Captain Obvious and the Masters of the Conspicuous

A resounding DUH went over the crowd...

On Reuters today there was the headline, "Most U.S. high school dropouts regretful - study". You mean saying, "Would you like to supersize that" 400 times a day isn't fulfilling? Well I'll be damned. Who'd have thunk it.

Who is behind these studies? Being paid almost $10,000 less per year than high school graduates really sucks. Do we need a study to show us people would regret that? Who would fund that study? The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Of course, people who make more money in two seconds than I make in 20 years. Hey Bill, could you commission a study on what happens when you give an egomaniacal sys admin $10,000,000? I volunteer my services should you ever decide to take me up on that. You know, for the good of society and all...

Americans are dumb

Case in point. Can you name one of the five freedoms listed in the first amendment? Hint: none of the answers are, "the right to own and raise pets", an error made by one in five respondents to a survey of over 1000 Americans. Only 8% could name three First Amendment rights and only 28% could name more than one. Two-thirds of respondents did remember freedom of speech as one of five rights in the First Amendment, but just one person accurately named all five.

Now, can you name one of the five members of the Simpson family from Fox's "the Simpsons?" Half of the 1,000 Americans surveyed could name at least two of the five members of Fox Television's Simpson family.

Now is it just me or didn't Jay Leno already do that one on Jay Walking...

(For the record, the First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, speech, the press, the right to assemble, and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. I had to look that last one up.)

If you need any further proof I leave you with this, pulled straight from News of the Weird, "Police arrested David Kennedy, 33, in January near Murfreesboro, Tenn., after he accidentally ran other drivers off the road, perhaps from being distracted by the open pornographic magazines that were in his front seat."