MEXICO CITY—American tourist Michael Anderson expressed amazement Monday at the vast number of Mexicans populating Mexico City. “I guess it’s obvious that the city would have a lot of Mexicans, but I wasn’t mentally prepared for it,” Anderson said. “I mean, really—they were everywhere. Tons of them. On every street corner. They were just everywhere.” Last year, Anderson experienced similar culture-shock at the number of Asians in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
Bethesda, MD — President Bush is considering a major shift in his stance on the hot-button issue of gay marriage after he underwent his annual physical at National Naval Medical Center this week. A major portion of the examination was a prostate exam, which medical personnel on the scene described as “exhaustive.”
A White House source confirms that the President has “suddenly changed his entire way of thinking about this issue,” and that the President’s “eyes have been opened.”
Dr. Richard J. Tubb, who performed the delicate prostate examination on President Bush, said that it was an honor to ensure the President’s health. “I was nervous about this procedure, because how often do you have the President of the United States in this vulnerable of a position? My training taught me to just take the task slowly, carefully, and affectionately,” said Dr. Tubb.
“You have very soft, gentle hands,” remarked the President to Dr. Tubb during the procedure, according to nurses in the examination room. In an unusual scheduling move, President Bush will undergo another physical later this week. A receptionist at the National Naval Medical Center confirmed that Bush requested the additional appointment himself for unspecified reasons.
A 22-year-old woman in Oslo was shocked when she received her divorce papers in the mail as she was not aware that she had been registered as married to a Pakistani man for a year. The woman’s wallet was stolen in Oslo three years ago. She claims the man used her ID to arrange a fake marriage. According to the divorce papers, they got married at Islamic Cultural Centre in Oslo in November of 2002. The 22-year-old woman said she thinks the man used a Norwegian woman as a stand-in at the actual wedding ceremony.
“I’m in shock,” the woman explained. “I have never married and I didn’t understand what was happening.”
Imam Maulana Mehboob-ur-Rehman in the congregation said that they are very careful that the people who get married have their papers in order and has no idea how this could have happened. He said he thinks the man has tricked both the woman and the congregation. The 22-year-old is trying to get the marriage declared invalid. She has filed a formal complaint, but the police have dropped the case because they have not managed to locate the man in question. The woman and her lawyer have not managed that either. The man allegedly operates with several names in Norway.
NEW YORK—According to a study published by the Popular Culture Research Group Monday, the majority of American citizens are out of touch with mainstream American society.
“We’re not sure, at this point, whether this is a new trend or a continuation of an old trend,” PCRG consultant Paul Van Lamm said. “All we know right now is that 70 to 85 percent of Americans are unfamiliar with, unaware of, or just plain don’t care about what the American people are watching on television, seeing at the movie theater, listening to on their radios, wearing, rooting for, falling in love with all over again, or downloading.”
According to Van Lamm, 71 percent of U.S. citizens polled had no interest in NASCAR racing, America’s fastest-growing sport. Van Lamm added that 69 percent of poll respondents said they did not have a single Hispanic friend, in spite of the fact that Hispanics are the nation’s fastest-growing minority group. Additionally, the majority of poll respondents did not see the final episode of Friends, television’s most-watched sitcom.”It’s disturbing,” Van Lamm said. “I’m uncomfortable with the number of U.S. citizens who have no interest in what interests the greater part of their fellow citizens.”
NEW HAVEN, CT—Mindy Neuberg, 29, ignored an instance of sexual harassment “just to avoid the hassle,” the attractive writer reported Tuesday.
“This bouncer at Sweeney’s pulled me out of the line to ‘frisk me for weapons,’ and after calling me ‘sweet-cheeks,’ he spent way too much time checking me for a gun,” Neuberg said. “I should have complained, but I would’ve had to get his name, find the manager, and make my case… It just didn’t seem worth it.”
Neuberg said that her decision to drop the issue was also influenced by the fact that, “after getting publicly felt up by some meathead,” she really needed to get to the bar for a gin and tonic.
10. Cheney’s official white house parking space is now in West Virginia
9. Latest bumper stickers read: “vote for Bush and (to be determined)”
8. CIA says it has indisputable evidence that Cheney will remain on the ticket
7. Cheney’s been asking crooked oil companies if they have any job openings
6. All the white house defibrillator stations have been removed
5. Cheney’s new I.D. card reads “valid through next Tuesday”
4. G.O.P. has spent 20 million dollars on campaign commercials giving exact location of Cheney’s undisclosed location
3. Rumsfeld keeps jumping out at him from behind doors yelling, “boo!”
2. As with all major decisions, he’s asked Cheney to figure out the best way to terminate the Vice President
1. Bush asked his dad if he still has Quayle’s number
The man was travelling with his daughter on the Intercity train which departed from Stockholm shortly after noon Monday. At 2:30 p.m. the train stopped at Hallsberg. The man used the opportunity to take a smoke on the platform, however, before he had finished his cigarette the train pulled out.
“He did the unwise thing to jump on and was hanging on the last car,” said Magnus Andersson, media contact at Svenska Jernvägar. “He managed to hang on for 15 to 20 minutes. When the train personnel discovered this, they pulled the emergency brake and got him inside.”
According to the paper, it was the man’s 9-year-old daughter who made the train personnel aware of the situation when she asked for her father. The girl talked to the conductor, explained Stina Abrahamsson, age 23. “She asked for her daddy, but the conductor said that if anyone was stupid enough to step of the train, had himself to blame.”
However, the man hanging on for his dear life happened to have his cell phone and he managed to contact the train personnel.
…another good reason to have a cell phone!
