body.
while they're a'fixin' to club us over the head:
Instruction is delivered in language purged of most church parlance, but includes "all the Scientology and Dianetics Handbook basics," according to Scientology correspondence obtained by The Chronicle.

Narconon's anti-drug instruction rests on these key church concepts: that the body stores all kinds of toxins indefinitely in fat, where they wreak havoc on the mind until "sweated" out. Those ideas are rejected by the five medical experts contacted by The Chronicle, who say there is no evidence to support them.

Narconon was created by L. Ron Hubbard, the late science-fiction writer who founded Scientology, a religion that claims to improve the well-being of followers through courses aimed at self-improvement and global serenity. Narconon operates a global network of drug treatment centers, as well as education programs for elementary, middle and high school students.
As with everything else Scientology touches, Bad Science is everywhere:
Narconon speakers tell students that the body stores drugs indefinitely in fat, where they cause drug cravings and flashbacks. Students are told that sweating through exercise or sauna rids the body of these "poisons." And, some teachers said, the speakers tell students that the drug residues produce a colored ooze when exiting the body.

"It's pseudoscience, right up there with colonic irrigation," said Dr. Peter Banys, director of substance abuse programs at the VA Medical Center in San Francisco.

Dr. Igor Grant, professor of psychiatry and director of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at UC San Diego, agreed: "I'm not aware of any data that show that going into a sauna detoxifies you from toxins of any kind." Three other addiction experts contacted by The Chronicle echoed their skepticism.
and
A Chronicle review of Narconon's curriculum found that, like the Church of Scientology, Narconon embraces Hubbard's belief that experiences are recorded in three-dimensional images in the mind, with sound and smell, called "mental image pictures" or "pictures in the mind." Taking any drug "scrambles" the pictures.

"Our take-home message is that drugs are essentially poison," Carr said. "This is how we basically explain it to them. Drugs scramble pictures. When people take drugs, they affect the mental pictures."

Scientologists believe that scrambled pictures interfere with one's ability to "go clear," a state of mental purity that is a goal of the religion.

In his 1979 Scientology text "Clear Body, Clear Mind," Hubbard writes that high doses of the vitamin niacin and hours of sauna flush out drugs, "freeing the person up for mental and spiritual gain." He calls it "Purification," and Scientology churches often are equipped with saunas, said ex-Scientologists and a tour guide at San Francisco's church.

Hubbard writes that drugs in fat "re-stimulate" the unwanted mental pictures created when the drugs were taken.

The real irony in all of this is that Hubbard liked his prescription drugs. And other peoples', too (link to rotten.com, not work-safe).

Posted by Chris at 11:12 PM | Comments (5)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

May 23, 2004

Today's Life Lesson: Just Because A Bike Cop Doesn't Have A Car Doesn't Mean He Doesn't Have A Gun

Teen Assaults Bike Officer:

Toledo police locked up a teenager for allegedly assaulting an officer. Police with the mountain bike unit say they pulled over the 16-year old suspect for playing loud music in his car. When one of the officers approached the car, the teen started driving at him and didn't stop until the officer drew a gun. After a struggle, the teenager was taken into custody.
What would possess a young man to behave in such a manner? Wait for it...
The officers say he also tried to dump two bags of marijuana. So far the teen's charged with felonious assault on an officer.
So he started with what would have been (at worst) a ticket for playing music too loud, and finished with an arrest for assault and possession. Niiiiiiice.

Posted by Chris at 08:01 PM | Comments (4)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

May 22, 2004

Today's Life Lesson: Never Ever EVER Run A Tab In A Strip Joint

Because at the end of the night, when you're all liquored up and hormoned up, they can pretty much charge you whatever they want. And your options are limited:

Mitchell Blaser, who is the Chief Financial Officer of the Americas division of insurer Swiss Re, filed suit on Tuesday demanding that strip club Scores pay back the $28,000 because that does not accurately reflect his spending at the Manhattan nightspot.

But a Scores spokesman said that, during his December visit, Blaser ordered five magnums of the club's most expensive champagne, a 1990 Krug Clos du Mesnil, for $3,200 each. He also spent $7,000 for lap dances and the company of 12 girls who surrounded him for hours.

"Obviously, he's pouring the champagne for all the girls and playing superstar," Scores spokesman Lonnie Hanover said.
The guy's a CFO. He should really know better - particularly about when to use credit and when to pay cash on the barrelhead, so to speak. Unless, of course, he used to work for Enron, or maybe even Raytheon. As I've said before, men do strange things when motivated by pussy.

The most damning evidence, to me, is right here:

Hanover called the suit "frivolous" and said Scores has three signed receipts from Blaser over the course of the night. He said American Express investigated the matter and found the charges were valid and paid the $28,000. [emphasis added]
In my experience, American Express is the card most likely to take the cardholder's side in a dispute. That's one of the reasons I like them so much (and, incidentally, why a lot of small business owners don't take it). If they investigated and found no irregularities, then Mr. Blaser owes them 28 large.

OTOH, since it's a Manhattan strip club, it's probably Mob-owned. The Amex investigator could have come home from work one day and found a horse head in his bed...

Posted by Chris at 01:24 PM | Comments (4)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

May 12, 2004

Sure, They Need My PIN To Confirm My Email Address. What's Wrong With That?

Yahoo!'s spam filters are pretty good - I only get about three false negatives per day and about two false positives per week. I was cleaning out the junk mail folder when I noticed this one:

From: *Citibank-Online* (bobstayton@m3xico.com)
To: "Parking" (parking_god@ya-etceteraetcetera-hoo.com)
Well, unless 'Bob Stayton' is the CEO or CIO, and he's running Citibank from Mexico, this is pretty clearly a scam. Just out of curiosity, I read the message - I wanted to see how good it looked (e.g., some of the fake PayPal and eBay "please go to this site and confirm your password" scam spams look pretty realistic).

