This Week In Stupid - 8/11/07
The Mongomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Stupid
Proving again that academics shouldn’t be in charge of anything important, “Freakonomics” co-author Steven Levitt answers his own question: “If You Were a Terrorist, How Would You Attack?”
Hearing about these rules got me thinking about what I would do to maximize terror if I were a terrorist with limited resources. I’d start by thinking about what really inspires fear. One thing that scares people is the thought that they could be a victim of an attack. With that in mind, I’d want to do something that everybody thinks might be directed at them, even if the individual probability of harm is very low.
My general view of the world is that simpler is better. My guess is that this thinking applies to terrorism as well. In that spirit, the best terrorist plan I have heard is one that my father thought up after the D.C. snipers created havoc in 2002. The basic idea is to arm 20 terrorists with rifles and cars, and arrange to have them begin shooting randomly at pre-set times all across the country. Big cities, little cities, suburbs, etc. Have them move around a lot. No one will know when and where the next attack will be. The chaos would be unbelievable, especially considering how few resources it would require of the terrorists. It would also be extremely hard to catch these guys. The damage wouldn’t be as extreme as detonating a nuclear bomb in New York City, of course; but it sure would be a lot easier to obtain a handful of guns than a nuclear weapon.
Thanks. Having terrorists actually pay for consulting work would be way too burdensome, wouldn’t it?
Stupid, Meet Stupid
Thai police officers who break police rules will be forced to wear hot pink armbands featuring “Hello Kitty,” the Japanese icon of cute, as a mark of shame, a senior officer said Monday. Police officers caught littering, parking in a prohibited area, or arriving late - among other misdemeanors - will also be forced to stay in the division office with the deputy chief all day, said Police Col. Pongpat Chayaphan. The striking armband features Sanrio’s Hello Kitty sitting atop two hearts. “Simple warnings no longer work. This new twist is expected to make them feel guilt and shame and prevent them from repeating the offense, no matter how minor,” said Pongpat, acting chief of the Crime Suppression Division in Bangkok.
What’s dumber than trying to set a world record for the largest kazoo band? Trying and failing.
. . . his neighbors, who say Graham plays loud music, often spouts obsenity-laced tirades and uses his yard as a toilet, aren’t amused. They have asked the city to prohibit such living arrangements.
“Every day he’s out there. He never goes into the house,” Kenny Waring said. “He sleeps out there, he eats out there, he watches TV, he plays guitar. … Everything that you do in your house, he does out there.”
Politically Stupid
Communist China takes bold action in the ongoing fight against unlicensed reincarnation.
Tibet’s living Buddhas have been banned from reincarnation without permission from China’s atheist leaders. The ban is included in new rules intended to assert Beijing’s authority over Tibet’s restive and deeply Buddhist people.
“The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government approval is illegal and invalid,” according to the order, which comes into effect on September 1.
The 14-part regulation issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs is aimed at limiting the influence of Tibet’s exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama, and at preventing the re-incarnation of the 72-year-old monk without approval from Beijing.
I hope they fix gravity next. A 30% reduction would do nicely.
Former SNL writer & performer A. Whitney Brown airs his fundemental misunderstanding of how human beings function after catching flack for calling the military “morally retarded.”
Only a society blind with avarice or fear would see a military as anything other than an indictment of our inability to persuade! And yes, an indictment of our courage to try.
You know what’s really persuasive? Force.
Stupid on the Web
YouTube preserves TV anchor mishaps for posterity. Another reason for journalists to resent the internet.
Think Globally, Act Stupidly
Have you ever watched “24″ and wished it was less about tense action and political intrigue and more about environmental issues? Me neither. But the producers appear to be committed to the idea of fixing the show until it’s broken by focusing on irrelevant crap.
. . . the seventh season of “24″ will take steps to reduce and offset the carbon emissions from the show’s production, with the goal of having the season finale be entirely carbon-neutral.
It may sound like a publicity stunt, but Fox spokesman Chris Anderson says the network isn’t after bigger ratings. “We are publicizing ’24’s’ commitment to climate change for two reasons and two reasons only: to inspire the public to take global warming seriously and hopefully to motivate other studios to make changes to their production practices as well,” he says.
The “24″ page at Fox.com now features energy conservation tips and a public service announcement about global warming featuring Kiefer Sutherland; more information will be posted when the show airs in January. Plus, climate change will be incorporated into the series’ plot (which just might scare some viewers into taking action).
Wow, a plot about global warming. “Just wait, Agent Bauer. In just thirty-four years, my evil plan will have raised the seas six inches. SIX INCHES! Bwa-ha-ha!”
Newsweek warns us all about Global Warming Deniers. There’s too much at stake, we have to do what they say.
Through advertisements, op-eds, lobbying and media attention, greenhouse doubters (they hate being called deniers) argued first that the world is not warming; measurements indicating otherwise are flawed, they said.
Maybe “they hate being called deniers” because there’s already a well-established group of “deniers” who dispute the well-documented historic fact of the Holocaust and you’re trying to draw an equivalence. Questioning a theory used to be part of the scientific process, now it’s a sin against Gaea the Earth Goddess.
Educated, Yet Stupid
Steve Spurrier recruits players to play for South Carolina, but the university won’t admit them. I think you’ll agree this is no way to run a business.
“Hopefully, I truly believe this is the last year this is going to happen, because I can’t operate like that,” Spurrier said. “I can’t operate misleading young men.” Spurrier signed a contract extension, which included a raise of nearly a half-million dollars, that ties him to South Carolina through 2012. However, he said if things didn’t change on admissions “then I have to go somewhere else, because I can’t tell the young man that he’s coming to school here,” then not have him admitted.
Stupid in Print
The New York Times has given up tyring to charge money for access to their smug and snooty opinion columnists. Perhaps they figured out there’s plenty of free opportunities on the web to experience the journalistic equivalent of self-love.
The New Republic’s “Baghdad Diarist” admits that he was making things up. But only after repeatedly saying he wasn’t.
According to the military source, Beauchamp’s recantation was volunteered on the first day of the military’s investigation. So as Beauchamp was in Iraq signing an affidavit denying the truth of his stories, the New Republic was publishing a statement from him on its website on July 26, in which Beauchamp said, “I’m willing to stand by the entirety of my articles for the New Republic using my real name.”
ABC news claims that Americans are unhappy and “fleeing” the US in record numbers.
. . . our neighbor to the north is proving to be quite the draw for thousands of disgruntled Americans. The number of U.S. citizens who moved to Canada last year hit a 30-year high, with a 20 percent increase over the previous year and almost double the number who moved in 2000. In 2006, 10,942 Americans went to Canada, compared with 9,262 in 2005 and 5,828 in 2000, according to a survey by the Association for Canadian Studies. Of course, those numbers are still outweighed by the number of Canadians going the other way.
I suppose that would be significant if (1) more Canadians weren’t coming into the country than Americans were leaving, and (2) if “30-year high” and a “20 percent increase” didn’t describe a number representing .003 percent of the population of the US.
Dangerously Stupid
A guy with no arms and one leg keeps getting in trouble for driving without a license. He also got busted for kicking a state trooper. Finally, someone who can tell us exactly how busy a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest would be.
Saved by an exotic dancer who did CPR. How much do you tip for that and where do you put it?
