Stupid Statements (Part VI)

We are all prone to making stupid statements during our lives but some people's statements are so foolish, we are forced to wonder if they use their brains at all. Here are some more from my collection of stupid statements.

RCMP Cpl. Benjamin (Monty) Robinson denied that he took Dziekanski's pulse with his work glove on, or that he put the weight of his knee on the man's neck, rather than on his shoulders. He discounts scenes from an amateur video shot by bystander Paul Pritchard that seem to show otherwise. There were inconsistencies in RCMP testimony about what happened early on October 14, 2007, when Dziekanski, 40, who was lost in the airport in Vancouver, was pronounced dead at the scene. He'd been zapped five times by an RCMP Taser, including after he lay writhing on the ground, screaming in pain. Robinson said, "You're assuming he was screaming in pain." I think one can assume that when a person is zapped five times with a Taser that shoots out 50,000 volts each time; he is screaming in pain.

Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister of Italy spoke to a homeless woman who survived the April 6, 2009 earthquake in Italy. He told her, "Put on some sun block. Life in a tent is like camping." Then to add fuel to the fire, he said, "I think children yesterday could use a smile, a little bit of optimism and playfulness." Perhaps if it was he who had to live in a tent, he wouldn’t find the experience playful, nor would be filled with optimism or would he muster a smile.

Billy Bob Thornton and his band the Boxmasters, after being booed by Toronto fans angered for previously saying "Canadian audiences are mashed potatoes with no gravy." in a bizarre interview with the CBC, cancelled the two remaining Canadian dates of Willie Nelson's tour – Montreal (April 10) and London (April 11) and returned to the United States. My response to his idiotic statement, "Don’t come back."

Kathleen Harris, a columnist of the Toronto Sun published an article on April 28, 2009 about piracy in the area of Somalia and the role of the Canadian warship,HMCS Winnipeg in the area. She said in part; "…the vast area makes surveillance a challenge. About 30,000 ships a year go through here in a year but even with the task groups that are running, we’re looking at 1 million square feet of water, so it’s not possible to be everywhere at the same time." Oh. I think the warship can protect shipping in an area that is just 1 million square feet since that space is only 2.7 square miles. I was a syndicated newspaper columnist in the 1970s and I learned a valuable lesson while writing my columns. The formula was simple. It was PR before P which translates to "proof read before publishing."

One would expect the Vice President of the United States to be very careful about what he says in public. Well, to quote from the title of one of Charles Dickens’ great novels, our hopes are foolishly based on ‘Great Expectations’. Joe Biden was speaking on April 30, 2009 about his concern about the general public traveling in confined spaces because of the Swine Flu scare. He said; "I would tell members of my family – and I have – I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now. It's not that it's going to Mexico. It's you're in a confined aircraft. When one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft." Obviously, he has no idea as to how air circulation works in airliners. After every few rows, there are intake vents that suck in the air and re-circulate it through filters that trap most of the germs. It is impossible for an air-borne germ to go from one end of a plane to the other end. Further, when the air coming out of the air nozzles above the passenger seats blow directly across the faces of the passengers, it blows away any new air-borne germs that may be close to one’s face.

Vice president Joe Biden gave a speech to fifth-graders in New York. He said, “My dog is smarter that Obama’s dog.” Actually his dog is smarter than he is because it knows when not to speak. A German scientist has been testing an "anti-stupidity" pill with encouraging results on mice and fruit flies. Hopefully, he will have successfully tested it on humans by the time Biden leaves office.

Another Vice President of the United States wasn’t careful as to what he said. It is Dan Quale that I am writing about. In June 1992, he attended a spelling bee held in Trenton, New Jersey. A student was asked to spell the word, potato and he spelled it correctly. That’s when Quale opened his mouth and uttered his foolish statement. He said to the 12-year-old boy; "You’re close, but you left a little something off; the ‘e’ on the end." There is no ‘e’ on the end of the word, potato. Neither is there an ‘e’ at the end of tomato or volcano. Dahn Quale in his autobiography wrote, “It was a defining moment of the worst kind imaginable. He devoted an entire chapter to that event in that class room.

