Fun_People Archive
30 Jul
The private enterprise system strikes again...

Date: Fri, 30 Jul 93 20:46:53 PDT
To: Fun_People
Subject: The private enterprise system strikes again...

[As long as we keep playing the same old game where we keep score with dollars,
we'll keep getting these inventive players... -psl]

 From: vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU!bostic (Keith Bostic)
 From: WEIRDNUZ.283 (News of the Weird, July 9, 1993)
 by Chuck Shepherd

* In May Elk River, Minn., landlord Todd Plaisted reported that his tenant
Kenneth Lane had fled the area, abandoning his rented farmhouse and
leaving behind at least 400 tons of used carpeting, at least 10,000
plastic windows from Northwest Airlines planes, and rooms full of sofas,
mattresses, washing machines, among other things.  Lane told townspeople
he ran a "recycling" company, but there was no evidence of output.  A
deputy sheriff driving by the farmhouse last year saw Lane burying
carpeting with a tractor and said Lane offered no explanation but merely
responded, "I don't know what to say.  You got me.  I can't even make up
an excuse." [Minneapolis Star Tribune, 5-17-93]

* In a 1992 article in the Journal of Animal Science, Dr. Steven Loerch
reported his finding that inserting a plastic pot scrubber permanently
into the top stomach of a cow can satisfy the cow's need for roughage,
thus lowering the cost of feeding it.  Farmers prefer to feed cows corn
to fatten them, but the cows are healthier if some of their diet is
low-calorie grass roughage. [San Jose Mercury News-N. Y. Times, Aug92]

© 1993 Peter Langston