Idiots in the news

[Langue_doc]

There used to be a series called "News of the Weird". Feel free to post news of idiots who should know better than to do what they did.

Here's a woman who thought that one hailed a plane the way one hails a cab. See her run after the plane.

According to the BBC News, she was waving at the pilot to get him to stop the plane so that she could board.

A woman has been arrested and charged after running up to a plane on the tarmac at Canberra airport, Australia.

The incident happened on Wednesday, 1 November, and video filmed at 19:30 that evening (08:00 GMT) shows the woman standing close to the plane's cockpit.

Eyewitnesses said the woman was waving at the pilot, apparently after arriving late for her flight.

An Australian Federal Police spokesperson said the woman had been refused bail and was due to appear in court on Friday.

[waterboy]

Can I assume we're not including politicians here? 'Cause that would be too easy.

[Langue_doc]

Can I assume we're not including politicians here? 'Cause that would be too easy.

Good point, but I just have to post Raskin's response to our shape-shifting congressman's letter. Said individual has two entirely different legal names: Anthony Devolder and George Santos.

"Dear Congressman Santos: I appreciate your note and only wish someone had proofread it first," Raskin wrote. "Meantime, you should apologize to the people of New York for all of your lies and deceit."
"I know you must have thought you could get away with it all in the party of Trump, but the truth is resilient," he continued. "PS: It's not shameful to resign."

An account of the misrepresentations can be found here.

[jerseyjay]

Said individual has two entirely different legal names: Anthony Devolder and George Santos.

I do not want to defend Mr. Santos, but do want to point out that this is rather common, that US naming protocols do not align with other countries' ways of naming.

His actual name is George Anthony Devolder Santos, with (as per Brazilian style) Devolder being his mother's maiden name and Santos being his father's name.

My first wife was from a Spanish-speaking Latin American country, where it is sort of inverted. Her name was Francesca Adriana García Sánchez, where García was her father's family name and Sánchez was her mother's. Thus she had several, equally legitimate names:

Francesca Adriana García Sánchez
Francesca García
Adriana Sánchez
Adriana García
Francesca Sánchez
Francesca Garciasanchez
Adriana Garcia-Sanchez
Francesca Garcia de Jay
Adriana Jay
[etc. etc]
Her passport, driver's license, social security, green card, etc., were all different. There was no deceit involved. 

[Langue_doc]

@jerseyjay

I do not want to defend Mr. Santos, but do want to point out that this is rather common, that US naming protocols do not align with other countries' ways of naming.

His actual name is George Anthony Devolder Santos, with (as per Brazilian style) Devolder being his mother's maiden name and Santos being his father's name.

While this might be common in other countries, it's illegal to have more than one legal name in the US. I was just talking the other day to someone who was in the middle of legally changing their name because their citizenship papers had mistakenly transposed their first and middle names. As I recall, they had to update their driver's license, SSN, IRS information, and a couple of other documents to reflect the transposed names. If you google "having more than one legal name" you'll see that it is illegal and also fraudulent to have more than a single legal name.

[jerseyjay]

I would assume his legal name is George Anthony Devolder Santos. In any country everybody has one legal name, but how it is used is a different question. The current president of Mexico is Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. That is his legal name. He uses the full name because Lopez is very common, and I bet there are a million people called Manuel Lopez in Mexico. However, while his credencial de elector (national ID) and passport would all have his full name, there is no reason that he would need to use his full name in most contexts.

That said, while it may be illegal to have more than one legal name, it is not illegal to use different names (or to be accurate, different versions of their real name) in different contexts and, perhaps, more to the point, I have never found that there is any real effort at making sure people use the same name even in legal contexts.

Like many Americans, I have three names--a first ("Christian"), middle, and surname (last). This is what my passport says, but I have used different combinations at different times, including F.M. Last, F. Middle Last, First M. Last, etc. I am not factoring in the question of marriage and divorce (I have no idea if my first wife still uses my last name, or if she remarried, or whatever).

