NY Times: Hey, Everybody Throw a Pity Party for This Stupid Dopehead Kid!

Posted on | October 6, 2013 | 71 Comments

Maxwell Birnbaum: Dumber than an Alabama cop.

In March last year, a college freshman named Maxwell Birnbaum was riding in a van filled with friends from Austin, Tex., to a spring-break rental house in Gulf Shores, Ala. As they neared their destination, the police pulled the van over, citing a faulty taillight. When an officer asked if he could search the vehicle, the driver — a fraternity brother of Mr. Birnbaum’s who quickly regretted his decision — said yes.
Six Ecstasy pills were found in Mr. Birnbaum’s knapsack, and he was handcuffed and placed under arrest. Mr. Birnbaum later agreed to enter a multiyear, pretrial diversion program that has involved counseling and drug tests, as well as visits to Alabama every six months to update a judge on his progress. . . .
[T]he mug shot from his arrest is posted on a handful of for-profit Web sites . . . These companies routinely show up high in Google searches; a week ago, the top four results for “Maxwell Birnbaum” were mug-shot sites. . . .
[T]hese pictures can cause serious reputational damage, as Mr. Birnbaum learned in his sophomore year, when he applied to be an intern for a state representative in Austin. Mr. Birnbaum heard about the job through a friend.
“The assistant to this state rep called my friend back and said, ‘We’d like to hire him, but we Google every potential employee, and the first thing that came up when we searched for Maxwell was a mug shot for a drug arrest,’ ” Mr. Birnbaum said. “I know what I did was wrong, and I understand the punishment,” he continued. “But these Web sites are punishing me, and because I don’t have the money it would take to get my photo off them all, there is nothing I can do about it.”

Here’s your problem: You’re stupid, Maxwell.

Six measly tabs of Ecstasy?

Dude, back in the Seventies, I sold dope in felony-weight quantities and never once got busted. Because I was not stupid.

OK, I was a Democrat back then and that was intensely stupid, but at least I wasn’t stupid enough to get busted for dope.

It’s a Darwinian thing, Maxwell. You’re obviously inferior.

Despite my past as a long-haired adolescent dopehead, I am in favor of strict enforcement of Our Nation’s Laws Against Dangerous Drugs, because I don’t want people who are too stupid to out-smart a narc to be running around on the streets, clogging up traffic on the highways and, potentially, replicating their hopelessly stupid genes.

When the cops catch a stupid dopehead, I want that drug-addled idiot sentenced to the maximum extent of the law.

So, no, I don’t pity you for your “reputational damage,” Max, because if you’re dumber than a cop in Baldwin County, Alabama, you’re obviously so stupid we need to warned about your stupidity.

Category: Crime, Media Bias, New York Times

Comments

71 Responses to “NY Times: Hey, Everybody Throw a Pity Party for This Stupid Dopehead Kid!”

KSchell
October 7th, 2013 @ 7:18 am

You totally missed the entire point of the news story. It’s not about the guy being arrested, it’s about sleazy shake down artists setting up blackmail websites, trying to extort $$$$. As Instapundit would say, “Read the whole thing”. It’s fine if you think this idiot kid should be serving hard time, but the pondscum internet blackmailers should be in the cell next to him.
HappyWarrior
October 7th, 2013 @ 7:37 am

Two weekends ago on a whim I decided to Google an old online acquaintance I’d lost contact with; and the very first hit that popped up was his mugshot from a 2008 arrest in Boone County, Kentucky for driving with a suspended license. At the time of his arrest he was the chief transplantation surgery resident at Ohio State so I’m still wondering what he was doing in Kentucky.

As far as I can tell – since I haven’t spoken to him – the arrest doesn’t seem to have affected his medical career because he’s was awarded a very prestigious post-doctoral fellowship and is currently an assistant professor for liver transplant surgery at a big-time East Coast university. But I can’t help but imagine what his patients think when they Google him and see the mugshot.

