Faced with scandal, Grayson resigned from his political party in August 2003 and admitted to the press, “I was stupid and naive to do what I did.” Well, yes. Give a thought the next time you’re sending something across the Net that maybe you don’t want the rest of us to see—and that the rest of us, to be fair, would probably be better off not seeing anyway. Information wants to be free, whether we all want it to be or not.
Sources: London Evening Standard, Register (U.K.)
HISTORICAL DUMBOSITY: WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN?
Imagine, for a moment, you are the emperor of Europe. Nice continent, Europe; lots of fine cheeses, exceptional autobahns, and the occasional bit of sculpture. But over there, on the periphery, lies Russia, taunting you with its existence. And you start thinking to yourself, isn’t Russia part of Europe, too? Well then, I should be emperor of that, too!
Just hold your horses, your majesty (and hold your infantry, and cannon, and tanks, and artillery) because here’s a fact: Russia is the black hole of European wars. It’s the roach motel of European empires: they check in but they don’t check out. Russia is where dreams of European conquest come to die, usually with frostbite and dysentery. And if you don’t believe it, just ask Napoleon and Hitler, both of whom foolishly decided to show Russia what for, and both of whom—through lack of planning, underappreciation of Russian tenacity, and general stupidity—saw their empires get cashed in for their pains.
Napoleon First
As you may know, in 1811, Napoleon was on top of the world, the European part of it, anyway: his empire ranged from the Italian peninsula to the Baltic Sea. He was trying to force Great Britain to its knees with a blockade. That was no good for the Russians, who depended on British trade, so finally Czar Alexander said “enough” to the blockade. Well, Napoleon couldn’t have that. People start disobeying you, and the next thing you know, you’re stuck on Elba playing chess with your guards. And that’s just no good.
So Napoleon decided to “persuade” Alexander to his point of view in 1812 by parking a “Grand Army” of 600,000 on Russia’s doorstep (by which we mean, of course, Poland). The idea here was that, confronted with the greatest army the world had ever seen, Russia would see reason. And if it didn’t, well, that was okay with Napoleon, too: “I know Alexander,” Napoleon said. “I once had influence over him; it will come back. If not, let destiny be accomplished and let Russia be crushed under my hatred of England.”
Well, Russia didn’t seem to understand his logic, so in June 1812, against the advice of his advisers, Napoleon’s Grand Army stomped onto Russian soil. Napoleon was so confident of victory that he expected his adventure to be over in twenty days, so that he didn’t bother to lay in substantial supplies for his army—he expected his soldiers to live off the land.
Hey, Who Ate the Last Potato?
Problems cropped up immediately. First off, it was summer in Russia, and it was hot—really hot. Second, Russia had terrible roads, which meant the entire army had to stick to the roads that were usable. This was no good for foraging off the land, since the troops in front ate everything available, leaving nothing for the troops behind. Not that there was much of anything to begin with: the Russian troops, rather than facing the Grand Army and conveniently dying like Napoleon had been planning, kept retreating—and laying waste to the Russian countryside as they ran.
Within a month, the Grand Army, still chasing after the Russians, was not so grand. Soldiers were weak from hunger and falling ill from various diseases, most prominently typhus and dysentery. And it wasn’t just the soldiers: more than 10,000 of the army’s horses had died of starvation.
Napoleon finally caught the Russians on the outskirts of Moscow, three months after his army crossed the border. By this time, more than 200,000 of his soldiers were either dead or out of commission. Still, he had enough men to finally have a battle: the Battle of Borodino, a remarkably vicious battle where the Napoleon’s army killed off 44,000 Russians in a single day (and lost 30,000 of their own). Napoleon won the battle and thus earned the right to enter the city of Moscow, which for him was good. But when he entered it, it was on fire, because the Russians had torched it rather than let it fall into Napoleon’s hands. Which, for him, was bad.
Twiddling the Imperial Thumbs
For five weeks, Napoleon hung out in the charred remains of Moscow, waiting for the czar to begin negotiations, which never happened. Finally, in late October, Napoleon ordered his troops back home, choosing to return the same way they had come rather than travel an alternate route—one that possibly hadn’t been scorched to dust by the Russians. That was pretty dumb.
Not that it mattered much, since the retreat order came too late in the Russian climate calendar. Within three weeks, the Russian winter hit. Temperatures fell below zero. Soldiers froze as they marched. Horses died by the hundreds. And all the while, Cossacks harassed the Grand Army’s flanks, picking off the weak and the sick. “Our lips stuck together,” wrote one of Napoleon’s soldiers. “Our nostrils froze. We seemed to be marching in a world of ice.”
And how was Napoleon handling it all? He was so fearful of capture that he rode with a vial of poison around his neck. Just in case.
That’s Right, Kick Him When He’s Down
By the time Napoleon passed out of Russian territory, his fearsome Grand Army of 600,000 had been reduced to a sick and staggering collection of less than 100,000 men, half-crazed by cold and starvation. It was the beginning of the end for Napoleon: all the far-flung regions of his empire, emboldened by the emperor’s weakened state, started rebelling. By March 1814, it was all over and Napoleon was headed to Elba, then to a brief return engagement at Waterloo, and finally to exile at that middle-of-nowhere rock known as St. Helena.
