Idiots

A teacher says she had to give up teaching because she developed nodules on her vocal cords, caused, she says, by constantly having to raise her voice. She has been awarded over £150,000 in compensation. People are idiots.

A survey of 17 large towns found that the stupidest town in Britain was Swindon, in Wiltshire. Participants were asked a variety of fairly straightforward questions such as how many legs an octopus has, and according to the man in charge of the survey, "You wouldn't believe the answers we got. How many animals have 13 legs?" People are idiots.

Apparently Michael Jackson has a new single out, made from vocal tracks that were left in the care of producer Teddy Riley. Trouble is, several family members say it's not Michael's voice on the record. I say - who cares?! People are idiots.

A five-year old boy, who has little or no concept of gender roles and sexuality, wanted to dress up as Daphne from 'Scooby-Doo'. What's the problem with that? He wanted to dress like that for his school's Halloween Parade. So he went to school dressed like that. Again, what's the problem? Nothing, except for the attitudes of other children, and adults, who jeered him and made negative comments. And then his stupid mom went and blogged about it. I don't know where I stand on this one. By all means let your kids dress up and express themselves, but have the good sense to realise that not everyone in this society is an enlightened peace-loving individual, and in fact some are outright assholes. But it is a double standard, isn't it? If a 24-year-old man went to a Halloween party dressed as a woman, that'd be fine, in fact we'd all be laughing our socks off at the funny man, wouldn't we? But a 5-year old boy, oooh, nonononooo. Grr. People are idiots.

Apparently 43 percent of British local councils are considering cutting back on street lighting to cut back on costs. Opponents say that this could bring about a rise in crime. Duh. If crime rises, then of course more public money will be wasted on police and corrections. People are idiots.

Some plonker found a piece of promo footage for a 1928 Charlie Chaplin film that contains a sequence of a woman walking across the screen with her hand to her ear as if talking on a cellphone. Now all these other dimwits are suggesting that this person is some sort of 'time-traveller' or even an alien. Look, even if someone could travel backwards through time to 1928, would they be able to use a cellphone? And who would they call even if they could? I know people are thick, but this takes the biscuit. No cellphone networks in 1928, no cellphones, ergo, no way. People are idiots.

A 63-year old man from Boulder, CO shot himself in the leg with a 9mm bullet while sleepwalking. Apparently he regrets keeping a gun by his bed. Well, duh. People are idiots.

George Dubya Bush went on telly Monday night in the States in an hour long interview with that boob Matt Lauer. He is as delusional as ever. He is convinced he did everything right and does not own up to any mistakes. He thinks that picking Dick Cheney as a running mate in 2000 was "a very good" decision, and refusing Donald Rumsfeld's resignation in the spring of 2004 "was the right decision." Waterboarding wasn't torture "because the lawyers said it was legal" (and because "I'm not a lawyer"), he "really didn't" have any doubts about the pre-war intelligence on Iraq and WMD, and "we just didn't have any solid intelligence" warning that 9/11 was possible. Oh, and the idea that his administration could have done something between 2001 and 2008 to prevent the Wall Street meltdown? "I frankly don't think this was a crisis of a lack of regulation." Some people are idiots, and then there's Dubya.