Martin World News, sponsored by Kimberly Clark

ITEM:  We start today's fun with Tuesday's company meeting at work.  They are informative sessions on what the company accomplished over the last quarter, punctuated at the end with announcement of the company bonus.  Well, this quarter, the new guy in charge of our Powersports end of things (I work on the marine side) shared perhaps a tad too much information.  Out of a meeting that is supposed to fit into an hour and maybe change for EVERYONE to talk, this gentleman spent a half-hour telling us JUST about his family, his likes and dislikes (Florida State alum, Packer fan), chapter and verse on his former position at Kimberly-Clark, maker of lovely paper products like Kleenex, Kotex, and Depends, complete with pretty little pictures floating across the Powerpoint being broadcast to all four plants (The floating roll of toilet paper woke us all up about minute 25).  Without going into the shenanigans going on behind our muted projector, I'll go on to let you know that he then got onto the BUSINESS of his presentation- which took another fifteen minutes and as he admitted, "Means little to those of you in Minnesota, Missouri, and Indiana".  He concluded with his "early takes" (he's been on the job like 2 months), packed full of "back at Kimberly-Clark, we did thus-and-so" stories that likely have little connection to motorcycle covers and saddle bags.  All told, he spent from 1:45 to 2:40 telling us what I told Laurie in about 30 seconds:  "Hi, I'm (name redacted), our power sports division tanked this quarter for two reasons- motorcycle sales are tanking and motorcycles are 98% of our PS business; and our biggest customer is getting out of motorcycles.  We are planning on revitalizing the division by enticing new customers with free anti-viral toilet paper embossed with Florida State logos."

Imagine it on your TP- a little Seminole ready to eat you clean!

ITEM:  A hearse was pulled over for speeding in the Russian Far East city of Khabarovsk (home of the KHL's Amur team, currently languishing in 11th place in their conference).  The driver insisted he was hurrying to get the dearly departed to the funeral home.  But when the officers searched the car (Russia, right?) they didn't find a dearly departed.  They did find $156,000 worth of canned caviar- just over half a ton.  No word on whether the officers remarked, "There's something fishy here."

ITEM:  More people than necessary were killed in 2009 L'Aquila earthquake in Italy, and the public school system is doing it's best to prevent it from happening again.  They have declared that wedges, flip-flops, and heels higher than 1.6 inches are now banned in their secondary schools, as they are not conducive to escaping damage from a quake.  Hopefully, yoga pants still made the cut.

ITEM:  The state of Texas has just discovered that Norway uses the name of their state as a synonym for crazy:

The Norwegian use of "Texas" as a slang term -- most often in the phrase "det var helt texas," which Texas Monthly roughly translated as "it was totally/absolutely/completely bonkers."

Apparently this has been going on since the fifties, when Norwegian movie goers got the impression that a) all cowboys are from Texas, and b) since it was the "Wild wild west", it must also be the "wild and crazy west".

ITEM:  Hot on the heels of a story I shared on Facebook about how the city of Odessa, Ukraine, refurbished a statue of Lenin into Darth Vader...

...Chewbacca was arrested for campaigning for Darth Vader on election day...

You see, as I have reported before on MWN (Here, scroll down just past Neil DeGrasse Tyson), "political" candidates in Ukraine like to run as Vader, Chewy, even Yoda.  And in Odessa, you can't campaign for a candidate on election day.  Even if your campaign speech is "HRRRRRGH..."

ITEM: Twenty-one miles from "Fortress Martin", an amusing incident occurred.  Now, the amusing part wasn't that a woman hunter got shot in the foot.  Or even that the woman was shot by her dog, who picked up her rifle in anger knocked his mistress's 12-gauge over and shot her.  No the funny part...

Dog's name was Trigger.  No lie.

ITEM:  China's government, rocked by corruption of late, has introduced "a moral ethical code that (Communist Party) members must abide by".  Among the list of banned practices and items are:

- "extravagant eating and drinking"  (usually called gluttony)

- "Sexual relationships outside of marriage", a stiffer rule than the previous "keeping paramours and conducting adultery" 

- forming cliques within the party.  Good luck with that...

- Nepotism

- and of course, the heinous crime of playing golf.  Because it's what rich people do.

ITEM:  Finally you've heard many stories about the "Ugly American"... Now meet Dragon In Dream Company from Hong Kong- the "Ugly Chinese":

Bastian Schweinsteiger is considering taking legal action against a Hong Kong company making Nazi dolls that bear a striking resemblance to him.

The Manchester United midfielder's management company put the matter into the hands of their German-based lawyers earlier this week.

The dolls, named 'World War II Army Supply Duty - Bastian', are made in China by Dragon in Dream.

The company told German paper Bild any resemblance was "purely coincidental".

"We don't sell any figures which resemble footballers. It is a complete coincidence that the figure 'Bastian' looks like Schweinsteiger," a spokesman added.

"We thought that all Germans look like that. Bastian is also a very common name in Germany."