This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: “Teh Stoopid”

  • Maybe A Potential New Home for Someone We “Know and Love”?

    Many folks that regular TAH readers “know and love” reside in Florida. Indeed, the list of Florida residents featured here at TAH is fairly long.

    At least one of them also seems to have some interesting ideas about the English language and/or human anatomy. Well, “that guy” might be interested in what follows.

    If that aforementioned       Dumbass      “great guy” ever tires of his current residence and decides he wants to move, I’m pretty sure now he’ll be able to stay in Florida. I found this the other day while poking around on the Internet. Based on some of his previous statements, I think he’ll find it quite to his liking.  I added the red oval to the image to highlight the location’s name.

     

    No, that’s not a joke.  It’s an actual unincorporated village in Seminole County, Florida.  That is indeed its formally-designated name.

    Beats hell out of me what the Seminole County Commission was thinking at the time they named the place. Maybe they were just unaware of the more, um, “informal” definition of the term.

    Only in America. (smile)

  • A Serious Marketing “Oops” – and a Correction

    Under Armor is a popular manufacturer of athletic and sporting wear. They’re also very popular among the military. The company is usually one of the “good guys” when it comes to supporting the military.

    However, even the “good guys” can goof. And recently, Under Armor did just that.

    Here are images of two of Under Armors recently-released t-shirts:

    The first shirt was called “Band of Ballers”. I don’t think I have to tell anyone what image that one what image was used as its pattern – but if you’re having a temporary brain cramp and can’t recall, here’s the original image.

    The second shirt was called “Crossing Over”. It also should look familiar – it’s based on the famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware River during the American Revolution.

    The resulting reaction from serving military and vets – and some of the public – was predictable. Much was highly negative; some was supportive.

    To their credit, Under Armor seems to have pulled the shirts from sale quite quickly, and has removed their images from their website. They’ve also rather profusely apologized for offending serving military and veterans. No word on whether they fired the “marketing genius” involved in approving the sale of those shirts.

    Just a bit of proof that not only government agencies can have those “WTF were you thinking?” moments. Highly successful commercial firms can have them too.

  • One Guy Doesn’t “Get It”; His Employer Does

    Over the past few days a little drama has played out on Facebook. It involves a restaurant, a waiter, his apparent contempt for the military, a public rant – and how that backfired.

    Sometime in the past week or so in Hawaii, a waiter at a restaurant served a party at one of the restaurant’s tables. The party at that table purportedly ran up a $60 check and left a very small tip.

    The tip was reportedly small enough that it seems to me to have been a deliberate message that the service was poor.  But I suppose I could be wrong; maybe the individual paying the bill was simply an a-hole, or meant to leave more and simply forgot.

    The waiter was upset. Hey, I can understand that. A tip of less than 1/2% is pretty bad.

    But what the guy did next was, well . . . maybe not such a good idea.

    The waiter had determined that at least some people in the party that had left the small tip were military. So the guy later went on Facebook and posted a rather irate, insulting, and profanity-laden diatribe concerning the people involved in the incident specifically – as well as about the military in general. (The diatribe can be viewed here – be forewarned that the language contained is very coarse.)

    Did I mention he seems to have posted this diatribe under his own name?  Or that this restaurant is located just a few miles away from both Schofield Barracks and Wheeler AFB – and gets a lot of military business? Or that one of the restaurant’s co-owners is the son of a World War II and USAF vet who served in Europe at the Battle of the Bulge?

    Predictably, the Facebook outburst got widely noticed. But I’m pretty sure that didn’t work out precisely as the waiter had intended.

    The owner apologized publicly as soon as he’d found out about the incident. And according to this article from the Army Times, “On Tuesday, [the owner] said the server no longer worked for his restaurant, but would not elaborate.”

    I’ve intentionally omitted the names of those involved above. If you’re interested, the names are in the links if you’re curious.

    Yeah, in America we have freedom of speech and expression. But the First Amendment applies to government actions – not those of your employer.  And when what you say adversely impacts your employer’s bottom line . . . well, unless you have a really good employment contract or negotiated agreement, your employer generally has the right to put his business interests before yours and fire you.

    I guess maybe this guy has figured that last part out for himself by now.

  • Yet Another “Stupid Criminal Trick”

    Well, we have another “brilliant criminal” story.

    Seems as if a certain “Levi Charles Reardon” was wanted by the police in Montana for felony forgery.  To publicize that fact, the police in Cascades County put a wanted poster of the guy on their Cascades County Crime Stoppers Facebook.  They then listed the poster as one of their “April Most Wanted”.

