The Idiot Report: September 30 2010

The Idiot of the Day for September 30, 2010 (Houston Chronicle Edition), is Michael Johnston of Humble, Texas. In response to Nick Anderson's editorial cartoon of September 29th

Johnston says in his letter to the Houston Chronicle that he'd "like to see a similar sketch called '2012 DNC platform' and showing Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow and Keith Olberman standing on a platform labeled MSNBC."

WTF, Mike? Are you saying that MSNBC is paying Maddow, Mathews, and Olberman salaries while they campaign for the 2012 Democratic nomination for President? I may live in Texas, but I'm pretty sure I have yet to see any of the three's name on a bumper sticker, like the "Palin 2012" sticker my neighbor's monster pickup sports (right next to that "SECEDE" sticker). Do you not GET IT, Michael? It's not that Fox employs these four, it's that these four are running for office and Fox News happily provides them a soapbox - a "platform" if you will - from which they can spout their campaign rhetoric at will. That is the point, to which you're apparently blind.

Johnston's apparently just one more example of someone who was never taught critical thinking skills in school - probably a victim of a "no child left behind" education system, which Texas implemented in 1994 .

The Dumbass of the Day, September 10 (Houston Chronicle Edition)

Herman T. Wilson, Jr., of Houston is "Steamed" over the impending merger of Continental and United Airlines, especially the announcement that the new airline's HQ will be in Chicago. Fair enough, I'd have rather it stayed in Houston, though I have to admit that - if I worked for Continental - I'd be more than happy to get out of the hell that is Houston's summer.

But Hermie seems to also have a problem with scope. You see, Herm opens his missive by yammering, "Our hometown airline, Continental, will be President Obama's personal toy when merged with United Airlines."

What a fatuous idiot: how the everloving HELL does moving the combined airline's HQ to Chicago make it Obama's "personal toy"? No, wait, I get it: he hates Obama and wants the world to know. What he actually succeeded in showing the world is that he's a dumbass. Glad I could help.

Why I Love Facebook...

FOAFs. That's why - Friends Of A Friend. They are so incredibly entertaining sometimes!

Yesterday one of my (few) facebook friends suggested that a couple of well-known figures should be marooned on a desert island in a sort of winner-take-all cage match. All was cruising along until a FOAF chimed in with the following:  Contestant #1 "...is an ass, tried to run me over one day at [street corner]. What kind of douche has a nice black Corvette and pays a driver? That kind..."

Turns out FOAF is a bike messenger, which calls into question any statement about someone "trying to run [him] over," but we'll let that slide.

FOAF then says, "I was on a bicycle making a delivery to civil court. After the C*nt tried to hit me, he double parked outside of the court house. Really shocking right?"

Okay. Deep breath.

First, you jackass, a man isn't a "C*nt." Second, you moron, the guy wasn't driving the car. I repeat, you stupid asswipe, you yourself just said that the man you called a C*nt "pays a driver." Look up there- you said it, you stupid ass! So who is it that's a C*nt? Seems to me your beef is with the driver, not the man in the passenger seat.  No, wait, I'm sure you heard the man in the passenger seat shout to the driver, "Get that bike messenger!" You know what bothers me most about this exchange? this moron gets to vote.

I guess this is all because "No Child Left Behind" teaches people how to take tests, not how to think. No wonder Republicans love the idea so much.

Another Day, Another Moron

Some years ago I lived in Tyler, Texas, a place I decided had to be the buckle on the Bible Belt. In three years, I never got used to one habit of the town's huge gaggle of evangelical Christians: announcing at every possible juncture that "I am a Christian" and/or "Jesus Christ is my Lord and personal savior." Yeah, right - didn't stop them from hating, committing adultery, and a lot of other sins. But that's another subject.

