Jessica Alba is in the middle of an internet feud with TMZ and Bill O'Reilly and anybody else she deems to call "kind of an asshole" after she got testy at the Obama inaugural and told a reporter to be "Be Sweden, Be neutral."
TMZ and Big Bill ripped on the ditz for mistaking Switzerland for Sweden but then she struck back, blogging on her MySpace page that - like duh! - she read it on Wikipedia that Sweden is neutral too~!
Despite the fact that any kid that cites Wikipedia as a reliable source would should be flunked out of school, it depends on what your definition of neutral in war is.
Alba wrote: ".. I want to clear some things up that have been bothering me lately. I find it depressing that in the midst of perhaps the most salient time in our country's history, individuals are taking it upon themselves to encourage negativity and stupidity. Last week, Mr. Bill O'Reilly and some really classy sites (i.e.TMZ) insinuated I was dumb by claiming Sweden was a neutral country. I appreciate the fact that he is a news anchor and that gossip sites are inundated with intelligent reporting, but seriously people...it's so sad to me that you think the only neutral country during WWII was Switzerland. Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_during_World_War_II if you want to see what I was referring to."
Except the Swiss weren't exactly 100% neutral. Swiss banks kept the gold after their Jewish customers were killed in the Holocaust, then the Swiss banks converted gold into currency for the Nazis to finance Germany's war efforts, and then the Swiss banks quietly kept Nazi and Jewish gold and other valuables after the war because, well, everyone was dead. Bankers keepers!
As for cowardly neutral Sweden, allowing the German army to use the railroads to move back and forth between Norway and Finland, and buy resources on credit, again, hell's bells! Right you are Jess. Sweden sat out the war and was "neutral" as was Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.
Actually, Sweden's neutrality during WWII is irrelevant. It doesn't make the statement "Be Sweden" any less ditzy.
But if you run around and say something like "Be Sweden" long enough, maybe it could eventually become ... a Wikipedia entry!
