The Week In Stupid

Bad Parent Of the Year Award

Baby Hitler: Artist Dresses Up Daughter as Nazi Leader
Saturday March 20, 2010
Forget frilly bonnets and teddy bear costumes . . . artist Nina Maria Kleivan likes to dress up her kid as Adolf Hitler.
Just take a look at the kid, all decked out in her pencil mustache and tiny swastika.

The artist says she's trying to make a point about evil -- and not necessarily win "Mother of the Year."

"Even my daughter could end up ruling Denmark with an iron fist," she was quoted as saying. "The possibility is still there."



I hate diarrhea wallpaper

http://www.morningsun.net/news/weird_news/x1499087912/Think-your-job-stinks-Clerk-says-customer-defaced-store-bathroom-with-feces

A Ravenswood convenience store clerk could honestly tell her bosses she had a "crappy" evening after a difficult customer allegedly decided to deface the store’s bathroom using his own feces.

According to the complaint filed by Ravenswood Police Patrolman B.A. Fox, on March 17, Randy Holcomb, 42, entered Gary’s Beverage & Video appearing very intoxicated.

The complaint states the Holcomb repeatedly called the clerk “Honey” and kept asking her if he could use the store’s bathroom. The clerk refused to allow Holcomb to use the restroom, as it was marked for employees only. However Holcomb allegedly ignored the denial and went into the bathroom anyway. After using the restroom, Holcomb left the store.

After Holcomb left, the clerk said she began to smell a “terrible odor” coming from the bathroom. When she went to check the bathroom, she discovered feces smeared all over the walls, floor, doorknob, light switch and toilet itself. The clerk reported that there was toilet paper available in the restroom. She did not report whether or not Holcomb had flushed prior to leaving.

The clerk then called the police to inform them of the situation, and they responded to the scene. After the police began a search for Holcomb, the clerk reportedly had to spend a considerable time cleaning and sanitizing the entire bathroom.

Based on the condition of the scene and the information provided, Fox obtained a warrant for Holcomb’s arrest on one misdemeanor count of destruction of property. Holcomb was arrested on the warrant and arraigned.

According to Reynolds, Holcomb had recently received a 90-day suspended jail sentence for an unrelated matter.



High Crime Against Society: Resurrecting Road Kill

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/89289687.html?cmpid=15585797

Some people will go to extraordinary lengths to save their pets. Tales of pet owners giving CPR to their cats and dogs are fairly common. But how many folks would try to resuscitate a wild animal?

Possums are prone to play dead, especially when threatened. Their eyes glaze over, their teeth are bared, and they secrete a rank stench from their glands.

But the possum lying along the Colonel Drake Highway on Thursday was doing none of that, troopers said. It was long-dead certified roadkill.

And Donald Wolfe was intent on bringing it back to life, troopers said.

Trooper Jamie Levier of the Punxsutawney barracks said witnesses saw Wolfe, 55, locking lips with the lifeless marsupial about 3 p.m. in a remote area about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

After receiving several calls, troopers arrested Wolfe along an isolated stretch of the highway and charged him with public drunkenness.

Levier says the Brookville man was "extremely intoxicated" and "did have his mouth in the area of the animal's mouth, I guess."

Another person saw Wolfe kneeling before the deceased animal and gesturing as though he were conducting a séance, Levier said.

In a release, state police listed the victim of the incident as "society." Wolfe will face the charges before a district judge in Jefferson County at an unscheduled date. (Editor's Note: As a member of the society that Wolfe allegedly victimized, I can honestly say I don't feel victimized, nor should stupidity necessarily be a crime. If it were, 99.9% of humanity would be incarcerated. But still... EWW)

Honest, Abe...Should Have Stuck to Paint Chips

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/did-mercury-pills-cause-abe-lincolns-fits-of-rage/19411283


LONDON (March 24) -- Abraham Lincoln was one cool leader. Allies and opponents alike praised his steady, even temper. His personal physician commented that even during the bloodiest years of the Civil War, the president "was so mentally balanced that he could calmly share the triumph or endure defeat."

But Honest Abe wasn't always so serene. During his failed campaign for Illinois' Senate seat in the late 1850s, friends reported that he suffered explosive and unexplained fits of rage. On one occasion, the soon-to-be president is alleged to have grabbed a fellow politician and shaken him "until his teeth chattered." Now, British scientists say they have identified the cause of this un-Lincolnesque behavior: exceptionally high levels of mercury in tablets he took for constipation.

Alexander Gardner, Getty Images
British scientists says pills that Abraham Lincoln took for constipation contained such high levels of mercury that they may have caused the 16th president to have fits of rage.

