They say Toronto’s nice
The number of U.S. citizens visiting Canada’s main immigration Web site increased six-fold after George W. Bush’s successful bid for re-election. On an average day, 20,000 people in the US log onto the Web site, but on Nov. 3 the figure shot up to 115,016 and has since settled down to 65,803 – a number still well above the average. Would-be immigrants to Canada can apply to become permanent resident, which takes a year, or find job, which requires a work permit. Another option is to marry a Canadian, which shortens the wait time for citizenry – an idea that spawned the Web site www.marryanamerican.ca, an online service where Americans looking to leave the states can meet willing Canadian partners.
Some dogs will eat anything
A man in Turkey lost his mobile phone so he decided to dial it, hoping the ringer would sound him the way. It did – all the way to his dog’s stomach. The dog picked up the phone and swallowed it while the owner wasn’t look, and at first he thought a customer at his gas station stole the phone. He said he was just glad the phone wasn’t stolen and that he was reunited with his Nokia the next day after nature took its course.
Unbelievable
A National Guard F-16 fighter plane mistakenly fired off 25 rounds at the Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School in New Jersey. The pilot was supposed to fire the rounds approximately 3.5 miles away at a military target range, Lt. Col. Roberta Niedt of the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs said. No one was injured because school was out and one custodian was inside the building when the bullets struck, causing minimal damage, the 20-millimeter bullets leaving only puncture marks in the school’s roof and asphalt outside the building. The fighter jet was part of the 113th Wing, District of Columbia Air National Guard assigned to Andrews Air Force Base and an investigation is being conducted into how the pilot mistook the school for a target range.
Brainy advertisement
New York City transit officials removed an ad after discovering the poster suggested a love of books could be rewarded with fellatio. The advertisement that ran on about 200 buses in the city carried posters displaying a provocatively posed woman in hot pants kneeling among a pile of books beside the slogan “Read Books, Get Brain.” What the unsuspecting transit authorities did not know was that get brain is youth slang for receiving oral sex. Tom Kelly, Metropolitan Transit Authority spokesman, denounced the ad as vulgar street slang and said it was demeaning to women. Clothing company Akademiks ran the ads and Kelly said he ran a test by showing the poster to mailroom employees and watching their reactions.
Protesting for Padre Pistolas
Angry parishioners in Chucandiro, Mexico chained shut a church in protest of the firing of their priest, whose habit of tucking a gun under his robes earned him fame and the moniker Padre Pistolas. Hundreds of people from the town demonstrated outside the cathedral after Catholic leaders there defrocked the pistol-packing priest Alfredo Gallego. Gallegos is popular with parishioners, but has angered his Catholic superiors with his habit of wearing a pistol beneath his robes despite laws in Mexico banning private citizens from carrying guns. Gallego defended his carrying of the gun, noting that several of his friends have been killed over the years. Despite the controversy, church leaders gave no reason for firing the priest.
See you in court mom
An 11-year-old boy in China took his mother to court for breaking her promise to buy him a new computer if he did well in school. The mother promised her son a computer if he scored a 94 percent average in his school work, not expecting him to succeed. After the boy chalked up an average of 97 percent, the mother told him she could not afford the computer. The boy, from Xingzheng, went to court asking a judge to make his mother honor their verbal agreement, but eventually backed down his claim when the judge coaxed him into reconciling with his mother. The boy gained his legal knowledge by helping his parents with their small business during the six months before the dispute.