So what got me thinking about this is the habit of some people (perhaps the same people?) of injecting their politics into every possible conversation - and I mean every conversation. A facebook friend posted a picture of his new baby granddaughter a couple of days ago, and mixed in with the congratulations and oohs! and aaahs! over the little lady's inherent beauty was this gem, posted by some moron claiming to be Patty Mitchell O'Neal:

"So tiny and fragile. Keep up the fight against Obama so that she can live a good and decent life. That man has me scared. She is so precious." [italics mine]

Ummm, need I say more? Just who is it who has so poisoned our culture that some idiot thinks it's socially acceptable to scrawl this kind of vitriolic graffito on a picture of a baby? Now there is someone who has me scared...

Lord, please deliver me from this kind of mindless hatred.

I love Morons, Don't You?

A recent cross-country trip found me picking up a to-go order from Bear Town restaurant in Evanston, Wyoming. The owners had a couple of copies of an apology letter from a woman named Jeannie Cornia posted in the waiting area and at the register. Ms Cornia, it seems, had lambasted the new owners of the restaurant as "unpatriotic" and "unamerican" in a widely-disseminated email broadside and on her Facebook page.

Their crime? They removed the American and POW-MIA flags from the pole in front of the restaurant. That, apparently, is all that Cornia needed to know - that, and perhaps that the new owners are "messicans." She didn't call them to complain, she simply assumed - and we know who the ASS was this time. See, if she'd done a little research, she'd have learned that the flags were so tattered and torn from the windy Wyoming weather that they were taken down to be repaired. Does she not know that flying a damaged flag is disrespectful?

The ultrapatriotic Cornia, like so many self-described patriots, seems unaware of the U S Flag Code. That's why these super-patriots fly their flags in the rain and snow and leave them up all night. I've seen flags that are so battered that there are no stripes left except below the union (the blue block of stars); flags faded to pastels; and flags with individual stripes separated like the tassels on a stripper's G-string. Hell, your local Boy Scouts know better than to treat Old Glory like that!

Gee: if she'd asked one simple question, the woman would have saved the world from another act of abject stupidity. Guess that's what happens when sheep try to think.

Texas Legislator Kills Two Birds with One Stone: Palin Loves it!

Dateline Giddings, TX (May 2, 2010):

Texas State Representative Ridley Dibble (R., Dime Box) announced today that she will ask governor Rick "Laser Sight" Perry to convene an unusual special session of the Texas Legislature so that she may introduce new legislation (HB94), the Immigrant Oil Spill Solution bill.

Reached at Dibble's Dabbles, the art gallery she operates out of a spare bedroom in her family's home in tiny Dime Box, Dibble said, "I had this great idea for how we can help the poor folks in Louisiana and solve our illegal immigrant problem in one swell foop. I just hope Governor Perry can get all the boys back from that big lunker tournament at Possum Kingdom in time for a quick vote."

A read of HB94 shows that Dibble has indeed concocted an "out-of-the-box" solution to the growing environmental disaster in the central Gulf Coast by leveraging one of Texas' most pressing problems. HB94 directs police officers in every jurisdiction statewide to stop all suspected illegal immigrants and ask for verification of citizenship. Those who cannot provide documents will immediately be taken into custody. Where Dibble's bill differs from that recently signed into law in Arizona is that the illegals will be shipped to Venice, Louisiana, where each will be handed a jonny mop (assuming they aren't already carrying one when arrested), a big sponge, and a bucket. The criminals will then be roped together and deployed as a human boom surrounding the oil slick spreading from the blown-out BP drill rig off the mouth of the Mississippi.

To sweeten the deal, Texas will contract with its neighboring states to perform spill containment and cleanup, while paying the illegals $2.75 per hour for their labors. Dibble asserts that 75% of her constituents support such a bill according to an unscientific survey; though she admits that she only asked her husband Dudley, her 14-year-old son Rush, and her eleven-month-old daughter Palin. Her housekeeper, Elena Guttierez (according to Dibble a legal immigrant from Finland), declined to give an opinion.

While Governor Perry's office could not be reached for comment, a spokesperson for former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin conveyed Ms. Palin's approval: "Is this the entrepreneurial spirit that made our country great? You betcha! Am I in favor? Durn tootin'!"