Asshole of the Week

Have a nominee for Asshole of the Week? Send it to us!

We love stories about local bureaucratic idiocy. They're always good for a laugh or two, but we do tend to forget about them five minutes after we've read them. And then there's the story of Edward Stanley Harris. By now, we're sure you all know the story. This guy had been hassled annually by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for 17 years over some parking tickets that his twin brother, Edwin Shelby Harris (insert plethora of jokes about the stupidity involved in naming your twin sons Edward Stanley and Edwin Shelby here), had racked up back in 1990 and '91, but never paid. Every year, poor Edward had to go explain to the Philadelphia Traffic Court that they weren't his tickets. Well, this year, when Edward received his annual notice that his license would be suspended if he didn't pay "his" tickets and went to make his annual visit to the court, Judge Willie Adams (seriously?!) ordered Edward to start paying the tickets in $100 monthly installments. Hey, Willie, they weren't his tickets!!!

When we read this story on Monday morning, we were really appalled by the stupidity of this judge. Blatant constitutional violation aside, it's just plain moronic. And we were tickled when we discovered that we weren't alone in smacking ourselves in the forehead because of this, as the story made the front page of Yahoo! on Monday night. So pretty much the whole country jumped on this bandwagon. Fortunately, there's at least one Philadelphia Traffic Court judge with a brain in her head, as yesterday, Judge Bernice DeAngelis stepped in and apologized to Edward Harris, and gave assurances that he would have his money refunded.

And so, for amazing idiocy in not correcting a pretty simple clerical mistake for 17 years, and then for exacerbating the problem with a ridiculous ruling in court, we name the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Judge Willie Harris our Assholes of the Week.

Follow the jump for a couple runners-up.