Once again, the PIG staff buried the hatchet - invariably in one another - and sat down for our awards selection shouting match, punchout and melee. Battered, bruised, and amazed that we survived another contentious confab, we try to muster a some semblance of professionalism while we salute those Standup Guys and Gals and administer bitch-slaps on the richly deserving. Originally named Props And Chops we decided to give this awards page a more illustrious name: Golden Oinks.

PIG's Golden Oinks Selection Committee singles out the following individuals and/or groups for special PIG attention for their amazing, amusing, and or inspiring antics during 2015.

PIGish Artwork of The Year

[METRO UK] Farmer ordered to take down 'offensive' hay bale sculpture

A farmer who built a hay bale sculpture of a bull having sex with a cow has refused to take it down after police told him he could be charged with 'publishing pornographic images'.

Bruce Cook, who owns Kactus Point Charolais near Kerang, Australia, built the sculpture on Good Friday as 'a bit of fun' but was ordered by police to take it down after someone complained that they found it offensive.

Mr. Cook flatly refused the order, however, telling the police officer to 'p*** off' and saying he will now light up the sculpture at night so passers-by can see it for longer and more clearly. He is also considering adding calves to the sculpture.

'I couldn't believe it,' he told NT News.

'How could anyone be offended by something that happens out in the paddocks for real every day of the week?

'They have picked on the wrong person. I don't care what they threaten me with. The sculpture stays.'

Mr. Cook insists he is not angry that someone complained about his sculpture, just baffled that anyone could find it offensive.

'It's just a stack of hay bales,' he said.

Whiner of the Year

[Metro.co.UK] Groom sees his wife without make up for the first time and sues her for fraud

Gentlemen, we hate the break it to you, but women occasionally look different when they are wearing make up.

One groom was seemingly unaware of this well known secret, which is why he is suing his new wife after seeing her without make up on for the first time.

The morning after their recent wedding in Algeria the man reportedly awoke and was shocked to see his wife's natural face.

At first he didn't even think the woman lying next to him was his wife, accusing her of being a thief, before finally admitting she was in fact the same woman he had married the day before.

However he is now reportedly suing her for fraud and 'psychological suffering'.

Emirates 247 reported that the man is looking for $20,000 (£13,000) in damages.

'He said she looked very beautiful and attractive before marriage, but when he woke up in the morning and found that she had washed the make-up off her face, he was frightened as he thought she was a thief,' a source told local media.

And people wonder why women say men are pigs?

Game Changer of the Year

Donald Trump hit the Oval Office Derby like nuke, blasting the political power brokers out of their comfort zone. Their 'it's your turn now, Jeb' safe space no longer seemed like a done deal, forcing them to rethink their options and start searching for that elusive Plan B.

Trump elevated the election cycle discussion from political platitudes to thrillingly real debates about hot button voter issues like border security, Jihadikaze terrorism, and our out of control government. Thanks to him, this election cycle is - so far - about REAL issues, real solutions.

Heroes of the Year

:When a Jihadikaze started shooting passengers on high speed Amsterdam to Paris train with an AK-47, three Americans - Oregon National Guardsman Alek Skarlatos, USAF medic Spencer Stone and Anthony Sadler did what needed to be done. Assisted by British IT consultant Chris Norman, they managed to wrestle the attacker to the ground, then beat the Jihadikaze senseless, stopping what could have been a deadly terrorist attack.

[Daily Mail] The US servicemen who tackled a Kalashnikov-wielding terrorist to the ground in a packed Paris-bound train have described the moment they leaped into action.

Spencer Stone, an airman, was travelling with Oregon National Guard member Alek Skarlatos, 22, who was on leave after a tour of Afghanistan, and their Californian friend Anthony Sadler when he heard the gunman load his weapon in the toilet.

'We heard a gunshot, and we heard glass breaking behind us, and saw a train employee sprint past us down the aisle,' Sadler said from France. They then saw a gunman entering the train car with an automatic rifle.

'As he was cocking it to shoot it, Alek just yells, "Spencer, go!" And Spencer runs down the aisle,' Sadler continued. 'Spencer makes first contact, he tackles the guy, Alek wrestles gun away from him, and the gunman pulls out a box cutter and slices Spencer a few times. And the three of us beat him until he was unconscious.'

In another account, Skarlatos says he yelled 'let's go'.

As they beat the man - named in reports as Ayoub el-Qahzzani - he pleaded with them to return his AK-47, Sadler explained.

'He was just telling us to give back his gun. "Give me back my gun! Give me back my gun!" But we just carried on beating him up and immobilised him and that was it.'

*

The Brit, businessman Chris Norman, said:

"My thought was I'm probably going to die anyway so let's go. I'd rather die active trying to get him down than simply sit in the corner and be shot."

Bravo.