Here are some more of his gaffes which will go down in history of the quail (Quayle) that is strictly for the birds. He said; "I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn’t study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people." It is followed by; "If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure." How profound that statement is. He also doesn’t understand the difference between the words ‘bondage’ and ‘bond’ when he said, "Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child." I suppose some mothers really do tie their children to their apron strings. Quale had ambitions to rise above everyone else when he said, "Welcome to President Bush, Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts." The man certainly isn’t a scientist and proof of that is in his next statement he have in 1989. "Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If there is oxygen; that means we can breathe." Oxygen alone will not be enough if we expect the settlers to live and breathe a healthy life on Mars. A long exposure to high concentrations of oxygen is not good for the human body. Some buffer gases will need to be added to produce a more earth-like mixture. In order to breathe, we also need nitrogen in the air. The ratio between those two elements is 28% nitrogen and 21% oxygen. And there is also 0.03% carbon oxide and 0.9% other inert gasses in our breathable air. Read this rather idiotic statement of Quale; "What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful." How true that is and Quale is proof positive that he has no mind at all. One is forced to ask if he is all there when he said in 1988; "The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation’s history. I mean in this century’s history. But we all lived in this century. I didn’t live in this century." Well there was something he said that was right in that statement. His mind didn’t live in that century. The following year he said; "One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice president, and that one word is ‘to be prepared’." That means be prepared before you open your mouth to speak. He sent a Christmas card from his family to many people in 1988 that said; "May our nation continue to be the beakon of hope to the world." The correct word is 'beacon'. That’s proof that he is a quail and that he is strictly for the birds when he has his ‘beak’ on his mind. He doesn’t know what the word, ‘inarticulate’ means. What it means is; garbled statements. Statements are not things; they are a group of words. This is what makes his following statement he made in 1988 so stupid. "Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things." Read this following doozy of his; "I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future." Oh my. He was already in the future? I love this one that he made in 1989. "I stand by all the misstatements that I’ve made." He doesn’t understand geography very much when he said; "We have a firm commitment to NATO. We are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe." When speaking to reporters in 1988, he said; "Public speaking is very easy." Silly babies have no difficulty in speaking in public either. They just babble on and on saying foolish things. He really didn’t help the Republican cause when he said; "I am not part of the problem. I am a Republican." Someone should have told him that Phoenix is in Arizona and not in California when he said; "I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix." Here is another profound statement from the man who wanted to be the president of the United States; "A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls." Now this next statement doesn’t need to be published in criminology books, it is so obvious. "When I have been asked during these last weeks who caused the riots and the killing in Los Angeles my answer has been direct and simple: Who is to blame for the riots? The rioters are to blame. Who is to blame for the killings? The killers are to blame." How is this for a statement by Quale? "We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur." If it isn’t going to occur, then why should we be ready for it? In 1990, he said; "Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teaches our children in schools." I bet you didn’t know that. I love the following one of his in which he said; "We’re all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made." Sometimes, the obvious is so obvious; it’s stupid to state it. He said in a speech, "It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it." He certainly didn’t know anything about space when he said; "It’s time for the human race to enter the solar system." The one statement he made that really made a lot of sense was; "People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history."

David Duke, the former Imperial Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan attended a Holocaust conference in Tehran, Iran which was held on December 12, 2006 and when it was his turn to speak, he said in part; "The gas chambers were not used to kill Jews." Rudolf Hoess, who was the SS camp commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, said the following statement as a witness at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal before he was later hanged for committing genocide; “The Final Solution of the Jewish question meant the complete extermination of all Jews in Europe.” Later during his testimony, he said, “Another improvement we made over Treblinka was that we built our gas chambers to accommodate 2,000 people at one time…..” This twerp, Duke was born in 1950; five years after the end of the Second World War so there is no way that he was qualified to make such a foolish statement.