Drunken Wild Pig Belatedly Gives Robin Williams an Excuse for His Aussie "Rednecks" Joke

     A successful comedian, if he aims to remain successful, must sometimes choose good humor over good taste.  That formula landed Robin Williams in hot water two years ago, and he had no excuse—until now.  

     Comedian Robin Williams angered some humorless people in April 2010 when he referred to Australians as "English rednecks."  He could have been gentler with his comparisons.  He could have, for example, compared Australians to Texans and Englishmen to the folks in New York and New Jersey.  He could have rounded out his comparison by comparing New Zealand to Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.  Scotland and Ireland could have been compared to the two Carolinas, and Wales could be similar to Georgia.

     Well, yes, he could have done that, except for one little problem: It wouldn't have been funny.  Instead, he opted to rattle the teacups of a few people who, inexplicably, would rather be compared to Englishmen than to rednecks.  Then-prime minister Kevin Rudd, in expressing his anger at Williams, displayed his own ignorance and bigotry by making offensive remarks about American Southerners as if all Southerners were rednecks.

     A few days ago, Robin Williams's comparison got a little boost from an unlikely source: a wild pig that caused a ruckus at a campsite near the DeGrey River near Port Hedland, Pilbara, in western Australia.  The porker in question stole three six packs of beer, got drunk, and started a fight with a cow.   (Full story here)  In case you're wondering how a pig could open a beer can, that's simple: He just put in in his mouth and chewed on it.

     That's really the kind of behavior one would expect now and then from a redneck—the sort of person who might bring three or more six packs of beer to a camp-out rather than setting a lower limit.  Robin Williams might ask where the pig learned to act like that.  The video below features an Australian pet pig whose masters are giving him beer:

     Really, though, is there any truth to what Robin Williams said; or was the snobbish Kevin Rudd correct about high-class Australians?  Which bigot was closer to being right?  The following video clip from Australia's Got Talent may give us some insight on that question:

     Well, maybe both sides have a point.  This Australian band called the Pigs has performed all over the world—perhaps including Alabama, the state that causes Kevin Rudd to turn up his nose.

Politicians' Excuses for Video Games and Watching Porno during Official Hearings

     Politicians in Italy, India, and elsewhere have been caught playing video poker and even watching pornography during key government hearings.  In most cases, their excuses are real groaners.

     In India, no fewer than three politicians from the conservative Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party have been filmed or photographed watching pornographic video clips during sessions of parliament.  Other people, including those in the general public, have called on them to resign.

     The offending legislators all insisted that they shouldn't be expected to resign.  Why not?  Because they "didn't enjoy it."  One of them said that he was trying to turn off his phone at the time.  Yeah, right.  That was like the motorist who slows down after he sees a cop car turn around and head his way—as if he expected witnesses to forget what they saw.

     In Italy, parliament member Simeone di Cagno Abbrescia was caught "browsing through pictures of escort girls" on his government-issue iPad two years ago.  He said, "[I was] looking at my e-mail messages when a window popped up.  We received the iPads only a month ago and my fingers slipped as I was looking for the news pages."  Ironically, this incident occurred during a no-confidence vote.  We're sure that his constituents had no confidence in his excuse.

     Thailand Member of Parliament Pongpan Sunthornchai gave a similar excuse.  During an important debate on the transport costs of rice, Sunthornchai was caught looking at pictures of women in swimsuits displayed on his iPad.  His excuse, according to the Bangkok Post, was that he "pressed the wrong link and accidentally got sexy pictures.  Then the wrong link again, and got more raunch (sic).  He tried again and again, and he kept getting sexy photos.  It was all so confusing."  He then said he wanted to return his iPad.

     We don't think the problem was with the iPad.  Perhaps it's Sunthornchai that needs to be returned, but not to office.

     In France, members of Parliament have been filmed or photographed making on-line poker bets, playing chess, reading pornographic cartoons, and on-line shopping on their i-Pads and smartphones.
     In the United States, Florida State Senator Mike Bennett came up with an excuse that might just be believable.  Maybe the guys in India, Italy, and Thailand can learn from it.
     During a senate debate on an ultrasound and abortion bill in May 2010, Bennett became "bored" and turned on his government-issue laptop computer.  At one point in the debate, a speaker was heard to say, "I'm against this bill because it disrespects too many women in the State of Florida."  At that moment, Senator Bennett was filmed looking at a group photo of four (supposedly) topless women on his laptop.  
     We use the word supposedly because, if you zoom in on the photos, it appears that at least one of the women was wearing a top.  A black bar across their tops makes it difficult to tell.  The resolution of the black bar doesn't match the resolution of the photo, so it's clear that the bar was added after the image of Bennett viewing it was taken.
     Here were Bennett's excuses:
1. He had turned on the laptop to check his email because "I was sitting there, bored as they were debating the abortion bill."
2. He can't help what people send him.
3. The email message containing the photo supposedly told him what he was "missing" at a class reunion.
4. He thought the message had something to do with the bill he ignoring to check his email.  (Hmm.  How does that square with excuse #3?)
5. "I had no prior knowledge as to what the emails would contain and when the contents of one was discovered to be less than appropriate, it was promptly closed."

