Every week, the PIG staff buries the hatchet - invariably in one another - and sits down for our weekly 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 2008.

PIG's Golden Oinks Selection Committee singles out the following individuals and/or groups for special PIG attention.

Pistol Packing Mama of the Week: There was something that the 18-year old housebreaker didn’t know, something so important that it might have prompted him to take his desperado antics elsewhere. The good news is that he knows now. The bad news is that his reality check was, as so many of them are, a painful one.

The desperado’s road to enlightenment started, when he removed a window air conditioner and broke into a Decatur (Alabama) home. Once inside, he learned the hard way that his intended victim, 69 year old Ethel Jones, exercises her 2nd Amendment rights, by keeping and bearing a firearm under her pillow.

When Ethel woke up to find her uninvited guest in her bedroom, she didn’t waste time exchanging pleasantries. Instead, she taught the intruder the error of his ways, by grabbing her gun and shooting the young fool in the stomach.

Congratulations, Ethel, we like your style. Your lesson in inalienable liberty makes you our pistol packing (Grand) mama of the week.

Recycling Retard of the Week: I know we’ve been down this road, several times, but - call me names if you must - these epics never get old. If it makes you feel better, think of this one as a cautionary tale which exposes the dark underbelly of recycling.

The hero of our story - we’ll call him Scrounger - hailed from a wide spot on a southern Vietnamese road named Long Duc. If you’re a student of the Vietnam War, you’re no doubt aware that, back in the day, Long Duc was a communist stronghold which was the bull’s-eye for repeated artillery bombardments by Uncle Sam and his South Vietnamese allies. As a result, there is a lot of leftover ordinance in Long Duc, making it a treasure trove for scrap metal wranglers like our hero Scrounger.

This week, Scrounger evicted himself from the human gene pool, with a resounding BANG, while he was cutting into an artillery shell. Eager but clueless, Scrounger got the thrilling ‘you’re outta here, human gene pool volunteer, Sparky’ news, when the shell, better late than never, fulfilled its prime function. The belated explosion killed Scrounger and seriously wounded Mrs. Scrounger.

Mark this one ‘going out with a BANG’ on your HGPI scorecard.

Solution of the Week: After trying, and failing, to stop prostitutes from performing their pay for play booty calls, by conventional means, the police in Zurich (Switzerland, DUH) resorted to some unconventional means. How? They borrowed an idea that is up and running in German cities like Essen and Cologne, which involves deploying "sex boxes" in the relevant parts of the city.

A sex box is car size alcove which is surrounded by opaque walls. It’s not as good as ‘get a room, horndog’, but it’s much better than having a hooker completing her transaction in public. It’s also much more cost effective, than the public hooker sweeps which never seem to get the job done. We the PIGs like this one enough to salute European authorities for their enlightened approach to this problem.

Inconvenient Truth of the Week: If you listened to the relentless, Islamikaze, caterwauling, you’d be convinced that there’s a tidal wave of Great Satan hate that has been threatening to engulf the relentlessly ‘peaceful’ Jihadikazes. The Mecca Maniac whiners, who are just trying to get along with their hate-filled American neighbors, insist that the situation has never been worse. In fact, they say that they are the most ‘hated’ group in America. Blah, blah, blah.

It’s a real deal three-hankie story, but there’s just one pesky problem with it. It’s not true. A posting on the Fox Nation site included these inconvenient - for America’s embedded Islamikazes with an agenda - truths:

FBI Data: Hate Crimes Against Muslims Rare
Hate crimes directed against Muslims remain relatively rare, notwithstanding the notoriety gained by incidents such as recent vandalism at the Madera Islamic Center.

Jews, lesbians, gay men and Caucasians, among others, are all more frequently the target of hate crimes, FBI records show. Reported anti-Muslim crimes have declined over recent years, though they still exceed what occurred prior to the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

There was a brief ‘bump’ - a record setting 481 in 2001 - in ‘anti-Muslim hate crimes’ after the 9/11 attacks, but since then, FBI data shows the incidents are much, much, lower. For example, there were only 108 such incidents in 2008.

When whitey is subjected to more ‘hate crimes’ than Whiney al-Towel Head, life is good, and al-Towel Head needs to stop bitching and get on with it.

Unintended Consequence of the Week: Our heroine is a Kiwi woman, Lisa Marie Thompson, who continues to thrill her Upper Hutt neighbors with her head-turning license tag. The chronically offended Kiwis continue to bombard the NZTA (New Zealand Transportation Agency) with their complaints, but, so far, the bureaucrats steadfastly refuse to black flag Lisa’s tag, citing the New Zealand Bill of Rights and its freedom of speech guarantee.

The fun started, while Lisa was besotted with her boyfriend, Andrew Ryan. Eager to let the world know that he was her man, Lisa decided to put his name on her license plate. Since space is severely limited, Lisa considered her options, before deciding to use the ‘A’ from Andrew plus his last name ‘Ryan’. A. RYAN? Who could possibly object to a personalized tag like that? Who indeed.