All I can say is if you fall for this one, you pretty much deserve whatever you get:

_Dear_ _Citibank_ Card_holders,

_This EMAIL was ssent by t_he citi_bank _server to veerify _your E-MAIL addres. You must complete this process by clicking on_the_link _below_ and enntering in the smal _window_ your Citi-bank Atm_ Card number and _PIN_ that you use_ in local_Atm_Machine. This is donne for-your protection -Q- becourse some_of_our _members_ _no_longer have access to their email adresses and we must verify it.

www.yahoo.com/[string of random characters]

To verify _your E_Mail adress and accees _your Citibank_account, click on_the link below_.

yZcl vZZcfTB0T5w1g2DTfv ofTezDT5mn4zDXaGg

Posted by Chris at 05:18 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

March 30, 2004

Another Creationista Argument Bites The Dust

One of the reasons (perhaps the only real reason) Creationism continues to have any traction in the U.S. is that it's very easy to raise doubts about evolution in a way the layman can understand. Every one of those pseudo-arguments is answerable, but the explanation generally requires a strong scientific background (like BS-level Biology, Geology, or Chemistry) to understand. Creationistas like Hovind and Gish know this -- their entire schtick is based on it. That's why they spread their BS by doing tours talking to crowds (usually 80% or more bused-in fundamentalists) and consistently dodge offers to debate in writing with review by people actually cognizant of the subject matter.

One of their standard arguments goes like this: "You expect us to believe that life arose from nothing, where a cosmic stew of chemicals just happens to arrange itself the right way and SHAZAM! we get life? Are you serious?" Scientists at Los Alamos are pretty close to saying "Yes. And we can prove it could have happened that way:"

Researchers argue over the definition of life, but they generally agree that it must have three elements: a container, such as the membrane wall of a cell; metabolism, the ability to convert basic nutrients into a cell's working parts; and genes, chemical instructions for building a cell that can be passed on to progeny and change as conditions change.

Each of these critical elements has now been achieved in the laboratory, albeit in rudimentary form, and scientists say they are ready to try to put them all together in one working unit.

"We have quite a bit of knowledge about how these different systems work independently," said microbiologist Martin Hanczyc of Massachusetts General Hospital. "We are at a point where we can start taking these things into the laboratory and do experiments.

"Whether we'll be able to synthesize a living cell in the near future is a big question. But we can start exploring that possibility with what we have available now," said Hanczyc, who along with Harvard's Jack Szostak is able to make artificial cellular membranes grow and divide.
I extended the quote to include the 'big question' reference so I can't be accused of selective quotation. But the fact that we can synthesize all the critical elements now is more than the creationistas will concede.

Posted by Chris at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

March 23, 2004

Sure, You'll Lose Weight - Your Wallet Will Be Lighter

Found a new site to add to the research bookmark list: Quackwatch, dedicated to the exposure of fradulent medical/health items, practices, and practicioners. Some of the site's highlights:

Posted by Chris at 03:21 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

March 05, 2004

Big Cat Road Trip?

A preliminary injunction against Gary Dutcher evicts his cats:

An Allen Superior judge ruled Tuesday that a man housing four wildcats in his northeast Allen County home must remove the animals until the final outcome of the lawsuit filed against him by his neighborhood association. Judge Stanley Levine issued the preliminary injunction calling for the removal of the animals after a hearing Tuesday afternoon.

During the hearing, Gary L. Dutcher, 32, testified that he has already removed the animals from his home, [address redacted]. Attempts to reach him Tuesday night were not successful.

It was not known late Tuesday where he took the animals.
I think about what started this mess and it makes me wonder exactly how he removed the cats. Did he just pile them into his Camaro, drive until he hit something, then pop the door and say "Right. Off you go, then?"

Posted by Chris at 12:43 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Local Stuff

February 27, 2004

Halt! Neighborhood Association!

Update to the story of a Fort Wayne man who wrecked his car and let his cougar escape: he's now being sued by his neighborhood association to force him to get rid of his three remaining wild cats (another cougar and two fifty-pound servals):

An Allen County man housing wildcats at his home not only faces criminal charges but also must contend with a civil lawsuit filed by his neighbors, seeking permanent removal of the animals. Gary L. Dutcher, 31, was charged last month with leaving the scene of an accident, a misdemeanor; operating a vehicle while his license was suspended, an infraction; and maintaining a public nuisance, an ordinance violation.

Dutcher crashed his car on Stellhorn Road near Lahmeyer Road Jan. 31 while hauling his 150-pound cougar named Samson home from a veterinary clinic. The wildcat fled the car and eventually had to be shot and killed in the 7000 block of Stellhorn despite efforts by emergency workers to tranquilize the animal.

. . .

On Monday, Still Water Place Community Association sued Dutcher, seeking the eventual permanent removal of the wild animals. The lawsuit alleges he has broken restrictive covenants established for the neighborhood because the animals are "inherently extremely dangerous."

. . .

The lawsuit notes the escape of Dutcher's cougar in January shows the need for the immediate removal of the animals "before another of the animals escapes from its enclosure to roam the community or, worse, attacks humans and other animals."
Personally, I think the 'leaving the scene of an accident' charge is a bit much (reports are that he left the scene of the accident to CHASE THE ESCAPED COUGAR!), but the guy probably should have read his neighborhood association's by-laws, which (I'm guessing) had some verbiage along the lines of "NO CATS THAT CAN KILL YOU!".

But I probably shouldn't expect Dutcher to pay real close attention to legal issues...

About one month before Dutcher crashed his car and the cougar escaped, he was arrested on drunken driving charges. He pleaded guilty earlier this month and is awaiting sentencing, scheduled for March 1.

In May 2003, he was sentenced to 18 months probation for impersonating a U.S. marshal in October 2002.

Posted by Chris at 04:48 PM | Comments (2)
Category: Local Stuff

February 03, 2004

They're Called 'Wild' For A Reason

We had our own When Animals Attack moment in the Fort this weekend:

Fort Wayne police, after a four-hour search, shot and killed a cougar that had gotten loose in northeast Fort Wayne on Saturday night. Sampson, a tan-colored, 4-year-old cougar, belonged to Gary Dutcher of Allen County, and escaped from his car when it slid off Stellhorn Road near Lahmeyer Road just before 7 p.m., police and state conservation officers said.