    Apparently Reardon really liked the wanted poster when he saw it online – so he liked the wanted poster.

    From his Facebook account.

    Turns out that was not such a good idea.  You can probably guess the rest.

    Yep, you’re right:  Reardon was apprehended without incident on Friday, 24 April 2015, and made his initial appearance in court on Monday, 27 April 2015. His arraignment is set for Thursday, 7 May.

    Hey, no one ever said most criminals are the “sharpest tools in the shed”. (smile)

  • More Comedy from the 9th Circus

    Well, the      gang of fools called the Ninth Circus Clowns of Unreal       “august body” called the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals out on the Left Coast has given us all some new comic relief.

    It seems that a 5-member panel of that       clown Krewe      group of distinguished jurists has decided that it’s OK to be deliberately evasive when testifying before a Grand Jury. But only if your deliberately evasive answers fall in the “little white lie” or “What difference does it make?” categories.

    Specifically, a five-member panel of the US 9th Circuit has overturned Barry “My Head Just Got Bigger” Bonds’ felony conviction for obstruction of justice. The stated rationale was that Bonds’ testimony for which he was convicted of obstruction of justice – while evasive and highly implausible on its face – did not regard an issue of “central importance” to the government’s investigation. Since the issue was not one that was of “central importance”, per the Ninth Circus Circuit Panel, it was therefore permissible for Bonds to be evasive and dissemble while under oath.

    So, it’s OK to lie when under oath, or when answering an investigator’s questions  – sometimes. But only about
    “small stuff”. And sometimes it’s not OK.

    Yeah, that makes “perfect sense”.  Does anyone but me see a potential problem with that?

    Hey, I understand the concept of a prosecutor conducting a “fishing expedition; no, I don’t support that at all. But regardless of how you feel about PEDs in professional sports, the drugs involved were and are illegal. The questions Bonds was asked hardly seem unrelated to the subject of PEDs. Further, his answers seem to me to have been designed more to avoid going on the record – or exerting Fifth Amendment rights – than anything else.  IMO, it’s clear he was simply avoiding answering relevant questions clearly and completely.

    As always, YMMV. Bonds’ testimony can be found here; read it and decide for yourself. Be forewarned that it’s nearly 150 pages.

    IMO this isn’t exactly a shock.  Hey, the case was heard by a panel from the Ninth Circus, located out on the Left Coast. They seem to use a different definition of “reality” much of the time.

  • Oh, Where Will It End?

    NB: This is best suited to a Weekend Silly, but I might have hurt myself laughing so I wanted to share the pain.

    An old pal,  Susan Katz Keating, has a post up that takes political correctness to a  new, or a different, level.  Note: SKK is a professional writer (People Mag and SOF) with a military background.  She blogs too.

    “One hissy-fitting military spouse says, yes: Pinups be gone! The hissy fitter, SpouseBuzz editor Amy Bushatz, wants charity chief Gina Elise and her 1940’s-style Pin Ups for Vets to sashay their curvy little selves away from the flight line, the chow hall, the hospital ward, and anywhere else these retro-dressing gals might encounter a married man. “

    My first thought was “What about the LBGT members of the military?” Should we ban GI Joe and all John Wayne movies, etc, to avoid causing anguish amongst their significant others? About then I started laughing.

    Somewhere there is a move afoot to banish Playboy magazine because it offers an unrealistic view of women? Maybe Hugh DOES use Photoshop nowdays, but who cares? BTW, I think Hillary Clinton started that one, with encouragement from the current Nutritionist in Chief.

    It may soon become illegal to simply say “I don’t care!”

    Sorry folks… I’m gonna have to stop now. The absurdity of all this PC stuff actually causing me pain again.

     

     

  • Oh, For the Love of . . .

    . . . doesn’t the 5-sided asylum have any real work to do?  Really?

    Pentagon Deploys ‘May I Kiss You?’ Training

    At least this “only” costs taxpayers around $325k a year.

    GMAFB.

  • Who Can It Be Now?

    Thru the “majik” of the Internet, I ran across some youthful photos of . . . well, that’s the problem. The link went down before I could read the bio info.

    So, folks – we need your help. Who might these two photos be at age 15 or so? Does anyone know them?

    No, neither of them is me. I didn’t comb my hair in a pompadour when I was that age, and still don’t.

    And I’m pretty sure neither is a youthful Colin Hay from Men at Work, either. (smile)

    Remember, please keep it clean. At least mostly. (smile)