6. "I cannot control what individuals may send me and am disappointed that at a time when there are major issues impacting Florida, an insignificant issue such as this receives any attention."

7. Three seconds after the photo popped onto the screen, he says, he closed the image.

 

 Although Bennett had said publicly that a senate debate over a bill related to ultrasound and abortion was too boring to hold his attention, he was somehow reelected in 2012.
     In national news, the debate on whether the United States should go to war with Syria wasn't interesting enough to hold U. S. Senator John McCain's attention for three hours.  Here is McCain's excuse for playing video poker during the hearings: (Click here.)  In effect, he said that he was fascinated by the debates, but he got "just a little bit" bored and began playing video poker.  McCain quickly changed the focus of the subject by adding, "The worst part of it was, I lost!"
     If he had been that quick with excuses in 2008, he could have gotten elected President of the United States.  Then he might have gotten just a "little bit bored" with his finger on the nuclear button and forget that he was not holding a video game device.

Riddle: When is a Subway not a Subway? Answer: When It's a Flood Detention Pool

     What excuse can a politician use for lack of preparedness leading to some of the worst flooding in the nation's history, causing massive disruption for months at a cost of perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars?  What if that politician had twelve years to come up with a good excuse?

   Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou—better known as "Mr. Ma" (or the wizard of orz) when lower level Chinese bureaucrats come to town—faced that challenge recently when he was scolding southern Taiwan political leaders for their lack of flood preparedness.   

     The leaders he was scolding were members of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and Mr. Ma doubles as chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT.)  The DPP leaders used the excuse that the central government, ineptly headed by Ma, tended to dole out more dollars to counties and municipalities headed by KMT politicians than those headed by DPP politicians.

     Then one of the local leaders, in rejecting Ma's scolding, reminded Ma of the Typhoon Nari debacle in 2001 when Ma Ying-jeou was mayor of Taipei.  The Marx Brothers couldn't have come up with a wilder farce than the Typhoon Nari flooding.

     The pumps used to keep the subway from flooding had been peculiarly designed.  They were equipped with vibration sensors that automatically shut down the pumps if excessive vibration was detected.  As it turned out, the excessive vibration came, not from the subway structure, but from the pumps themselves.  In short, the system was designed to sacrifice a multibillion-dollar subway system to protect a few pumps worth no more than a few thousand dollars.

     When the southern Taiwan leaders challenged him for an explanation, President Ma offered the excuse that the flooding along Xing-yi Road and elsewhere in Taipei would have been much worse if the subway system had not flooded.  The subway system, Ma said with a straight face that Buster Keaton would have envied, acted as a "flood detention pool" to limit above-ground flooding in other parts of the city.

     Ma quickly resumed scolding the southern Taiwan leaders, suggesting that they, too, should spend their tax dollars on flood detention pools.  He didn't say whether the flood detention pools should be built in the form of multibillion-dollar subway systems.

     A Ma administration official suggested that the local officials would have more money for municipal flood control measures if they didn't waste tax dollars on "more visible things" such as landslide prevention.  (Editorial comment: Who needs mountain villages anyway?  Or mountain villagers, for that matter?)

     The next time you're tempted to take the subway, make sure you check the weather report.  A subway is more than just a subway; it's a flood detention pool.  

A Canadian Driver's Amazing Excuse for Speeding: He was Trying to Dry His Car

     In June of this year, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer  stopped an unnamed 67-year-old motorist who was doing 180 kph (111.85 mph) on Highway 22 just south of Black Diamond, Alberta, Canada.  Just when the Mountie had thought he'd heard all the excuses for speeding, this man offered a new one.

     The motorist had just washed his car and, by speeding, he was hoping to dry it more quickly.  The judge didn't buy his excuse, fined the driver C$800 (US$783), and suspended his licence for 45 days.  With $783, he could have bought a few dozen hair dryers and done the job more quickly.

     Now, could someone explain to us where the Mountie got a horse fast enough to catch a driver who was doing almost 112 miles per hour?

Excuses to Justify Confiscating a Farming Community on Behalf of Rich Investors

     In Taiwan, the “greater good” appears to be good enough an excuse for government to take someone's land.  Strangely enough, the term greater good is defined by a crowd that in most countries is not particularly noted for its goodness: politicians and bureaucrats.

     Just such a case is the seizure of a farming community in Dapu Borough, Miaoli County, Taiwan. 

     For the past two years, the county has battled protesters and local residents who don’t want to see their homes demolished and their land and livelihoods taken away from them.  Even if they're fairly compensated for their homes and land, compensation for the loss of their livelihoods doesn't seem to enter the thinking of government kleptocrats.  To hear Miaoli County politicians tell it, though, all the residents of Dapu are delighted with the prospect of losing their land, homes, and livelihood.  After all, the construction project will be “beneficial to” all those people who are being removed.