The search ended just north of Stellhorn Road about 11 p.m.

The cougar was hiding in the bushes of a residence. A Fort Wayne animal control officer fired several shots from a tranquilizer gun and the cat became agitated and tried to jump on a police officer.

Police then fired two shotgun rounds, killing the cat, police spokesman Tom Rhoades said.
Apparently Dutcher was on his way home from a vet checkup for the cougar when he put his car in the ditch. As he got out of his car, the cougar -- who was not caged or otherwise restrained -- escaped (different story in the next day's paper):
The animal was not in a cage and, even though mildly sedated, ran from the car and was found about four hours later hiding in the bushes near the Hupe Insurance Services, 7011 Stellhorn Road. To protect the public, members of Fort Wayne's Emergency Services Team surrounded the area. An animal control officer fired two tranquilizer darts into Sampson, but police said they were forced to shoot and kill the cat when it began running south toward some homes.
Interestingly, the print edition of that day's paper said the cougar attacked a police officer.
No one was injured. Dutcher, who could not be reached for comment, was cited for causing a public nuisance - which carries a fine of up to $2,500, according to Belinda Lewis, the city's director of animal control. Lewis said it is unclear whether the law required Sampson to be caged during transport, but she said a cage should have been used and had been requested by the veterinarian.
Where the hell's my clue-by-four when I really need it?
  • Use a cage. Repeat: USE. A. CAGE!
  • So a cage that big won't fit in a Camaro. Dude doesn't have a pickup truck?
  • If it was a routine checkup, why make the trip in crappy weather (granted, it was only a mile or two if he was going where I think he was)?
Dutcher and the local authorities will cross paths again on this issue, and Dutcher will most likely lose:
Dutcher has been keeping wild cats for about six years, and last year had two mountain lions and three servals, or African wildcats. Lewis said the servals were kept in cages in the garage while the mountain lions - Sampson and a female, Delilah, were in backyard cages surrounded by barbed wire and an electric privacy fence. Sampson had been declawed.

Even though Dutcher has a federal permit to keep and exhibit his cats, Dutcher might have to give them up or move when his home in the 8300 block of Chapel Bend Drive is annexed into the city next year. City ordinance prevents residents from keeping exotic or dangerous wild animals.

Some of Dutcher's Stillwater Place neighbors began objecting to his cats as far back as 1999, complaining about the odor and worrying what might happen should one of them get loose.

Dutcher, a member of the Midwest Exotic Feline Education Association, told The News-Sentinel in 1999 he and other members keep big cats to protect species that are becoming increasingly rare. "They're like children to me," he said. "We take very good care of them. I've gone to every length to make sure everything here is safe. You've got to know how to handle them."
I hear this and I think of Timothy Treadwell and Aime Hugenard saying Alaskan brown bears are mostly harmless "party animals" a year and a half before getting mauled to death by one.

Update: bigcatrescue.org has a page documenting incidents involving captive cats. Verrrrrry interesting.

Posted by Chris at 03:52 PM | Comments (3)
Category: Local Stuff

January 03, 2004

The Mark Of The Beast Will Be A Trademark

I saw this article in my local paper yesterday, titled Pricey brand names doubling as modern baby names. This quote just blows my mind:

"ALICE HUNTER has had a long love affair with Chanel products. She bought her first bottle of Chanel Allure perfume at age 17 and the first in a long line of Chanel bags soon after. So when the Bradenton, Fla., mom-to-be was looking for a name for her first child, she felt the choice was easy.

In 2001, right after her daughter was born, Ms. Hunter had the Chanel logo -- two intertwined C's -- tattooed on her neck and her husband got a matching tattoo on his chest. 'It's in honor of our daughter,' Ms. Hunter says. 'And I'll bet she'll want one when she turns 18.'"
If she hasn't killed you in your sleep by then for sticking her with such a stupid name!

About the tatoo thing - sure, I wear logo t-shirts; I don't see anything wrong with that. But I draw the line at BRANDING YOURSELF WITH A COMPANY LOGO! That's just plain stupid. It reminds me of the near-future setting of the novel Jennifer Government, where the US Government is just another corporation and everybody takes their employer's name as their own surname (incidentally, it's an interesting read; I guarantee you'll never look at Frequent Flyer programs the same way afterwards).

"For now, the mass marketing of certain upscale brands ensures an immediate link between a luxury product and a child named for it. Says baby name author Bruce Lansky: 'Here's the cool thing about names: At no cost to you, you can acquire the same designer and a part of that cachet.'"
No, you don't. You identify yourself as a sad loser wannabe who will in all probability never own a Lexus (353 girls were given that name in 2000, according to the Social Security Administration) car or an Armani (298 girls, 273 boys in 2000) suit.

On the other hand, there is an upside to this - eighteen years from now, we'll have a whole new generation of strippers dancing under the names on their birth certificates.

Posted by Chris at 10:35 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

December 29, 2003

Imagine If She'd Stiffed Her

A woman dissatisfied with the Christmas present her ex-stepmother gave her tried to kill her with a Molotov cocktail:

"Brandi Nicole Nason, 20, and her boyfriend, Marshal Abram Penna, 24, of Citrus Heights, allegedly tossed a lighted bottle of gasoline through the glass front door of Nason's former stepmother's home about 9 p.m. on Christmas Day, said Hermosa Beach Police Sgt. Paul Wolcott.

'A bottle comes flying through her door and immediately lights up her living room,' Wolcott said. 'She was barely able to escape with her life.'

