Bitter dispute over sugar ad may bounce Czech government

A Czech government ad touting its turn to hold the presidency of the EU may and featuring a sugar cube may actually result in the downfall of the government.

The ad, built around the claim that the Czech’s invented the sugar cube (I always thought it Bjork), features the slogan, “We sweeten it for Europe.” However it “can also be translated in Czech as promising to give Europe a bitter lesson, making trouble for it or causing disgust. … [However] this has soured relations within the ruling coalition, with traditionally pro-European Christian Democrats attacking it.”

Apparently this kerfuffle is because the ruling party is split between pro & anti EU types.

Further confusing the issue is whether or not the Czech’s should claim ownership of the sugar cube. The ad claims it was a Czech invention dating from 1843. However reporters at the daily Lidove Noviny pointed out that the although it was created in what today is the Czech republic but was then an outcropping of the Austro-Hungarian empire by a Swiss named Jacob Christoph Rad. Speaking as a professional journalist, this is what’s known as a fun story.

Silly Czechs. How stupid to take an argument over sugar so seriously. They should follow our lead and argue about lipstick and whether it is placed on pigs or pitbulls.

For those of you not up on leading-edge political stupidity: The McCain campaign (slogan: “Truthiness is everything!”) is attacking O’Biden for saying “that Sen. John McCain’s claim that he will shake up Washington after agreeing with President Bush for so long is like ‘putting lipstick on a pig.‘”

It is a disingenuous attack, at best, given that McCain himself has used repeatedly, even to describe a health plan put forth by Hillary last year. Trotting out former acting Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift as the attacker is a nice sound-bite move that looks really dumb if you examine the facts.  True Ms. Swift is A) female, B) a mom and C) was sort of governor.

However her time in office was not a pretty one. She was named acting governor when her predecessor decamped to become ambassador to Canada. Despite having the governor’s office she couldn’t even carry her own party in her one attempt to win the job for herself and was defeated by Mitt Romney, a name you may have encountered. She was a notably inept governor:

By the end of her term, Swift was extremely unpopular with voters in the state (at one point having the dubious honor of a single-digit approval rating). This unpopularity was due in part to a perceived lack of effectiveness and in part to apparent abuses of her gubernatorial privileges, including: her use of a Massachusetts State Police helicopter to commute cross-state, from Boston to her home in North Adams; and, the use of State House aides to babysit her children.

Given all that is surfacing about Ms. Palin’s troubles in Alaska, Swift is not the best shade of lipstick for this issue.

Apparently the lesson Sen. McCain learned from his 2000 primary loss to Pres. Bush was that voters really don’t care that much about facts. I wish I could argue that it was a bad conclusion to come to.

BTW, Talking Points Memo has the following: A former McCain spokeswoman — who defended the senator when he made a joke about a woman raped by a gorilla — is also author of a book about being a political flack. The book’s title? Lipstick on a Pig.

During McCain’s 1986 Senate race, McCain was hit with allegations from women’s groups in Arizona that he’d told this knee-slapper (as quoted at the time by the Tucson Citizen)…

“Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, ‘Where is that marvelous ape?'”

McCain was defended by Torie Clarke who said, “John does not recollect telling that joke … And he has a very good record on women’s issues.” The reporter who wrote the original story disagreed then and now with Ms. Clark.

I want to see a pitbull put some lipstick on that pig.

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Headline of the Day: Drag Queen Robs Burger King

Hard to get better than that.

Security cameras showed the man, wearing a dress with a revealing bust line and hair barrettes, climbed through the takeout window at a Burger King on May 11. He held the employees at gunpoint, demanded money, exited through the same drive-through window and drove away.

Only way it could have been better is if it had been a drag king.

2nd best headline of the day: Big, hairy pig attracted gawkers in Wisconsin

That’s odd, I don’t remember going to Wisconsin recently. And personally, I prefer to call them fans, not gawkers.

Year of the (capitalist) pig

So Chinese New Year was last month but … here are a few ways in which Communism vs. Capitalism vs. Superstition is working out in the most populous nation on earth.

1. Chinese state television is censoring advertisements featuring pigs in order not to offend Muslims in the Year of the Pig. Biggest Western companies to be effected by this: Nestle and P&G.
2. Retailers are doing big business in gold pig jewelery and knicknacks. This year is considered particularly auspicious as, according to the Chinese zodiac and fortune tellers, it is a “golden pig” year that falls once every 60 years.
3. Disney hopes the great swine can come to its aid. Its Three Little Pigs characters were featured prominently in New Year’s celebrations at Hong Kong Disney. Also Mickey, Goofy, Donald et al. wore traditional Chinese clothing during the festivities wrapped up last week. “The pigs are part of a marketing campaign aimed at shoring up the park’s reputation which was tarnished last Chinese New Year when overcrowding made officials lock the doors, barring scores of mainland tourists with valid tickets from entering.” Gee, I sure wish I was married to an obsessive Disney fan who could find out how this year’s New Year’s went at HK Disney and blog about it. Oh, wait. I am. UPDATE: The pig pays off for Disney.
   

Operation Bull Run continues: Is it Civil War yet?

As loyal readers and others who suffer from insomnia know, we here at CD HQ have been tracking the George Bush Desert Classic’s lingusitic slide into Civil War for some time.

Quoth me last February:

As usual, the Administration is being aided and abetted in its marketing by many in the media, and I’m not talking Fox TV. Last Sunday, the NYT’s Week In Review section lead with an article entitled “What A Civil War Could Look Like” which actually addressed everything but that. The article categorically refused to define “What a civil war does look like.” Instead it fell back on some of the most hair-splitting linguistic efforts to not call an Antietam an Antietam since Bill Clinton’s famous “is.”

And then in July I polled the press:

• USATODAY: As violence mounts, so does evidence of civil war in Iraq
• The Christian Science Monitor: A widening sectarian rift pushes Iraq to the brink of civil war
• NPR: Abizaid Warns That Iraq Could Face Civil War
• MSNBC: PM: Iraq not facing civil war
• Fox News: We Won! We Won!

So now we have NBC declaring it a civil war which indicates Main Stream Media are coming around to using this as the bumper sticker du jure for whatever the hell it is that’s going on over there. Still don’t know how to tell when a war is civil and/or different from an insurgency or a rebellion.

Anyone?

Bueller?

Technorati Tags: Iraq, Civil, War, George, Bush, Desert, Classic, Bull, Run, Bueller

Google job applicants must have varsity letter in moral gymnastics

“Google’s known for its exacting hiring requirements, which include a degree from a top-notch university and a stratospheric GPA. But Page and Brin also have a preference for hiring Burning Man attendees…“

Apparently Larry Page and Sergey Brin spent last week headhunting at Burning Man, the counterculture/ geek-fest out in Nevada. Free PR note: If you run a company that has gone spread-eagle to the incredibly repressive Chinese government, probably better not to have the phrase “Burning Man” any where near you.

Further proof of Google’s cluelessness can be found in a letter they recently sent off to media orgs telling them to not to use “google” as a verb. You can piss in the ocean all you want, but the tide is still going to come in. Word to the wise: Don’t try to teach a pig to sing. All it does is waste your time and irritates the pig.