He says the most important hero here was Spencer Stone, the Air Force man, who was actually a medic. Stone got badly slashed by the terrorists' knife or boxcutter, and his thumb was nearly cut off entirely. (Hopefully that has been reattached and will heal with no complications.)

Despite bleeding profusely, and despite being down a thumb, Stone administered emergency aid to a passenger badly slashed through the throat immediately after subduing and hogtying the terrorist. [Ace of Spades blog]

The FSOP salutes these men for their heroism.

Letdown of the Year

The College Football Championship semifinals were hyped beyond comprehension. Did the games live up to the hype? Were we left breathless by two nail-biters that went down to the wire? Hardly.

Alabama skunked Michigan State 38-0.

Clemson thumped Oklahoma 37 - 17.

YAWN!

Sign of the Year

These are popping up all over Tinsel Town

You've got to love it.

Heroine - Taking A Bite Out of Crime Award

Our heroine is a 33-year-old resident of North Charleston, SC, who put a world of hurt on 16-year-old Antoine Miller when he tried to rape her.

A local boob tube outlet explained how our heroine took a bite out of crime:

According to North Charleston police, officers were dispatched to Remount and North Murray avenues shortly after 7 a.m. to tend to the 33-year-old victim who fled her home after the attack.

The report notes that there was blood on the floor of the bedroom when the officers arrived.

According to the report, the woman told police she heard a knock at her door at 6:30 a.m. but when she answered it, no one was there. There was a second knock at her door, she told officers, and again no one was there. Then her doorbell rang and when she opened the door, a black man holding a knife was standing on her porch.

The woman told police she screamed and tried to run back in the house, but Miller forced his way inside her home, tackled her, and punched her several times, the report states.

"Stop fighting and I won't hurt you," Miller reportedly told the woman before carrying her over his shoulder to the bedroom, the report states.

Miller tried to remove the woman's shorts but she reportedly kicked him in the groin. Miller then forced himself on top of her and tried to kiss her, forcing his tongue in her mouth, the report states.

The victim retaliated, and "bit his tongue as hard as she could until she heard it snap," she told police. That led to Miller moving away, screaming, she added.

The woman said Miller's tongue was still in her mouth, so she ran from her home and threw it on the kitchen floor. She made it to her car and drove until she found an open store so that she could call police.

As you'd expect a punk with a missing tongue wasn't very hard to find.

Nicely done darlin.

Liar of the Year

Move over Barry, Brian 'King of Liars' Williams is stealing your crown:

Below is a list of the things Williams has said over the years that are either proven lies, suspected lies, disputed by on-the-record eye witnesses, or contradicted by Williams himself. I lost count after 30. And I probably missed a few.

Below, I have copy and pasted directly from the sources linked. The quotes all belong to Williams. The descriptions of what Williams' said are written by the linked news source.

* * *

The Iraq RPG Helicopter Hit

- "A terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG." - NBC Nightly News, January 30, 2015

- "It was no more than 120 seconds later that the helicopter in front of us was hit." - Brian Williams to Tim Russert on CNBC, March 2005

- "I was instead following the aircraft" [that was struck by the RPG]. - NBC Nightly News, Wednesday February 5, 2015

- Williams' original [March 26, 2003, NBC News] report indicated that a helicopter in front of his was hit. - PolitiFact

- NBC publishes a book [in 2003], "Operation Iraqi Freedom," in which they describe Williams' experience, implying that his helicopter sustained fire. - PolitiFact

- May 2008: Williams writes another [NBC News] blog, responding to a note from a soldier who he met in Iraq. In this post, Williams indicates that he was in a helicopter that took fire. - PolitiFact

- "I've done some ridiculously stupid things under that banner, like being in a helicopter I had no business being in Iraq with rounds coming into the airframe," he said [to Alec Baldwin in March 2014] - PolitiFact

- "We were in some helicopters. What we didn't know was, we were north of the invasion. We were the northernmost Americans in Iraq. We were going to drop some bridge portions across the Euphrates so the Third Infantry could cross on them. Two of the four helicopters were hit, by ground fire, including the one I was in, RPG and AK-47. - Williams to Letterman on March 26, 2013 - PolitiFact.