So while I appreciate the need for public information, there has got to be a better way to handle relatively minor arrests or infractions. But for the grace of God, it could happen to anyone of us.
SAHenryKrinkle
October 7th, 2013 @ 7:44 am

asshole http://t.co/pAEQI3Uovy
Bob Belvedere
October 7th, 2013 @ 10:02 am

Thank the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

We dodged that bullet, Praise Jesus.
Bob Belvedere
October 7th, 2013 @ 10:02 am

Yeah, but so would they.
Bob Belvedere
October 7th, 2013 @ 10:05 am

Richard, Stacy blew all his ill-gotten gains on Speedos…

http://thecampofthesaints.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/stacy-mccain-speedo-1990-264.jpg
CJ
October 7th, 2013 @ 10:06 am

“…we need to warned about your stupidity.”

*be

Your ignorant hypocrisy is standing in the way of your unabashed hypocrisy (“Despite my past as a long-haired adolescent dopehead…” etc). Please stop for all reasons.
rmnixondeceased
October 7th, 2013 @ 10:16 am

True, true …
rmnixondeceased
October 7th, 2013 @ 10:19 am

Never said any of the above, you’re spouting pure hyperbole.
Re-read what I wrote and the conditions that need to be met.
HappyWarrior
October 7th, 2013 @ 10:38 am

So even though you were acquitted ( and presumably your record was expunged) you wouldn’t mind if all that information including a mugshot was permanently posted online?

Because that’s what the article you linked to is discussing; not if someone was arrested but whether such information (especially if acquitted or charges dismissed) should be available online and removed only by paying a ransom to shady third-party website operators.
Quartermaster
October 7th, 2013 @ 11:24 am

Posting that pic is ban worthy.
richard mcenroe
October 7th, 2013 @ 11:26 am

Now we know where he kept his stash…
Quartermaster
October 7th, 2013 @ 11:27 am

^^^^^^^
THIS!
richard mcenroe
October 7th, 2013 @ 11:28 am

What you admit freely, they can’t leak.
Quartermaster
October 7th, 2013 @ 11:29 am

had he been caught in Ohio there would be no mug shot. Since he was an out of state offender in KY, he got nailed. It’s simply the nature of being an out of state driver.
Sidney
October 7th, 2013 @ 3:47 pm

He should attempt to manipulate Google results instead of whining. I have a friend from law school who was arrested and sentenced to jail recently for securities fraud. Early on, his arrest record popped up prominently on Google. He must have hired a firm to manipulate it, because now when you search his name lots of bogus web sites he created about his “charitable endeavors” pop up obscuring his criminal record.
focused
October 8th, 2013 @ 11:24 am

This has nothing to do with a dope head, his stupidity or his reputation. At. All. Talk about derailing and missing the mark. This is purely about Google’s search engine producing quality results, and de-ranking mugshot websites from those results so the mugshot website spam industry cannot capitalize on extortion practices through essentially free organic Google rankings simply by the average joe searching their own name in the engine. It is clear this author does indeed bear a little baggage of his ‘stupid dope-head past’.
Derek
October 8th, 2013 @ 12:23 pm

Speaking of stupid, this post would qualify. No wonder I’ve never heard of or been to this site before. What a f’n waste of internet space and life…adios.
K-Bob
October 8th, 2013 @ 4:18 pm

Don’t forget about the a-hole “friends” who helpfully post that stuff without telling anyone about it until it’s too late.

My kids got thru that set of years before mass stupidity rose to such audacious proportions. The kids only a year or two behind them will be paying the penalty for their friends’ stupid posting till the day they die.
K-Bob
October 8th, 2013 @ 4:23 pm

While I agree with Stacy on the factors here, I don’t think piling on is useful. It’s bad enough that this kid will probably stay liberal for a while. My guess is that he’ll discover Libertarianism fairly quickly, thanks to his run-in with “the man.”

Which reminds me, Mike Lee was on Beck’s show yesterday. Beck was asking him to render an opinion on all of the, “Make the poor schlub’s feel it” activities by the Administration (forcing people out of their homes, closing roads, etc.). Lee said it was the best argument you could find for NOT letting the government run healthcare.

“The man” is barack, Mr. Birnbaum. Learn that lesson well.
garthic
October 9th, 2013 @ 1:36 am

He’s stupid because friend agreed to a search? The article says he’s a student at UT Austin, a top tier school. Most of you kids, including the author, probably went to shit schools to get your views. He was just unlucky that day, as we all are sometimes.