You Can't Get Married He-ah If You're Quee-ah. November 5, 2009 2:52 PM | permalink

In another stunning victory for people who like to make laws about things that don't affect them all, Maine has narrowly passed a referendum overturning the law that legalized gay marriage in that state. 

I mention this because the News Pulse feature (pictured) on CNN.com shows that while it was a popular story, more than twice the number of people decided instead to read a story about Dolly Parton and Jessica Simpson twittering about their boobs. If you want to interpret this as an abject lesson about the wisdom of straight up-and-down, issue-based ballot initiatives, you probably could, but why press it?

In case you didn't read the Maine article, it did include one exceptionally dumb quote:

Scott Fish, a spokesman for Stand for Marriage Maine, said the campaign had never been anti-gay.  "The campaign was very clear about that," he said by phone Wednesday. "This was a campaign about protecting traditional marriage."

C'mon now, Scott.

If this campaign isn't anti-gay, than what are you protecting traditional marriage from? Bears?  If this is the case, I'm sorry, because I know there are a ton of bears in Maine and if they are getting into wedding ceremonies and causing damage, something definitely needs to be done.

If this law was all about allowing you to shoot any bear that entered into an area where a wedding was taking place, I'd be all for it. I had a traditional wedding, and so did my gay cousin who was married in Maine, and at neither event was anyone attacked by a bear.

But, I haven't been back to Maine in a long time, and if bears are regularly showing up at weddings, mauling guests and burrowing their wet snouts deep into meticulously prepared wedding cakes, I would be fully behind your measure. 

But even then, I wouldn't be dumb enough to tell people it wasn't anti-bear.

America's Youth: Fat Dumb Criminals? November 3, 2009 11:52 AM | permalink

A bipartisan, non-profit group called "Mission Readiness" held a press conference this week to call for, among other things,  funding for the Virgina Preschool Initiative, which could cost an estimated $30 to 35 million dollars a year. This program would be part of the group's overall national strategy to provide more at-risk children with early education in order to increase graduation rates, reduce crime and improve physical fitness among young people.

So what makes this group so different from other do-gooder liberal-type groups with the same agenda? Apparently, they are upset that Americans have gotten too fat, stupid and criminally active to even get killed overseas.

According to statistics released by the Pentagon, 70 percent of American youth have inadequate education, criminal records or physical problems that preclude them from joining the military. And according to Mission Readiness, that threatens national security. 

So basically, if there are still any people out there who oppose funding for preschool programs, this is a group of retired military men reminding us that we are producing so many fat, stupid criminals in this country that when these people waddle up to Army recruitment windows, and actually ask to be sent to Afghanistan with a rifle, we can't in good conscience let that happen. 

The funny thing is, there will probably be a group who comes out against them. 

Stay tuned.

Election Day Special: Just How Stupid Are We? Author Richard Shenkman November 2, 2009 2:59 PM | permalink

Richard Shenkman is an associate professor of history at George Mason University and a New York Times best-selling author. His latest book is Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter .

In the book Shenkman  provides some frightening statistics: most Americans cannot name their representatives in Congress, only 20% hold a passport and 30% don't know about the Holocaust. 

How stupid are Americans?

I don’t believe it’s helpful to call the American people "stupid." It’s a generalization that’s too glib to be more than an eye-catching headline and basically we used the word stupid in the title of the book just to catch people’s attention.  As a group, American’s can’t be classified as stupid; nor can you say that they are smart, which is what you hear from politicians all the time.

What we do know is that most Americans are “low information voters.” When you don’t even have a majority of them knowing what the three branches of government are it’s very difficult to hold a serious conversation about politics. We have politicians using slogans and sound bytes to try to gain support for one position or another and it’s all conducted at a very superficial level.

What does this say about America?

You get the government you deserve, you get the politics you deserve and you get the media you deserve.  And one of the reasons why the politicians often sound so dumb on television is because they understand who the audience is and they know what is going to trigger a positive response from the voters; It’s not going to be a detailed discussion on policy, because that’s going to go over the head of most people.

