September “Stupidest Thing …” Race Already Crowded Thanks to Norman Hsu

 

It’s only September 1^st but, thanks to the pre-election money-grubbing by the herd of Democratic Presidential Nominee wanna-be’s, the race for the September nomination for the “Stupidest Thing of the Year” is already heating up.

The earlier entries into the competition include:

Hillary Clinton fund raiser Norman Hsu.  Hsu enters the competition because, although he is wanted on a felony warrant in the State of California for failure to appear for sentencing after pleading guilty to a single count of grand theft in 1996 (a year in which he was a major figure in Bill Clinton’s re-election fundraising).  Now, I don’t want to prejudice anyone’s chances to win the September nomination, but you have to admit that he will be hard to beat a man who:

 

1) Despite being wanted in California, engaged in high profile fundraising activities that would have easily revealed what part of the country he was hiding in.

 

2) If the above wasn’t enough to put Hsu on the police radar, he starts throwing his own money into the campaign war chest even though his name and address would be listed on the financial disclosure statement.

Hsu returned to California on Friday, August 31 where he turned himself in to authorities.  He was promptly taken before a judge who ordered Hsu held in the county slammer (did he get the Paris Hilton suite?) until he could post bond in the amount of $2 million.  Hsu was back on the streets 5 hours later.

Hsu’s scofflaw antics while on the run leads to our next candidate, the California Department of Public Safety.

The California cops get a nomination for not having a clue to Hsu’s whereabouts even though he was all over the second (Bill’s re-election) and third (Hillary’s) Clinton campaigns. Do you think that maybe Arnold’s Gestapo was too busy enforcing the laws against smoking in bars and other locations?  How about that they were too busy enforcing the myriad of laws against “hate speech,” “hate writing,” or “not being politically correct?”  Either that or perhaps the word had gone out for the cops to just say “no, we don’t have the slightest idea where Hsu is.”

However, doing or saying something stupid isn’t the only ways to become candidates for the monthly nomination. You can also be nominated by trying to convince us that we’re too stupid to see through a fraud or a scam. This seems to be the tactic adopted by the Paw family.

 According to a copyrighted story in the Wall Street Journal, the six members of the Paw family, all of them claiming the house at 41 Shelbourne Ave. in San Francisco as their residence, have donated a combined $45,000 to Hillary Clinton’s presidential primary bid since 2005, her Senate re-election last year and her political action committee. In all, the six Paws have donated a total of $200,000 to Democratic candidates and political action committees since the 2005.

 
Public records indicate that the Paws own a gift shop and live in a 1,280-square-foot house that they recently refinanced for $270,000. William Paw, the head of the household, is a mail carrier with the U.S. Postal Service who earns about $50,000.  Mrs. Paw lists her occupation as housewife and their children are all employed.

How this family, of relatively modest means, by California standards, has a surplus income that allows it to throw around a quarter of a million dollars has yet to be explained.  To this writer, such largess can be explained by one of the following scenarios (in increasing order of likelihood).

1)      The Paw family has a pile of money and just felt like giving it away

2)      The Paw gift shop is raking in money faster than the owners can give it away

3)      The Paw children are making a bundle

4)    The Paw family lied through its collective teeth to the Internal Revenue Service about their incomes in what is known in legal terms as tax evasion.

5)      Somebody gave the Paw family money that was earmarked for Sen. Clinton’s political aspirations.

As the potential political fallout from Norman Hsu’s fund raising became apparent, the campaign poobahs of the Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson announced that direct contributions from Hsu (those that he made under his own name) would be donated to charity.  In Sen. Clinton’s case, the loss of $23,000 from a campaign war chest estimated to be at least $50 million will go unnoticed. 

Gov. Richardson got off easy since Hsu had only contributed a total of $28,000 to Richardson’s 2006 re-election campaign.  Gov. Richardson’s campaign staff announced that the contributions would be shipped off to an undisclosed charity.  Since Richardson’s re-election campaign raised about $13.5 million yet only spent $12 million, $28,000 is mere chump change

Of the three candidates, Obama gains credibility at the cost of donating the $2,000 that Hsu contributed to his 2004 senate campaign and his $5,000 to Obama’s PAC to another undisclosed charity.

In keeping with at least a degree of fairness Larry Craig, the mow-former Republican Senator from Idaho, gains entry into the September competition by virtue of pleading guilty (without consulting a lawyer) to public indecency charges related to an alleged attempt to initiate a homosexual sex encounter at the Minneapolis, MN airport.

Craig’s entry is felt, by many observers, to be a long shot since resigning from the senate was about the only smart move he had left. su

Thoughts on Politics: Old and New

If I had to identify what I considered to be my best personality trait, I would answer with one word: cynicism.

