It's been a grim time for pigs.

First they were blamed for the swine flu that caused a worldwide stir after it was discovered in Mexico -- and now everyone's likening them to Members of Parliament with their snouts in the trough.

But look at the facts. The genetic make-up of the virus may have been predominantly porcine but the pigs themselves didn't have it. Even at the supposed epicentre of the outbreak in Mexico they showed no symptoms -- things reached such a state that owners of some pig farms in the US were stopping humans coming near them in case they infected their animals. The pigs were innocent OK?

And yet the name "swine flu" stuck, lots of people stopped eating pork and in Egypt they were even culled.

Now this. The image changes from dirty to greedy as all the cartoonists portray our expenses-hungry MPs as curly-tailed pinstriped pigs, shedding wads of notes from their pockets as they pile into the trough.

Experts say pigs are in fact sociable, clever animals. They clear ground, fertilise it, eat vegetable waste and then make the ultimate sacrifice for our bacon sandwiches.

As the fashion of the moment seems to be saying "sorry" for everything, perhaps we should offer our apologies to the pigs -- what about a statue of a Gloucestershire Old Spot on the vacant plinth in Trafalgar Square?

At least San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has the good grace to look a little bit sheepish when he offers San Franciscans the opportunity to watch him talk city politics for SIX HOURS on YouTube video.

The mayor of the liberal, tech-friendly California city has broken the ’state of the city’ speech into a handful of roughly 40-minute YouTube video segments which offers “the opportunity for you to spend one minute with me, one hour — as much as five or six hours if you choose,” he says in the intro.

Known for his support of gay marriage, Newsom delves into nearly every other issue, including a five-year plan.

“Just what I wanted,” said Aaron Peskin, outgoing president of the Board of Supervisors, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “Somebody imitating Al Gore for 7 1/2 hours. The guy did a Fidel Castro.”

Web watchers have given many videos high ratings, although a few days after launch only about 10,000 had watched even the 1-minute intro, and no one had posted a comment on YouTube.

Still, it’s early days yet. Gems like “Emergency Planning” are still to come.

Two among the 117 million of you MySpace users will get to cover the Republican and Democratic National Conventions later this year as citizen journalists (oh, how we hate that term!).

All you have to do is submit a short video piece starting June 26 to MySpace and NBC News’s Decisions ‘08 page answering three questions:

•  ”Why do you vote?”
•  ”Why are you the best person for this job?”
• “How will you stand out in the crowd and get the scoop no one else can?”

A panel from MySpace and NBC News will narrow the submissions down to five finalists. The final two will be selected by MySpace members starting July 21. The winner will be announced on July 29.

Personally, we’d like to see at least one of the winners come from a non-U.S. region to lend the coverage a more international perspective. Failing that, perhaps someone will step forward to complete the assignment in a chicken costume.

(Photo: MySpace)

The wireless industry’s clout attracted former U.S. presidents last year, but this year it was just enough to lure the former wannabes.

This year’s headline keynote speakers at the CTIA annual industry showcase were former presidential candidates John Edwards and Fred Thompson? Last year the wireless show nabbed Former actual Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton as keynote speakers.

After lamenting lost chances and nodding to the increasing importance of technology in campaigns, both politicians then got busy criticizing how the mainstream media has handled the presidential campaign so far.

Edwards spent a good deal of his keynote discussing how voters, despite wall to wall coverage of the campaign, seemed largely ignorant of the remaining hopefuls’ John McCain (R), Barack Obama (D) and Hillary Clinton (D) differing approaches to issues such as global warming, national security or health care.

“What you’d expect is a more informed electorate,” said Edwards in answer a question about the impact of 24-hour media  coverage of the campaigns.
“Unfortunately that’s not the case,” he said during the questions session after his keynote.

“There is so much focus on the superficial. The American people deserve better. You deserve to be better informed than that,” said Edwards before refusing to reveal who he would vote for and saying that he would not consider a nomination for vice-president.

Thompson was equally contemptuous of the mainstream media campaign coverage. 
“There’s nothing more dangerous than a writer or a television personality with dead airtime he’s got to fill up,” said the former actor.

“Controversy is the name of the game and sometimes it’s generated when it’s not really there,” he said of coverage of the campaign so far.  “We’re seeing it in these campaigns, the good side and the bad side of these new ways to communicate,” said Thompson.

In his speech he referred  to the double-edged sword of blogs and services like Twitter, which lets users send updates to a large group of people.

However, neither seemed to blame the media for their failure to win nominations for the top job. Thompson blamed his failure on his taking advice that he should “be himself.”  Edwards said, “If some of you voted for me it wasn’t enough of you.”

(Photo: Sinead Carew / John Edwards (top); Fred Thompson (bottom)