That’s SIR Terry Pratchett, to you!

“This means that fans, while not calling me Sir, must now refrain from throwing things.” — Terry Pratchett, creator and chronicler of the Discworld, and the mind behind the Wee Free Men, on being knighted by the Queen of Perfidious Albion.

On Vacation

1:5 say Cheney worst VP ever, who is #2?

One of out of five Americans think that Dick Cheney is the worst vice president in American history. Twenty-three percent of those questioned in a CNN-Opinion Research Corporation survey released Tuesday say that Cheney is the country’s worst vice president, when compared to his predecessors. Another 41 percent feel that Cheney is a poor vice president, with 34 percent rating him a good number two. Only 1 percent of those polled say that Cheney is the best vice president in U.S. history.

Whether he’s worst, poor, good or best, he is 1 on a list of 1. Is there even another VP about whom this question could be asked? Quick, name another VP who did not move up to president who had any real impact on the nation? I suppose you have to go with Spiro Agnew if only because he was indicted and replaced in office. Beyond that it is impossible to think of anything that noxious man even did.

So is the list

1. Cheney
2. Agnew
3. Everyone else?

Let us then give Mr. Cheney credit for disproving John Nance Garner (32nd VP) who said that being VP is “not worth a bucket of warm piss.” Let that be his epitaph: “Dick Cheney — he made the VP worthy of a bucket of warm piss.”

Toyota reports first loss in 70 years — They made money in 1946?

Toyota — which is the best-run company in the world that isn’t P&G — yesterday announced it will have an operating loss for 2008 of $1.66 billion (or about what GM loses every week). They also announced this was the first time in 70 years it  lost money.

Toyota, which started in business as a loom maker, began making trucks and passenger cars in 1937. Its first and only operating loss came the following year, before it started reporting formal results in 1941.

Other people immediately asked the same question I did: How did they manage to report a profit (or break even) in 1945-47?

When being annoying in public is outlawed, only outlaws will publicly annoy us (I wish)

… or maybe journalists, marketers, pollsters, pols and lawyers will become outlaws

BRIGHTON, Mich. –  The Brighton City Council on Thursday approved an ordinance allowing police in the Livingston County community to ticket and fine anyone who is annoying in public “by word of mouth, sign or motions.”

Given that my good friend and proud new papa Campbell lives in Brighton, MI, I think I know the cause of this ordinance.

Special tip of a collaterally damaged hat to Tim Rueb for this one!

Shoe-thrower shows the power of product placement

When Muntazar al-Zaidi threw his shoes at President Bush he unintentionally gave the Baydan Sho Co.’s Model 271 one of the greatest endorsements ever.

Ramazan Baydan, owner of the Istanbul-based company, has been swamped with orders from across the world, after insisting that his company produced the black leather shoes. He has recruited an extra 100 staff to meet orders for 300,000 pairs of Model 271 – more than four times the shoe’s normal annual sale. (Nice to see George is creating jobs somewhere!)

Baydan is planning to rename the model “the Bush Shoe” or “Bye-Bye Bush”.

“We’ve been selling these shoes for years but, thanks to Bush, orders are flying in like crazy. We’ve even hired an agency to look at television advertising,” he said.

About 120,000 pairs have been ordered from Iraq and a US company has ordered 18,000 of the shoes, which have been on the market since 1999 and sell at around $41  in Turkey.

Credit Crunch — A free boardgame you’re already playing

I happen to know that game publishers are rushing to cash in on the credit crunch. First mover award goes to The Economist for a freebie which you can download here even if you can’t afford a subscription.

The aim is to be the last solvent player. In order to achieve this, players try to eliminate the competition. Risk cards encourage players to pick on each other.

Players who cannot pay their fines may borrow from each other at any rate they care to settle on—for instance, 100% interest within three turns. They should negotiate with the other players to get the best rate possible. Players who cannot borrow must either go into Chapter 11 or be taken over.

