Download or read book Stupid American History written by Leland Gregory and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2009-04-21 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller: Welcome to the land of the free, the home of the brave—and, apparently, the dumb, bizarre, and gullible . . . Did you know that . . . *John Tyler was on his knees playing marbles when he was informed that Benjamin Harrison had died and he was now president of the United States *For reasons still unknown, Texas congressman Thomas Lindsay Blanton, a Presbyterian Sunday school teacher and prohibitionist, inserted dirty words into the Congressional Record in 1921—for which his colleagues officially censured him by a vote of 293-0 *Two US presidents were indentured servants—and one of them ran away and wound up with a $10 reward posted for his capture From Columbus to George W. Bush, the bestselling coauthor of America’s Dumbest Criminals leads us through the many mythconceptions of our nation’s history in this lively book, exposing lots of entertaining moments of idiocy and inanity along the time line.

Download or read book Stupid History written by Leland Gregory and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2009-06-15 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A treasury of historical hilarity from the New York Times-bestselling coauthor of America’s Dumbest Criminals! Why exactly is Paul Revere revered when it was Samuel Prescott who made the famous ride? Was the lightbulb really Thomas Edison’s bright idea? Bestselling author and former Saturday Night Live writer Leland Gregory employs his masterful wit to expose historical myths, faux “facts,” strange events, and tales of human stupidity throughout history. You’ll learn that: * Magellan didn’t actually make it around the world * As a member of Parliament, Isaac Newton spoke only once, and it wasn’t exactly a statement of political brilliance for the ages * On April 24, 1898, Spain declared war on the U.S., thus starting the Spanish-American War—and then the U.S. declared war the very next day, but not wanting to be outdone, had the date on the declaration changed from April 25 to April 21 With these and many more stories, Leland Gregory once again highlights the funny side of history.

Download or read book Stupid Texas written by Leland Gregory and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2010-04-13 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times best-selling author Leland Gregory is definitely messing with Texas in his book Stupid Texas. This time, Leland--who has so entertainingly highlighted humanity's stupidity in the areas of crime, business, love, politics, cruelty, and history--collects evidence to prove the widespread belief that deep in the heart of Texans lies an extraordinary capacity for absurdity. Culled from print, online, and broadcast media, Stupid Texas is an uproarious collection of true stories, trivia, and factoids about the Lone Star State, such as: * "In 1875, James Stephen Hogg, the first native-born Texan to become the state's governor, named his daughter--Ima." * In 1984, a Texas District Court judge sentenced a 31-year-old Houston man to 35 years in prison--for stealing a 12-ounce, $2 can of Spam." Ridiculous, outrageous, bizarre, and comical, Stupid Texas is ideal for both kinds of people--those who love Texas and those who hate it.

Download or read book Stupid Ancient History written by Leland Gregory and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2012-10-16 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "New York Times"-bestselling author Gregory is silly, shocking, weird, hilariously funny--and outrageously true. Gregory chronicles Greek philosophers, Roman conquerors, and historic myth conceptions.

Download or read book Stupid Conservatives written by Leland Gregory and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2012-04-10 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leland Gregory's 17 previous humor collections with AMP are all in print and all are staples on the humor backlist, including Stupid American History, which was a New York Times best-seller, and Stupid History, which has shipped over 130,000 copies. Silly, shocking, weird, and hilariously funny, the one- or two-paragraph anecdotes that comprise Gregory's new anthology of stupid things said and done by American conservatives--politicians, citizens, journalists, professionals, workers, anyone who stands to the right of center--are culled from print, online, and broadcast media from all over the world. Here's a sample: * "When I see a 9/11 victim family on television, or whatever, I'm just like, 'Oh shut up.' I'm so sick of them because they're always complaining." --Glenn Beck, September 9, 2005

Download or read book United Kingdumb written by Leland Gregory and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2010-09-07 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From absurd 911 calls to presidential philosophizing to his New York Times best-selling Stupid American History, Leland Gregory generates the best laughs by exposing the worst of human nature. Now, Gregory--sets his sights across the pond to the United Kingdom to skewer Brits, Scots, Irish, and Welsh alike in United Kingdumb: Idiots from the British Isles. In United Kingdumb: Idiots from the British Isles, Gregory turns his eye to countryside Britons, London aristocrats, kilted Scotsmen, leprechaun-loving Irish, and the wily Welsh, all of whom are a breed apart in their affinity for the idiotic and inane. Because the stories Leland chronicles are just that unbelievable, each anecdote, quote, or factoid is presented with relevant background information--including its verified news source.

