Sunday Rerun: And many of these people vote!

I'm as patriotic as the next guy, but I'm really worried about our country these days, because the collective IQ has fallen precipitously.  It's bad enough that thousands of people with very little information about epidemiology are suddenly demanding that a little-known virus be eradicated by no later than the end of this week, while still refusing to get their flu vaccination, on the grounds that "the flu shot gives you the flu" (it does not, but nice try) or "the government puts something in the shot that allows them to control your mind, or track your whereabouts, or both" (see this explanation of that folly.)

And we have people here who willingly court death by taunting jungle animals, or by putting themselves in the paths of tornadoes and other weather disasters. 

And we have teachers in Louisiana being forced to teach children that fire-breathing dragons once existed and chased Fred Flintstone all the way home from work at Slate Rock and Gravel Company. I look forward to discussing this someday with people in Louisiana, as if I would ever go there.

No, I am troubled with the fact that our criminals are just growing more obtuse every day. Take Brigitte Jackson, down in Atlanta. She came up with a can't-miss way to get rich quick. She filed an income tax return claiming an income of $99 million. Georgia Revenue authorities reeled her in nicely, though. They sent her a fake check for a refund worth $94,323,148 and told her to cash it at the bank branch inside a Cobb County supermarket where agents were waiting in the heavily-salted snack chip aisle to pinch her when she tried to cash in her chips.  Video here, for your amusement. She had "no comment."

"Do you need change with that?"

Then there was Alice Pike, out of Covington, Ga, who tried to pay for her merchandise at WalMart with a crisp new $1,000,000 US bill. That's right.  She tried to pass off a novelty bill as legal currency worth a million semolians. She said she got the bogus moolah from her estranged husband, and he's a coin collector and everything.

She's lucky they only took her to jail. Three states to the west, in Louisiana, they might have let the fire-breathing dragons loose on her.