Uncle John's Presents: Book of the Dumb

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  Second, while admiring all the nifty functions of the cell phone he would subsequently snatch from the store, Brad took a picture of himself with the cell phone’s built-in digital camera—a picture that was then stored on a computer in the store. This allowed a member of the store’s staff to make a positive ID of Brad by comparing the cell phone picture with Brad’s driver’s license photo.

  Dial “D” for Dumb.

  Source: Associated Press

  IS THAT A BOMB IN YOUR SHOE, OR ARE YOU JUST HAPPY TO SEE ME?

  There are certain classes of people we expect to say stupid things to airport security people.

  They are, in no particular order: hostile teens, professional-but-not-successful comedians, conspiracy theorists, anarchists, very important people who think the rules couldn’t possibly apply to them, the paranoid, the permanently aggrieved, and people who were once married to airport security people. And, of course, actual criminals carrying drugs and/or explosives in their bags. Let’s not forget about them.

  One group that we don’t expect to crack jokes to the security folks are actual, honest-to-goodness pilots. So imagine our surprise when “Pierre,” a copilot for an Air France flight from JFK airport to Paris allegedly attempted some comedy stylings to amuse the security detail.

  Lost in Translation

  Pierre was going through the security checkpoint when he balked at removing his shoes. The details at this point are sketchy. Some people report that Pierre actually said, “I have a bomb in my shoe”—bringing to mind airline passenger Richard Reid, who in December 2001 tried to light a bomb he’d hidden in his shoe—while others report he said, in a sarcastic tone, “Well, what do you think, I have a bomb on me?”

  If it was a joke, it bombed. You know those security people—they’re a tough audience. Not to mention the fact that New York City security people are the most unlikely crowd to find a joke like that amusing. Pierre was quickly arrested by the New York Port Authority police.

  Instead of flying through the air with the greatest of ease, Pierre’s flight was canceled (it was missing a copilot, after all), and 353 passengers who were hoping to get to Paris instead spent another night in the Big Apple. Pierre was charged with falsely reporting a threat in the first and second degrees, which carries a maximum sentence of seven years in the Big House. It just goes to show: it’s always the people that you least expect.

  Sources: New York Times, Associated Press

  THEY’RE COMING

  English drivers were so distracted by a pair of giant inflatable space aliens that the M1 roadway in Derbyshire snarled into a four-mile traffic jam that caused two small accidents. Police suspect the aliens, each 27 feet high, were inflated to mark the anniversary of the 1947 “Roswell Incident,” in which an alien craft is alleged to have crashed in New Mexico (but did not cause a four-mile traffic jam—the aliens were more considerate back then).

  Source: Evening Standard

  THE REALLY STUPID QUIZ: SENSITIVITY

  Once again, we’ve come to another edition of the Really Stupid Quiz! Pick out which of the following “news stories” is actually true. Does your answer say something about you? Maybe.

  1. An office supplies vendor had his contract with the city of Berkeley, California, yanked after he allegedly violated the city’s discrimination laws by comparing city employees to cows. The complaint, filed by a worker in the city’s public works department, alleges that the vendor joked loudly that the office was filled with “the bovine, awaiting slaughter,” which the worker took to be a comment on both the largely female staff and the weight of some of its members, thereby showing discrimination based on sex and physical characteristics.

  “All I said was I was glad I had a job that let me get out and move around, instead of being penned up like a veal in an office all day,” said the vendor. “I didn’t say anything about anybody else but me.” The vendor is now appealing and is considering suing the city for violating his contract.

  2. New Zealand farmers struck back at a government spokesperson who derided a protest by farmers as “an example of what happens when you get too close to your sheep.” New Zealand farmers had been participating in a “Raise a Stink” campaign to protest a “flatulence tax” levied against sheep and cows to combat global warming. In the protest, farmers mailed manure to government officials. This prompted the comment by a spokesperson for New Zealand’s agricultural ministry; the spokesperson later maintained the comment was meant to be off the record.

  More than 30 Kiwi farmers responded to the comment by dumping wheelbarrows full of sheep poop on the steps of the ministry and demanding an apology and the resignation of the spokesperson. The farmers were arrested but later released. The spokesperson did indeed apologize and was placed on leave pending an internal investigation.

  3. Blonde jokes are incredibly popular in Bosnia, but not for much longer: a new law, set to go into effect, will make it illegal to tell blonde jokes. It’s part of a new gender equity law, which, as one human rights official tells it, “would enable blonde women to sue anyone who tells jokes that offend them, even if those jokes were just based on the color of their hair.” Presumably the law would also cover jokes made about women whose hair is any other color as well.

  Which one is really stupid?

  Answer page 311.

  Sources: Ananova, Nezavisne Novine

  DUMB MOVIE FESTIVAL: BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER (2002)

  Our Entry: Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, starring Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu

  The Plot (Such As It Is): Lucy Liu is an American secret agent who has gone off the rails; the United States, apparently short of agents, brings in retired agent Antonio Banderas to track her down.

