Madness Beckons

Robert John Burck aka “the Naked Cowboy,” a world famous NYC busker who started his trade on Venice Beach, Los Angeles in 1998, wearing a cowboy hat, a pair of tightie whities with “Naked Cowboy across the butt and a pair of Cowboy Boots, has decided to run for Mayor.

The busker, who says he will run a transparent campaign, is up against billionaire Michael Bloomberg who is hoping for a third term.

According to the Naked Cowboy for Mayor website his platform one of bringing small business back to life and his campaign slogan is “because nobody has done more with less.”

From his press release.

The Naked Cowboy’s platform speaks to the real issues facing us, and will cultivate the rebirth of the small businesses that made New York City what it is today. Known as the “Naked Stimulus Package,” the plan includes micro loans, tax holidays and other incentives to help small businesses thrive. Other points of Naked’s platform include Taxes (if you’re rich, stop whining and pay your taxes), Transportation (taxi call buttons on every city corner), Homeland Security (as mayor he will keep the city’s security on high alert, making frequent stops at the tunnels, bridges, and guard posts of every building), Gay Marriage (as an ordained minister and he’d love to marry all citizens of NYC, not just the straight shooters), and of course Tourism (he plans to build a Times Square Wedding Chapel and establish a billion dollar wedding business that will rival Las Vegas).

On November 22, 2008, he became an ordained minister, and on December 10, 2008 he was officially registered as a marriage officiant by the City of New York.

From the Wikipedia.

Burck has also been featured in numerous advertising campaigns. As of 2006, he is part of USA Network’s “Characters Welcome” campaign, and he also had a cameo appearance in a Chevrolet commercial that aired during Super Bowl XLI, as well as a Guinness advertisement that aired only in the United Kingdom and Ireland. On August 28, 2008, Burck entered into an endorsement/licensing agreement with Divinely Naked LLC to endorse and create Naked Cowboy Nutritional Products starting with “Naked Whey Protein Powders”, which launched their website on January 1, 2009.

Burck has also made appearances in several music videos, including Cake’s “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” and Nickelback’s “Rockstar”. In 2007, Burck released an album of his own, signing to 4Sight Music Productions and recording the pop-rock album “Year of the Cowboy” produced by Lee Evans and Gaetano Lattanzi at JAMBOX Recording Studios in New York City. The album was featured on MTV News.

BBC:

Offers of help are pouring in for an eight-year-old Liberian girl disowned by her own family in Phoenix, Arizona, after being raped by four boys.

The girl is under the care of the Arizona Child Protective Service (CPS) because her parents said she had shamed them, and they did not want her back.

It seems that the time honored tradition of blaming the female for being raped is alive and well even in America.

This was a 8 year old girl who was lured into a shed by 4 boys who then forcibly raped her who is now being blamed by her own family for what happened.
The boys undoubtedly see nothing wrong with what they did. After all they were just acting the way they have been trained to act.

Here’s a quote from the Liberian President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, about the boys. “They too need serious counseling because clearly they are doing something, something that is no longer acceptable in our society here.” –This statement says that rape was, until recently, acceptable behavior.

The Liberian ambassador, M. Nathaniel Barnes says: The reported shunning of an 8-year-old rape victim by her Liberian parents is “not a manifestation of our culture.”

“Liberians everywhere feel some sense of outrage,” Edwin Sele, the embassy’s deputy ambassador says. If the rape had occurred in Liberia instead of Phoenix, “there would be street justice. You’d have a mob.”

Barnes says that after the last war ended, Liberia enacted some of the strictest anti-rape laws on the African continent.

“We also tried to create the appropriate social support network for victims of rape,” Barnes says.

And yet afrol News reports this:

afrol News, 14 December – Sexual violence is believed to have affected around two-thirds of Liberia’s female population as a result of the civil war. No single person has yet been prosecuted

Ambassador: A person who lies for their country.

MCKENZIE CASSIDY – Lehigh Acres Citizen:
A South Florida town manager who married a porn star last year was fired at an emergency meeting after the mayor and council members learned about it.

