Have you heard the story about the bridge in Hungary that almost been named after Chuck Norris? That is not a joke, even Reuters covered the story. How can this happen? Well the power of online communities as the naming procedure is partly based on an online voting system. Poorly.

So it seems another heavyweight American stepped into the ring to try to get a bridge named after himself: Stephen Colbert. He used his show to gather supporting votes. And not without a success. As Colbert very well pointed out in his show the 17 million votes he received is 7 million more than the total population of Hungary . Try to beat that Hungarians .

Go ahead, watch these clips, but as Pestiside comments: “Just make sure that when you do there are no Hungarians anywhere nearby.”

To a certain extent I even found the idea and the presentation amusing. But I just wish that piece would not be the most covered news about my country in the western media. Also Colbert probably stepped over a line when calling one of the Hungarian historical figures an “asshole”, for which actually he apologized in a later show (you can see this in one of the above linked pices.)

It interesting to see also that the name “Perl-Script Bridge” has also received one and a half million votes (probably thanks to a programmer with too much time at his/her hand). “Jon Stewart Bridge” also got 61 thousand, though I haven’t seen him campaigning, so these might come from some anti-Colbert voters.

What do some Hungarian bloggers think about this whole strange issue?
Furamadar wrote:
“The vote system of the new bridge is a fool idea from a fool government. Yes, our Prime Minister and the minister of economy are working on create of the real Absurdistan…
I hope, you don’t think all of Hungarians are so mad…”

Human Insect tells us:
“Although it is funny that after the foreign press published the news about the possibility of the Chuck Norris bridge, “Szent István” took the lead in a single night.”(Henrik’s note: Szent István in English would be Saint Stephen and he was the first king of Hungary.)
He adds: “BUT that they have not even been able to wire an IP filter into the voting page is hilarious, or rather just a typical governmental project.”

Andrea points out a different aspect:
“Meanwhile everyone forgets the more important points. When is the bridge going to be completed? Why is the construction 8 months behind schedule? How much does this going to cost us?”

(Some of the referenced blogs are in English)

Tags:
Bridge
Naming
Norris
Colbert