Here’s a video taken by some liberal activists outside a John McCain rally in Pottsville. (This was helpfully posted to Young Philly Politics by a user named “journalists4mumia.” Ha, ha!)
And — surprise! — people at a political rally are dumb and say dumb things. “Bomb Obama!” doesn’t even really make any sense. But the best quote is, naturally, “I don’t want to sound racist, but I don’t want a black man running my country.” Oh, now that’s just fantastic.
Cops say he stole around $100,000 from 13 women and gambled it away down the shore. The Daily News says not only was he not a millionaire, he was homeless! “He used his only possession, a laptop, to lure women,” the paper writes.
He apparently didn’t even meet most of the women he scammed money from; he just got them to send him money for his new company that would be making CDs and DVDs. Yes, people are stupid, la de da.
Dick Polman has a blog post today that is absolutely hilarious and you must read it. Apparently, some dude did a focus group with 12 voters who didn’t follow politics much and wondered why the primary wasn’t over yet.
And, of course, they all think Obama is a Muslim, even though his Christian pastor’s comments about how America throws a ton of black people in prison for fun were all over the news a month or so ago. Let’s just quote the best parts:
For instance, here’s Dorita, opining about Obama: “I’m a little concerned. I don’t know enough about his Muslim background and their beliefs and how he views everything. I’m a little concerned. I need to check his background.”
Here’s Josh on Obama: “He’s representing a minority in more than one case. He is African American and he is Muslim. And in light of that…it does feel like we’re being judged or pounded down on because we want to carry a gun or we want to wear the American flag pin.”
Here’s Melinda, clearly the GOP’s dream voter: “I just really feel like he’s…not a people pleaser as in the Americans, but the other people who don’t necessarily need to be pleased, the other, the enemies if you will, I don’t know. I’m just not real positive on that.”
The comments then explode with people who love to read blogs they hate (for reasons I can’t understand, but whatever) attacking Polman for making fun of people who think Obama is a Muslim.
But, uh, this isn’t really surprising. Let’s generalize for a moment: Most people don’t really seem to care much about the truth; they care more about what they want to believe. If you want to believe Barack Obama is a Muslim, then you can probably find evidence that Obama is an evil Muslim who’s going to destroy America — whether it’s in a chain email or a Daniel Pipes column.
And if you need any evidence that people are stupid, then there are nearly 8,000 posts on this website that seem to confirm that. And then there’s me, who has written nearly a billion words on this stupidity, sometimes coming off rather stupid myself. In a word: Duh.
Look, a man goes to a Phillies-Mets game at Citizens Bank Park with his Met fan wife and says Philly fans are awful. His reasoning? “You must remember that this is the same city that is famous for booing Santa Claus during a pro football game a number of years ago.”
Uh, no, you probably don’t remember it, because it happened before Woodstock. Complaining about Philadelphia sports fans and referencing the Santa Claus incident is like going to Chicago and saying it’s a bad place because of the police response to protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. It’s kind of exactly the same, since both happened the same year.
The University Village Apartment complex near Temple sent out its newsletter earlier this month with a little April Fool’s Day poem on the backside.
But whoops! The poem contained the line “Extinct are the Jews,” and now somebody has been fired at University Village. As CBS 3’s Jamie Smith reported, “The newsletter offended many at the apartment complex.” Gee, you think?
Video after the jump. (Note: Yes, Redlasso clips crash some browsers still, and that’s why I keep embedding them after the jump. I apparently hadn’t posted this warning before; sorry about that.)
In case you didn’t know, I’m kind of a picky eater. I don’t like much food, and I’ve always been mystified as to why that offends people so much.
It’s so stupid of me that I didn’t think of the answer sooner: People are idiots!
Judging from postings at food Web sites like chowhound.com and slashfood.com, people seem more willing to date those who restrict their diet for health or religion rather than mere dislike.
Typical sentiments included: “Medical and religious issues I can work around as long as the person is sincere and consistent, but flaky, picky cheaters — no way” and “picky eaters are remarkably unsexy.”
Oh, wah wah wah. So if I don’t eat Chinese food because God forbid me to, it’s okay. If I do it because I find Chinese food disgusting, I’m “unsexy.” Even though the former is the one where you’re going to hell for eating food my God forbids.
Whoa, I just tried to rationalize how people think. Forget it, I’m going to get a PB&J sandwich.
Philadelphians put their best feet forward yesterday and attempted to vote in the Most Important Election Ever Between A Black And A Woman. Only problem: Pennsylvania’s primary isn’t until April 22.