Wolcott said Nason was upset because she thought her former stepmother's Christmas present was inadequate."
OK, this is just so completely stupid I can't even be civil about it. Brandi, you are a complete imbecile. You and your shit-for-brains boyfriend are so utterly stupid that your continued combined existence is an insult to regular stupid people everywhere. If brains exerted air pressure, the vacuums between your ears would make your heads implode! Your combined IQ can't possibly hit triple digits; frankly, I'm surprised that you knew how to make a molotov cocktail and amazed that you managed to light and throw it without becoming a Darwin Award nominee. The fact that you continue to breathe my air makes me physically ill. I fervently hope that you are also too stupid to know how to reproduce, but I fear that you are merely too stupid to understand contraception. The only thing I see here which matches your idiocy is your greed. You tried to kill your ex-stepmother because you didn't like her gift?!? She's your ex-stepmother! She didn't owe you jack shit!

One last thing, and I'm sure this will surprise you as much as it did me:

"Drug paraphernalia was found during a search of Nason's car, police said."

Posted by Chris at 11:50 PM | Comments (2)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

October 21, 2003

Hiding In Plain Sight Is One Thing, But This Is Just Damn Stupid

I've long thought that the sole purpose of some peoples' lives is to serve as a counterexample. Here's a nice counterexample demonstrating Rule #3 of Successful Criminalizing: Keep A Low Profile:

"Note to car thieves: If you must go talk to the police about something, don't show up in a stolen car.

Police say that's just what James Kent did in Bonita Springs this week.

He's in the Lee County Jail this morning because when he went to the Lee County Sheriff's office to report a disturbance he drove there in a stolen car."

Posted by Chris at 10:59 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

October 15, 2003

Situationally Oblivious

See this guy?

Cubs fan tips catchable foul ball away from Moises Alou.  You know the rest.

Don't be that guy.

Poor dumb bastard. Defecting to Miami wouldn't be a real bad idea right now.

He apologized for his actions, offering a statement containing this excuse:

"I had my eyes glued on the approaching ball the entire time and was so caught up in the moment that I did not even see Moises Alou, much less that he may have had a play.

Had I thought for one second that the ball was playable or had I seen Alou approaching I would have done whatever I could to get out of the way and give Alou a chance to make the catch."
Yeah, he messed up, but you'll notice that five other Einsteins were trying to grab the ball too, and it didn't occur to any of them that they should give one of their players room to try to make the play!

The poor dumb bastard's father:

"I taught him well. I taught him to catch foul balls when he comes near them."
Apparently he didn't teach him situational awareness.

Posted by Chris at 07:04 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

October 06, 2003

Life Imitates Up In Smoke

As if just having a meth lab wasn't dangerous enough, these Einsteins in my hometown added all the dangers inherent in a motor vehicle:

"Deputy finds meth lab in moving motor home

WATSON TWP -- Two men were arrested Saturday, Sept. 20, after Allegan County sheriff's deputies pulled over their motor home and discovered a methamphetamine lab inside.

Deputy Dave LaBonte stopped the motor home about 10:30 p.m. and noticed a strange odor as he approached. Deputy David Holmes arrived to assist LaBonte. Shortly thereafter, two of the suspects attempted to flee into the woods. The deputies captured one, but the other escaped. During investigation of the vehicle, an active meth lab was discovered and the driver and passenger were arrested and taken to the Allegan County Jail."


--Allegan County News (Allegan, Michigan), Sept. 25, 2003, p. 7

Posted by Chris at 02:46 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

August 18, 2003

If We Destroy Your Cash Crop And Scrog Up Your Water Supply, Will You Like Us Again?

I don't know what the Ba'ath insurgents think they're going to gain from shifting their attacks from US/UK troops to infrastructure, although it's impressed the NYT:

"The attacks raised new concerns that the insurgents who have been singling out American soldiers may be widening their strikes to include civilian targets and economic sabotage. The explosion at the water pipeline was the work of saboteurs, investigators said, and the fire along the pipeline appeared suspicious as well."

Call me cynical, but I think they're tired of losing ten guerrillas for every coalition casualty they inflict, and water mains and pipelines are less likely to shoot back. Of course, Jim Dunnigan beat me to that thought by a day:

"The Baath Party appears to be shifting it's efforts from American troops, who have been increasingly successful in defeating these attacks, to destruction of civilian infrastructure and intimidation of Iraqi civilians."
Dunnigan goes on to say the first thing I thought of when I heard about the attacks--that the saboteurs are only hurting Joe Six-cup-of-tea Iraqi:
"Coalition mass media is constantly pointing out the need for Iraqis to choose which side they are on and act. Increasing cooperation from Iraqi civilians, in terms of information and volunteers for local security and rebuilding projects, has apparently also attracted the attention of the Baath Party leaders. The Baath plan to create chaos and a general uprising against the coalition (which Baath would exploit to return to power), won't work if the Iraqi population unites against Baath."

Posted by Chris at 11:45 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

August 07, 2003

Always Wear Your Seat Belt...

...especially if you think your driver's about to go car-mageddon on somebody (hat tip - ObscureStore):

"Two drivers who fought a deadly mile-long road-rage battle last spring that killed a passenger in one of the cars have been charged in the man's death.

Both drivers, including the girlfriend of the victim, should be held accountable, Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar said Wednesday while announcing charges against the drivers in a Brooklyn Park crash that killed 25-year-old Marvin Lindsey. She stood just feet from the median of U.S. 169 where a small memorial stands for Lindsey.

"These two were basically engaged in mutual car-to-car combat along the highway that ended in the death of Mr. Lindsey," Klobuchar said of the April 27 crash.

Mark Raymond Bair, 29, and Beth Ann Rademacher, 25, were each charged with felony criminal vehicular homicide in the death of Lindsey, a passenger in Rademacher's car.

...

It took several months for state troopers to reconstruct the accident scene and to gather evidence from many witnesses, who gave the following account of the road battle:

Witnesses said they saw a Chevrolet Lumina run a red light at 117th Avenue and abruptly turn into the southbound left lane of U.S. 169, causing several cars to brake suddenly. An Oldsmobile Cutlass was one of the cars driving south on 169.

Bair drove the Oldsmobile and Rademacher drove the Chevrolet.