     Their excuses are risible enough to quote in full.

     Jhunan Township Council Speaker Lin Shu-wen said, “I was born and raised in Dapu, my family’s house was among those being expropriated and I am fully supportive of the project because [drum roll, please] it’s going to bring prosperity to the community.  As much as 98% of landowners representing more than 900 households in the area have all agreed to the project.  Why would they support it if it’s bad?”  (Answer: Through clever rigging of statistics.  We’ll get to that one in a moment.)

     Dapu Borough Warden Cheng Wen-chen added that all the local residents—bar none—are “celebrating” the project and that only outsiders are opposing it.

     Protestor Yeh Hsiu-tao says that the opposite is true—that every member of his organization is a native of Miaoli County if not Dapu, and the same can be said of the members of the Youth Alliance.

     So how can both sides be factually correct?  Answer: Well planned and executed excuses!  Factual correctness isn't necessarily the same thing as truth.

     According to Yeh, “All of us received official letters from the county government some years ago asking us to provide our agreement [to the project] by a certain date; otherwise we could lose our right to receive compensation.”  In simple language, that’s, “We’ll take your home and land anyway.  If you don’t sign a document agreeing to support the confiscation of your home and land, we’ll take it without paying you a dime for it.” 

     Don Vito Corleone was never that cynical in “making someone an offer he couldn't refuse.”   Additionally, when Don Vito Corleone “made someone an offer he couldn't refuse,” he never tried to pass off his victim’s acquiescence as enthusiastic support.

     In case you’re wondering how a construction project was approved for a community zoned for farming, one of the government ringleaders of the project offered the straw man excuse, “We changed the land classification from ‘for farming’ to ‘for construction’ as early as 1979, so it has nothing to do with the high-speed rail project.” 

     Wait a minute.  The families of politicians with callous-free hands and clean fingernails were awash in cheap farmland, and those same government leaders used the power of their offices to rezone the land to something more profitable?  Was that how Liu Cheng-hung was able to repay a NT$50 million (US$1.6 million) debt within a year of taking office as county commissioner?

     According to the Taipei Times, Liu's sudden financial windfall was not because he “was involved in corruption.”  He had a good excuse for that one: “He said he was able to clear his debts by selling land owned by his family.”  Hmm.  Was he referring to land he’d used the power of his office to rezone, thereby increasing its “prosperity” generating potential?  Just how does he define corruption?

     And what will happen to Dapu farming community residents who, for several generations, had actually been using their farmland to eke out a living as farmers?  Even if they’re compensated for the loss of their homes and land, who is going to compensate them for the loss of their livelihoods? 

Italian Demagogue Offers Poor Excuse for Racist Slur

     Cecile Kyenge is Italy's first national government minister who is black, and it seems that much of Italy is passing through a a phase a bit reminiscent of the United States during the mid-1950's.  Kyenge was born in the Congo and moved to Italy 30 years ago.  A key Italian politician has called her a "dirty black monkey," and another big wig said she looks like an orangutan.  Another said that Kyenge wanted to "force tribal conditions" on Italy and create a "bongo bongo" government, adding that "Africa has not produced great genes."  At a recent rally, someone threw a banana at her.

     More recently, a deputy mayor named Cristiano (yes, the name means Christian) Za Garibaldi said that he was "unlikely to meet her" because he doesn't "hang out at night on the Retilineo di Ceriale," a road noted for prostitutes, many of whom were black.   Za Garibaldi hasn't explained how he came by this bit of trivia about the street in question.

     Now for the excuse: Za Garibaldi admitted that the remark was "in bad taste and offensive," but then he gave the excuse that he was under stress from having to pay Italy's high taxes.  If stress does that sort of thing to him, we can take some consolation that he's not a New York City cab driver.  (To see the cab driver story and read the cabby's excuse, click here.)

     

New York City Cabby Offers Compelling Excuse for Running over a Bicyclist

     What do you do when a bicyclist pounds on your taxi and yells at you?  If you're Mohammed Faysal Himon, you put the pedal to the metal and run over her, chopping off her leg in the process.  After all, it was New York City, and Himon was a cab driver.  The district attorney is investigating the incident, and city authorities are reportedly "taking steps to suspend Himon's licence."  Note the word suspend rather than revoke.

     Himon offered the excuse that driving a New York City cab is too stressful.  "I need a more suitable job," he said.

     If he's really looking for a job more suitable for his talents, we suggest that he apply for a job as an interviewer on a Fox television talk show.  Bill O'Reilly gets paid $20 million a year for running people down with far less finesse than Mohammed Faysal Himon displayed.

  If Himon has a minimum of English language ability and can affect a suitable air of haughtiness, he can get rich just by screaming accusing questions at people and then scream louder to keep his victim from answering the questions.  To make it more interesting, he could conduct so-called interviews from behind the steering wheel of a cab.