Below is a collection of quotes from the two men that I admire for both their cynicism and their insight. Unfortunately, most readers will be unfamiliar with both authors. It is the purpose of this post to bring to the reader’s attention these two giants of both cynicism and American literature.

***

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1913?) is, in my personal opinion, one of the most underappreciated figures of American literature. Bierce is widely held to be the father of the modern short story as well as being the first author to make use of the concept of a “psychological thriller” over 100 years before Stephen King et al. For those that would like more information concerning Bierce, here is the obligatory link to the Ambrose Bierce page at Wikipedia.

CONGRESS, (Noun), A body of men who meet to repeal laws.

CONSERVATIVE, (Noun), A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

POLITICS, (Noun), A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

REPRESENTATIVE, (Noun), In national politics, a member of the Lower House in this world, and without discernible hope of promotion in the next.

SENATE, (Noun), A body of elderly gentlemen charged with high duties and misdemeanors.

VOTE, (Noun), The instrument and symbol of a freeman’s power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

***

H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880-1956) is another literary figure that has drifted into relative obscurity. In this writer’s opinion, Mencken should be considered as one of the true giants of American literature because it was Mencken that more or less created the cynical editorial style that influenced a full century of commentators. Even today, his 1925 reports on the Scopes trial (“The Great Monkey Trial”) are considered to be among the classics of journalism. Once again, here is the link to the H.L. Mencken page at Wikipedia.

As an aside, in the movie Inherit the Wind (which borrowed heavily from the Scopes trial) Gene Kelly plays the character E.K. Hornbeck, which was modeled on Mencken.

Whenever “A” attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon “B,” “A” is most likely a scoundrel.

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in.

Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.

If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.

Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

The cynics are right nine times out of ten.

H.L. Mencken
***

OK, I’m not in the same class as the 2 gentlemen mentioned above but it’s my blog and I can write whatever I want. The following are a few definitions that I came up with over the years that I hope you will enjoy. Look on the bright side; you don’t get another link to Wikipedia but one to my personal web site.

ACTIVIST, (Noun), One seeking to advance either a personal or group agenda by being as obnoxious as is humanly possible.

ENDANGERED SPECIES, (Noun), A species that, having outlived its biological utility, is attempting to self-destruct.

FORMER, (Adjective), An adjective used to denote one who, having lost an election, is actively conspiring to regain public office.

INAPPROPRIATE DECISION, (Noun), A mistake brought about by one’s own stupidity.

INFRASTRUCTURE BUILDING, (Noun), PORK BARREL SPENDING that occurs in your Congressional district.

INJUSTICE, (Noun), That which has occurred when your candidate is defeated or your client is convicted.

POLITICS, (Noun), The methods and practices used to gain, and hold, access to the public treasury.

PORK BARREL SPENDING, (Noun), INFRASTRUCTURE BUILDING that occurs in someone else’s Congressional district.

RECOUNT, (Noun), A more sophisticated technique than voter fraud for stealing an election. (Verb), to reexamine and retally the votes cast until you are certain that your candidate has won the election.

REFORM, (Verb), To change an existing law in order to maximize your position and/or minimize the position of your opponent.

UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANT, (Noun), An illegal alien.

UNSUBSTANTIATED STATEMENT, (Noun), A lie.

Wayne McDonald, Chat Rooms in Wonderland

Michael Vick Wins August “Stupidest Thing of the Year” Nomination

Soon to be former Atlanta Falcons’ quarterback Michael Vick, by demonstrating that he can still snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, has come from behind to win the August nomination in the 2007 “Stupidest Thing of the Year’ competition.  Vick, who was felt to have effectively removed himself from competition by accepting a plea bargain, overcame a strong challenge from New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson to capture the title.

The story behind Vick’s come-from-behind effort to win this month’s competition could be used as an example of why a “never give up” attitude can still triumph, even late in the game.

Vick appeared to have borrowed the time-tested “I’ve turned my life over to Jesus” strategy from the playbook of perennial powerhouse Paris Hilton when he attempted to explain exactly how he planned to con the National Football League out of banning him from football until the beginning of Jimmy Carter’s second term.  Most observers, however, feel that the Jesus story has been used so many times that the NFL would only consider it if Jesus Himself were to appear before the league’s disciplinary committee to confirm Vick’s claim.

There has been no independent confirmation to the rumor that Vick’s agent has been engaged in securing a starring role for Vick in the rumored upcoming movie The Longest Yard, Part III.

“Stupidest Thing of the Year” Race is Still Too Close to Call

The race to decide the August entry in the First Annual Stupidest Thing of the Year competition is growing closer as one candidate removed himself from contention by copping to a plea bargain with Federal prosecutors, another candidate made yet another stupid statement, and a host of new contenders for the title emerged from the sidelines.

