A new poll shows that Obama is at his highest popularity rating since 2009, his first year in office. There’s no real joke here (unless you want to say “Suck it Bush”) but it is nice to see a return to reality. Despite the best brainwashing attempts of Republicans, it looks like people finally remember who was really responsible for that lousy economy, and who’s the one correcting it.
As popular as Obama is, a once-cherished brand (Coca-Cola) is under fire for racism charges. What did they do that’s so racist?…uhhh…well, apparently one of their commercials featured an Arab with a camel in the desert and the Arab Defamation League wasn’t so happy about it. I mean…I wish I could see their point, but I really don’t. It seems like not that long ago that the only Arabs you saw in entertainment were plotting terrorist attacks, so I can’t say a rich sheik in the desert with his own camel is really that offensive.
The New York Times reports that Chinese hackers have tried to hack into their servers several times since they posted a story about Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s family amassing a hidden fortune of nearly 3 billion dollars. The government says it’s pure Western propaganda, but what the fuck else are they going to say? “Yep, our top leader is as corrupt as anywhere else in the world, and even though we’re phony faux-communists that really just care about control, please don’t report about our top leader’s private fortune.” Either way, if the story isn’t true, why are they retaliating over it?
Anti-Asshole of the Week: Australia’s Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. Australia is one of those crazy countries that has no set election date, and the RULING party gets to set the date when elections are held. While usually the incumbent party sets a date only a month in advance to make for an unfair advantage, current PM Julia Gillard showed a lot of class in saying the elections will be held September 14th, setting up an 8-month campaigning schedules. And, for what it’s worth, she’s clearly the better candidate in the race too, and I hope she wins re-election. That’s right, one of Alabama’s only liberal political blogs is endorsing the Australian prime minister for re-election, I’m sure that will make a big difference for her…
Asshole of the Week: A pastor who shamefully stiffed a waiter on a tip. A waiter posted a receipt on Reddit where the pastor———who ate with a party of 20———–wrote a note on the bill, complaining of the automatic gratuity on parties of 10 or more. He gave the waiter NOTHING, and wrote on the check “I give God ten percent, why do you get 18?” What an asshole…Although I’m not that surprised. As a former waiter myself, the worst tippers I ever had were either alcoholics in the smoking section (all their money goes to booze and smokes apparently) or the “church folks” who went out of their way to make sure you knew they just came from church…while stiffing you when the tip comes. I used to hate working sunday afternoons because of this.