When the two cars soon stopped next to each other at a red light at 114th Avenue, Bair got out of his car and began yelling at Rademacher, who in turn got out of her car and yelled back, according to the charges filed in Hennepin County District Court.

A witness said she saw someone from the Chevrolet throw a pair of scissors toward the Oldsmobile. And at one point, witnesses said, Bair yelled a racial epithet at Rademacher and Lindsey, an African-American.

At the next light, Bair again got out of his car and threw a screwdriver at the Chevrolet, the charges allege.

For the next mile or so, the two cars swerved at each other, Klobuchar said.

Eventually Rademacher lost control of her car, swerving onto the left shoulder and rolling several times into the median, where Lindsey was thrown from the car. He died shortly after the crash."


When I'm king, an incident like this will be good for twenty or thirty felony counts of Dangerous Stupidity. But we're not done yet. Ravingbarker's sister is upset that Ravingbarker was also charged:

"'I think it's very unfair. I don't think they looked at everything they should have,' Paulson said. 'My son was in the car. He said words were exchanged, but that they were just driving along and the guy kept swerving at them.'"

Here's the deal, lady: your nutbag sister got her boyfriend killed because she

  • A. Ran a red light,

  • B. Reacted badly to initial criticism of same,

  • C. Threw (or had someone in her car throw) a pair of scissors at the other guy,

  • D. Reacted badly to subsequent criticism of same,

  • E. Engaged in a rollicking game of swerve-chicken...

  • F. ...which she lost. Finally,

  • G. She couldn't get her boyfriend to buckle up.


Oh, yeah, she's pregnant, too. Now there are some genes that I want propogated.


Posted by Chris at 07:53 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

August 06, 2003

So Valuable They Were Willing To Kill A Cop For It?

The deputies responded to a breaking and entering call at the golf course. They dismounted and cautiously approached on foot, surprising the suspects as they were loading the last of their loot. Desparate to escape, the suspects gunned their pickup truck and drove straight at one deputy, trying to run him over. The deputy dove out of the way and fired four shots at the fleeing vehicle, disabling it. The suspects fled on foot but were caught by other deputies a few minutes later. The stolen goods were recovered...

Returnable beverage cans.

From my hometown paper, the Allegan (MI) County News:

"This was the fourth similar burglary at the golf course. Police believe [the suspects] were responsible for the three preceding ones.

The suspects kicked in the door to a shed attached to the clubhouse. On a previous burglary, $450 worth of returnable cans were stolen."

--Allegan County News, June 19, 2003, p. 3

At 10 cents per can, that's 4,500 cans! And since you can't return the cans if they're crushed, that's a lot of space. Although the theft is unusual, it's not unheard of:

"'When you steal something, you would typically get 10 cents on the dollar for what it's worth at a fence,' [Sheriff's Department Lt. Ron] Johnston said. 'With these, they're readily convertible into cash.'"

Well, sure, but if you were a store clerk, wouldn't you think it just a bit suspicious if someone tried to return 4,500 cans? And what's up with the golf course being robbed of that many cans (I'm guessing) three times? You'd think they'd have learned their lesson by now.

Posted by Chris at 08:03 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

July 28, 2003

None So Blind As Those Who Will Not See

Arab News is known for commentary articles that are just out there, but Lessons From the Killing of Uday and Qusay by Amr Mohammed Al-Faisal is so completely wrong in everything from its premise to its supporting 'evidence' to its conclusion that it stands as a textbook example of the dangerous stupidity I'm here to fight. Without further ado, on with the Fisking:

"I have never been a supporter of Saddam Hussein or his regime. Nor do I wish them well today. However, the way that Uday and Qusay were killed needs to be examined carefully so as to derive useful lessons. "
The disclaimer is now standard issue with those who oppose what we did and are doing in Iraq, as indeed it has to be--the alternative is the implicit presumption that the writer actually preferred Hussein & Sons in charge there (not that there's any shortage of those half-wits).

There are lessons to be learned, yes. Why don't you draw your own conclusions and them compare them to Mr. Al-Faisal's when we get to the end?

"US forces, based on a tip-off from a friend of the Hussein family (in return for a $30 million reward), surrounded a house in Mosul in which Uday, Qusay, his 14-year-old son Mustafa, and one of their supporters had hidden. Some 200 US soldiers backed by helicopter gunships, missiles and mortar shells, attacked the house. After a battle, which lasted six hours, the three men and boy were dead. "
What Al-Faisal doesn't say in this summary tells us a lot about which way he's headed, but we'll give him more rope anyway. There'll be plenty of time to smack that horse in the ass later.
"I was appalled."
I was mostly disappointed, half because the intel would have been invaluable and half because parading them around Iraq in a cage would have given Iraqis a sense of closure. Their deaths, however, were an acceptable consolation prize. But let's move on to this real screamer:
"I have said it before (not in this publication) and I say it again: Western, and especially US, military doctrine is incapable of achieving victory."

What, did this guy sleep through the (first) Gulf War? We smoked the entire Iraqi military in Kuwait in five weeks of air strikes and four days of ground combat. We achieved the stated objective, the liberation of Kuwait, with under 300 KIA (combat and non-combat deaths). The only thing keeping us from rolling on to Baghdad and finishing the job in 1991 was the lack of a UN mandate.

Also, did he sleep through the second Gulf War? We defeated the entire Iraqi military, period, in six weeks with half the casualties of the first Gulf War. Since May 1, coalition forces have been able to move at will throughout the country without facing more than token resistance. If that isn't the definition of 'military victory,' than what is?