AOMORI Japan – An elderly man who made more than 1, 700 emergency calls to police over a six-month period was arrested on Tuesday, accused of obstructing official duties. The charges for which Yoshikatsu Birukawa, 64, was arrested involve 84 calls he made on his mobile phone to police in about seven hours on May 29.
“I’m covered in blood. Come rescue me quickly,” Birukawa, from Aomori, reportedly said in one of the calls. Officers of the Aomori Police Station rushed to Birukawa’s home several times in response to his calls, but mostly he was not in or pretended to be out. He began calling Aomori police in December last year, saying that he wanted officers to talk with him. In early January, his calls turned into pranks. In one day, he made more than 150 calls. The officers received 1,727 of his calls from December. They suspect that Birukawa had made similar prank calls to paramedics.
… Hello?… Hello??
WASHINGTON, DC—In a grand opening Monday, Washington became home to the first Homeless Depot, one link in a nationwide chain of warehouse-style stores that will supply the nation’s estimated 350,000 homeless people with all of their street-lifestyle essentials.
“There are 14,000 homeless people in D.C. alone, but there’s never been a retail business that catered to their unique needs,” store manager Geoff Alberts said. “Homeless Depot is a one-stop spot for cardboard building supplies, used carpet scraps, filthy woolen blankets, and flattened garbage-can lids. We also sell coffee cups, cigarette butts, soiled clothing, expired coupons, June 2001 People magazines, and half-empty containers of Dippity-Do hairstyling gel. Best of all, we have really nice, big, sturdy shopping carts.”
“The liquor department features more than 40 types of fortified wine, 30 different malt beverages, and a full selection of budget-priced liquors, including Old Thompson Whiskey and McCormick Vodka,” Alberts said, gesturing to racks stretching up to the store’s two-story ceiling. “We’re able to offer alcoholics their favorite brands at prices up to 15 percent lower than those at convenience stores.”
KANSAS CITY, MO—Cale Parnell, 7, said Monday that he no longer holds Shrek in high regard, ever since the green ogre started appearing in TV ads for Burger King Kids Meals.
“Shrek just wants to sell things and make money,” Parnell said. “He doesn’t care if kids like me are having fun.” Parnell added that Shrek is “just like that stupid money-grubber SpongeBob SquarePants.”
The Hebrew-dubbed version of Shrek 2 has been banned from Israeli cinemas until a castration joke is removed.
Israeli singer David Daor won a court case over a reference to him that he said implied he had been castrated. The animated comedy had one character threaten to emasculate another by saying “Let’s do a David Daor on him” – a reference to the singer’s voice.
Tel Aviv District Court ordered Shrek 2 withdrawn from 20 cinemas pending a redub of the controversial remark. “This film intends to present me, in perpetuity, as a eunuch, a man with no testicles, and turn me into a laughing stock,” Daor told an Israeli newspaper ahead of the legal hearing.
…I gotta hear this guy sing!
BAGHDAD—Al-Qaeda operative Mullah Hashem hired Elliot Dobin, a consultant for the Boston public-relations firm Schneider & Koff, for the sole purpose of murdering him, sources reported Monday.
“The al-Qaeda have taken such a beating in the press that we figured they wanted to clean up their media image, so we sent our best guy,” firm partner Jerry Koff said. “But Elliot had barely shaken everyone’s hand when Hashem and his guards shoved him up against the wall and shot him in the back of the head. He didn’t even get to show them his PowerPoint presentation.”
Bergman said he’ll confront Hashem about the incident as soon as he figures out how to spin Dobin’s shooting into a positive.
COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho — Stealing a kiss is not a crime, a jury has decided.
A computer repairman who kissed a customer during a house call was acquitted of battery Wednesday. Steven Allen Moyer, 40, said he figured the woman was lonely and might want companionship.
“She said she didn’t have a steady boyfriend,” Moyer testified. “I asked her if she wanted a boyfriend for 15 minutes.”
Victoria Franich said Moyer cornered her, grabbed her and kissed her twice — after billing her $20 for the service call. She said Moyer also asked her if she wanted to show him the bedroom.
“I said no and he left,” she said. Franich then called police. The five-man, one-woman jury took 90 minutes to acquit Moyer.
The self-proclaimed alcohol inspector became plastered as he was allegedly checking the alcohol content of the restaurant’s drinks.
At a restaurant in Söderhamn in Sweden, the man introduced himself as alcohol inspector from the local authorities. He said that he was going to control that the restaurant provided the correct amount of alcohol in drinks. Alcohol worth about NOK 660 (USD $95) was placed in front of the 59-year-old man, who immediately started to investigate the volume and the amount of alcohol in the drinks.
After a while the man became so drunk that he started to throw the alcohol all over the place. At that time, the staff concluded that something was not quite right, and called the police. The false alcohol inspector was sentenced to pay fines.
RYE, NY — Following a WKRP In Cincinnati rerun Monday, 6-year-old Megan Connor was devastated to learn that the mewling orange kitten in the MTM Productions logo has almost certainly been dead for years.
“All I said was that that kitten was around back when I was a kid, so it probably died 15 or 20 years ago,” said father Bruce Connor, 39. “Now she won’t come out of her room.” Megan’s parents plan to forbid Megan from watching Family Ties reruns for fear of having to explain the whereabouts of Ubu.
BILOXI, MS—Owners of the nation’s first riverboat-horseracing facility announced its closure Tuesday, minutes after the inaugural race. “I guess we planned it pretty poorly,” said Ronald Frisch, president and CEO of Gambling Concepts Unlimited. “We figured that once we opened the dining-room doors, the horses would know to race through the grand buffet room to the other side of the boat.”
Twenty-five people were trampled to death in the chaos that resulted, and eight horses drowned when they fell from the riverboat’s lower deck. Gambling Concepts Unlimited officials said they still plan to hold next month’s airborne rodeo as scheduled.