It never occurred to Lisa that ARYAN has another, more infamous, meaning, one that is saturated with white supremacy and Hitler’s master race mayhem. Needless to say, the usual suspects were, are, and will continue to be, unamused by Lisa’s ARYAN1 tag. They’ll need to cope, somehow, because the personalized plate still rocks Lisa’s world, despite the fact that she and Andrew Ryan, who inspired it, are no longer an item.

If Lisa can live with the unintended consequences of her license tag tribute to her old boyfriend, so can the chronically offended cretins who really need to get over it.

PIG’s Life’s A Real BLAST Award: Since the Daily Mail decided to protect this fool’s identity, we’ll play along, but calling him ‘HoneyDo’.

This utterly PIGish adventure began, when our hero’s domestic bliss hit a creepy crawly ‘EEK, there’s an icky spider in the bathroom’ speed bump. Was HoneyDo up to the challenge? I’ll let you be the judge.

HoneyDo started off in grand style, when he armed himself with an aerosol can of insecticide. Armed and dangerous, HoneyDo doused the area behind the toilet, where the spider was lurking. After unleashing a generous quantity of ‘kiss your ass goodbye, spider pest’ spray, HoneyDo paused to determine if his antics were effective. That’s when this award winning epic reached critical mass.

At this point, we need to bring you up to speed on the essentials. The bathroom is small. With nowhere to go, the bug spray saturated the air in the room. Finally, and most important of all, the bathroom light wasn’t working. Needing to assess the damage that he inflicted on that spider, HoneyDo decided to put some light on the subject. How? He got out his cigarette lighter, then flicked his BIC, setting off an explosion so powerful that it knocked HoneyDo on his ass and blew the door to the loft off its hinges.

At press time, the fate of the spider is undetermined. HoneyDo’s fate is, you’ll be thrilled to learn, a matter of public record: flash burns to his head, legs, and torso. Nice work, pyro punk.

Mistaken Identity of the Week: It’s impossible to determine who was the most gobsmacked, when some weed wranglers walked up to a pair of Mexifornia State Department of Fish and Game wardens, in the Shasta Trinity National Forest. Although they were hunting for deer poachers, on that Monday night, the game wardens returned home with much bigger game.

The fun started, when five men approached the wardens from behind. They were loaded down with large, military style, duffle bags, plus some sleeping bags. Since it was nighttime, and the weed wranglers weren’t expecting a game warden visit, they mistook the wardens for their pot farming cohorts.

The slack jawed wardens stood staring, while the 5 weed wranglers walked up to them and dropped their bags of harvested weed in the bed of the wardens' truck. Up to the challenge, the two wardens made their move, managing to bag, tag, and drag, two of the weed wranglers to a local graybar.

If you’re bummed that 3 of the weed wranglers got away, get over it. I think their two graybar dwelling cohorts are the lucky ones. How would you like to explain to a pot farmer that you handed over his harvested product to a pair of game wardens, who just happened to be in the right place, at the right time?

Hero of the Week: On August 28, 2010, the friends and family of Staff Sgt. Michael Bock gathered at First United Methodist Church in Omaha (Nebraska, DUH), to say their final farewells to this American warrior. Staff Sgt. Bock died, on August 13, 2010, while he was deployed in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. He died in defense of our liberty and the least we owe him is our heartfelt thanks, and our respect.

Unfortunately, Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist assholes were on the scene, aiming their vitriol at this American warrior who died defending our country. Standing by the side of the road, one short block from the church, they were spreading their putrid pleasantries, while, across the street, counter protesters did their best to honor Staff Sgt. Bock.

We’ve seen this play out, countless times, and it’s rarely PIG-worthy. I’m delighted to report that business as usual flew out the window, when a rugged American individual named George Vogel (age 62) arrived on the scene. Driving up to the Westboro Baptist turds in his Ford-150 pickup truck, George shoved a large can of pepper spray out his truck's window and unleashed it on Fred Phelps' motley band of haters. George gave the them a generous snootful of pepper spray, before going on his merry way.

Unlike the Omaha cops, who busted George for 16 counts of misdemeanor assault and one count of felony assault, the entire PIGdom is on its feet giving George a standing ovation. Staff Sgt. Bock is probably on his feet in the hereafter, saluting George for his daring, one man, raid on Westboro Baptist’s festering sores on humanity’s butt.

You’re a hero, George. Instead of a trial, you deserve the key to the city and a tickertape parade.

Conspiracy Theory of the Week: For some reason, Ron Paul is obsessed with the Federal Reserve and Uncle Sam’s monetary policy. He’s so off the deep end into his Quixotean tilting of this monetary policy windmill, that he’s demanding some PIG-worthy show and tell.