Download or read book Stupid Science written by Leland Gregory and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2009-06-15 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consider these cases of misdirected human activity, each in the name of science: The Illinois Department of Conservation spent $180,000 to study the contents of owl vomit. Georgia State University psychology professor James Dabbs discovered in 1988 that trial lawyers have about 30 percent more testosterone in their bodies than normal people (regardless of gender). Dabbs stated in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology that high testosterone levels are often linked to aggressiveness and "antisocial behavior." We all knew that lawyers were full of something—now we know it's testosterone. What do stinky cheese and unclean feet have in common? They both attract mosquitoes according to a November 8, 1996 article from Reuters.

Download or read book Stupid Sports written by Leland Gregory and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2013-06-18 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From political pandering and clunky criminals to historical hiccups, the jokes, wacky anecdotes, and inane quotes in Leland Gregory’s Stupid-themed anthologies showcase the best of human nature at its worst. In Stupid Sports, Leland now presents more than 200 sports-related idiotic moments featuring stupid sports laws and regulations, quotes, and athlete interactions with the law, fellow teammates, celebrities, and more, such as: “This could ruin my career.” —Darryl Strawberry to Tampa, Florida, police officers after being arrested for solicitation of prostitution and possession of cocaine on April 15, 1999. Featherweight boxer Richard Procter jumped into the ring at the World Sporting Club in London on July 11, 2004, and tossed off his robe to thunderous applause—only to realize he had forgotten his shorts. Fred Lorz finished first in the marathon in the Summer Olympics of 1904. Just before he was handed the gold medal, it was discovered that a car drove him 11 miles of the race.“Winfield goes back to the wall. He hits his head on the wall and it rolls off! It’s rolling all the way back to second base! This is a terrible thing for the Padres!” —Jerry Coleman, Padres broadcast announcer

Download or read book Stupid California written by Leland Gregory and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2010-04-13 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Best-selling author Leland Gregory--who has so entertainingly highlighted humanity's stupidity in the areas of crime, business, love, politics, cruelty, and history--is back with Stupid California. This time, Gregory builds a case for the common suspicion that Californians, from movie moguls to beach bums, have a special affinity for idiocy. Culled from print, online, and broadcast sources, Stupid California is a hilarious collection of true stories, trivia, and factoids about the Golden State, such as: * "California's state animal is the California grizzly bear, which is also on the state flag. The bear was honored in 1953, a full 31 years after the last known bear in the state was killed." * "During the 1980s, in a bold stroke against terrorism, the Chico City Council banned nuclear weapons, enacting a mandatory $500 fine for anyone detonating a nuclear weapon within city limits." Silly, shocking, weird, and amusing, Stupid California is ideal for both kinds of people--those who love California and those who hate it.

Download or read book S Is for Stupid written by Leland Gregory and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2010-10-01 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An A-to-Z treasury of dumb, disastrous, and hard-to-believe human behavior from the New York Times-bestselling author of Stupid History! * A doctor’s actual diagnostic notation: The patient is married but sexually active. * “Shooting Reported at Firing Range” —The State, Columbia, South Carolina, August 4, 2006 * Arrested for public urination in Bowling Green, Ohio: Mr. Joshua Pees. —The Sentinel-Tribune, Bowling Green, Ohio, September 5, 2001 From absurd 911 calls to presidential philosophizing and foolish felons, Leland Gregory generates the best laughs by exposing the worst of human nature. This best-of collection features fifty percent new material and fifty percent fan favorites, arranged alphabetically by topic. And because the stories Gregory chronicles are just that unbelievable, each anecdote, quote, or factoid is presented with relevant background information, including its verified news source.

Download or read book A Short History of Stupid written by Helen Razer and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2014-11-19 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alain de Botton meets Russell Brand in this glorious rant about everything that drives you mad about the modern world. How did everything get so dumb? How did we become hostages to idiocy? What must we do to be freed from a captor whose ransom note simply reads, 'D'oh'? The deteriorating quality of our public debate and the dwindling of common sense in media, politics and culture can drive you to despair and rage. It certainly drove writers Helen Razer and Bernard Keane to a desperate act: befriending each other for long enough to write a book. Join forces with these uneasy allies to fight against a world that has lost its reason. Explore what's behind the remorseless spread of idiocy, and why there's just so much damn Stupid around you. Stupid isn't just ignorance; it's not just laziness. Worse than the absence of thought, Stupid is a virus that drains our productivity and leaves us sick and diminished. And Stupid has a long, complex and terrible past, one we need to understand in order to defeat it. A Short History of Stupid traces the origins of this maddening ill, examining the different ways in which we've been afflicted over the last three thousand years. It damns those who have spread Stupid and celebrates the brave few who resisted. It shows how Stupid tightens the grubby grip of the foolish around our throats. Hilarious, smart, unpleasant, infuriating and rude, A Short History of Stupid is at once a provocation and a comfort. It will spark debate, soothe the terminally frustrated and outrage the righteously Stupid. It is a book whose Stupid time has come.

