Strange & Stupid: Amusing News

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - An Iraqi town has unveiled a giant monument of a shoe in honor of the journalist who threw his footwear at former U.S. President George W. Bush.

The two-meter (six-foot) high statue, unveiled on Thursday in former dictator Saddam Hussein’s home town of Tikrit, depicts a bronze-colored shoe, filled with a plastic shrub. “Muntazer: fasting until the sword breaks its fast with blood; silent until our mouths speak the truth,” reads an inscription, in honor of journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi, who hurled his shoes at Bush and called him a “dog” at a news conference during the former president’s final visit to Iraq.

Fatin Abdul Qader, head of an orphanage and children’s organization in the town, said the one-and-a-half-tonne monument by artist Laith al-Amiri was titled “statue of glory and generosity.”

“This statue is the least expression of our appreciation for Muntazer al-Zaidi, because Iraqi hearts were comforted by his throw,” she said.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Resource-poor Japan just discovered a new source of mineral wealth — sewage.

A sewage treatment facility in central Japan has recorded a higher gold yield from sludge than can be found at some of the world’s best mines. An official in Nagano prefecture, northwest of Tokyo, said the high percentage of gold found at the Suwa facility was probably due to the large number of precision equipment manufacturers in the vicinity that use the yellow metal. The facility recently recorded finding 1,890 grammes of gold per tonne of ash from incinerated sludge.

That is a far higher gold content than Japan’s Hishikari Mine, one of the world’s top gold mines, owned by Sumitomo Metal Mining Co Ltd, which contains 20-40 grammes of the precious metal per tonne of ore.

The prefecture is so far due to receive 5 million yen ($55,810) for the gold, minus expenses.

It expects to earn about 15 million yen for the fiscal year to the end of March from the gold it has retrieved from the ashes of incinerated sludge.

“How much we actually receive will depend on gold prices at the time,” the official said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters Life!) - Trophy wives are angry. Their clothing allowance has been halved, they’ve had to fire their personal trainers and their sex lives have tanked.
Who are these downtrodden? The wives and girlfriends of bankers. And now they have a website through which to share their tribulations.

Dating A Banker Anonymous
Not sure if its a marketing stunt of not, but it is fabulous.

“The sitter’s hours are cut, both the family and my private credit card are cut in half, and I’m switching from having my facials and massages in my earthy, yoga-and-wine serving downtown spa to a midtown been-in-business-forever place with ladies in cubbies wearing pink jackets and lots of make-up giving facials only,” says one entry from Cathy, who wrote about life in Manhattan with a banker husband whose income was cut in January by 75 percent.

TOKYO (Reuters) - A blaze broke out at a fire station in Japan this week after a firefighter left a cooking stove burning as crew members left the station to respond to emergency calls.

Most of the duty staffers were out on a call when their colleague, alone at the station and cooking dinner for the crew, was himself called out.

In his haste to respond to the call, he forgot to turn the stove off, said Seiji Hori, a Nagoya City Fire Department official. Ten fire trucks from other stations put out the fire, Hori added.

“We are an institute that should be in a position to educate people about fire, so we are extremely sorry that such an incident happened,” Hori said, adding that they would consider ordering-in for dinner from now on.

January 26, 2009 - As if you did not utilize it enough in your spare time, there is a new reason to stay home and jerk off…..even better than technicolor.

Hong Kong filmmakers are in the planning stages for their upcoming pornographic movie, 3D Sex and Zen, which will begin filming in April. With a budget of $4 million, the project is actually a remake of the original Sex and Zen movie, one of Hong Kong’s best known erotic films. 3D! Sex! Sex in 3D!

“Just imagine that you’ll be watching it as if you were sitting beside the bed,” Producer Stephen Shiu Jnr told the Sunday Morning Post. “There will be many close-ups. It will look as if the actresses are only a few centimetres from the audience.”

A special effects company, one that has worked on blockbusters including The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D, is being brought in to produce the 3D imagery for the film. While other markets will probably just get a home version, in Hong Kong this cinematic masterpiece will be released in theaters. Bring it on, Paul Reiser.

A financial crisis is forcing Brandeis University to close the school’s 48-year-old Rose Art Museum in September and to sell off a prized collection of contemporary American art, the university announced today.
To read more, visit boston.com

Businesspundit.com- A first grade girl handed in the drawing below for a homework assignment.

After it was graded and the child brought it home, she returned to school the next day with the following note:

Dear Ms. Davis,

I want to be very clear on my child’s illustration. It is NOT of me on a dance pole on a stage in a strip joint. I work at Home Depot and had commented to my daughter how much money we made in the recent snowstorm. This photo is of me selling a shovel.

Mrs. Harrington

Four Australian teenagers have been charged with attacking an almost blind greater flamingo that is believed to be the oldest bird of its kind in the world.

The flamingo’s head and beak were injured and it was bleeding from an eye after the attack at Adelaide Zoo that left it in a critical condition, zoo staff said.

“The bird arrived at the zoo in 1933 and was a mature bird at that stage,” a spokeswoman for the zoo told AFP. “So although we don’t know it’s exact age it is at least 75 years old — much older than they grow in the wild.”

The zoo’s website describes the bird as “undoubtedly the oldest flamingo in the world,” adding that despite its great age its quality of life was very good.

Police said four men aged between 17 and 19 were charged with aggravated ill-treatment of an animal and released on bail to appear in court at a later date.

State police say an upstate New York college campus policeman was helping himself to free pastries at a local convenience store.

The Valero Nice N Easy offers free coffee to any police officer in uniform.

Sgt. Steve Brody of the Morrisville State College University Police stopped daily to buy a newspaper and pick up a free cup of coffee. He also routinely stuffed a pastry into his coat.
Brody is now accused of taking about $30 worth of pastries over at least 17 separate occasions.

Brody, 55, of Morrisville, was ticketed for petit larceny. Troopers say they have surveillance videos.