"It took a 50:1 ratio (I am ignoring the helicopters, etc.) of crack (at least that’s what the Americans call them) troops five hours to kill the three men and a boy who were hiding not in a heavily fortified bunker but in a simple villa. What a disgrace! In addition, they were not even trying to capture them alive. If they had been, maybe it would have taken them a week."
Right, wrong, wrong, and definitely wrong, respectively. The American troops were trying to arrest the Brothers Grim, even going so far as to knock on the door when they arrived! When Oday and Qusay didn't come out with their hands up like good fugitives, and opened fire when the the Americans went into the villa to search for them, the troopers did what any good cops trying to arrest a suspect would do - fall back, establish a perimeter and call for backup. A detachment from the 101st Airborne arrived (the 50:1 ratio is probably about right here), and the next three hours (I don't know where the 'five hour' figure came from. The whole thing took about 3 1/2 hours) were spent asking for their surrender and dodging fire coming from inside the building. If the original intent was to kill them rather than capture them, one JDAM or TOW detachment could have done the job in 3 1/2 minutes, not 3 1/2 hours.

"Had these been Saudi troops I would have urged that they be court-martialed for sheer colossal incompetence and cowardice."
So unbelievably wrong that we'll have to come up with a new word to describe just how wrong it is. Had the Saudi military tried that, Saddam would be appointing a military governor for Riyadh by now. If the Saudi military were held to the same professional standards the US military is, there wouldn't be a Saudi military!

"We must learn from this that US military strategy, doctrine, tactics and whatever else you can think of have reached a point of total bankruptcy. They are simply incapable of fighting real battles against real people who do not roll over and play dead on cue."
The Iraqis didn't roll over and play dead; we rolled over them and made them dead. Get it right next time.

"I would like to suggest learning military arts from such people as the Vietnamese, who proved beyond a shadow of doubt their military superiority over the US despite the latter’s almighty bluster and fancy hardware (how the Americans love their toys). "
(Sigh) I can't believe we still have to argue this one. Despite the fact that that the modern US military is a far superior force to the one of the Vietnam era, we won every battle in that war (even Tet! Don't believe me? Examine the relative positions before and after!). Vietnam was a political defeat, not a military one.

"The Chinese also have a thing or two to teach us. Do not forget that they fought the US and its allies (another coalition of the willing) to a standstill in Korea at a time when the US was at its mightiest militarily and economically. China at the time was a Third World country, which had just come through a massive civil war. The East, brothers and sisters, is where we should look. Forget about the West, for they are finished."
Again, different army, different era. The Chinese outnumbered the UN forces by about 3:1. If anything, the military preparedness was the opposite of what Al-Faisal claims: the US had de-mobilized after WWII and the Chinese were preparing for an invasion of Formosa (Taiwan)!

"As for you, the American people, you must start to worry that the performance of your military does not start to give ideas to your southern neighbors. If they continue to perform like they are doing in Iraq, then I for one believe the Mexican Army is a serious threat to your national integrity."
And here's where we compare notes. What was the lesson to be learned from the Brothers Grim raid? <Trebek>Oooh, sorrry. We were looking for "What is 'Beware of Mexico?'" </Trebek>

Posted by Chris at 12:28 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

July 27, 2003

In Training For The Darwin Awards

This is what I mean by 'Dangerous Stupidity:' I was just finishing fueling up the car yesterday when this guy pulls up to the pump kitty-corner from me, sticks the nozzle in, and lights a cigarette! For the next couple of minutes he stands there holding the cigarette at waist level maybe three feet from the opening--I can clearly see the fumes coming out of the gas tank. Fortunately, I finish up right about then and haul ass into the station, because I want to be inside a cinder-block building when this Einstein does his impression of Thich Quang Duc. I mean, if you're gunning for a Darwin Award, that's one thing--the gene pool could use just a little bit of chlorine anyway. But to take innocent bystanders with you when you do--that ain't hardly fair.

What may have been stupider than that: I see the guy finish up and come into the station. He puts his half-done cigarette out before he enters because there's no smoking in stores in Indiana!

What may have been stupider than that: I didn't say a word to him about it.

Posted by Chris at 08:16 AM | Comments (2)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

July 17, 2003

Stupid People From My Hometown, Part I

Administrivia Item #1: I'll be transitioning to MovableType over the next several days, so if things go temporarily weird, that's probably why.


Administrivia Item #2: I need to add something I forgot to mention yesterday: credit goes to one of my favorite comedians, Paul Gilmartin (co-host of Dinner And A Movie and frequent Bob & Tom guest) for the phrase "Undignified Ways To Die."


Moving right along...

I have a friend who was once arrested for DUI (his BAC at the time was .08, which is exactly the legal limit in Indiana, so there's something not quite right there, but that's only incidental to my story). First DUI offense, no priors of any kind. They essentially maxed him out for a first offense with no exacerbating circumstances--overnight in jail, six months suspended license, two years probation, mandatory Driver Re-education, stiff fine. He figures it ended up costing him over $4,000. The point I'm trying to make here is that the system, though somewhat heavy-handed, worked: he was genuinely remorseful about what happened, accepted full responsibility, and to this day won't drive after even just seeing a beer bottle.


Contrast that with the tale of this mental defective, who, I am ashamed to admit, lives in my hometown. Nine hours after being sentenced for his THIRD DUI (five years probation and 30 days in jail with work release; the county prosecutor said there wasn't enough room at the county jail to incarcerate him immediately after sentencing), Numbnuts wraps his car around a tree. Police find--surprise!--four empty beer cans in his car. Mr. Waste-Of-DNA is in critical condition at a Kalamazoo Hospital.


Some people you just can't reach.

Posted by Chris at 01:28 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

July 12, 2003

Stupid Lawyer Tricks

I've been bashing the French since long before it became popular, so I was all ready to label this story 'Stupid French Tricks.' However, the stupidity here appears not to be of French origin. After reading the story on This Is True, I did a little more digging around and found the original story in the Miami Herald.

