Curiosities – Page 19 – Mutantfrog Travelogue

People will bet on anything

You’ve probably already heard about how Ann Coulter said something stupid and offensive about widows of some WTC terrorist victims, and now thanks to the Internet you can also bet on whether or not she is going to be sued for defamation.

Analysts at BetUS.com posted favorable 4-6 odds that the Widows of 9/11, who were also called “self-obsessed women,” will sue Coulter for defamation. However, the chances of Ann Coulter retracting her remarks are slim with only 1-2 odds. Either way, Coulter’s outrageousness has shot her new book to number one on Amazon.com.

Executives at BetUS.com have posted the following odds:

Will Ann Coulter retract her remarks?
Yes: 6-4
No: 1-2

Will the 9/11 Widows Sue Coulter for defamation?
Yes: 4-6
No: 11-10

Vietnam Man Awakes only to Find His PENIS IS MISSING!!! OUCH!!

Every man’s nightmare:

Man’s Genitals Removed As he Slept
JST, 6/19/2006

In Vietnam’s Dong Nai Province, a 49-year-old alcoholic named “K” awoke from a drunken stupor only to find his genitals had been removed! The culprits left no proof behind, and police investigations have met with difficulty. The man was immediately hospitalized and has since been released, but unfortunately his “stuff” could not be made the way it used to be.

Quiz: What was BOJ Chief Fukui’s 1st “Yellow Card”?

As many of you know, the Bank of Japan Chief Toshihiko Fukui is in trouble for not dropping an investment in the discredited Murakami fund after he took the position in 2003 (though he was not legally required to do so, nor was he required to disclose the investment through an uncanny oversight by regulatory authorities – the US, for its part, does require full financial disclosure from its FRB chiefs such as the last one, Alan Greenspan). It only makes sense since the BOJ Chief is the ultimate insider in a capital market.

In a recent column for his website, opposition DPJ Dietman Yoshihiko Noda (Lower/Chiba 4th) called the so-called transgression Fukui’s “second yellow card”, which in soccer means you’re out of the game.

Question: What is the first yellow card to which Noda is referring? Answer after the “jump”!!

Answer: He quit as vice chief in 1998 after it was found officials from banks, including the former Dai-ichi Kangyo Bank, treated Ministry of Finance and BOJ bureaucrats to “no panties shabu shabu” – at a restaurant Fukui is known to have regularly attended (though Fukui was never actually prosecuted for anything). Shabu shabu is a kind of Japanese meat soup – it’s good, and apparently even better when the waitresses aren’t wearing their underwear. It was this and other, much worse incidents that led to MOF’s financial regulatory authority being stripped away and given to an entity we know today as the Financial Services Agency. And now you know!

Child repellant backfires

Curses! They’re feeding off the rays!

Students find ring tone adults can’t hear

NEW YORK – Students are using a new ring tone to receive messages in class — and many teachers can’t even hear the ring.

Some students are downloading a ring tone off the Internet that is too high-pitched to be heard by most adults. With it, high schoolers can receive text message alerts on their cell phones without the teacher knowing.

The ring tone is a spin-off of technology that was originally meant to repel teenagers — not help them. A Welsh security company developed the tone to help shopkeepers disperse young people loitering in front of their stores while leaving adults unaffected. The company called their product the “Mosquito.”

What to do with 10,000 yen?

A criminal who found his way to a new life through the love of a woman has returned the money he stole from a post office in March:

Repentant robber returns cash, with interest

TOKYO (Reuters) – A Japanese man who robbed a post office returned more money than he stole and turned himself in after deciding to come clean for the sake of his girlfriend.

The 33-year-old stole 340,000 yen ($2,300) at knifepoint from a post office in western Tokyo in March. Ridden with guilt, he went back to the post office at the end of May and left 350,000 yen in an envelope on the counter before running off.

The Mainichi newspaper quoted the man as saying he gave an extra 10,000 yen back because he was sorry for what he had done.

A Tokyo police department spokesman said they were still discussing what to do with the extra cash.

