This time last year I shared with you my musings gleaned from the pages of the world’s newspapers regarding people who, by their actions alone, had lowered the sum total of our collective intelligence. In case you missed it here’s a link to last year’s best of the worst people who need a beer. I’m not sure if I am happy to say that this year has produced a crop not too far away and for that I thank them.

Little boy cops PC justice

On December 10 little Hunter Yelton was sent home from his school in Colorado and eventually threatened with a charge of sexual harassment after he – kissed a girl!! The school deemed that his peck on the cheek of a classmate breached the school’s anti-harrassment guidelines and entered the incident on his permanent record. As if this kid doesn’t have enough burden going through childhood with a name like Hunter Yelton without this ‘stigma’. And another thing, don’t people realise that all boys spend the first nine months of their lives trying to get out of a vagina and then, after a 16 year break, spend the rest of their lives trying to get back into one? Fortunately common sense prevailed and the ‘charges’ were dropped, but not before Hunter thanked the school principal for his reprieve with a firm slap on her bottom and a hearty ‘damn right, now you my bi-atch!’

Watch out Katy Perry. On the basis of this story you can expect to be publicly stoned if you sing your song in Colorado. Who’s next?

Bad men say Australia is too racist

Not content with disrupting last year’s Cambridge – Oxford Boat Race, serial imbecile Trenton Oldfield (who now takes the mantle of stupidest name from Hunter) claimed in court that he should not be extradited to Australia because we are a nation of casual racists. Well, first of all, if you are going to be racist in a casual way, then Australia is probably the ideal place for it, but, secondly, we are patently not a racist country.* His claim was supported by the fact that his wife is of Indian descent and would undoubtedly be “subjected to particularly racist attacks on people of Indian descent”. Nob. He was deemed by the prosecution to be a person whose presence in the country (England) was not conducive to the public good. Bang!

No beer for you.

While we’re on this topic, and without giving this oxygen-thief any more publicity than he deserves, here’s a whack to the cowardly jelly-spined hit-run killer fighting extradition from the sub-continent after fleeing justice by using a friend’s passport. Claiming (yaaaawwwwn) that he can’t get justice in a racist country, where Indians specifically are treated more harshly by the courts, Puneet Puneet claims to be the true ‘victim’. The family of the man he ran down in a drunken speeding crash may wish to disagree. No beer for you.

Beer as art

There was plenty of ‘beer’ for the good folk at Mataranka Homestead, 107kms south of Katherine, when bartender Kim Eishold spent six weeks collecting XXXX cans to build a festive beer can Xmas tree in the hopes of winning a trip to XXXX Island. The monument is built from some 800 cans, of which three quarters were collected from patrons and local wheelie bins while Miss Eishold claimed to have emptied about a quarter of them by herself. Pfft! I laugh at your ‘monument’! I remember many years ago that a group of dedicated students made a rather stunning monument to an Australian historical icon from VB cans they had collected from one Australia Day to the next and assembled over the long weekend. I’ll see if I can find a picture and post it at the bottom of this story.

Kim gets a New Year craft beer for having to drink so much generic blandness for her art.

Ex PM proves she can ‘out-idiot’ anyone

In one of those thankfully rare cases of the ‘law of unintended consequences’ punters thinking of providing frank and helpful feedback to workers in the service industry might need to think twice.

In June the Gillard government overhauled workplace bullying laws to allow workers to apply to the Fair Work Commission for an order to stop bullying where the behaviour is repeated, unreasonable and a risk to their health and safety. Please. So if your beer is served to you in the bottle, with not enough head or in a dirty glass, best you cop it sweet and sit down and shut up lest you upset the delicate sensitivities of the bartender. Or barista. Or waiter. A fine of $10,500 can be wrought down upon you for such thoughtless and devastating behaviour to another fellow human being.

John Hart, the chief executive of industry association Restaurant and Catering Australia, said applying the laws to customers was ”a bit of a stretch” but there was an obvious lack of clarity about how they would apply. ”If you can extrapolate a law that’s designed to cover the obligations of an employer to cover customers, I think we’re demonstrating quite clearly that the laws have gone too far,” Mr Hart said. For his ability to state the obvious, John earns a nice beer. I’ll even pour it for him so as to ensure no complaints. As for those who wasted time, effort, more time and OUR money drafting and passing this legislation – “pooh to you with nobs on!”

And finally, to all those who honestly believed that that ioS7 update would waterproof your iPhone, to the bloke in Aberdeen who got his head stuck in a rubbish bin while looking for his hat and the millions of people who used Farcebook for evilness instead of goodness – have a beer.

To all Brews News readers, vistors, subscribes, supporters and friends, have a great night tonight, drink well and drink local (responsibly of course) and I look forward to seeing you all in 2014.

Cheers!

*Anyone wishing to debate or disagree with my assertion that Australia is not a racist country is welcome to buy me a beer, in the pub of their choice, and put their case.