Players may conceal their assets from each other.

Another bonus: YOU GET TO PRINT YOUR OWN MONEY. Yep, just like the Treasury and probably a good bit more reliable.

Can’t wait to play a fictitious version of this for once.

Thanks to Shaun Abrahamson for the link!

Is that your cologne or a burning dead animal?

Burger King continues to come up with successful ways to get free press: This time it’s a men’s body spray called “Flame” which the company claims has “the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat.”

Burger King is marketing the product through a Web site featuring a photo of its King character reclining fireside and naked but for an animal fur strategically placed to not offend.

Burt Reynolds must be rolling in his grave.

What?

Are you sure?

Wow.

I thought the guy in the commercials was CGI.

German pol says unemployed should catch rats

Especially fitting as we approach the end of the Year of The Rat.

“Especially people who usually collect bottles could get one euro for every dead rat,” Henner Schmidt, head of the business-friendly Free Democrat party in the Mitte district of Berlin, told Berliner Kurier newspaper this week.

Instead of paying per rat, they should pay by weight. Imagine the payoff for bringing in Herr Schmidt? Or Mr. Madoff?

In his defense, “Lassen Sie sie Ratten essen!” doesn’t really sound all that much worse than “Lassen Sie sie Kuchen essen!” (A/K/A “Laissez-les manger le gâteau.”) Still not nearly as good as “Permetta loro di mangiare formaggio!”

UPDATE: Now the Italians (or at least the Milanese) are saying, “Lascili mangiare il caviale!”  Customs inspectors in Milan seized 40 kilogrammes (88 pounds) of beluga caviar last month from two couriers travelling from Warsaw, Corriere della Sera newspaper reported. Prosecutors will hang on to a sample of the prized sturgeon eggs worth a total of 400,000 euros (557,000 dollars) for the investigation, while the rest will be given to charities to give to the poor.

Missouri may decriminalize margarine

An 1895 law restricts the “sale, possession or shipment of imitation butter and bans yellow-tinted varieties. Those dealing contraband dairy products can be fined up to $100 and jailed for up to a month.”

And if you’re caught selling with 100 feet of a school? Death penalty.

Could not come up with a “When things are outlawed” headline for this. “When margarine is decriminalized, only criminals will have margarine”? Too slippery

Top 10 list of the best Top 10 lists about the year’s stupidities

Is it just me or is getting awfully meta in here?

1. Media corrections of 2008 (RegretTheError)
2. Most confusing high-tech buzzwords (LanguageMonitor)
3. Worst political predictions (ForeignPolicy)
4. Dumbest TV moves (Entertainment Weekly)
5. TV buzzwords (LanguageMonitor)
6. Freakiest ads (Adfreak)
7. Worst political ads (Politico)
8. Worst business deals — pre-Madoff (Time)
9. Political buzzwords (LanguageMonitor)
10. Political quotes (ExtremeMortman)
11. Best (?) websites about layoffs (BusinessPundit)

Actually, they’re not all Top 10 lists — neither was mine.

Others:

• An Aussie list of the 10 Worst Cock-Ups (NewMatilda)
• Dumbest political quotes (About.com)
• UK’s weirdest legal cases of the year (Times of London)
• UK’s weirdest news stories (Daily Telegraph)
• Oddest items found at a beach clean-up (Vancouver Aquarium)
• Worst commercials (Digital Labz)

BEST COLLECTION OF YEAR-END LISTS!!! (Fimoculous)

National Lampoon jumps on stock swindle bandwagon

Sen. Bluto Blutarsky (I-Anarchy) was right. It wasn’t over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.

The chief executive of National Lampoon, Daniel S. Laikin, was charged on Monday with conspiracy and securities fraud in what prosecutors said was an attempt to raise the value of the company’s stock artificially.

Best comment goes to Paul Kedrosky: There is something so deliriously surreal about the SEC catching National Lampoon’s CEO allegedly engaging in stock manipulation, while missing the Madoff case, that I hardly know what to say.

