Uncle John's Presents Book of the Dumb 2 (18 page)

Source: Associated Press,
TheNewMexicoChannel.com

 

F
irst, let us note our enduring respect
for the mail carriers of North America, who without fail deliver unto us all our bills, magazines, and circulars. Without you guys we wouldn't have anything to look forward to in the late morning to early afternoon hours of our workdays. You guys rock. And we also note that in doing your job, you are also often forced to deal with large, angry dogs. You have our sympathy, and our best wishes for accurate aim with that pepper spray you carry on your belt.

Having said that, we can't help but think that the folks at Canada Post were a wee bit oversensitive in the summer of 2004 when they lobbied the Canadian Pet Valu chain of pet stores to stop carrying a brand of doggie treats known as Bark Bars, on the rationale that these dog snacks come in two provocative shapes: cats, which Canada Post is neutral about, and mail carriers, which it is not. “I will tell you, personally, I think it was in very poor taste, considering the hazards that our carriers have out there every day,” said Canada Post spokesperson John Caines.

This does seem to suggest that someone at Canada Post is under the impression that dogs will look at the snacks, which are vaguely human-shaped with the word “mail” stamped on them, then look at their owner's mail carrier (who despite his or her job, probably does not have the word “mail” stamped chest-wide) and see a one-to-one correlation. Which would suggest that the dogs could, you know,
read.
The wonders of
the Canadian educational system notwithstanding, this seems a little much.

Nevertheless, the Pet Valu chain decided to pull the mail carrier-shaped treats, citing its own largely neglected guideline of not selling anything relating to mail shapes. The cat-shaped treats, however, are still a go, so look out, feline lovers.

Ironically, in the United States, mail carriers reportedly have a different relationship to the carrier-shaped snacks; they carry them around to feed to the dogs on their routes. Better the dogs chew on the snacks than on the actual mail carrier.

Source:
The Globe and Mail
(Toronto), Reuters

 

Y
ou have to understand that the previous city manager of Ridgefield, Washington,
really was something of a washout. Apparently he tried to remove lead paint from the city hall without paying attention to environmental regulations. So while he did save the city $15,000 by ignoring the regulations, his penny-pinching also, according to court filings, released an “immense cloud of toxic dust” which had something like six times the acceptable level of lead. And then there were the lead paint chips flowing into the sewer and then in the nearby lake . . . in all, a real mess. The city manager was suspended and then fired and then faced charges of official misconduct.

So whom to elect as the city manager? The local citizenry decided that Otis, who keeps regular hours at Ridgefield Hardware, would be a fine candidate. He was well-known and well-liked around town—everyone called him by his first name, after all. He was known to be level-headed and not pushy, never interrupted people, and seemed to value people
as
people, not as just more votes. And everyone was positive that Otis would never do anything as damn foolish as try to strip lead paint illegally. In July 2004, fliers went up around town: Otis for City Manager, paid for by the “He Will Do Better Than the Last Guy Committee.”

The one drawback: Otis was only 11 years old. But maybe that really wasn't such a drawback, because that meant that he
was 77 in dog years, a more accurate reflection of his age since Otis, after all, was a dog, a Boston Terrier, to be exact. “A doggone improvement,” read another sign, and you can just imagine all the rest of the dog puns that went from there. Oh, and of course, let's not miss this quote, from Otis's owner, Scott Hughes: “They wanted to know if there were any scandals in his background. I told them, no, he's been fixed.”

Are the good people of Ridgefield completely out of their collective gourd? We suspect they're probably letting off steam, and that when push comes to shove, they'll elect an actual, live human (complicating matters was the emergence of Drumstick, a chicken, as a second candidate, possibly splitting the animal vote). But it does have us feeling just a little bit sorry for the previous city manager. It's one thing to be fired and face charges of official misconduct. It's another thing to have been so bad at your job that someone jokingly suggests a dog would be a better city manager than you . . . and the
entire city
agrees. Good luck getting that next position, pal. Although if Otis gets elected, there
will
be a open spot at the hardware store.

Source: Associated Press,
The Vancouver Columbian

 

T
hey say that breaking up is hard to do,
but splitting the proceeds afterward can be just plain annoying. There are all the questions of who gets what, where it goes, and who pays for it all. It's enough to make you want to stay together to just avoid the organizational nightmare. Now people breaking up in Canada have a new wrinkle on the break-up proceedings: pet support.

