Rule of Dumb

Two stories caught my eye this morning, both evidence for increased levels of stupidity.

First up, this coming out of Illinois:

Belleville police chief Bill Clay is ordering his officers to get their pancakes from anywhere but Denny’s, calling the restaurant “political stupidness.”

The new orders come after a New Year’s Day clash between five detectives and one Denny’s manager.

The department says the detectives were out of uniform but wearing their badges, when manager David Rice asked them to either leave or put their guns in their vehicle.

Rice, told the detectives that one of their weapons, specifically a female detective’s gun, was making another diner feel uncomfortable.

As the officers were leaving, without their food, General Manager Michael Van walked up and corrected the manager and said it was fine for them to stay, but the officers said it would be too awkward and they left.

David Rice has clearly bought into some serious idiocy.  Plain and simple.  Hook, line and sinker.

He's not alone:

Debate is raging over whether a 6-year-old Maryland boy should have been suspended from school for pretending to shoot someone with his finger.

Mary Bubala reports school officials say the boy did it to three students at Roscoe Nix Elementary School in Silver Spring.

A gun shooting gesture by 6-year-old Rodney Lynch to fellow students — just days after the Connecticut school shootings — got him suspended.

“I went into my desk and then I got scissors and then I just pretended it was a gun,” Lynch said.

He was sent to the office and the school called his parents about the behavior.  The school warned he could face suspension if it happened again. It did…twice.

“Just pointing her fingers like this. She did the ’pow’ sound and I just went like that. And then I got sent to the office again,” said Lynch.

The last incident involved another first-grader, but both say they were just playing around.

Lynch’s family is appealing the school’s decision to suspend him. It’s on his permanent record.

“They are saying he threatened a student, threatened to shoot a student.  He was just playing,” said Rodney Lynch Sr., boy’s father.

I'm calling it the rule of dumb... and it reigns in certain quarters.

SMH.