Idiot #7

Ed Miliband is stuck on repeat!
Or he's an idiot. He's had his fun now, maybe it's time to get a proper leader in place now.

The TV reporter who conducted Thursday's bizarre interview with Ed Miliband, in which the Labour leader responded to every question with the same statement about his position on public sector strikes, has said he felt ashamed at the "professional discourtesy" in being used as a "recording device for a scripted soundbite".

Damon Green, the ITV News correspondent who was interviewing Miliband for a pooled story that also went to the BBC and Sky News, has vented his anger at the Labour leader and his entourage in a 1,300 word piece posted on Twitter.

Green said that the resulting interview was "so absurd" that it is only "perfectly proper" that the full un-edited version of it "has found its way onto YouTube … to be laughed at along with all the clips of cats falling off sofas".

In the two-minute 30-second version of the interview seen by the Guardian, Green tries six times to get Miliband to expand on his position about why he believes the strike action is wrong.

In each case he receives the same reply, that the strikes are wrong when negotiations are underway, the government has acted in a "reckless and provocative manner" and both sides need to "set aside the rhetoric" and "get around the negotiating table to stop this happening again".

Green vented his anger at the Labour leader and his "handlers", putting on a "convincing charade" of pretending to care about his line of questioning when they had a pre-planned PR line that they refused to go beyond.

"If news reporters and cameras are only there to be used by politicians as recording devices for their scripted soundbites, at best that is a professional discourtesy," he said. "At worst, if we are not allowed to explore and examine a politician's views, then politicians cease to be accountable in the most obvious way."

He also criticised the approach of the three PR "handlers" Miliband sent in first who he claimed attempted to control the entire interview, down to trying to tell the cameraman about "framing and depth of field" and demanding that the Labour leader be put in front of a bookcase "with his family photos over his left shoulder".

Despite knowing Miliband had been pre-briefed to give just one response, Green said his PRs also tried to control the line of questioning, a tactic he referred to as a "convincing charade".

"His PR must have known that was what he was going to do," he said. "And yet he still went through a convincing charade of pressing me on my line of interrogation, urging me to keep my questions brief and even – this was a macabre touch – placing a voice recorder on the table beside me as a kind of warning not to try and misquote his boss."

Green said that as he came to the last question of what was clearly a disastrous interview, he felt an "urge" to ask a flippant question just to get a rise out of Miliband, like "What is the world's fastest fish?", "Can your dog do tricks?" or "Which is your favourite dinosaur?". But he did not.

Instead at the end Green said he felt so ashamed that he could not look Miliband in the eye.

Original article on the Guardian website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jul/01/ed-miliband-interviewer-shame-strike-soundbites

Idiot #6

Fans of all sports can be idiots at times. This week it's Ice Hockey and the idiots are in Vancouver
.

Angry, drunken fans ran wild  after the Vancouver Canucks' 4-0 loss to Boston in Game 7 of ice hockey's Stanley Cup finals, setting cars and garbage cans ablaze, smashing windows, showering giant TV screens with beer bottles and dancing atop overturned vehicles.

Later, looters smashed windows and ran inside department stores.

"We have a small number of hooligans on the streets of Vancouver causing problems," Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said. "It's absolutely disgraceful and shameful and by no means represents the city of Vancouver. ... We have had an extraordinary run in the playoff, great celebration. What's happened tonight is despicable."

At a Bay store, looters were seen grabbing T-shirts and anything else they could get their hands on. Young women were seen escaping with MAC cosmetics, with one carrying out part of a mannequin. The landmark building was filling with smoke as people, their faces covered in bandanas, continued the violence.

"It's terrible," Canucks captain Henrik Sedin said, shaking his head. "This city and province has a lot to be proud of, the team we have and the guys we have in here. It's too bad."

While Robertson said there had been no fatalities, ambulances appeared to be having trouble getting inside the zone to help the injured and TV images showed at least one woman mopping blood from her forehead.

"You don't ever hope for a situation like this," Vancouver police Const. Jana McGuinness said. "You celebrate the good times and you prepare for the bad times and that's exactly what we've done. Unfortunately, the tables have turned tonight. ... We will have to sit down and evaluate exactly what happened here. It's going to be a black mark for a very, very long time."

Robertson praised the police and firefighters and asked people to stay away from the central downtown area.