Download or read book Stupid Liberals written by Leland Gregory and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2012-04-10 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leland Gregory's 17 previous humor collections with AMP are all in print and all are staples on the humor backlist, including Stupid American History, which was a New York Times best-seller, and Stupid History, which has shipped over 130,000 copies. Silly, shocking, weird, and hilariously funny, the one- or two-paragraph anecdotes that comprise Gregory's new anthology of stupid things said and done by American liberals--politicians, citizens, journalists, professionals, workers, anyone who stands to the left of center--are culled from print, online, and broadcast media from all over the world. Here's a sample: * Residents of Longmont, Colorado, voted to abolish all "Dead End" signs and replace them with "No Outlet" signs. The local citizenry felt the "Dead End" signs were too unpleasant.

Download or read book Bored Lonely Angry Stupid written by Luke Fernandez and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Technologies have been shaping [our] emotional culture for more than a century, argue computer scientist Luke Fernandez and historian Susan Matt in this original study. Marshalling archival sources and interviews, they trace how norms (say, around loneliness) have shifted with technological change.” —Nature “A powerful story of how new forms of technology are continually integrated into the human experience...Anyone interested in seeing the digital age through a new perspective should be pleased with this rich account.” —Publishers Weekly Facebook makes us lonely. Selfies breed narcissism. On Twitter, hostility reigns. Pundits and psychologists warn that digital technologies substantially alter our emotional states, but in this lively look at our evolving feelings about technology since the advent of the telegraph, we learn that the gadgets we use don’t just affect how we feel—they can profoundly change our sense of self. When we say we’re bored, we don’t mean the same thing as a Victorian dandy. Could it be that political punditry has helped shape a new kind of anger? Luke Fernandez and Susan J. Matt take us back in time to consider how our feelings of loneliness, vanity, and anger have evolved in tandem with new technologies.

Download or read book Don t Know Much About American History written by Kenneth C. Davis and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2003-04 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents, in question and answer format, a history of the United States from the exploration of Christopher Columbus to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Download or read book The Stupidity of War written by John Mueller and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-04 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This innovative argument shows the consequences of increased aversion to international war for foreign and military policy.

Download or read book Stupid Christmas written by Leland Gregory and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2010-10-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new collection of outrageous, laugh-out-loud anecdotes about the weird and wacky things that happen during the Christmas holidays, by the author of New York Times best-sellers Stupid American History and America’s Dumbest Criminals. From absurd 911 calls to presidential philosophizing and foolish felons, Leland Gregory generates the best laughs by exposing the worst of human nature. Following up his New York Times best-selling Stupid American History, Gregory sets his sights on the holidays as he exposes mind-numbing mistletoe maladies in Stupid Christmas: Idiots under the Mistletoe. Perhaps it's the spiked eggnog or the multiple family members gathered around crazy-colored, twinkly lights, but the holidays are rife with idiocy by the daft and the dumb. Inside this latest collection, Gregory offers more than 200 accounts of holiday-induced stupidity, including: * While smoke billowed out of the store, firefighters had to physically restrain enthusiastic shoppers from entering a Great Lakes Mall store during an electrical fire. * In 1995, officials debated over whom to invite to the city's Christmas tree ceremony: President Bill Clinton or the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. * As a joke, Andrew Jackson sent formal invitations to his Christmas ball to a well-known mother-and-daughter prostitute team in Salisbury, North Carolina.

Download or read book Fraud written by Edward J. Balleisen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-18 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive history of fraud in America, from the early nineteenth century to the subprime mortgage crisis In America, fraud has always been a key feature of business, and the national worship of entrepreneurial freedom complicates the task of distinguishing salesmanship from deceit. In this sweeping narrative, Edward Balleisen traces the history of fraud in America—and the evolving efforts to combat it—from the age of P. T. Barnum through the eras of Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff. This unprecedented account describes the slow, piecemeal construction of modern institutions to protect consumers and investors—from the Gilded Age through the New Deal and the Great Society. It concludes with the more recent era of deregulation, which has brought with it a spate of costly frauds, including corporate accounting scandals and the mortgage-marketing debacle. By tracing how Americans have struggled to foster a vibrant economy without encouraging a corrosive level of cheating, Fraud reminds us that American capitalism rests on an uneasy foundation of social trust.