Sunday Focus: Stupidity.

Exhibit One:

(Reuters)  --  Several employees of a Burger King fast-food outlet in Minnesota were persuaded by a prank caller posing as a fire official to smash the restaurant's windows, convinced that rising gas pressure was threatening to cause an explosion, police said Saturday.

Police in the Minneapolis suburb of Coon Rapids were dispatched to the scene Friday night after someone at a gasoline station next door called emergency services to report what appeared to be an act of vandalism in progress, police Captain Tom Hawley said.
The restaurant manager told arriving officers she had just received a phone call from a man identifying himself as a fire department official who seemed to have a working knowledge of commercial fire safety systems, which he asked her to check, according to Hawley.
In the course of their conversation, she recounted, the caller spoke as if he were remotely monitoring the situation inside the restaurant, and said he could tell that "gas pressure inside the building was rising."
As he gave her "updates," the caller insisted the gas buildup was reaching excessive levels, and finally warned that the restaurant was in danger of exploding unless the exterior windows were immediately broken to relieve pressure, Hawley said.
After quickly ushering out the handful of customers who were present at the time, the manager and three other employees ran out to their cars, grabbed tire irons and other objects and began smashing all the glass ringing the building.
By the time authorities arrived, the employees had shattered virtually all the ground-floor windows, causing several thousand dollars in damage, Hawley said. One worker suffered minor cuts and was treated on the scene by medics.


Exhibit Two:

"Phishing criminals are emailing, pretending to be the CEO or leader of an organization to the HR and payroll departments, asking for all the W2 information ... for something that they're doing," said Matt Leas, an IRS spokesperson.

And some people are doing just that.




Exhibit Three:

Here’s an old scam that is still prevalent today. 

Communications from grandchildren is a double-edged sword. You may send a photo while you are on vacation and the grandkids report, “My Grandpa and Nana left Green Valley and sent me this picture from Italy!” The scammers pick this up on Facebook, and when you get back from Italy, you receive a call that your grandchild (and they can use his real name because they have it from Facebook) went on a fishing trip to Canada or Mexico, and picked up some hitchhikers who put their backpacks in the trunk. Here comes the cry for help: As they attempted to cross the border, the Border Patrol dogs sniffed the trunk... Your grandchild assures you that he had no knowledge of the drugs in the backpacks.

You know where all of this is leading...SEND MONEY! And some people do----$11-Billion dollars lost to similar scams in 2015.

Conclusions: 1-we should reduce, not raise, the minimum wage.
                      2-we should cancel the election.

[Sunday Focus is a regular feature of www.timlennox.com] 

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