"It is extremely disappointing to see the situation in downtown Vancouver turn violent after tonight's Stanley Cup game," Robertson said. "Vancouver is a world-class city and it is embarrassing and shameful to see the type of violence and disorder we've seen tonight.

"The vast majority of people who were in the downtown tonight were there to enjoy the game in a peaceful and respectful manner. It is unfortunate that a small number of people intent on criminal activity have turned pockets of the downtown into areas involving destruction of property and confrontations with police."
Tear gas mingled with the stench of acrid smoke and stale beer as riot police, truncheons drawn, moved in to quell the violence, pushing crowds away from the burning cars.

Later, police cars also were set on fire. At one point, police were using flash-bangs - grenades that are designed to distract and disorient, rather than injure - to try to break up the mob.

"This isn't what the Canucks are about," said Chad McMillan, 31, a Vancouver resident and Canucks fan. "This isn't what their fans are about. This isn't what this city is about."

Flames leaped from at least two flipped vehicles in the middle of trash-strewn streets, filling the downtown core with heavy black smoke in the moments immediately following the game.

"I heard a loud noise and turned and there was a car being stomped on by a bunch of guys," 18-year-old witness Brandon Sinclair said about the first few moments of violence.

"A bunch of guys started rocking it, then they flipped it over and five minutes later it was on fire and then they flipped another one. It was just out of control."

Bright orange flames were seen shooting nearly 10 metres into the air as bystanders tossed firecrackers.

Television images showed a large fire burning inside a parking garage, but it wasn't clear what was ablaze.

A small group of rioters appeared to be at the heart of the action reminiscent of a similar scene that erupted in the city in 1994 following the Canucks' Game 7 loss to the New York Rangers.

When flames erupted from an exploding car, bystanders ducked in alarm. Fans who were trying simply to get out of the danger zone found their visibility reduced by the thick black smoke.

About an hour after the game ended, some bold troublemakers started hurling garbage and bottles at police officers, who deflected the debris with riot shields. Protesters who rushed the police line were quickly subdued with blows from a truncheon.

Some protesters held what looked like pipes or hockey sticks over their heads as they jeered at officers. Newspaper boxes were wrenched off the sidewalk and hurled through store windows. Portable toilets were tipped as the stifling black smoke spread through the city's core.

Some seemed to revel in the rampage, recording the vandalism on cell phones and video cameras. A few congratulated those who tried to attack police, and others erupted with cheers every time something was damaged. Fans set fire to a stuffed bear decorated to symbolize the Bruins, while others sang a drunken tune as they danced on an overturned vehicle.

At least two young men covered in soot reported being roughed up by the police, but they weren't arrested. Rivers of poured-out alcohol, broken glass and trash made navigating the streets treacherous.

Fans wandered amid the chaos, some with bandanas or T-shirts pulled over their faces - either to hide their faces from police and TV cameras or to guard against the smoke, or both.

"What is most disappointing and disturbing is that we have spectators who will not go home," British Columbia Solicitor General Shirley Bond said. "We need everyone to pay attention, we need them to leave the downtown and they need to stop treating this as a spectator sport. This is a dangerous situation where people need to go home."

Original article: Stuff.co.nz / Reuters
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/other-sports/5154250/Vancouver-fans-riot-after-Stanley-Cup-loss

Idiot #5

Surely a contender for a Darwin award?

A Russian man has died after persuading a friend to bury him alive for a night, hoping it would bring him "good luck".

The victim dug a hole in a garden in the eastern city of Blagoveshchensk and climbed into an improvised coffin, with holes for air pipes, taking a mobile phone and a bottle of water with him.
His friend covered the coffin with earth and then left, after the buried man phoned to say he was fine.
The next morning, he returned to find his friend dead, investigators said.
The 35-year-old victim had believed that burying himself alive for a night would bring him luck the rest of his life.
"According to his friend, the man wanted to test his endurance and insistently asked his friend to help him spend the night buried," said Alexei Lubinsky, a senior aide to the region's chief investigator.
"We know that the victim was a computer programmer and that he has a small child."

Original article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13623938

Idiot #4

No doubt you've already seen this one from North Wales earlier this week. If he was doing it for a laugh then I could maybe understand it but he was apparantly completely serious and could not understand why his pony was not allowed to board the train.
The fact that he tried to buy a ticket for the pony pushes him over the edge and into idiocy. Well done that man.