It was among the first of more than 400 calls from people who thought it was Election Day in Philadelphia, according to workers in the city commissioners office. “We’ve been telling people the only way they can vote is to get in their car and drive to Jersey,” joked Tim Dowling, a campaign finance specialist in the office.
“We were very patient and explained [that] there was a primary in New Jersey but not here,” said another worker who asked not to be identified…. Most people were very polite; they apologized for calling. But some of them insisted, they knew it was Election Day and they were going to vote. So we told them to go over the bridge.”
Unfortunately, those who attempted to cross the bridge into New Jersey accidentally drove off the bridge. Election officials were counting a jump off the northern side as a vote for Hillary, and a jump off the southern side as a vote for Obama.
Harry V. Hackert allegedly pulled a pretty funny prank in Bensalem yesterday. Oh, wait, not pretty funny. You see, what he did was say he was a police officer, pull over someone at Knights and Street Road (like 10 seconds outside the city) and wave a loaded gun in the driver’s face!
Turns out, he wasn’t a cop. (If you hadn’t figured that out by now.) A real Bensalem police officer wins the right place award for being across the street with his video camera, according to the Bucks County Courier Times.
Although he had an unmarked car, the fake cop sure went to a lot of trouble, even making sure he was grieving for a real, recently-killed police officer.
Hackert made a genuine effort to look like a cop. Besides the lights and sirens, he had a fake badge that appeared to be issued by the Philadelphia Police Department. It even had a strip of black tape across it to look like the bands police stretch across their badges to signify the death of a police officer, police said.
‘Course, he wasn’t wearing any type of uniform and was just a private security guard. But, hey, who doesn’t want to pull over an annoying driver in front of you and wave around a gun every once in a while? At least most of us don’t act on that.
Update: And across the river, a plainclothes police officer was outside a bank during a robbery attempt! Be sure to read the comments: “Damn…if the perp had only showed a weapon…then the Lt would have been justified in ensuring another criminal no longer walks the streets…dammit…” I can’t imagine being excited somebody had been killed, but, you know, I’m not from Jersey I guess.
Yes, Penn senior Felix Wang was arrested for allegedly stalking several Penn women — really? Penn women? — and stealing their panties. This goes to show that watching all three Revenge of the Nerds movies over and over will do to you. (One of the women he’s accused of stalking lives in the dorm I used to live in.)
The one-man panty raid gang allegedly stole a woman’s dorm room key and entered her place; a roommate called police. But he didn’t apparently even need to do that, since Penn kids are just too smart to lock their doors.
“I don’t feel particularly safe because I don’t lock my door and I know most college kids don’t, so something like that, it could lead to bigger instances,” student Christine Guo said.
Hey, people. You all have $3,000 computers and $500 iPods and expensive cell phones, etc. Plus, uh, this. Here’s an idea they don’t teach in Econ 1: Lock your fucking doors!
Usually, when people really care about stupid shit, it’s confined to them and their supporters. Take, for example, these people planning on a boycott of stores that sell toy guns. I, for one, cannot imagine caring about what kind of water pistols KB Toys sells. (When I hear people angry over toy guns at stores, I mainly think about whether products such as, say, the Nintendo Zapper would trigger a boycott.)
NBC 10’s Tim Furlong reports that “despite a September resolution from City Council asking stores to remove the guns from their shelves, some stores like KB Toys in the Franklin Mills Mall sell guns in all colors, shapes and sizes, including a realistic-looking machine gun and handgun purchased by Furlong.” Ooh, a toy gun sting operation!
Okay, so Philadelphia City Council did pass a resolution, but those people waste time like it’s their job. (Because it is.) But it wasn’t binding and KB Toys was free to continuing selling Super Soakers and more realistic-looking toys, too. But that’s not the case in Wilmington, where a City Councilman is planning on banning saggy pants.
Much like the councilwoman in Trenton who proposed similar legislation, the proposed ordinance would fine people up to $250 for pants that this one councilman didn’t like the style of. His reasoning is not the weird saggy-pants-are-a-gateway-drug argument in some locales where this has popped up, but simply because… ah… well, let’s let the councilman, Mike Brown, explain:
Brown defended his stance by saying, “Listen, I know under the first amendment everybody has their rights, but i have rights too.”
Although the right to wear saggy pants (the 22nd Amendment) is being eroded, fortunately we still have a lot of other of our civil liberties. Well, okay, hmm. How’s this: Fortunately, I can still make fun of this dude proposing the law online. It’ll be debated next month, which I can only assume will be completely awesome.
