Wednesday

April 24th, 2024

Diversions

The Continuing Crisis | Bright Ideas

News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd

By News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd

Published August 11, 2016

The Continuing Crisis |  Bright Ideas

As Libya's central bank struggles to stabilize a halting economy, it could surely use the estimated $184 million in gold and silver coins that Moammar Gadhafi minted but left buried in an underground vault in the coastal city of Beyda, but the treasure is inaccessible because central bank officials don't know the lock's combination (as The Wall Street Journal reported in May). The latest plan is to have a locksmith squeeze through a 16-by-16-inch hole in the outer vault's concrete wall and once inside to try his hand. If unsuccessful, the government's bureaucrats likely cannot get paid, but even if successful, various anti-government factions may go to extremes to snatch the coins. [Wall Street Journal, 5-13-2016]

Argentina's TV channels have many of the same taboos as U.S. broadcasting, including restrictions on women's hands-on demonstration of how precisely to examine themselves for breast cancer. However, as AdWeek reported in March, the agency David Buenos Aires apparently solved the problem with an explicit TV public service announcement featuring a model (facing the camera, topless) showing exactly how such an exam should go, e.g., where to press down, where to squeeze. The secret? The model was an overweight man with generous-sized "manboobs." [AdWeek, 4-20-2016]