The National Lampoon being in the stock market should have tipped everyone off to the whole house-of-cards.

If Laikin is convicted will he have to go on double top-secret probation when he gets out of jail?

Staples goes vulture: “Will Office Depot closings affect you?”

The next hot trend is upon us: Vulture marketing. As in: to feed on the carcass of your now bankrupt competition in hopes that the same doesn’t happen to you. Witness today’s email from Staples:

There is nothing wrong with this, of course. It is just far from comforting.

The estimable Shaun Abrahamson points out that UPS went one better than Staples and put up a whole website for former DHL customers. Any other examples?

The word of the year in American, English, German, Dutch, Austrian, Japanese, Chinese (Taiwan but NOT the People’s Republic) and William Safire

Well, the votes are in and whomever decides these things has spoken (unlike the Minnesota senatorial race. I say we just let the governor of Illinois decide) we now know what the words of the year are in many languages. Not surprisingly, they were all basically about one of two things: sex and money — except when they were about meat.

• Austria: Lebensmensch — “most important person in your life.” The word took on a sexual connotation when Stefan Petzner used it after the death of  Joerg Haider– leader of that nation’s far right — and acknowledged the two were one of those couples that could only be married in Massachusetts or Connecticut. By vote.
• Holland: Swaffelen (won 57% of vote at a dictionary publisher web site). “to swing one’s penis, making it bump against something, in order to stimulate either oneself or someone else.” Runners-up: “wiiën” (playing on a Wii game console) and “bankendomino” (banks falling over like dominoes).
• Japan: “change” was voted Japan’s character of the year — an homage to Mr. Obama. It was followed by “gold,” suggesting the Beijing Olympics, and “fall” to reflect the global market plunge. Personally I think comic-book loving Prime Minister Taro Aso was the Japanese character of the year.
• Germany:  Two (one for the east and one for the west?), Finanzkrise (“financial crisis”); and — for those under 30 — “Gammelfleischparty” or “spoiled meat party” – an unflattering term for a gathering of people over 30.” Gammelfleisch was in the news frequently during the year when it was discovered that meat packers had been regularly supplying some kebab restaurants with past-due products. “Bildschirmbraeune” or “screen tan” — referring to the complexion of someone who spends too much time at a computer — came second, while “unterhopft,” meaning “underhopped,” or in need of a beer, took third. In the words for (not about) people over 30: Rettungsschirm (“emergency parachute”) came in 2nd. (Chosen by judges.)
• Taiwan:  乱 Chaos. Among 61,600 people who took part in a telephone poll, nearly 8,000 voted for the Chinese character “luan” (chaos), followed by “pian” (lie) and “tsang” (miserable), said the United Daily News, a co-organiser of the survey. However, the Daily Telegraph (UK) got pranked when it reported the same character as winning “… of the year” honors on the mainland. Go here to read the very funny story.
• UK about the USA:  Hypermiling — “the attempt to maximize gas mileage by making fuel-conserving adjustments to one’s car and one’s driving techniques.” Chosen by the publishers of the New Oxford American Dictionary (which shows that they should stick to picking words for their own country.) Also on the list: CarrotMob, “a flash-mob type of gathering, in which people are invited via the Net to all support and reward a local small ethical business by patronizing it at the same time” and;  Topless meeting, “in which the participants are barred from using their laptops, BlackBerries, cellphones, etc.”
• US: Bailout was named word of the year because it “received the highest intensity of lookups over the shortest period of time” at  Merriam-Webster OnLine. Runners up: “maverick” and “socialism.”
• William Safire: Frugalista — “a person who lives a frugal lifestyle but stays fashionable and healthy by swapping clothes, buying secondhand, growing own produce, etc.”

Winner: Safire.

Runner-up: Taiwan

For one brief moment journalism is admired

Let he who is without sin, throw the first shoe.

The picture of the year.