- In the initial NBC broadcast where he described his 2003 Iraq reporting mission, embattled NBC anchor Brian Williams falsely claimed that "we saw the guy . . . [who] put a round through the back of a chopper," which he further and incorrectly claimed was "the Chinook [helicopter] in front of us." - Breitbart

- "We flew over a bridge. He waved to the lead pilot very kindly. With that someone else removed the tarp, stood up, and put a round through the back of a chopper missing the rear rotor by four or five feet." - To Tom Brokaw on March 26, 2003 - Breitbart

- "[Y]ou go back to Iraq, and I looked down the tube of an RPG that had been fired at us and it hit the chopper in front of ours." - Williams to Fairfield University in 2007 - Ace of Spades

SEAL Team 6 Tale

- "We have some idea which of our special operations teams carried this out," Williams said on "The Late Show With David Letterman" the day after the raid [May 2, 2011]. "It happens to be a team I flew into Baghdad with, on the condition that I would never speak of what I saw on the aircraft, what aircraft we were on, what we were carrying, or who we were after." - Huffington Post

- "Now, people might be hearing about SEAL Team 6," Williams said the next night, May 3, 2011, on "Nightly News." "I happen to have the great honor of flying into Baghdad with them at the start of the war." - Huffington Post

- "I flew into Baghdad, invasion plus three days, on a blackout mission at night with elements of SEAL Team 6, and I was told not to make any eye contact with them or initiate any conversation," Williams said. (Three days after the U.S. invasion would have been March 22, 2003, not April 9, 2003, which was the day Williams broadcasted from the Baghdad airport.) - To David Letterman in May of 2012 - Huffinton Post

- In the 2012 "Late Show" appearance, Williams also recalled carrying a box of Wheat Thins, which he said a hungry special operator dug into with a "hand the size of a canned ham." They got to talking, and Williams told the commando how much he admired his knife. "Darned if that knife didn't show up at my office a couple weeks later," Williams told Letterman. - Huffington Post

- "About six weeks after the Bin Laden raid, I got a white envelope and in it was a thank-you note, unsigned," Williams said on "Letterman" in January 2013. "And in it was a piece of the fuselage of the blown-up Black Hawk in that courtyard. Sent to me by one of my friends." - Huffington Post

- In February 2014, Williams elaborated on the helicopter gift in another media appearance, this time on the sports talk show hosted by Dan Patrick. "It's one of the toughest things to get," he said, "and the president has a piece of it as well . It's made of a material most people haven't seen or held in their hands." - Huffington Post

Fall of the Berlin Wall

- "I've been so fortunate," he said during a 2008 forum at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. "I was at the Brandenburg Gate the night the wall came down." - CNN

- "Here's a fact: 25 years ago tonight, Tom Brokaw and I were at the Berlin Wall," Williams said at a gala held on November 8, 2014. - CNN

The Pope

- "I was there during the visit of the pope," Williams said [in 2002]. - CNN

- While delivering the commencement address at Catholic University that year [2004], Williams said the "highlight" of his time at the school "was in this very doorway, shaking hands with the Holy Father during his visit to this campus." - CNN

Katyusha Rocket Fire

- "There were Katyusha rockets passing just beneath the helicopter I was riding in," he told a student interviewer from Fairfield (Conn.) University that year [2007]. - Washington Post

Katrina

- "All of us watched [in the Superdome] as one man committed suicide." - Williams to Tom Brokaw, at Columbia University in 2013.

-. My week, two weeks there was not helped by the fact that I accidentally ingested some of the floodwater. I became very sick with dysentery." - Williams to Tom Brokaw at Columbia University in 2013.

- "Our hotel was overrun with gangs. I was rescued in the stairwell of a five-star hotel in New Orleans by a young police officer - we are friends to this day." - Williams to Tom Brokaw at Columbia University in 2013.

- "When you look out of your hotel window in the French Quarter and watch a man float by face down, when you see bodies that you last saw in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, and swore to yourself that you would never see in your country," Williams told Eisner [in 2006], who suggested in the interview that Williams emerged from former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw's shadow with his Katrina coverage. - USA Today

- In Williams's telling, the pathos of the scene extended to his crew's access to food. "We were desperate for food and drink. But not like the people we were seeing in the streets," he said in the documentary "In His Own Words: Brian Williams on Hurricane Katrina." - Washington Post

Puppy Rescue

- "I remember one such house fire - the structure was fully involved with flames and smoke. I was wearing a breathing apparatus, conducting a search on my hands and knees, when I felt something warm, squishy and furry on the floor of a closet. I instinctively tucked it in my coat." - October 2011, USA Today

- "All I ever did as a volunteer fireman was once save two puppies." - January 2007, Esquire

Christmas Tree Robbery

In a 2005 interview with Esquire magazine, Williams said a thief drew on him in the 1970s - leaving him "looking up at a thug's snub-nosed .38 while selling Christmas trees out of the back of a truck." - NY Post

Quitting College

- "One day, I'm at the copy machine in the White House and Walter Mondale comes up behind me and clears his throat. A classic throat-clearing. I thought people only did that in movies, but it turns out vice-presidents do it, too. Anyway, it makes for an exceptionally good morning, and I run from the White House to the GW campus for class. I'm still wearing my West Wing hard pass on a chain, and when my professor sees it, he admits that he's only been to the White House on the public tour. And I thought to myself, This is costing me money that I don't have, and I'm a young man in too much of a hurry. So I left school." - Brian Williams to Esquire, 2005