[Caracal]

@jerseyjay

I do not want to defend Mr. Santos, but do want to point out that this is rather common, that US naming protocols do not align with other countries' ways of naming.

His actual name is George Anthony Devolder Santos, with (as per Brazilian style) Devolder being his mother's maiden name and Santos being his father's name.

While this might be common in other countries, it's illegal to have more than one legal name in the US. I was just talking the other day to someone who was in the middle of legally changing their name because their citizenship papers had mistakenly transposed their first and middle names. As I recall, they had to update their driver's license, SSN, IRS information, and a couple of other documents to reflect the transposed names. If you google "having more than one legal name" you'll see that it is illegal and also fraudulent to have more than a single legal name.

Perhaps there's a source you're looking at that I'm not aware of, but my cursory check didn't show any clear evidence that he actually has more than one legal name. He has certainly used different versions of his name at different times, but that's the same things as having multiple legal names. I have credit cards with various iterations of my name, for example. You don't even have to use your legal name when you run for office. Mitt Romney is actually Willard Mitt Romney, but he was listed as Mitt Romney on ballots.

[Langue_doc]

Santos has been in the news since his election for multiple instances of fraud and also using the Devolder name to mislead people. According to reports legal name cannot be confirmed because his birth certificate hasn't been made public.

Both Republicans and Democrats have been calling on him to resign. Here are the charges against him.

[jerseyjay]

Well, yes, Santos has been in the news ever since the New York Times ran an article shortly after the election exposing him to be a complete liar. As I said, I have no desire to defend him.

But I think that the fact that he has several legitimate ways to describe himself is rather common among immigrants from Latin America. I do not doubt he used different versions of his name to deceive people, but there does not seem to be a single part of his life about which he has been honest. From what I can tell, the indictment does not accuse him of using more than one legal name; it refers to him as "George Anthony Devolder Santos, better known as 'George Santos'." It seems that that the main identity-related crime he is accused of is using other people's names to open credit card accounts. (" Santos is charged with stealing people's identities and making charges on his own donors' credit cards without their authorization, lying to the FEC and, by extension, the public about the financial state of his campaign.") If I remember correctly, he was convicted in Brazil of check kiting, using his mother's checkbook. So the man seems to have honesty issues that go beyond what name he uses.

My main objection was the implication that a common Latin American practice--using different versions of one's "real" name--is ipso facto proof of deception. Millions of Latin Americans, including Brazilians, have similar naming issues without lying about their entire existence.

Another layer is that for many people in Latin America, one's legal name--whatever version--is not the name that most people know you by. For example, the president of Brazil is Luiz Inácio da Silva, but everybody knows him as Lula, in part because his surname is one of the most common in Brazil.

[Langue_doc]

My main objection was the implication that a common Latin American practice--using different versions of one's "real" name--is ipso facto proof of deception. Millions of Latin Americans, including Brazilians, have similar naming issues without lying about their entire existence.

I was referring to Santos's use of multiple names, and not to the general practice of South Americans using more than one name. There would be no reason for a candidate running for office to use a name that is entirely different from the one used for his candidacy. He was in the news in a Long Island newspaper before the elections, and has been in the local newspapers ever since. None of these accounts refer to the general practice of using multiple names; rather, the topic of these news items is Santos and his numerous falsehoods.

Now back to the topic of this board, which is idiots who should know better.

[jimbogumbo]

Today is the 3rd anniversary of Rudy's Four Seasons Landscaping press conference.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Today is the 3rd anniversary of Rudy's Four Seasons Landscaping press conference.

Ha!

[Langue_doc]

I recall seeing Rudy in the news with his hair dye running down his face. What a downfall! He was practically a hero here after 9/11, but squandered all that goodwill supporting shady individuals do shady things, and is now left with indictments.

Other political idiots in our neck of the woods include an individual whose excuse for the gold bars and cash in his house that the feds found in his house was that it was the practice in his home country to keep cash at home in case of emergencies. Said individual was born in the US.