Fort Myers Beach town council voted 5-0 to fire Scott Janke “without cause” after Mayor Larry Kiker called the Tuesday night meeting.

Kiker said he learned that afternoon that Janke’s wife is an adult film star, and the elected officials took the action a few hours later.

According to Mayor Kiker, Mr Janke’s life style has nothing to do with his firing. It’s just that they feel that this marriage would cause disruption in his ability to do his job. “One of the reasons we brought him here is that there were some divisive problems on the beach,” Kiker said. “We wanted him to bring people together.” Sounds to me like someone wants to curtail the parties at the various bars on the beach… Heaven forbid that someone should have a good time.

According to the News-Press of Fort Myers Councilman Tom Babcock that Janke was fired because his wife’s profession brought an inaccurate image to Fort Myers Beach. Image? What image? I’ve been to Fort Myers Beach. It’s a gulf coast tourist trap.

Besides how could anyone believe that the profession (probably former profession) of the city manager’s wife could possibly make one iota of difference in the city’s image. — It’s not like she’s going to be make movies in the middle of main street.

It sounds to me like the problem is most likely the mayor’s wife and/or the wives of the council members. Men tend to have a live and let live about such things, but women tend to get bent out of shape about this sort of thing. –Either that or the town is run by bible thumpers.

BBC:
A family in Saudi Arabia is taking a “genie” to court, accusing it of theft and harassment, reports say.

They accuse the spirit of threatening them, throwing stones and stealing mobile phones, Al Watan newspaper said.

The family have lived in the same house near the city of Medina for 15 years but say they only recently became aware of the spirit. They have now moved out.

A local court is investigating. In Islamic theology, genies are spirits that can harass or possess humans.

I don’t know what Islamic law says about this sort of thing, but if the family wins, what will they get and how will they collect?

♪If there’s something strange
in your neighborhood
Who ya gonna call?
DJINNBUSTERS♪

I just ran across this instructional article on how to steal 100kg of pure gold: Walk in, pick it up and walk out.

August 2007 – BBC – Three masked men have stolen a massive block of gold bullion on display in a museum in Japan.

The gold bar, valued at $1.71m (1.27m euro; £0.87m), weighed about 220 pounds (100kg) and was kept in an open safe.
Shoving aside a woman museum worker, the three then fled with an accomplice who had been serving as lookout at the museum in Takayama, a small city in central Japan.

The gold was lugged past an employee alerted by the noise, down a staircase and out of the museum where the three men were driven away by a fourth accomplice.

“The gold was exhibited on the second floor, which was monitored by a security camera from the first floor,” said 59-year-old Hisao Nakahagi, the owner of the gold.

Also from 2007 BBC:
A bathtub made of gold, worth 120m yen ($1m; £500,000), has disappeared from a Japanese resort hotel in circumstances that remain unclear, police said.

Staff reported the tub was missing on Wednesday at the Kominato Hotel Mikazuki, a resort overlooking the Pacific Ocean, east of Tokyo.

Police said they had no idea how it was stolen, saying they had found no sign it was dragged on the floor.

Somebody cut the chains on the door and the tub and just walked out with it.

The bathtub has probably been melted down and sold for scrap. –Either that or there’s some very happy James Bond type villain sitting in his solid gold bathtub plotting the destruction of civilization as we know it.

Here’s an update on the gold block.

Japan Times: Trio held in March museum theft of 250 million yen gold block

GIFU (Kyodo) Police have arrested three suspects in connection with the snatching of a 100-kg block of gold bullion worth 250 million yen from a museum in Takayama, Gifu Prefecture, in March, investigative sources have said.

The Gifu Prefectural Police has seized a gold piece in the possession of the three — a Japanese man, another man of unconfirmed nationality and a Romanian woman — on suspicion it is part of the stolen block, the sources said.

The seized gold piece, trimmed to about two-thirds the size of the stolen block, was found in one of the two men’s homes in Kitakyushu, the sources said.