So they reduce their appeals to some bumper sticker slogan.  And that’s obviously a situation that’s unwelcome. You can’t run the world’s largest democracy on that basis.

So therefore, are dumb Americans voting for dumb politicians?

I spent a lot of time in Washington D.C. and I actually believe that the politicians are not dumb as a group. They tend to be pretty smart.  But they are hampered in their ability to do a good job because they are working for people who don’t know very much. 

So do you think politicians dumb themselves down for the American people?

There’s no question about it. 

What motivates people to vote for a candidate?

Political scientists say the most important factor is how their parent’s vote. Family shapes political values and relationships early on.

Another factor, and here’s where you get into things that you can’t measure, is likability. People vote on personality.

Plus, there are demographic characteristics of voters that make them lean either toward the Democratic Party or toward the Republican Party.  If you go to church weekly, you have a much better chance of being a Republican than being a Democrat.  That’s a fact.  If you drive a Volvo, shop at Whole Foods or  read the Village Voice, you are more likely to be a Democrat.

Nowadays people have more access to information via television, websites, radio, newspapers… yet are we stupider in reference to politics than we were fifty years ago?

Fifty years ago, social scientists started surveying what Americans actually know about politics and their government.  They found out Americans knew very little. 

But now, if anything, they know even less, which is shocking.  In 1940, six out of ten Americans hadn’t gotten past the eighth grade.  Today, most American’s have attended college.  The fact that we are testing at the same level and in some cases lower levels than our parents and grandparents is absolutely shocking.

Why the increasing ignorance?

The two most important causes to this level of increasing ignorance are television and the collapse of the two-party system. 

Television is factor because it’s a terrible communicator of information.  It’s a medium of entertainment.  It doesn’t allow us to get real knowledge and voters get most of what they know from TV.  People see candidates so they are inclined to make judgment based on personality, rather than if that person is a leader or brilliant, factors that would have impressed people more before television.

Plus, when we had a vibrant two-party system, the voters were informed by a party boss or a labor boss, who gave them advice on how to vote and why.  Today, we celebrate the independent voter who is not told what to do or think.  But, the voter who is left on his own winds up picking up information about politics in the most superficial disconcerting ways, by watching 30 second commercials, by judging politicians by how they look or appear in a debate or five-second news byte.

That isn’t a way to run a democracy.

Are you blaming the media for making Americans stupid?

No.  I’m saying that if people aren’t members of mass institutions like political parties or labor unions, it is very difficult for them, on their own, to figure out what is going on.  The Republicans figured that out in the 1990’s, which is why they started organizing evangelical churches from one end of the country to the other.  In other words, they learned to use a mass institution to create foot soldiers in their army of supporters, and it’s what gave George W. Bush a victory in 2004.

So, who is to blame for American’s stupidity?

If you want to blame anybody, look in the mirror.  Ultimately, if you want to have a democracy it’s not going to be any better than the people are.  If you don’t want to take that responsibility, and I say this somewhat glibly, but I also mean it, move to a place like Russia, where the leaders are happy to make all the decisions for you.  If you want to live in a democracy, educate yourself.  

The uneducated voter is susceptible to wily politicians, so they are going to count on the stupidity and ignorance of voters to push them around and get elected that way.  You want to live in that kind of country?  I don’t.  I want to live in a country of smart voters.

So, weigh in on a debate we're having in the Dumb As A Blog office.  Is the New Orleans JazzFest stupid or smart?

Wow.  I don’t’ have an opinion on that (laughs). I’m in favor of jazz festivals. So rah rah, go for it.

World Yecch-ord!? October 26, 2009 4:19 PM | permalink

A pet store employee in Lansing, MI named Sean Murphy has unofficially broken the world record for number of live cockroaches placed in one's mouth. The previous record was 10, and on Friday night, in front of a cheering crowd at Preuss Pets, Murphy put 16 Madagascar hissing cockroaches into his craw for a full 10 seconds. That's 160 cockroach seconds, if you're doing the math.

Video of the feat  can be found here, in case you don't feel like eating lunch for the rest of your life. 