"In what appears to be a bizarre case of mistaken identity, French and U.S. authorities were convinced that [Nona] Cason, 39, was Nadine Tretiakoff, a Frenchwoman charged with kidnapping her own two kids from ex-husband Pierre Fourcade."
It seems that Ms. Tretiakoff absconded with her and Fourcade's two children in August of 1997. By some means still not fully known (i.e., those who do know aren't talking), Cason, who bears a resemblance to Tretiakoff, was fingered as the fugitive mom. She was arrested in May, and her two children, who coincidentally are each one year older than the missing children, were placed in foster care. Fourcade was notified and returned from France, where he positively identified Cason as his ex-wife and her children as their children. I was all ready to jump his shit for that, but it's been six years, and he's probably pretty desperate, so I'll cut him some slack there. No, the stupid behavior here is from lawyers for the international arm of the National Center For Missing And Exploited Children, which, if you think about it, is kind of an oxymoron (certainly appropriate, given the behavior I'm about to describe). This group, which assists Interpol with international kidnapping cases, had a picture of Tretiakoff and claimed that Cason bears a strong resemblance to her. They were unwilling to share this photo with the Herald. I find this very odd; typically, if you have a picture of a fugitive you seek, you'd be inclined to circulate that picture as widely as possible.


Stupid Lawyer Trick Of The Month Nominee #1: Kathleen Ruckman, supervising attorney for the NCMEC, "noted that Cason 'looked like a foreign person'" and that she "also heard that the kids weren't going to school and that the family had moved suddenly." Well, holy crap! Call in the friggin' Delta Force (incidentally, from the story, that's not too far off--they blocked off a whole street to trap her for arrest)!


Stupid Lawyer Trick Of The Month Nominee #2: After Cason's identity had been verified and DNA testing had proven that the two children were not Fourcade's, Tim Arcaro, Fourcade's lawyer, was still skeptical, saying "When you think about it -- the length people will go to disguise themselves with plastic surgery. . .".


And the winner for Stupid Lawyer Trick Of The Month: Ruckman, for this little beauty: "Tretiakoff could have been unfaithful during their marriage, resulting in the children having DNA that didn't match the husband." Um, even if that were true, THEY WOULDN'T BE FOURCADE'S CHILDREN AND HE WOULD HAVE NO CASE!


And lawyers wonder why most people loathe them.


UPDATE:Larry's Log scooped me (and This Is True) by almost a month on this. He has a similarly low opinion of Ms. Ruckman, but he missed the angle about the kids not being Fourcade's if the kids weren't Fourcade's. Still, it's good enough to get him blogrolled.

Posted by Chris at 06:53 PM | Comments (1)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

June 10, 2003

Jackass Syndrome Strikes Again

Unfortunately, the person who got struck wasn't the mental defective who was going "nearly 100 mph on a residential street". Some poor schlub whose only offense was to be making a left turn at the wrong time is now asking St. Peter "What car?"

"This is '2 Fast 2 Furious' right here in the Valley," police Detective Kathleen Burns said. Authorities are looking to find new ways to crack down on street racing. The sequel to "The Fast and the Furious" was expected to trigger an increase in dangerous high-speed driving.

There's something missing from this story, though. Shahenian broadsided Iko's car when Iko "was turning left in his 1993 Toyota Camry". Since Iko was killed and his passenger was not, it's reasonable to assume that he got t-boned in his driver's door, which meant that Shahenian was approaching from Iko's left (the other possible broadside scenario has Iko turning left in front of the oncoming Shahenian, where Iko's passenger would have taken the brunt of the impact). If that's true, than either one or the other was also running a red light at the time. But the story doesn't tell us anything else about the traffic situation, other than "Shahenian claimed he was driving the speed limit, investigators said." Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.

Posted by Chris at 04:50 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

March 14, 2003

Undignified Ways To Die, #37: What Would It Take To Get You To Go Into An Open-Pit Latrine?

Four guys in Kenya found out the hard way that Dangerous Things lurk in open-pit latrines. What, you ask, were they doing in there? Fishing for a woman's cell phone. She'd offered 1000 shillings to the person who retrieved the phone she accidentally dropped in the latrine. And how much is 1000 shillings worth? Almost two weeks' wages for half the population - thirteen dollars and ninety cents.

If I'm ever hard-up enough that I'd even consider diving into a latrine without protective gear for two weeks' wages, I think I'd just dive in headfirst and not bother trying to come back up.

Posted by Chris at 01:55 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

March 05, 2003

How About He Just Pimp-Slaps You And Agrees Not To Nuke Iraq?

Some peacenik chowderhead in New Zealand (motto: "Nuke-Free Since 1987!") offered to let President Bush crucify her in exchange for a promise not to attack Iraq. The catch (besides the fact that she can't crucify herself - no matter how hard she'd try, she wouldn't be able to get the last nail in)? Bush has to do the hammering personally. "I don't think he would have the courage to do it quite frankly, but that is the measure of a man," she told Radio New Zealand. I know they're a little, um, different down NZ way, but I didn't think the 'measure of a man' was whether he was willing to hammer nails into someone else's hands and feet.


There's another thread to this weirdo's rant, however. I can understand people who oppose what we're about to do to Iraq because they think our government is in the pocket of Big Business and doesn't care what has to happen to whom, so long as the fatcats get their oil. I think they're wrong in every important respect, but at least I can see where they're coming from. This space case actually ascribes malice to our impending actions: "Can he follow through with this aim of creating more chaos in the world if he had to do it just to one person himself? [Emphasis added]" That's right, we want to increase the pain and suffering in the world. We get off on it. Damn, the secret's out. I'll have to stop tortuing puppies now.

Posted by Chris at 09:41 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

August 12, 2002

Unclear On The Concept, part II

I was in a local Home Improvement Center (*cough*theseguys*cough*) over the weekend, looking to buy some network cable so I can wire up my son's room. After I finally get the attention of two clerks, I tell them I need 100 feet of Cat 5e. As one clerk reaches for the bulk box on the floor to measure out 100 feet...
Me: [pointing to boxes marked "100' Category 5e Network Cable" on a shelf 10' or so up] "Actually, I'd rather just buy it prepackaged."
Clerk #1: "Okay."
Clerk #2: "I'll go get a ladder."
Clerk #1: "Don't need one." He rolls out a small platform on casters from under the shelf. On the platform is a BIG spool of some kind of wire. He climbs on top of the spool, stands on his tiptoes, and gets the box for me.
Clerk #1: "You never saw me do that." He leaves.
Clerk #2: "That guy's the head of our safety committee."