STAFF at a train station had a shock when a man turned up and demanded to buy a ticket – for his pony.
And despite being told by Wrexham General’s ticket office worker that horses were not allowed on the train, he bundled the creature into a lift and led it onto the platform.
When the train arrived, the man attempted to board it with his four-legged friend, but was stopped by a concerned conductor.
An anonymous source told the Daily Post: “The man took the pony into the ticket office and asked for a ticket. He was refused and told that no horses were allowed on the train.

“But he said ‘I know the law’ and walked away. He got into a lift with the horse and walked it across the bridge and onto a platform.
“He waited for the train to arrive and then got on himself and was in the process of trying to pull the pony on after him when the conductor stopped him.
“Staff couldn’t believe it – most people thought it was a wind-up.”
The man is believed to have left the station – with the pony in tow – after a brief argument.
An Arriva Trains Wales spokeswoman said the firm had been made aware of the incident.
“Obviously passengers are not allowed to take livestock on to the train,” she added.
“We do allow small animals, such as dogs and guide dogs, onboard but not large animals that could pose a risk to the general public.
“The man was refused a ticket and was not allowed to board the train. He then left the station, so there is no need for any further investigation.”

Original article:

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/wrexham/2011/05/18/arriva-staff-stop-man-taking-pony-on-train-at-wrexham-general-station-91466-28712745/

Idiot #3

This weeks idiots are the 13,013,123 UK voters that fell for this!



Idiot #2

A whole cult of idiots this week.

Who knows what scientific 'facts' they're basing this on but a convention of 300 people in Delaware are convinced beyond doubt that the world is going to end on May 21st of this year.
All because this guy Harold Camping, a Christian preacher and radio broadcaster, says "there is no reason in the world, no possibility that it will not happen"

Seriously, if these people can be so stupid as to give up their jobs and disrupt their lives this much for this fallacy they deserve to be exploited.
Hopefully there's already a queue of people forming to help rid these morons of all their money and possessions since they won't be needing them anymore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DfggHLLjDU

Idiot #1

Definitely an idiot but what's more worrying is that she's clearly a twisted and deeply disturbed individual.

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A desperate Lady Gaga fan has been charged with animal cruelty for allegedly killing her cat and using the dead pet's blood to complete an outfit she planned to wear to one of her heroine's concerts.

Angelina Barnes, 20, had smeared her face and arms in the cat's blood and was just about to leave her Oklahoma City home for a Gaga concert earlier this week when a relative walked in on her - and saw the carnage.

Local news station KFOR-TV reports the cat had been cut to pieces after Barnes drowned the pet in the bathroom.

The animal's liver was found in a make-up case.

Barnes was taken to Griffin Memorial Hospital in Oklahoma, where she is receiving treatment after being diagnosed with depression.

Lady Gaga famously performed at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards covered in fake blood.

Original article: New Zealand Herald

Documenting Idiocy

There's no escaping it. There are a worrying amount of idiots in the world.
The rise of reality television has put many of them on our screens increasing our awareness of their existence and alerting us to their seemingly endless supply.

A lot of idiots don't make it to television though; they ply their trade out in society amongst all of us. Many of them exist under the radar and can go unnoticed by the world at large for years until one day they're trying to bake a cake and saw their own arm off or they're trying to water their garden and they inadvertently kill a bus load of school children.
The idiot is a danger to themselves and others around them. We need to be made aware of these non televised idiots as they are potentially an even more dangerous breed (at least we can keep tabs on the televised ones plus in fairness they will have had to fill out some forms prior to appearing which suggests at least some brain activity on their part).

Calling someone an idiot doesn't really carry much weight these days. Most people use the term as a throwaway comment and as a result most people have probably been called an idiot themselves and perhaps rightly so, we've all said or done stupid things at some point in our lives.
Whether someone is actually an idiot or not can sometimes be a debatable point, if you yourself are a breed of super idiot that puts your dishes in the tumble dryer, eats mud all day and shoves cheese up your arse then from your perspective there will seem to be very few idiots in your life at all.

With all that in mind, this blog will be reserved for only the very finest idiots. The crème de la crème of the idiot world. Those who have shown themselves to be so jaw-droppingly stupid that the debate for whether they are indeed an idiot or not would only be started by someone who was also an idiot of equal or greater magnitude.

Think of it as premature Darwin awards for people that really should have removed themselves from the gene pool but sadly have not.