  Many deaths and explosions follow, and then there’s something about miniature assassination tools, followed by deaths and explosions, and then something about small children in danger, after which follow more deaths and explosions. No one has really been able to figure out what’s going on in this film, except for the deaths and explosions.

  Fun Fact: It is based on a video game, and not even a very popular or good one. Also, the director’s nickname is Kaos, which should have been a warning rather than a recommendation.

  Total North American Box Office: $14,294,842 (source: The-Numbers.com). That’s off a $70 million budget.

  The Critics Rave!

  “The picture looks as if it were lighted with a 20-watt bulb. And it is dim in more ways than one.”—New York Times

  “I’m guessing the director (who simply goes by the moniker Kaos—how funny is that?) is a magician. After all, he took three minutes of dialogue [and] 30 seconds of plot and turned them into a 90-minute movie that feels five hours long.”

  —Arizona Republic

  “For years, people have joked about an action movie that might eliminate plot altogether and simply cut to the pyrotechnics. Someone has finally done it.”—USA Today

  “All the emotional depth of a video game, and the dramatic coherence we associate with the lesser works of Ed Wood.”

  —MountainX.com

  “So fraught with howlingly bad dialogue and seizure-inducing action that it almost made me wish for the relative tranquility and incisive screenwriting of Pokémon.”

  —The Republican (Oakland, MD)

  “A picture for idiots.”—Seattle Times

  “The movie stars Lucy Liu as Sever, a former agent for the Defense Intelligence Agency, [and] Antonio Banderas is Ecks, a former ace FBI agent who is coaxed back into service . . . both of these U.S. agencies wage what amounts to warfare in Vancouver, which is actually in a nation named Canada, which has agencies and bureaus of its own and takes a dim view of machineguns, rocket launchers, plastic explosives and the other weapons the American agents and their enemies use to litter the streets of the city with the dead.”—Chicago Sun-Times

  IT WAS JUST LIKE THE LOVE BOAT, EXCEPT FOR THOSE DARN FEDERAL AGENTS

  Most people dream of taking a leisurely cruise through
warm climes. But most people are not “Cindy,” a 20-year-old passenger on the Royal Caribbean ship Legend of the Seas. It was late April 2003 and Cindy was not rejoicing in Legend of the Seas’s ample entertainment options. The Anchors Aweigh Lounge offered live music and dancing! The That’s Entertainment theater was performing vaudeville on the high seas! And let’s not forget the chance to eat until you drop: buffets, buffets, buffets! We aren’t sure why Cindy took the cruise in the first place, since she was more interested in getting back to her boyfriend in Orange County, California. She probably realized it would be kind of difficult to get the other 2,400 or so passengers and crew to cut their cruises short just so she could get back to her man. But Cindy was resourceful. She had a plan—to plant fake terrorist notes on the ship. That way, the ship would have no choice but to turn around and go home.

  Not Only Brilliant, But Foolproof

  And it would have worked, too, if it weren’t for those meddling Feds. Rather than turn the ship around, they routed it to a location off the island of Oahu, Hawaii—pretty much opposite the direction Cindy wanted to go—and greeted it with a contingent of FBI agents, who thoroughly checked the ship for biological, chemical, radiological, and explosive weapons, and interrogated the ship’s passengers and crew.

  So, rather than getting home to spend snuggle time with her honeykins, as was her intention, Cindy found herself placed in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Kevin Chang, who charged her with two counts of violating title 18, United States Code, Sections 2332b (a)(2) and 2332b (a)(1)(A), “Acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries.” She began a two-year prison term in November.

  You’re on Your Own Kid

  Cindy’s mother told the Los Angeles Times, “She is going to have to stay in jail and learn her lesson. This was a big, big problem, and if she has to sit in jail—oh well. She’s going to have to deal with it.”

  Interestingly, it was later reported that Cindy’s boyfriend—the man for whom she did jail time—had earlier done a 90-day stint in the Orange County Jail. So now they have a common experience! That’ll just bring them even closer together. Although for their honeymoon, maybe they should just skip the cruise.

  Sources: Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, OC Weekly (Costa Mesa, CA), Federal Bureau of Investigation

  “If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?”

  —Will Rogers

  SEE YOU LATER ALLIGATOR

  When Michael McCormick saw a five-foot-long alligator heading toward a woman and her four children near an elementary school in Tavares, Florida, he didn’t think twice about what he should do. McCormick got out of his truck, caught the alligator with a loop of rope, and secured the animal to a chain-link fence. He then asked a friend to call the police while he made sure the animal didn’t get away.

  The police came and contacted Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, who fined McCormick $180 for possessing an alligator. Dumb as this ticket was, the rationale was a good one: “People can’t be taking this in their own hands. We’re just going to end up with more people getting bitten and injured,” a spokesperson told the Orlando Sentinel.

  Remember, just because you think you can handle a live alligator doesn’t mean you can. In this case, however, ticketing McCormick seems sort of dim. The Fish and Wildlife spokesperson suggested that McCormick should have focused his efforts on moving the woman and her children. But you try getting four kids to move in the same direction at one time. Roping the gator was almost certainly the more time-efficient move. Interestingly, after McCormick roped the alligator, the police had him release it into a nearby pond, where the Fish and Wildlife team set meat-filled traps to recapture it. A day later, the traps were still gator-free. Watch your step down there in Tavares, folks.

