[Doglips]

TODAY WE BESTOW FOUR BONEHEAD AWARDS
Bonehead award one goes to all those people who made it necessary for Sevylor to include the following warning with their pvc inflatable kayak: “This item is not a life-saving device. Use under adult supervision. This item is not to be eaten or burned."

New Scientist


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This Ezine is frequently bounced by corporate mail scanners for containing “inappropriate content.” We’ve been creating a list of some of the innocuous words, like “women,” (I like women and find them very appropriate, most of the time) that cause us to bounce and we will publish this word list someday for your amusement.
In the meantime, we gleefully give a “losing sight of your purpose” bonehead award to the Flesh Public Library in Piqua, Ohio, which discovered, while attempting to show off their own website during a demonstration at the library, that they blocked access to it. It was deemed “inappropriate.”

It turns out that they set the system up to disallow any website containing the word “flesh.” Not only would this block their own “Flesh Public Library” website but it would apparently block everyone (which unfortunately includes school children) from doing just about any medical research and they have probably also blocked almost all websites on dinosaurs which often speak of the “flesh eaters.” No doubt many other serious and educational websites are now blocked by their over zealousness.

It is interesting that the library spent all this time and money to produce an Internet system that is useless for serious research, in deference to the very reason they exist, because library administration likes to spend their time thinking about sex instead of how they can provide services to make knowledge more accessible.

It’s rather amusing that although they’ve worked around the problem of not getting access to their own website, they have now deemed as inappropriate every web site that mentions their library! Which to us is, in fact, rather appropriate.

Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio) 22-Nov-02
Click here for original story


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Special Delivery
Bonehead award three, a “too dumb to be a criminal bonehead award,” goes to two Berlin postal workers who unwittingly tried selling $10,000 worth of hi tech telephone equipment that they stole from the post office that morning, to a second hand dealer who happened to be the very one who mailed the box, according to police who say the dealer’s return address was still on the box when they brought it to him!

Reuters via Yahoo Groups 20-Nov-02
Click here for original story


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Bonehead award four goes to America’s lost people who do not know their place in the world, apparently. The National Geographic Society’s recent international survey of 18-24 year-olds found the following:
11% of Americans could not locate the United States on a world map.
29% of Americans could not point out the Pacific Ocean.
Only 58% of Americans knew that the Taliban and al-Qaeda were based in Afghanistan.
Only 30% of Americans could find New Jersey on the map.
But 34% of American knew that the TV show “Survivor” was filmed in the Marquesas Islands although we suspect that they don't know where it's located..