The all purpose "people are dumb" thread

[anarky]

It's really taking a lot of effort to not respond to this dumbass. I swore not to argue with strangers on Facebook, but it's tough to point out A) it's twenty years before WWII; B) given Sagorsky's age, he's obviously referring to an incident in the Spanish-American War, in which the Japanese were not involved; C) Sagorsky's always been a callous brute motherfucker; and D) even so, Sagorsky's probably confessing something he's never told anyone since he knows he's dying. Oh, and E) all other characters who are identified as veterans are as honorable as one can expect characters in a show made up almost entirely of villains to be.

Murica! Fuck yeah!

[anarky]

One word: Illuminati.

This shadow organization has been secretly controlling the world for hundreds of years.

And they apparently really suck balls at it.

It boggles my mind how people can blame all sorts of totally unbelievable shit on the Illuminati, without thinking, "Yeah, for secretive world leaders, they really are lousy at their job."

What inspired this? Someone I know posted on FB the video to Michael Jackson's "They Don't Care About Us" (awful song by his standards, by the way), with the caption "This is the song that got Michael murdered!" One of his equally tinfoil friends responded that Michael predicted so much in that song and the Illuminati killed him. (Because it's a mediocre song about racism. And that never existed before 2008. Thanks, Obama!)

Um, yeah.

It took them thirteen years to fulfill their master plan of secretly killing the batshit insane guy by means of a drug overdose.

And they killed the guy with one song no one paid attention to, rather than, say, Ice-T.

Seriously, they fucking suck at their jobs if they exist.

And never mind the entire "And, uh, this secretive master plan you're proposing makes sense HOW?" factor to just about every one of these conspiracies.

[jjreason]

Eh, I've been a member of the Illuminati for almost 4 years. We're basically reduced to going for coffee and talking about the old days, what with the economy and all.

[Diabolical]

Eh, I've been a member of the Illuminati for almost 4 years. We're basically reduced to going for coffee and talking about the old days, what with the economy and all.

At my local Illuminati chapter we just talk about tits.

[Ran]

Eh, I've been a member of the Illuminati for almost 4 years. We're basically reduced to going for coffee and talking about the old days, what with the economy and all.

Is it safe to assume that you're not in the same Illuminati group as the mayor of Toronto? I can tell by the list of activities.

[Tom Foolery]

El Chux, if it were worth putting in the time, you should make up a fake account and "secretly" invite that guy to join the Illuminati. Make up a bunch of BS about how its trying to diversify and expand and we've been watching him for awhile. Then give him a "secret" emblem he can post on his page so that other Illuminati will know he's a member. Or maybe a "status update" with certain letters capitalized. Then tell him he wont be hearing from you through this channel ever again, but there are "Other ways" and he should keep his eyes open. Like what he thinks is junkmail is actually a hidden Illuminati newsletter if you know how to decipher it. Holy shit, the possibilities for stringing him along are endless.

After you hook him, a few others could send him "Welcome Aboard" twitters (or whatever you call them on FB. Don't know don't care) just to troll the jackass.

[anarky]

Just me blowing off some steam, because I'm sure no one else gives a shit.

There's a Star Wars fan page on Facebook that mostly posts memes and stuff. Yesterday morning, they posted an article "confirming" that a Han Solo origin movie was confirmed for 2016 by Disney, according to a French site that says it was in the Los Angeles Guardian.

So, since rumors are a dime a dozen and shit gets distorted quick on the interwebs, I start working backwards. This is big news if true, but I'd prefer to be sure. The French site does indeed reference the Los Angeles Guardian. That publication has absolutely no record of any article on the subject at all. The French site also mentions another fan site, which is apparently in the UK or Australia, or maybe Canada, judging from the spellings. The wording is almost the same (just not in French), and they link to the article, which is actually in the LAS VEGAS Guardian Express, which I've never heard of.

So I go there, and the article is very amateurish, complete with sentence fragments. And the site is clearly made up entirely of user-contributed material. The writer has a couple other articles here, and some on geek sites I've never heard of. But he does mention theforce.net and Variety.

The Variety article is from September. It's the one everyone knew about, where they announced origin movies. theforce.net seems skeptical, and the article is only about a character description from a casting call, "Han Solo but younger." Which frankly sounds to me like a description of some new character from Episode VII designed to eventually replace Han, because, really, are they going to put out a fucking open call for fucking Han Solo? Its source? Bleeding Cool, that fount of reliable information that occasionally gets something right.

(Curiously, all the articles in the Variety-LVGE-English site-French site chain specifically mention a budget cap in the wake of The Lone Ranger's box office failure.)

So I respond, as politely as possible and not criticizing them at all, that when you trace the info backwards, it looks like someone somewhere mixed a statement from a shareholder's meeting with no specifics, a casting call for what might not even be Han Solo, and a lot of wishful thinking. Not denying it's possible, but a little early for everyone to start arguing over it. I read over it a few times to make sure there's no way it sounds antagonistic toward anyone.

They delete my fucking post. Dozens of posts bitching about and praising this "fact" that's clearly not, and they delete the only post where anyone bothered to actually check the source and say, "Hey, wait a second."

Not a big deal, I know, but still irksome. I unliked their page so they can keep scooping non-facts and letting fanboys argue about it, because George Takei will repost anything that's actually funny at some point or another. Maybe the value of their page just went down by a tenth of a cent or something, but I doubt it.

[Slicker]

Good job Chux but you will NEVER defeat the hivemind!! If it's what people want then it's what they'll believe.

[anarky]

Here's a good one.

Last night, Larry Hama posted a link on Facebook to the eBay auction of the original artwork for the sketch variant of G.I.Joe #202. A bit later, someone responded that the link wasn't working.

It turns out, eBay considered this an improper use of a trademark to sell something that's not actually a G.I.Joe item.

Some of his posts from the last hour:

eBay says it's invalid use of a trademark. I guess I have to come up with a code-name for GI Joe and re-list. Maybe "General-Issue Joseph?"

Been on the phone with eBay for an hour. They are trying to explain to me why I can't use "GI Joe" in an item description while 125,014 other sellers can. They keep telling my that my cover sketch "is not actually a GI Joe item."

They just told me that EVERYONE who uses a trademarked brand name in their listing is in violation of their policy. WTF???

Now, they are telling me that ALL listings that use a trademarked brand name are in violation of their policy. I asked if that meant the 125,014 current GI Joe listings, and they said "they are under review, and violator will be removed." I am on hold as I am being bumped up to a higher authority.

Wow. The actual artwork from a comic book cannot be sold under that name? Insane. I know it's some pencil-pusher fucking up, but, wow.