Bad writing sure do sucks

So I was surfing my favorite news sites this morning when I came across an article from Orlando, FL., about how a certain city councilor – she once proposed an ordinance allowing stray dogs to receive food behind local restaurants – wants to limit the number of groups who can provide food to the homeless. She also wants to limit the times when food is distributed.

That sounds like a dumb proposal doomed to failure; ideas like this are neither new nor effective. It is rare, however, to find an Ace Crackerjack reporter who covers a story in the manner discussed below:

Each week, several groups travel to Lake Eola in Orlando to provide food for the homeless. However, the feeding sessions have some local businesses and residents concerned that they can lead to a spike in crime.

Feeding sessions? Okay, maybe the reporter added a teaspoon of dumbass to his coffee this morning. Let’s check my assertion by reading more.

Sheehan said the issue has become one-sided against her and she simply has the interest of all parties at heart, Local 6 reporter Chris Trenkmann said.

So…Trenkmann told the reporter typing this article that Sheehan said she had the best interests of the homeless at heart, or…? What the fuck does that sentence mean, exactly? And why is a news outlet quoting one of its own reporters in a print story?

"I mean I just really feel like I have not been treated very fairly on this ," Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan said. "I want to help people, but proper place, proper time. And if we are will [sic] to provide a location and this group doesn't want to use it because it is not pretty enough...huh."

Note how the writer behind this travesty introduces Sheehan by name and title twice in three paragraphs. And…huh? But that’s not the worst of his sins:

Sheehan has proposed moving the feedings to Lake Eola to Silvia Street. But, businesses in the area are not happy about the idea, Trenkmann said. A group of supporters for the homeless gathered in downtown Orlando Monday who say they have a right to have the feedings at Lake Eola.

The feedings…the feedings…the feeding sessions. This idiot spends too many hours jerking it to gorilla pix on the local nature channel. Throughout this article – or whatever the hell it is – Ace Crackerjack refers to the homeless in the same way as an agricultural reporter would talk about animals waddling to the trough.

666: We don't give a damn!

The supposed "Day of Evil" passed without incident here in Hell. Fortunately, the bad publicity surrounding it spawned something useful: this.

Vox: Dumb ideas, dumber hair

An axiom of Hell: you can tell the evil path by how easy it is to follow.

It takes many days of firing to bring a clay sculpture to life, and but a moment to break it; hundreds of hours to sew a quilt, and about five minutes burn to it; many years to raise a child, and seconds to kill it.

Please read the quote below with an eye for the lesson:

Not only will [mass deportation] work, but one can easily estimate how long it would take. If it took the Germans less than four years to rid themselves of 6 million Jews, many of whom spoke German and were fully integrated into German society, it couldn’t possibly take more than eight years to deport 12 million illegal aliens, many of whom don’t speak English and are not integrated into American society.

I’m going to ignore the many historical inaccuracies in this statement – there are two big ones that I can see, along with a particularly slimey euphemism in the second line – and point out just how easy the author makes this sound.

Shorter Vox: “Deporting 12 million people after using them as slave labor is easy; the Nazis managed to kill half that number in just four years.”

Write like a wingnut

In World o' Crap's first contest at their new site, I prove demons can indeed quote the Bible for their own purposes.

More on the Nature of Hell

In Hell, as on earth, the worth of a thing is determined by how useful it seems to be. And objects of show – in particular, those designed by a recognized master of his craft – are seen as particularly useful. They are symbols of increased social standing, and they’re worth as much as a person is prepared to pay for the higher status they represent.

In the otherworld inhabited by God and his minions, nothing inanimate has worth; everything animate does.

This is one difference between the values of God and those of he who commands me.

Another difference: those who stayed to serve God don’t lust after power, and nor do they demonstrate pride in their dealings. We, who rejected the peace of that realm, are afflicted by those traits the angels rejected in joining against us.

Bring out your dead!

My minions and I are happy to report a change to the blogroll: The inestimable World ‘O Crap has its own domain! New dispatches from the underworld soon.

Ego nut-punch

Barbra Streisand is an angry diva.

"Normally, I would not dignify vicious, mean-spirited mythology masquerading as biography[…]"

That’s a good policy, I think; it cuts down on the potential for egregious spelling errors.

Click here for the story.