November 13, 2006
DUMB: City landscapers in St. Petersburg didn't think anyone would notice that the poor side of town got the shrub: "The pictures don't lie. They tell the story of how one end of Ninth Avenue in Safety Harbor got some very special landscaping from the city and how the other end got something less. The end that got the best of the city's landscaping project, the north end, leads to some of the city's priciest, and predominantly white, neighborhoods. The end that got the worst, the south end, goes through modest, and predominantly black, neighborhoods." Brilliant!
DUMBER: Using a crudely copied $20 bill to buy cigarettes is dumb. Not even bothering to make a double-sided copy is dumber: "The cashier told police the bill was placed face up on the counter but it felt suspicious when she picked it up, the complaint said. Cashier Teresa Wells said she flipped over the bill and found it blank." A Cedar Grove, WI, woman faces prison and a fine of $10,000 if convicted.
DUMBEST: A 39-year-old Californian with reported ties to the conservative site Free Republic, was such a sucker for his hero George Bush's anti-terror rhetoric that he may have become a terrorist himself. He allegedly sent threatening letters containing fake anthrax to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Jon Stewart, David Letterman, Sen. Charles Schumer, and MSNBC host Keith Olbermann.