How much discussion does it take to decide what to do with 10,000 yen in cold hard cash? I have some suggestions:

Buy 1 air-conditioned T-shirt at the special online price of 9,500 yen. That would leave enough for a beef bowl, with 20 yen leftover to phone home and let your mom know how delicious it was.

Acquire 1 share in Fast Retailing, operator of bargain clothes chain Uniqlo. With Japan’s economic reform drive set to stall before it comes to true fruition, the prospects of the low-price retail market in Japan continue to look brighter and brighter! Again that would leave you with 500 yen left over, which you could use to celebrate your soon-to-be-newfound wealth with some ice cream at the Cold Stone Creamery located in the swanky Roppongi Hills office complex.

Save it at Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ Bank. With interest rates at 0.001%, assuming that Japan’s prices are just about exactly flat at this point, in a year’s time you’d have 10,010 yen!

Get the luckiest guy in the precinct to play pachinko and double the money to buy a semi-legal prostitute. You can use the 80 minutes that can be purchased at 20,000 yen to convince Yuki to leave this sinful lifestyle a la He Got Game.

Anyone else have some suggestions for the Tokyo police?

B-grade News from Nikkan Gendai: Man in Women’s Clothing Whips Out Penis in Train

This type of thing (men in women’s clothing doing weird things) seems to keep happening all the time recently:

B-grade News from Nikkan Gendai: Man in Women’s Clothing Whips Out Penis in Train
56-year-old Amagasaki City Section Chief Arrested

On June 5, the Yodoyagawa Precinct of the Osaka Prefectural Police arrested Hiroshi Ikeuchi (56), Section Chief of the Amagasaki City (Hyogo Pref) Health and Welfare Section on suspicion of red-handed public indecency for exposing his lower body in a train. The man has reportedly admitted to the crime, explaining, “It was a thoughtless act. I will properly make amends for the crime I have committed.”

According to investigations, Ikeuchi boarded a Hankyu train, bound for Hibarigaoka Hanayashiki on the Takarazuka line, at Umeda station. Dressed as a woman, he sat on the bench and exposed his lower body to a female technical school student and others sitting across from him by spreading his legs and so forth.

He ran from the train after the women approached him, but a male rider stopped him at Mikuni station and brought him to the nearby precinct.

Ikeuchi lives with his wife and no children. He has testified that since approximately 13 years ago he cross-dressed by wearing wigs and miniskirts and “felt freedom by wearing women’s clothing.” He reportedly had consumed alcohol at an Osaka transvestite club and was on his way to an apartment he had rented in Toyonaka City in order to drop off his women’s clothes.

According to the city of Amagasaki, Ikeuchi was hired in 1973, and started his current job in April after previously serving as section chief of the Industry and Labor and City Planning Sections. He was, they said, a man who proactively engaged issues.

This is precisely the area where I stayed as a high school exchange student. Always amazing to see what sort of stuff is going on behind closed doors.

Brazil sees profit in frog slime

From IHT:

Katukina says he possesses a treasure that could be at the cutting edge of biotechnology. If a plan initiated by the chief is successful, his tribe’s fortunes will be transformed by an asset that he and the Brazilian government say holds great promise for the global pharmaceutical industry: the slime from a poisonous tree frog.

Tribal shamans have used the slime as an ancestral remedy to treat illness, pain, even laziness. The crucial ingredients are compounds with anesthetic, tranquilizing and other medicinal properties.

Scientists say the promise lies in isolating peptides from the frog’s slime and then reproducing them for medicines to treat hypertension, stroke, and other illnesses

Kayan Girl with Squirt Gun

Thanks again to the lovely Mrs. Adamu for the photo.

The Kayan (or Padaung) people live an uncertain existence in refugee camps on the Thailand/Burma border, where a chief activity is venturing outside the camps daily to wow foreign tourists with their freakishly long necks.

Mrs. Adamu reports that the girl pictured was especially skilled at attracting attention. You have to admit she has a sense of style.