- But then a friend invited him to drive to Washington, D.C., for a weekend, and everything changed. Smitten with the city and its youthful energy, Williams decided to move there. He transferred what credits he could from Brookdale to Catholic University and took a job in the public relations department to help pay his expenses. He landed an internship at the White House, and when that ended, he answered an ad for a clerking job at a broadcasting association. - 2009, New Jersey-Star Ledger

*****

"That's Brian being Brian" became the newsroom shorthand. - Washington Post

Excuse of the Year

Brian Williams is the gift who keeps on giving. We know this thanks to those yammering pests who infest every organization - including NBC News, obviously - 'unnamed insiders'. Here's how Moonbattery described it:

Embattled news anchor Brian Williams couldn't bring himself to admit he lied about coming under fire on a chopper in Iraq — so he instead wondered aloud if he had a brain tumor, a new report claims.

Several NBC News insiders told Vanity Fair that the fact-challenged Williams — who was suspended without pay for six months from his "Nightly News" gig — had trouble explaining what had happened.

"(He said,) 'Did something happen to (my) head? Maybe I had a brain tumor, or something in my head,'" a source told the magazine in its upcoming piece. "He just didn't know. We just didn't know. We had no clear sense what had happened. We got the best (apology) we could get."

The story also quotes a source who implies that Williams believes Brokaw is to blame for his sudden downfall: "I talked to Brian about this, and I'll never forget what he said at the end. He said, 'Chalk one up for Brokaw.'"

We the PIGs eagerly await Brian's next move. The Devil made him do it? Not yet, but it's still in play.

Capitalists of the Year

[Fox] The U.K.'s Advertising Standards Authority ruled that the online advertisement from Australian-based Premier Estates Wine, which used the cropped image of the woman's crotch with a wine glass in front of it "served to reduce the woman to merely a sexual object" and that the reference to oral sex in the hashtag would be clearly understood, which was in breach of the advertising code.

The ruling comes after several complaints, including from organizations like Wine Australia, which said that it was sexist and degrading towards women and the U.K-based Alcohol Concern, a non-profit that fights alcohol misuse.

The ad features an elegantly dressed woman singing the praises of the wine for its taste and affordability. She then places the glass down on a table in front of her crotch and says: "Australia practically jumps out of the glass. In fact, some say you can almost taste the bush."

The woman then looks awkwardly askance before picking up the glass and walking away.

Budge Brands, which trades as Premier Estates Wine, said that the campaign was targeted at "a mature 35- to 45-year-old, wine-drinking, audience and was intended to be playful and tongue-in-cheek."

Father of the Year

[BBC] Indian man takes daughter to school roped to motorcycle

The man was arrested after being photographed by passers-by.

Police in India have charged a man who took his eight-year-old daughter to school roped to his motorcycle.

The 40-year-old was arrested after local newspapers in Uttar Pradesh state published photos taken by passers-by. He has now been freed on bail.

Onlookers accuse the man of cruelty - he says his daughter had an exam and was reluctant to go to school.

The incident comes at a time when the prime minister has launched a huge campaign to educate girls in India.

It took place in a village in the district of Mathura on Friday.

The man, a father of two sons and three daughters, works as a security guard at a private school

Police say he tried to persuade the girl, his youngest child, to go to school, particularly since she had a test to write.

The child was promised sweets and gifts, but when she refused to relent, her angry father tied her to the back of his bike with ropes and took her to school.

He has been charged with breach of peace, Mathura superintendent of police Shailesh Pandey told the BBC.

The man spent a day in the cells but still believes he did the right thing.

"My daughter will not die if I take her to school. But she will surely die if she does not study," he told the Times of India.

India has a female literacy rate of 64%, compared with 81% for men. Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently launched a campaign asking parents to educate their girls.

Campaigners say going to school is still a distant dream for many girls, especially in rural India, and that many parents think it is not necessary to educate their daughters.

Billboard of the Year - Foreign

NAPLES, Italy, March 11 (UPI) -- An Italian company said no blasphemy was intended by erecting a Naples billboard featuring a topless model dressed as a nun ahead of a planned papal visit.

Clothing company Rosso di Sera came under fire from Naples natives when it erected a billboard recently featuring a topless model wearing a nun's habit and holding a rosary. The model's breasts are covered by her arms.

Some have accused the company of blasphemy ahead of a planned March 21 visit to Naples by Pope Francis.

The company released a statement saying the billboard had been planned long before the pope's visit was announced.

"We recognize that we have made a strong marketing choice but there was no intent to blaspheme," the statement said. "Trivializing the act of prayer was not the intention in any way."

The statement said the company "strongly regrets being accused of things extremely far from our values and our culture."

Billboard of the Year - Domestic

Have you seen our 2014 Golden Oinks of the Year?