It all started when the relationship ended: Ken Duncan of Warburg, Alberta, and Barbara Dawn Boschee put the brakes on their six-year-relationship, the accouterments of which included two St. Bernards: Mojo, adjudged to be “her” dog, and “Crunchy,” who was “his” (the dogs, we'd bet, were neutral on the whole ownership question). Sadly for Duncan, he couldn't find an apartment that would allow him to keep a large, slobbery dog bred to rescue Alpine frostbite victims, so Crunchy stayed with Boschee, and Duncan agreed to pay for any extraordinary expenses regarding the dog.

That's not enough, said the judge presiding over the couple's spousal support settlement in June 2004. Henceforth, Duncan would have to pay $200 (that's Canadian dollars) a month for the upkeep of his dog—and retroactively spring for payments for the previous year. Boschee claimed that amount was fair, listing monthly expense of $55 for food and $30 for rug shampooing because Crunchy has “lots of accidents.” Duncan—who agreed to pay—nevertheless maintained that he never spent more than $40 a month on dog food. The real
irony, said Duncan: “I can't even visit my dog, 'cause the judge won't let me. I miss her a lot. I can't even watch a movie with a St. Bernard in it.”

So beware, Canadian couples! Before you end that relationship, won't you please think of the pets? And the costs you'll have in supporting them.

Source:
Canoe.ca

 

D
ogs are man's best friend
(says so right there on the label), and what do they want from us? The odd scratch behind the ears, the occasional Frisbee throw, and yes, every once in a while it'd be nice if we threw our furry pal a bone. Word on the street is that they love those crunchy, marrow-packed treats, and hey, it's not like
you're
going to gnaw on it.

Well, the friendship might be strained in Europe, where EU bureaucrats have announced that no longer can butchers give their spare bones to dogs. If you're a butcher, and you debone a piece of meat, that bone is now defined as a “waste by-product” (as is any trimmed fat), and as waste by-product, it must be disposed of properly—it has to be incinerated. Give a dog a bone, and you can get fined for improperly disposing of waste.

What makes this regulation well and truly stupid is not that butchers can no longer give customers bones for their dogs; what makes it well and truly stupid is that they
can,
so long as everyone pretends that they're
not.
See, by EU regulations, if you take the bone out, it's a by-product and therefore must be incinerated—but, as a spokesman for Britain's Department for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs noted: “Customers can take bones when they buy deboned meat if it is for human consumption.” So all you do is go into the butcher shop, declare your intention to personally jaw on a bone, take the bone home, and feed it to the dog. It's the carnivorous equivalent of “Don't Ask, Don't Tell.”

We wonder if those EU bureaucrats have told their own dogs about their new “no bones” policy. And if so, how well they sleep at night. Dogs are simply domesticated wolves, you know. If you won't
give
them a bone, they may be inclined to
take
one.

Source:
The Sun
(UK)

 

W
e're not sure what it is with people being dumb in zoos,
but this scenario seems to take the cake. There was drinking (of course). There was the blackout. There was the waking up in the zoo in Tallinn, Estonia; moreover, there was the waking up in the Tallinn Zoo in the polar bear exhibit. Okay? Got all the details? Holding them in your brain? Now, pay attention:

Don't try to give the polar bear a cookie.

Of course, put yourself in the place of “Ivan,” who found himself in just the sticky pickle we described. Hungover, disoriented, and facing a massive predator, perhaps he thought that offering the sweet crispy treat will distract the animal long enough for him to run away. Or perhaps Ivan, brought up as so many of us have been on the idea of polar bears being cute spokes animals for fizzy beverages, thought they would bond over a doughy treat. But the fact is polar bears are carnivorous, wild animals—certainly not to be trifled with.

It was his screams that brought Ivan to the attention of the zoo staff, who found the polar bear busy chomping away, not the cookie, but the hand with which it was offered. They took Ivan to the hospital. Meanwhile Tallinn Zoo manager Mati Kaal, who has seen run-ins with the polar bear and dumb humans before, offered this blasé yet scary comment: “This is the first hand. In other cases it's been the whole arm.” So maybe the cookie was a useful deterrent after all.

Source:
iol.co.za