Researchers at the Royal Society of Chemistry recently uncovered several of these little blue pills -- popularly called "Blue Mass" -- in a museum in Devon County, England. Lincoln's law partner and biographer, William H. Herndon, was among the contemporaries who said that Lincoln took the pills, which were widely used in the mid-19th century to treat everything from toothache and bowel troubles to depression.

The chemists' analysis of the tablets revealed that if Lincoln followed common practice and took two or three pills a day, he would have ingested 80 to 120 times the World Health Organization's acceptable daily intake of mercury.

This highly toxic dosage could explain Lincoln's uncharacteristic outbursts, as symptoms of mercury poisoning include sudden violent mood changes as well as nausea, insomnia and depression.

"To think that the president was meant to be taking two of them a day is appalling," said Dr. Bin Chen, who carried out the test.

Reports by Herndon and others suggest that Lincoln first started popping "Blue Mass" around 1858 and quit at the beginning of 1860, shortly before the Republican Party nominated him for the presidency. But James Cornelius, curator of the Lincoln Collection at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Ill., says that because the president didn't keep a diary, it's almost impossible to tell how long he took them for, or how many he popped a day.

Cornelius adds that the late 1850s were a tense time for Lincoln, so it's possible his foul mood was caused by any number of stresses. He points out that "arguably the biggest event of his life" -- a series of seven debates with Stephen A. Douglas, his rival in the Illinois Senate race -- took place in 1858, the year when Lincoln allegedly suffered most of his bad tempers.

"It was a grueling, long, hot, dusty summer," Cornelius says. "So while it's possible that he was taking these pills on the road, these supposed outbursts of anger might just as well have been triggered by the heat of the debates, the exhausting schedule and the importance of the political issues. They were essentially fighting about whether slavery should continue to expand in the U.S."

However, Cornelius suspects that the little blue pills did play a significant role in his rages. "What's remarkable about Lincoln -- and people said this all up and down the line -- is that he never took personal offense at his enemies," he says. "So if there's even a single example of him getting angry with somebody and getting into a shouting match, then it looks like [these pills] would be among the likelier explanations. Because he just didn't lose his temper."

After quitting the pills, that cool demeanor quickly returned. Cornelius says Lincoln likely dumped the pills around January 1860, a month before he was due to give a speech to a group of Republican high-ups at New York's Cooper Union. That oration was intended to show that an almost unknown Westerner with no formal education could head the country as well as any Easterner.

"He suspected that this would be the biggest speech of his career," says Cornelius. "He would have been focused like never before on making a good appearance. And if he had a sense that these medications were not doing him good, he would have stopped taking them before heading off on that trip."

The pill-free Lincoln wowed his audience, proving himself to be composed, intelligent and dignified, and a better prospective leader than New York's own Sen. William Henry Seward. Lincoln was picked as the Republicans' presidential candidate three months later. And in November 1860, the American people chose that coolheaded lawyer as their new president.



Judiciary To Dr. Phil: You Suck

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/judge-calls-dr-phil-a-terrible-terrible-man/19413004


LOS ANGELES (March 24) -- A shoplifting case that began with a televised confession on the "Dr. Phil" show led a San Diego judge Monday to condemn TV personality Phil McGraw as "a terrible, terrible man" and "a charlatan."

District Court Judge Irma Gonzalez unloaded on Dr. Phil as she sentenced a couple to prison for running a $100,000 shoplifting ring in which they used their three young children as decoys, and sold the stolen merchandise through Web sites. The couple discussed their exploits on a "Dr. Phil" episode, "Shoplifting Confessions," in November 2008. Five months later, their home was raided by federal officials, who found more than 500 boxes of toys and other items.

Frederick M. Brown, Getty Images
A judge presiding over the case of a shoplifting couple who confessed their crimes on the "Dr. Phil" show called the host, Phil McGraw, "a terrible, terrible man."

Gonzalez sentenced Matthew Eaton, 34, to 27 months in prison, a year more than prosecutors had sought, and his wife, Laura Eaton, 27, to one year and a day.

The Eatons went on the TV show to get help ending their compulsion to shoplift, but show officials pressed them to exaggerate their exploits, their lawyer told the court, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. The couple brought along a home video of one of their trips, using the children to distract store clerks, and seemed more interested in bragging than in getting help giving up their livelihood, according to earlier reports.

The Eatons continued to shoplift after the show aired, the judge noted. She described Matthew Eaton as "despicable" for his role running the racket, but she reserved her harshest word for McGraw.

"What a charlatan this man is," the judge was quoted as saying during the sentencing. "What a terrible, terrible man." (Editor's Note: Don't shoot the messenger...)


Cat Needs Lifelong Therapy To Deal With the Scars