This week’s update d list of contenders includes:

Michael Vick, the soon-to-be former quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, accepted a plea bargain negotiated by his attorneys and Federal prosecutors. Vick, by having done the smart thing by copping a plea, is removed from contention for the month of August.

New Mexico Governor and Democratic Presidential hopeful Bill Richardson has strengthened his position in this month’s competition. At a forum with gay rights activists Richardson replied “It’s a choice…” when asked if he believed people were “born” gay. Immediately, the governor attempted to cover this breach of political correctness by adding “you know, I’m not a scientist…”

 

Governor Richardson also appeared to prove that he definitely isn’t a political scientist by admitting that “I screwed up…” when he named arch-conservative Byron White as a model for future Supreme Court justices.

 

Another Democratic Presidential hopeful, Sen. Barrack Obama of Illinois, has emerged as a contender. At a campaign appearance in Virginia he said that, as a result of a springtime tornado in Kansas “… ten thousand people died … an entire town was destroyed …” According to news reports, the actual number of fatalities was 12.

 

Apparently not wishing to concede the race for this month’s winner, the pack of howling wolves known as several Republican Presidential nominee-wannabes are now vigorous contenders.

 

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, in an attempt to explain why none of his 5 sons had enlisted in the military, said “… one of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping me get elected…” He later claimed that he had “misspoke.”

 

Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani claimed that, following the 9-11 attacks, he was at Ground Zero “… as often, if not more, than most of the workers …” and was thus exposed to the same health risks. He later admitted that “I could have said that better … What I was saying was that ‘I’m her with you’”

With a week to go in this month’s competition, it’s still a wide-open race.

This Week’s Most Misleading Headline

“‘Dangerous’ Dean Poised to Hit Mexico”

The above headline referred to a hurricane named Dean and not to former Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean.

In a related incident, Mexican President Felipe Calderón cut short his Canadian summit talks with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and US President George Bush in order to return to Mexico to personally assess and monitor relief efforts in regions that would be hit by Hurricane Dean. The storm has thus entered the record book as the only hurricane that has caused a Mexican national to return home.

First August Candidates for “Stupidest Thing of the Year” Announced

I’ve spent a lot of time complaining about the fact that there isn’t some type of weekly, monthly, or even yearly award to recognize stupidity.  Therefore, I’ve decided that I will start documenting some of the more noteworthy acts of stupidity each month, with the monthly winner becoming a finalist for recognition as “The Stupidest Thing from a Year Full of Stupidity.”

The first entries for the month of August are:

1. NASA’s ‘teacher in space,” Barbara Morgan, completed the first of three scheduled classroom lessons that were broadcast back to Earth from the space shuttle Endeavor this week.  Whether the lessons will have a significant impact on schoolchildren remains to be seen since NASA scheduled the broadcast of these lessons to happen when the vast majority of America’s school-age children are still on summer vacation.

2. The Atlanta Falcons football team will start the season without the services of multi-million dollar star quarterback Michael Vick, who is currently under federal indictment in Virginia on gambling and dog-fighting charges.  Since Vick violated the terms of his contract when he was busted by the cops, his inactivity is costing him about $1 million bucks per month. 

Since their previous seasons’ records prove that the Falcons couldn’t beat their own mothers without Vick at quarterback, the Falcons appear poised to become the first team in the history of the National Football League to post a 0-16 record before the start of the regular season.

3. New Mexico Governor and Democratic Party Presidential hopeful wanna-be Bill Richardson has been touring the state of Iowa touting his plans to end childhood poverty.  This seems inappropriate since he is currently the governor of a state that ranks just above Rwanda in the percentage of children living beneath the poverty level.

Use the “Comment” box below to vote for your choice.  As they used to say in Mayor Richard J. Daly’s Chicago: “Vote early and vote often!”

The Laws of Stupidity

I think that the best way to introduce a blog dedicated to the study of stupidity is to briefly summarize the current state of knowledge regarding this complex subject. 

In the immortal words of W. C. Fields, let us “take the bull by the tail and face the situation.”

Carlo Cippola’s Five Basic Laws of Stupidity

I. We always under-estimate the number of stupid people.

II. The probability of a person being stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

III. A stupid person is one who causes damage to another person, or group of people, without any advantage accruing to himself (or herself) – or even with some resultant self-damage.

IV. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid people.  They constantly forget that at any moment, and in any circumstance, associating with stupid people constitutes an expensive mistake.

V. A stupid person is the most dangerous person in existence.

Giancarlo Livraghi’s Three Additions to Cippola’s Laws of Stupidity

I. Within each human being, including ourselves, there is a quantity of stupidity which is invariably greater than we suppose.