It’s not breaking news, when a Congresspunk demands an investigation. It’s still not ‘stop the presses’ time, when a Congressman introduces legicrap to make the relevant government cabal put up, or shut up. What put this one into the Golden Oinks bull’s-eye is WHY Ron Paul is demanding some meaningful show and tell from the Federal Reserve. What is it? You’re going to be thrilled.

Ron Paul is convinced that the gold reserves in Fort Knox and the New York Federal Reserve bank are a myth. He thinks they’re long gone, and his bill will force the Federal Reserve to conduct an audit of Uncle Sam’s gold reserves. Normally, I’d suggest that they simply take Ronny by the hand and SHOW him the gold, but I’m not convinced that would get the job done. When you’re as addicted to tinfoil headgear as Ron Paul is, there’s no amount of proof that will convince him that he’s got his conspiracy theory head up his ass...again.

Parting shot: I’d be much more sympathetic to Ron’s ‘there ain’t no gold in them there vaults’ conspiracy theory, if he served up a plausible explanation. Such as? Now, if Ron told me that Michelle Obama had it emptied out to support her shopping demons, I’d be compelled to give credence to Ron’s bloviating. Lacking that, I’ll simply assume that Ron Paul is off his meds...again.

Deadly Apparition of the Week: A group of southern-fried paranormal investigators took their show on the road, the railroad, to investigate the ghost train which makes regular appearances in Iredell County (North Carolina). The focal point of their inquiry is a railroad bridge, where a passenger train careened off the tracks, in 1891, killing 30 people.

If all went according to plan, the ghost hunters would have a close encounter with the train, which, according to local legends, appears every year, on the anniversary of the crash. This year, when the ghost hunters convened on Bostian’s Bridge, their timing was...exceptional. Why? Because they did have a VERY close encounter with a train, while they lurked on the bridge. Unfortunately, for these paranormal pursuing pinheads, the train in question was NOT an apparition, but was, as ghost hunter Christopher Kaiser found out the hardest possible way, terrifyingly real.

If they heard the train coming, the ghost train seekers misinterpreted it. At the last possible minute, when that killjoy, objective reality, reared its head, they fled for their lives, with some of them jumping off the bridge and taking that 40 foot fall. All of them made it, except for Christopher, whose human gene pool improvement application was stamped ‘accepted’, when the train turned him into railroad kill.

Question: If the legendary ghost train appears next year, will Christopher Kaiser be one of the passengers? It’s Enquiring minds time in the PIGdom.

Capitalists of the Week: That pernicious pest, the infamous Brit Busybody, is up to their usual tricks. Unable to simply get over it, they are setting their hair on fire, over an utterly PIGish advertising campaign that’s perpetrated by the ice cream wrangling Brit capitalists at Antonio Federici. What, you ask, are these guilty food pleasure wrangling capitalists doing to knot Brit Busybody knickers? You’re going to be thrilled.

The marketing gurus at Antonio Federici decided to build a show-stopping ad campaign which regaled the viewer with the "implied forbidden Italian temptations" of desserts like Antonio Federici Gelato Italiano". How, you ask, did they choose to do that? How indeed:

Two ice cream adverts, one showing a pregnant nun and the other two male priests about to kiss, are facing a ban by the advertising watchdog after offending Roman Catholics.

The provocative slogan ‘immaculately conceived’ appears on the image of the nun eating from a pot of Antonio Federici Gelato Italiano.

Meanwhile, the picture of two men in cassocks and clerical collars, embracing with their lips inches apart, bears the words ‘we believe in salivation’. (Daily Mail)

Those professional scolds, the fun-hating asshats at the Brit Advertising Standards Authority, decided to ‘look into it’, after the Brit busybodies started caterwauling about these devilishly clever ads.

Will the Advertising Standards Authority killjoys black flag the ads? Perhaps. Will the folks at Antonio Federici weep crocodile tears and spew whoppers about the money they’ll lose, if they’re forced to yank the ads? Probably. Will the free advertising bonanza have Antonio Federici laughing all the way to the bank. You better believe it, Sparky

Excuse of the Week: Our hero is a 20-year-old Utah denizen whom we'll call Pitch. Why ‘Pitch’? Because I’m giving my usual monikers a day off, plus, our hero is in the sales racket, where success comes down to making a good sales-pitch to your customer.

Eager to amass the requisite cash reserves needed to land his dream job, Pitch opted for the quick profits, which are part and parcel of the drug trade. Things were going along nicely, until Pitch became a victim of his own success. That’s right, somebody finally ratted Pitch out to the cops, who took a hint and paid a visit on our hero’s home.

After a search of the premises turned up Pitch’s sales merchandise - weed - drug paraphernalia, a stolen firearm and a controlled substance (pills), the officers finally found time to have a chat with Pitch. It was during this exchange of pleasantries that Pitch served up his award-winning excuse: "I’m dealing drugs to save up for a shot at the police academy."

Nice try, but no Cigar Pitch.

Have you seen our 2009 Golden Oinks of the Year?