Posted by Chris at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

May 14, 2002

Everyone knows love is blind...

But evidently it's also deaf and incapable of sensing vibration through its feet. This story describes how a New Jersey couple were seen embracing on a railroad track moments before they were hit by a train. Upon further review, it appears to have been a suicide pact (they both left their wallets on the station platform). OK, so now we know that love is blind, deaf, incapable of sensing vibration through its feet, and occasionally fatally stupid.

Update: the story as rewritten clearly describes a suicide pact (the early edition did not list a motive).

Posted by Chris at 01:57 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

April 28, 2002

Storming The Basilica

There's a story in yesterday's New York Times [free registration required, although I think using 'slashdot2000' for user name and password will work] that talks about the explosion in the number of sexual abuse lawsuits against the Catholic church. Seems it used to be that only 'marginal' lawyers and law firms (and by 'marginal' I think they mean 'marginally profitable') would take these cases. Now that the depth of the abuse is starting to come out, the attention of Larger Firms has been attracted (and by 'Larger' I mean 'larger profitability'). This concerns the attorney who is the primary figure in this story, one Jeffrey Anderson. Mr. Anderson has been on a Crusade (capital 'C' added) ever since he found out that his daughter "had been molested as a girl by a therapist who had formerly been a Catholic priest." I want to make it clear here that I feel for them, as nobody should ever have to go through what Anderson's daughter did, and if it turns out that the Catholic church is found to be institutionally responsible for covering things up they should be institutionally punished. But I'm wondering why Anderson has gone after the Catholic church--to the extent that he has sued the Church under racketeering laws--rather than the American Psychiatric Association. What responsibility did the Church have for the behavior of the therapist who molested Anderson's daughter, since he was no longer a priest?

But back to the smell of money. Apparently the rise in the number of cases worries Anderson:

"'I live in fear that someone will bring a case that should not be brought, like the Bernardin fiasco,' he said, referring to the abuse charges made against the late Cardinal Joseph L. Bernardin of Chicago and then recanted."


Well, that's good to see that he's concerned about destroying the reputation of an innocent man. Hmm, wait a second--let's check that article again and finish the quote:

"I worry about a public relations setback."


And lawyers wonder why a lot of people think a lot of them are scumbags.

Posted by Chris at 04:51 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

May 11, 2001

Imagine If He'd Tried To Organize A Ban On Beer...

I don't know which surprises me more: that this guy would dare to anger the coffee gods, or that he got the administration to buy into his scheme. Oh, wait. It was "performance art".

And speaking of the election, we have yet another report that Bush would have won the election if all the "boo-hoo, I messed up my ballot and double-voted" votes were counted for Gore. Once again, people: if you punch two different candidates in the same race in a punch card ballot, and you don't request a new ballot to replace the one you fscked up, too bad!

Posted by Chris at 03:38 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

April 12, 2001

When The Call Comes To Ascend, Will You Answer Your Chakraphone?


The Spiritual School of Ascension is a typical bunch of New Age nut jobs, with a twist (at least from my perspective): I am 99 44/100% certain that "Oa" (nee "Rama" nee "Tom Weber") was a co-worker of mine here at the Imperialist Capitalist Running Pig-Dog Military-Industrial Complex from about 1992 through 1997. During that time, he was one of the most stable and rational people I've known. I wonder what happened. There is much speculation among the people who work there who knew him that "Mila" must have seductive powers from... Elsewhere...

I nominated the SSA to Temple ov thee Lemur as a potential Cult ov thee Week.

Posted by Chris at 09:42 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

April 11, 2001

"I'm sorry for the way things are in China . . .."


I can honestly say I never thought I'd headline a post with a John Denver lyric. Ever since his unfortunate demise, I can't listen to one of his songs without mutating the lyrics: "Grandma's feather bed" becomes "Pacific ocean bed", "Rocky Mountain High" becomes "Gas tank runnin' dry", that kind of thing. For the right price, you can hear his voice from beyond, if that's what you're into. But I digress.

The point behind today's headline is that we didn't get the apology right in the EP-3 hijacking. Here's the apology I would have written:

Dear Comrades, We're sorry your pilot was such an idiot. We're sorry that we let him hide his little fighter under our great big aircraft. We're sorry he squished himself like a bug trying to force our aircraft down on Hainan. We're sorry you didn't let us help you find him. We're sorry that nobody else in the world recognizes your claim to territoriality over the entire South China Sea. We're sorry you can't control your electronic emissions sufficiently to prevent an aircraft in international airspace from picking them up. And finally, we apologize in advance for the damage we're about to do to your runway to make it unnecessary for you to dispose of the aircraft. Sincerely, Dubya.

Posted by Chris at 09:42 PM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity

April 10, 2001

Mrs. Wang, The Peoples' Liberation Army Air Force Regrets To Inform You That Your Husband Is Missing Because He Was Stupid

...specifically, because he played Chicken with an aircraft several times the size of his own. It's bad enough that the Chinese fighters were trying to steal the EP-3 by herding it into Chinese airspace, but then to claim that the EP-3 caused the accident and the U.S. is therefore to blame? C'mon--if you want the technology onboard that aircraft (and you do, Comrade, you do), get it the same way everybody else does--buy it from a turncoat in the U.S. Government! By the way, did you know that China claims ALL the South China Sea outside the 12-mile limit of bordering countries as its territorial waters? Check a map, and you'll see just how absurd that claim is.

Klingon Rules Of Succession In Action: On this date two years ago, the president of Niger was assassinated by members of his own guard. Taking power was a junta led by... wait for it... the commander of the presidential guards!

Disaster Month continues here in the Reserved Space: on this date in 1963, USS Thresher sank in the Atlantic off Boston, killing all 129 crewmembers. In 1991, an Italian ferry in the Mediterranean Sea collided with a tanker and sank, killing 151.

Posted by Chris at 08:27 AM | Comments (0)
Category: Dangerous Stupidity