Hot Dog!

Sorry about the badly-timed pun, but here comes that time again - we've been online for four years, and as usual this time every year, we have some Yogi Awards to present to those smarter-than-the-average types that weren't mentioned over the past year. That starts tomorrow, but this year, we now have a brand new award called the Iyog, which will be given to those who were dumber than the average. Let's do it:

• Ephrian Myles for being dumber than the average boyfriend. He is accused of dousing his girlfriend's puppy with hot sauce while it was having a seizure, and is charged with animal cruelty. Myles allegedly drenched three-month-old Gizmo with the spicy condiment because he was annoyed that the dog was having a seizure and yelping in pain. After the sauce got into his eyes and mouth, the dachshund-Chihuahua mix struggled to breathe, its eyes were swollen shut, and its body became limp.
• CrossFit for being dumber than the average gym. A transgender woman named Chloie Jonnson is going to war with CrossFit, claiming the fitness titans refused to let her compete in the women's division at the upcoming CrossFit Games because she was born with a penis. She has filed a US$2,500,000 lawsuit, and in the lawsuit, she claims she underwent sex reassignment surgery in 2006 and is legally recognized as a woman by the State of California. But when Chloie asked the powers that be about competing in the Games with the ladies, she was shot down hard. CrossFit argues that "we have simply ruled that based upon [Chloie] being born as a male, she will need to compete in the Men's Division. The fundamental, ineluctable fact is that a male competitor who has a sex reassignment procedure still has a genetic makeup that confers a physical and physiological advantage over women. Our decision has nothing to do with 'ignorance' or being bigots -- it has to do with a very real understanding of the human genome, of fundamental biology, that you are either intentionally ignoring or missed in high school."
• The state of Georgia for being dumber than the average state. Georgia, with its tumultuous past of discrimination, is following Arizona's recently failed attempt to pass what amounts to anti-gay legislation with the Preservation of Religious Freedom Act. The state may shift from the cradle of the civil rights movement to the vanguard of legalized 21st-century bigotry with the consideration of legislation modeled on Arizona's, that if passed, would allow businesses to refuse service to gay and lesbian customers on the basis of alleged religious conviction. The measure, whose fringe supporters contend is couched in the First Amendment, would provide a legal avenue for business operators to ignore existing local nondiscrimination protections that even "indirectly inhibit" the "free exercise" of their faith. Like the controversial Arizona bill, this broadly written proposal has profound implications - not only for the aggrieved minority it would directly affect, but also for the social reputation of the state at large.