Now I realize that the easy angle here would be to call Murphy dumb for shoving all those insects in his mouth. But what about the crowd? Weren't they the dumb ones? Wasn't  there anything else going on in Lansing on October 23?

As it turns out, not really:

-The Lansing Lugnuts minor-league baseball team played their last home game on September 3rd.

-The Old Town October Fest ended October 10th.

-The Boarshead Theater on Grand Street in Lansing is running a number of productions including Beau Jest  and an adaptation of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe but sadly, none of those were playing on Friday. If you wanted live theater that night, you had to settle for the bug-eating variety.

-The Michigan State Spartan men's football and hockey teams both played last weekend, but sadly, their  games were on Saturday.

The Lansing Symphony Orchestra was also dark that Friday, so I contacted Catherine Guarino, the symphony's director of communications. She told me that despite really liking the family-owned pet store, she hadn't attended the record-breaking event. When I suggested that perhaps the symphony orchestra could make plans for its own "stuffing cockroaches into mouths" type concert, she said "that isn't really a priority for us."

Guarino was kind enough to direct me to Lansing's Wharton Center For Performing Arts, which had featured a performance of the Virsky Ukrainian National Dance Company that night, so it's not like the citizens of Michigan's's capital  didn't  have options.

If someone told me I had to choose between "the exquisite charm of Ukrainian folk dancing" and watching a dude in a pet store stuffing a lot of cockroaches into his mouth, I can't tell you with confidence I'd pick the dancers.

Pop Goes the Pup October 19, 2009 3:50 PM | permalink

By now I'm sure you're tired of hearing about Falcon Heene, aka "Balloon Boy."

Our nation came to a halt Friday when rumors surfaced that the youngster had floated 10,000 feet above ground in a man-made vessel .

In the clip below, a super-amped video blogger attempts a copy-cat experiment using his dog.

WARNING: Do not attempt "balloonifying" your pet at home.   

Best Dumb 'Balloon Boy' Tweets October 16, 2009 10:25 AM | permalink

All anyone wants to talk about this morning is how Falcon Heene, the kid who wasn't in the balloon, told Wolf Blitzer, "...we did this for the show." The kid also threw up live on The Today Show.  Yup, it smells like a hoax...a vomit-filled hoax. Anywho, here's a few handpicked tweets out of zillions -- the creme de la crap -- enjoy!  And follow truTV on Twitter here, if you wanna.

@khayadlanga Ballon Boy, Imma let you finish but Osama bin Laden is the best hide and seek player of all time! All time!

@swimmykimy They brought out a Balloon Boy game: http://www.balloonboygame.com 

@Street_Carnage If anyone needs me I'll be napping in the attic and wasting the nation's time.

@friedmanjon I'm gonna be Balloon Boy for Halloween. Basically, I'm not going out.

@jaysexxy da ballon boy family need dey ass whooped 2

@ltg_jon After all the ballon boy coverage, I have a craving for Jiffy Pop.

@Bootsy_Collins Balloon Boy was really on it but I swooped in on my mothership then beamed him into the attic

And finally this from a real news anchor in Connecticut...

@DarrenKramer8 Executive producer won't let us use the phrase "attention whore" in the balloon boy story. Crud.

Related: Visit our pals at Urlesque to get a load of the funniest balloon boy meme stuff.

Note: In the image at top, we intentionally misspelled "balloon" and still found hundreds of tweets.  Best ones were people who spelled it wrong and then called the family "idiots."  Pot - kettle - black, America!

These (Dumb) Kids Today October 15, 2009 8:23 AM | permalink

According to an article from the BBC, a recent study claims that 75 percent of 16-24 year-olds "couldn't live" without the internet. Seeing as I was born and raised without the internet, I scoffed at these ridiculous kids and immediately looked up what was in fact "essential to maintain human life." What I found was the definition of the word "vital" which reads as follows:

vital
1. essential to maintain life
2. of, relating to, having, or displaying life
3.
a. the bodily organs, such as the brain, liver, heart, lungs, etc., that are necessary to maintain life
b. the organs of reproduction

You will note that nowhere in that definition is the word "internet" included. Of course, where did I look it up? 