II. When the innate stupidity of one person is combined with the innate stupidity of others, the product of that combined grows geometrically–by multiplication, rather than the addition of the individual stupidity factors.

III. Since the impact of combined intelligence can only grow arithmetically while stupidity grows geometrically; stupidity will, in the long term, always prevail.

H. L. Mencken’s Axioms of Political Stupidity

If x is the population of the United States and y is the degree of imbecility of the average American, then democracy is the theory that x times y is less than y.

A great nation is any mob of people which produces at least one honest man a century.

Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage.

McDonald’s Internet Corollary

The Internet is the act of running the circus from the clown tent.

McDonald’s Five Classes of Stupidity

Class I is the mildest (or certainly the least pathologic) form of stupidity and is usually indistinguishable from the routine actions of daily living.

Class II stupidity is an act of personal stupidity whose impact is felt no further than five kilometers distant, and quite often no further than fifty meters, from where the incident occurs.  This type of stupidity is dangerous in that, if the act itself does not prove fatal, it induces a form of amnesia that removes all memory of the act itself and the ensuing consequences, leading to repetition of the act of stupidity for an indefinite and unpredictable number of times.

Class III stupidity is an act of stupidity that is due to stubbornness, religious fanaticism, patriotism, nationalism, or partisan political deal-making that in turn results in a witch hunt, religious persecution, a revolution, and/or an international or a civil war.

Class IV stupidity is an act of stupidity that leads to 1) a direct confrontation with an overwhelmingly superior foe, 2) a situation that can only be resolved by a temporary suspension of the laws of nature, or 3) a frontal assault on the will of God.

Class V stupidity is any act of stupidity that is of sufficient magnitude and posing such immediate, dire, and potentially catastrophic consequences that only the direct intervention of God Himself can avert the impending disaster.

McDonald’s Disease Theory of Stupidity

Stupidity is the only disease that is simultaneously endemic, epidemic, incurable, and practically always fatal.  Furthermore, a non-fatal attack of stupidity does not confer immunity against subsequent attacks.

The Laws of Classic (Newtonian) Stupidity

I. Any stupid object at rest or moving in a straight line will remain a stupid object at rest, or moving in a straight line, until it is acted upon by some external force that may or may not be as stupid as the original object.

II. Any stupidity emanating from, and acting on, another object will cause that object to exert an equally stupid force on the original object.

III. Every object in the universe that has mass (and hence stupidity) will exert a gravitational attraction on very other object in the universe that also has mass (and stupidity).  In the case of gravity, the magnitude of this attraction will vary inversely with the square of the distance separating the objects.  However, the effect of stupidity involving both masses does not decrease over distance and, in certain instances, may actually increase.

The First Law of Thermodynamic Stupidity

Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed from one form of energy into another.  Stupidity, however, can only be created and cannot be destroyed.

The Second Law of Thermodynamic Stupidity

You can never take more energy out of a system that was originally used in the creation of that system.  You can always remove some, but not all, stupidity from a system because the supply of stupidity will invariably exceed the demand.

The Third Law of Thermodynamic Stupidity

Entropy, the spontaneous disorganization of matter, is universal and always proceeds from organization to disorganization.  Stupidity will invariably progress from a disorganized state to larger and larger disorganized units that will eventually consume the entire universe.

The Heisenberg Unpredictability of Stupidity Principle

An observer may measure either the location of stupidity or the amount of stupidity present but may not measure both simultaneously because the mere act of measuring one component will alter the value of the other component.

McDonald’s Four Laws of Military Stupidity

I. The warring side that is the first to come up with the “unbeatable” or “perfect” strategy will inevitably lose the war.

II. The officer who is responsible for executing this brilliant plan will inevitably be court-martialed when it fails.

III. The one factor that no one considered when devising the perfect strategy will always arise at the worst possible moment.

IV. The government responsible for transgressions involving either/or Laws I & II will either be unelected (without prejudice), overthrown (with prejudice), or shot (with extreme prejudice).

The Principle of Co-Stupidity

An act of stupidity is rarely an isolated event and, in fact, any act of stupidity can be expected to produce an equally stupid reaction.  This reaction may be of a Class of Stupidity that is greater than, less than, or equal to that of the initial act of stupidity.

The Expansion Principle of Stupidity

In any open or closed system stupidity will increase until it reaches, or exceeds, the level of stupidity that originally existed within that system, in accordance with Livraghi’s Second and Third Additions to Cippola’s Laws.

The Temporal Displacement of the Consequences of Stupidity Principle

The effects of a given act of stupidity do not decrease over time but may first become known at any point in the future.  The individual acts of stupidity bear no relationship to their eventual consequences, but these consequences will almost certainly be of more extensive impact than one might expect if the original acts of stupidity had been identified and dealt with promptly.