Dumbass of the Day

An unnamed California computer tutor was killed in a head-on collision yesterday when his 1991 Honda Accord wandered across the centerline and collided head-on with a Hummer.

Why would a perfectly good car wander across the centerline and collide with oncoming traffic, you ask? Why, because the driver was too busy working on his laptop to notice that he had crossed said centerline, of course.

I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. Looks like this year’s Darwin Awards are shaping up nicely.

Red FormanRed Forman Dumbass Rating: Kelso (Dumbass) Kelso (Dumbass) Kelso (Dumbass) Kelso (Dumbass) Kelso (Dumbass)

posted on 27 February 2007 at 1357humour0 commentstrackback

Dumbass of the Day

Ann Greenfield, a 34-year-old middle school teacher in Murray, Kentucky, was arrested after paging a state trooper in an attempt to buy marijuana.

“Man, I knew I shoulda put my dealer in my five.”

Red FormanRed Forman Dumbass Rating: Hyde (Dumbass) Hyde (Dumbass) Hyde (Dumbass)

(via Dave Barry)

posted on 26 February 2007 at 1438humour0 commentstrackback

Headline of the Day

From the Freep:

Thurmond’s kin owned Al Sharpton’s ancestors

The headline itself is great — you just knew something like this was going to come to light eventually, and it would be hard to find two more polarising figures to be involved. Maybe Jesse Helms and Louis Farrakhan or Malcolm X, but I think Thurmond-Sharpton is pretty far out there.

What really makes this worthy of note, however, isn’t the headline. It’s what Ellen Senter, one of Strom Thurmond’s nieces, said:

[I]t is wonderful that [Sharpton] was able to become what he is in spite of what his forefather was.

That may be the most patronising sentence I have ever seen or heard in my entire life. Senter acts like being a slave — a matter in which Sharpton’s ancestors undoubtedly had no choice — made an individual inherently less human, less worthy. Are you kidding me? Is it any wonder nobody takes anything he ever did seriously? Miss Senter might as well fly the Stars and Bars on her front porch and burn a cross so all the all the hooded men in her front yard can dance around it.

The 1850s called. They want their philosophy back. Please hand it over with all speed. Alternatively, please hand yourself over to the 1850s by hanging yourself from a tree in your front yard.

posted on 26 February 2007 at 0045general0 commentstrackback

Dumbass of the Day

A 25-year-old University of Michigan senior was killed in Thailand earlier this month “when he stuck his head off the side of the train and was knocked off by a pole, or something hanging from a pole.” I’m still not clear as to whether or not Mr. Keep-your-hands-and-feet-inside-the-vehicle-at-all-times was actually decapitated or simply killed by the combined impact of being bonked in the head and subsequently falling off a moving train, but either way…

Red FormanRed Forman Dumbass Rating: Kelso (Dumbass) Kelso (Dumbass) Kelso (Dumbass) Kelso (Dumbass) Kelso (Dumbass)

posted on 23 February 2007 at 1428humour0 commentstrackback

MacGyver Down Under

A New Zealand television station couldn’t afford $20,000 for a commercial parabolic dish antenna to send their signal from the studio up to the main antenna atop a nearby mountain, so they used an $80 wok instead.

This isn’t the first time folks down under have done some crazy homebrew wireless antenna stuff; using standard 802.11 hardware with (fairly inexpensive, but commercial) yagi antennas, some Lucent engineers in Australia managed to get 57-km range between an island and the mainland about seven years back.

posted on 22 February 2007 at 2314sci-tech0 commentstrackback

Dumbass of the Day

Note to self: if ever arrested for possession of illegal drugs, be sure to have family members remove the rest of the drugs from my safe before bringing it down to the jail to bail me out.

Red FormanRed Forman Dumbass Rating: Hyde (Dumbass) Hyde (Dumbass) Hyde (Dumbass) Hyde (Dumbass)

posted on 19 February 2007 at 0000humour0 commentstrackback

Enter and Die

Saying that the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 “changed” things is the understatement of the century. Nowhere is the change more apparent than in the aviation industry, which suffered mightily in the wake of the attacks and still has not entirely recovered. Anyone who has traveled by air from an airport within the United States knows the increased security measures travelers must endure, and most Americans probably remember that shortly after the creation of the TSA, the federal government started a program to deputise and arm pilots in the cockpit so that another suicide hijacking would be impossible. (Such pilots are referred to as Federal Flight Deck Officers, or FFDOs.)

What most of you probably don’t know is that all pilots are now trained to — and this is a paraphrase here — “ensure the safety of the cockpit by any means necessary”. While there has (thankfully) been no need to test this training in a court of law, what it tells me is that pilots are authorised to use deadly force if they perceive an imminent threat to the safety of the aircraft, in particular if someone attempts to enter the cockpit without authorisation.

I think this point deserves broader publicity, and I also think it would be driven home very clearly if all aircraft cockpit doors were placarded as follows:

DANGER! ANY ATTEMPT AT UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY MAY RESULT IN DEATH!

(Thanks to St. Claire’s Safety Sign Builder for the sign.)

posted on 15 February 2007 at 2127aviation0 commentstrackback

Homeland Insecurity

If airport security screeners aren’t secure, then who is? Check out the situation in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

posted on 07 February 2007 at 0702general0 commentstrackback

Future Ig Nobel Prize Winner

Mathematicians have finally proven that leaving the toilet seat down is not the most efficient means of utilising a standard home toilet. How can this not win an Ig Nobel Prize?

(via Dave Barry)

posted on 03 February 2007 at 0103humour0 commentstrackback