You guessed it, the internet. 

Rats.

Maybe those dumb kids have a point.

Large Hadron Collider 4 Dummies October 14, 2009 7:49 AM | permalink

The Large Hadron Collider is a massive subject for smarty pants, but with recent newsworthy events that read like bad Hollywood scripts, your dumb rump should be ready to haul out this hefty topic at cocktail parties. Here's all you need to know, below. 

1.  There's a giant underground machine beneath the ground near Geneva, Switzerland.  It has been riddled problems and has yet to be activated.  Some fear when it is switched on it will create a black hole that will swallow the earth.

2.  Watch the Large Hadron Rap (pictured) to get the gist of what it is about. Over five million nerds have already rocked out to it.

3.  Two scientists have just proposed that the LHC is fated to be doomed because the machine is evil and the future is coming back to stop it from ever being created.  Yes, just like in Back to the Future, except instead of getting McFly's parents to meet, something is trying to dismantle this machine.

4.  Another physicist named Franklin Felber says that the LHC can test hyperdrive space propulsion.  So, just like in Star Wars, we may soon be building our own Millennium Falcon's and opening an Arby's somewhere in M31.  "Soon" as in 100 years.

5.  And news just broke that one of the brilliant nuclear scientists working on the LHC was charged with plotting terrorist activities as an agent of Al Qaeda.  The scientist was allegedly looking to create his own "big bang" -- he wanted to help blow up an oil refinery the size of London and had a wish list of  assassination targets.  Nice. Makes black holes that suck up the universe seem downright cozy.

Today's Big Dumb Story September 30, 2009 9:39 AM | permalink

Michael Jackson and Madonna: Their petty gripes are revealed in private tapes Jackson made that are being hawked by a schlocky guy named Schmuley. 

Unless aliens land in Topeka and reveal that their advanced society has a cure for the nose freeze you get when you eat ice cream too fast, Madge and Jacks are going to be the main news today.

Earthquakes might get some play, troops moving out of Iraq hardly any.  But mostly, it's going to be a day of hearing endlessly about the "news" that Madonna wanted Jackson to go to a strip club after dinner, and Jackson didn't wanna go with. 

Is the public health care option dead dead after yesterday?  That seems newsworthy. 

No, sorry.  Jackson and Madonna.  That's all yer gettin'.  Deal with it.

Scared Straight? September 21, 2009 4:07 PM | permalink

This weekend at something called the "Value Voters Summit," Michael Schwartz, an aide to Republican Senator Tom Coburn quoted an "ex-gay" friend  as saying "all pornography is homosexual pornography" because "pornography turns your sexual drive inwards."

I understand his point. Like a fine cigar, pornography is often enjoyed alone. And so, by Mr. Weigel's logic, if you're the only person in the room, and you aren't a different sex than yourself, then by definition you're in a same-sex relationship, which makes you queer.

Basically, he seems to be twisting the old Woody Allen line "don't knock masturbation; it's sex with someone you love," into the less-clever "go ahead and knock masturbation, because it's sex with a dude."

That's stupid, but if he just left it there, I might be able to let it go.

But he didn't.

Weigel suggested that if an 11-year-old boy was told that looking at porn would make him gay, he would be less likely to pick up a copy of Playboy.

Really?

When I was 11, it was hard to get your hands on a Playboy magazine. I wouldn't put one down if it was actually on fire. Second degree burns fade, but memories live forever.

It was a different time. 

But even we if ignore the troubling dual assumptions in this scenario, first, that your child will actually believe that seeing pictures of naked women will somehow change him into a person who will never be interested in seeing them again, and second, that his hatred for homosexuals has already developed to such an extent that the fear of becoming one would be enough to reverse the course of these basic urges, his examples are fatally flawed as well.

In this day and age, if you approach an 11-year-old boy and tell him that reading Playboy magazine would make him gay, I suspect he'd look up at you and ask "what's a magazine?"