  Source: Orlando Sentinel

  YOUR CAT IS IN FOR A SHOCK

  What happens when you don’t pay your electricity bill? Well, in most places your electricity would be shut off. Then you sit in the dark like your ancestors, until that big glowing ball in the sky comes up again and you do the hunter-gatherer thing with your cavemates. Since we’re more conditioned to watch TV than to hunt woolly mammoths, switching off the electricity is enough to get our attention.

  But not in Vladivostok, Russia, where electricity company Dalenergo is owed hundreds of millions of rubles by recalcitrant customers. Cutting off the electricity just isn’t cutting it—despite the lack of juice for TVs, toasters, and lighting fixtures, thousands of customers are refusing to pay up.

  So Dalenergo has decided to take another tack: director Nikolai Tkachyov told Russian television that it was planning to confiscate customers’ pets until said customers coughed up the cash. “Let the father answer his daughter’s question as to why her favorite cat has been taken away,” Tkachyov reportedly said.

  The suggestion that public utility might put its customers’ pets in hock raised such a stink that Dalenergo’s owner, Unified Energy System, felt the need to rush out a press release to assure Vladivostok citizens that Fidovich and Fluffanya would be safe. “Dalenergo will not take away Vladivostok residents’ four-footed friends,” the release read. Of course, that still leaves birds and fish at risk. Better pay the bill, just to be sure.

  Source: Reuters

  THE RUNNING OF THE MORONS

  Running with the bulls in Pamplona: dumb. The bulls are run down the street to a bull ring, in which they will all soon be killed. No matter what, those bulls are doomed. Inasmuch as this is the case, these animals are entirely within their rights to take out as many humans as possible before they get to their destination, as a way to even out the karmic scales.

  What sort of person would place himself in front of a ton of angry, confused animals just for the fun of it? Running in front of a rampaging bull to save a child? Fine—admirable, even. Running in front of a rampaging bull to save a kitten? That’s fine, too. Running in front of a rampaging bull for your own amusement? You’re a damned fool.

  A Lot of Bulls

  Just about the only thing the running of the bulls has going for it is tradition: they’ve been doing it for centuries, and you know how they are about tradition in Europe. If they’ve been doing it since forever, then that’s a good enough reason to keep doing it. The major drawback is that Pamplona is in Spain, which as we all know is far away from North America, where a remarkable number of dumb guys would happily taunt a bull.

  Now there is good news for dumb North Americans: you don’t have to go to Spain to be trampled by bulls. In Strathmore, Alberta, Canada, there’s a new attraction for the Town’s Heritage Days: the Heritage Days Stampede. In the stampede, up to 30 bulls chase a couple hundred Canadians and Americans who have paid $100 Canadian for the privilege. Should they survive (the runners, not the bulls), they get a T-shirt and a bandanna. “It’s guaranteed adrenaline,” organizer Jim Cammeart told the Ottawa Citizen newspaper.

  This Idea Is Bull***!

  And now, a comment from the loyal opposition: Dr. Louis Francescutti, director of the Edmonton-based Alberta Centre for Injury and Control Research. “I think this would rank up there as the most idiotic idea I have heard in my life,” the doctor told the Citizen. “These people really need to get their heads checked.”

  We’re with the good doctor on this one, although we’d like to point out that this won’t stop a bunch of sensation junkies from seeing if they can outrace steers. We just hope they’ll remember when they get a hoof through the spleen that they don’t even have the excuse that this is something people having been doing since the Middle Ages. This is all-new stupidity.

  Enjoy it, guys.

  Source: Ottawa Citizen

  “The easiest person to deceive is oneself.”

  —Edward Bluwer-Lytton

  TIPS FOR STUPID CRIMINALS

  Ensuring a better grade of stupid criminal for your future!

  IT TAKES A THIEF Today’s tip: Make the effort, pal.

  Look, if you’re going to steal somethi
ng, at least show some initiative. Even a basic “slip under the shirt” maneuver shows that you understand you’re breaking the law and that you know you’re doing something the public frowns upon. The rest of us appreciate that glimmer of shame, you know?

  “Chuck” skipped this chapter of the “How to Steal” handbook, and it showed when he entered the Palm Bay, Florida, Wal-Mart with the intention of snagging himself a computer. Allegedly, Chuck simply went up to a computer display at the store, picked up a computer that looked good to him and then headed toward the exit. Naturally, he was stopped by the store loss-prevention officer. Chuck, apparently shocked that his thievery was so easily discerned, got in a scuffle with the officer and at one point even bit his thumb. Chuck was eventually subdued and charged with grand theft, retail theft, and aggravated battery.

  We’re not saying that Chuck would have gotten away with stuffing the computer under his shirt (that’d be a pretty loose shirt, for one thing). But at least then we could give him some credit for the attempt. As it is, Chuck gets a big fat zero. Better luck next time, Chuck!