For Part II of Russian invasions, see page 308.
“For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
—Alexander Pope
BORN TO BE BAD
Some people are born bad. And the Norwegian Traffic Insurance Federation believed Erik Solhaug Kristiansen was one of those people. On July 9, 1999, or so they contend, Erik caused a traffic accident. After injuring a bicyclist and wrecking her bike, Erik fled from the scene.
The bicyclist took more than a year to file a report about the accident, and it wasn’t until 2003 that Erik was accused of the crime. But that didn’t matter. Justice would be done, and Erik, the proverbial bad seed, would have it done to him.
Naturally, Erik’s family rallied to his side. “The complainant has waited a whole year before pressing charges,” his father protested. “How can the witnesses be so sure of what they saw, so long after the event?”
It’s Inconceivable!
Oh, and there was one more small detail: “The other big question in the case is naturally that my son, the accused, cannot have been present at the scene of the accident. He was born on April 5, 2000,” Mr. Kristiansen said.
A salient point. In order for Erik to have perpetrated this heinous crime, at the instant he was born he would have had to find a way to travel back in time nine months, run down the bicyclist, and make it back to his incubator, totally unsuspected.
The Traffic Insurance Federation agreed and cleared Erik of any wrongdoing. For now.
Sources: Aftenposten, Ananova
TIPS FOR STUPID CRIMINALS
Not that we expect them to listen.
THE GETAWAY
Today’s tip: When robbing that bank, keep the engine running in the getaway car.
After robbing a Cleveland bank in June 2003, our subject ran to his getaway car, only to find his driver had shut off the engine and it wouldn’t start up again. Our robber leaped out of the car to steal another car, but couldn’t manage that, so he ran to a nearby house and tried to steal some car keys. That didn’t work either, so the man ran to Interstate 90 and tried to get cars to stop for him, but, strangely enough, no one on the interstate seemed to want to slow down for the purpose of getting carjacked by a man with a big bag of cash, who wa
s being chased by the police. He was arrested shortly thereafter.
A law enforcement official, in a classic of understatement, had this to say: “It’s very weird, and it’s very stupid, but I don’t think we’re dealing with geniuses here.”
Source: Cleveland Plain Dealer
THE REALLY STUPID QUIZ: BUREAUCRACY IN ACTION
Gird your loins, it’s time for another Really Stupid Quiz! One of these tales of government stupidity actually happened. The other two probably could have happened, but didn’t, so far as we know. It’s up to you to decide which seems the most likely.
1. A Coral Gables, Florida, man accused the Florida Department of Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles of incompetence after it granted him a handicapped parking permit for being bald. “I’ve been noticing that people who seemed healthy have had the permits,” he said, so he decided to see how difficult it was to get one by filling out the required HSMV 83039 form and forging a doctor’s certification, testifying that his baldness was a debilitating illness. His permit came in the mail three weeks later. The man said he did it specifically to highlight the laxity in the system and does not intend to use the permit. A spokesperson for the HSMV says the man could be charged with falsely filing government documents but declined to state whether the department would press charges.
2. The city council of Leeds, England, decided that the local cemeteries were beginning to look a bit shabby, so it sent out letters to caretakers of the graves, telling them to clean up various flowers, vases, and other objects around the graves. One of the letters was sent to Moira Thoms. The problem: Mrs. Thoms wasn’t the grave’s caretaker; she was, in fact, in the grave. Mrs. Thoms’s widower angrily noted that she had been dead for three years. Embarrassed council officials apologized to Mr. Thoms.
3. A Toronto, Canada, couple were told by the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency that they could not claim child care expenses on their taxes because they had no children—even though the couple came to the meeting with the CCRA with their two children in tow. “It was absolutely incredible,” said Erica Zorn, who with her husband Peter Hirsch was denied the deduction. “I was sitting there giving my son a bottle right in front of the revenue agent, who was telling me that he didn’t really exist.” A spokesperson for the CCRA noted that revenue field agents are required to abide by regulations even in the face of contradictory evidence and that Zorn and Hirsch would need to appeal the ruling.
Which one is really stupid?
Answer page 311.
Source: Ananova
“A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.”
—Bertrand Russsell
DUMB MOVIE FESTIVAL: 3000 MILES TO GRACELAND (2001)
Our Entry: 3000 Miles to Graceland, starring Kurt Russell and Kevin Costner.
The Plot (Such As It Is): A bunch of dim-bulb thieves decide to pull a heist in Las Vegas dressed up as Elvis imitators (there’s an Elvis thing going on that weekend). Then we have the usual double crosses and random violence we’ve been led to expect every time stupid thieves pull heists together. Subplot: Courteney Cox shows up as a single mom/floozy who steals Kurt Russell’s heart and wallet, not necessarily in that order. Meant to be a career revitalizer for Costner. Failed.
Fun Fact: Since 3000 Miles came out, Elvis Presley has had more hits on the music charts than stars Costner, Russell, Cox, Christian Slater, and David Arquette put together have had on the movie charts. You can look it up!
Total North American Box Office: $15,738,632 (source: The-Numbers.com). That’s roughly a quarter of the production cost.
The Critics Rave!
“3000 Miles to Graceland shouldn’t be reviewed in an arts section but rather in that portion of the newspaper dedicated to atrocities, environmental disasters and hate crimes.”—Portland Oregonian
“This is so relentlessly wrongheaded and downright ugly a movie that you want to call The Hague and demand an international tribunal be formed to investigate possible crimes against humanity.”—FlickFilosopher.com
“This is a terrible, horrible film, a big-budget student film with stupidity and insipidity written all over it. AOL Keyword: Suck.”—hsbr.net
“One of the bloodiest and mind-bogglingly dumb action-adventures since the heyday of Steven Seagal.”—Reel.com
“3000 Miles to Graceland is a slick exercise in cinema excess in which the audience is asked to pick their favourites from a gallery of low lives and hope they can elude the justice and punishment they actually deserve.”—Calgary Sun
“To say that it is terribly written, amateurishly directed, sloppily edited and badly photographed is to merely scratch the surface of a fiasco so egregious it defies description.”
—Boxoffice.com
“Yep, 3,000 miles sure is a long way, and that’s about as far off as this turgid caper is from success . . . clichéd every-things and convoluted double crosses make this one more bloated than fat Elvis.”—E! Online
FROM DOO-DOO TO DEEP DOO-DOO
How do you go from a minor ordinance violation to a felony in three quick steps? Just ask “Jan” from Bloomington, Illinois.
First, take your dog out for a walk, as Jan did. While you’re out, make sure that your dog drops a load in public, which you don’t bother to pick up. Also make sure your dog deposits all this doo-doo in sight of a police officer, who will naturally cite you for failure to scoop the poop. This is your ordinance violation.
Now, while the officer is writing you up for your failure to scoop, you must then walk away from the police officer and refuse to return when called back, as Jan did. Walking away from a police officer who is in the process of writing you up for an ordinance violation is technically called “obstructing police.” While you are not actually obstructing a police officer, you’re obstructing his job, which is to give you a ticket. And that’s a misdemeanor.
More Arresting Behavior
Here comes the best part. After being charged for the misdemeanor, you’re taken down to the police station—because you’ve broken the law, you see. While you’re at the police station, you get it into your head, as Jan did, that this is an excellent place to kick and shove the officer who arrested you. Aside from being an interesting choice of action, this is also aggravated battery, and that’s a felony.
And for that, as Jan learned, you actually get treated to time in the county jail. And so does your dog; the county animal control took her pet after Jan got sent to the doghouse.
That’s how you do it. Who knew it was that easy?
Source: Bloomington (IL) Pantagraph
ATTACK OF THE GIANT BEAVERS!
It was (one imagines) a slow day at the police station in Wiener Neustadt, Lower Austria, when the citizenry started calling en masse: there was a giant beaver rampaging through the town car park! After assembling the local fire crews and vets, the police moved in to discover the animal in question wasn’t a giant beaver at all, but a kangaroo, which the police suspected was a runaway pet. The animal was quickly subdued. Meanwhile, the giant beavers on the outskirts of town, having lulled the townsfolk into a false sense of security with their decoy, plan to attack at dawn.
Source: Ananova
WHEN LIFE HANDS YOU LEMONS, MAKE SURE YOUR PERMITS ARE IN ORDER
Naples, Florida, on a sunny June day. The sun is up, the birds are singing, and the neighborhood kids, showing the sort of all-American capitalistic initiative that would make Adam Smith and J. Paul Getty sing a duet in their praises, are setting up that most hallowed of childhood summer retail establishments: the lemonade stand. And look, here come their first customers!
Naples City Police Officer #1: What’s going on here, kids?
Lemonade-Selling Tyke: Golly, Mr. Policeman! We’re selling lemonade! I squeezed the lemons myself!
Naples City Police Officer #2: Well, isn’t that great. Tell me, have you got a permit for this stand?
Tyke: A what?<
br />
Police Officer #1: Don’t play coy, buster! A permit! A license that allows you to conduct business within the city boundaries! We got a tip that says you don’t got one!
Tyke (trembling): I don’t got no bermit, Mr. Policeman. I just wanna sell some lemonade! Police Officer #2: Isn’t that cute. He said “bermit” instead of “permit.” Well, cute’s not going to get you off the hook, sonny! It’s the big house for you! Come on, Bob, let’s take him in!
Tyke: Waaaaah!
Sure, you may chuckle at this overwrought, badly scripted scene, but think about this: in Naples, Florida, in June 2003, police actually did shut down a six-year-old girl’s lemonade stand because she didn’t have the temporary business license required for anyone doing business (temporarily) in the city. The cost of a temporary permit? $35. For each day.
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