A GROUP of people in San Francisco wants to rename one of the city's wastewater treatment facilities the "George W Bush Sewage Plant".
Members of the Presidential Memorial Commission say that they've already collected 8,500 signatures on a petition to put the proposal before voters this November. If it passes, the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant would be renamed when the new president takes office in January.
"It's a very simple Yes or No question, and there's no real fiscal impact - just the cost of relettering the sign in front of the plant," according to organiser Brian McConnell. "This is the way the democratic process is supposed to work, even though it's a silly idea in some people's eyes." As one US newspaper noted wryly, it is a possible "honour that Bush is unlikely to embrace".
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A man found asleep in a motorised wheelchair on a highway in northern Australia has been charged with drunk driving after registering a blood alcohol level of more than six times the legal driving limit.
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Police in Massachusetts say that an eight-foot high promotional statue for the film The Incredible Hulk has disappeared from its spot in front of a local cinema. Only its feet remain, bolted to a platform and snapped off at the ankles.
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A 77-year-old Kung Fu granny has been hired to beat up Italian soldiers to toughen them up. Martial arts expert Keiko Wakabayshi has been hired by the country's military to train recruits in hand-to-hand combat.
Wakabayshi, who is just 5ft tall, looks tiny compared with her charges who are mostly over 6ft. But the pensioner is a trained master in an array of martial arts disciplines including jujitsu, jojitso, kenjitso, judo, kendo and karate.
She wipes the floor with soldiers of the Folgore brigade at their barracks in Livorno on a daily basis.
"Don't think it's unbelievable," says Wakabayshi (pronounced Waka-bashy). "The physique doesn't matter."
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An Australian man has been told that his marriage is invalid - because he had married 30 years earlier during a drunken bender.
The 67-year-old man, who has not been named, remembered a "nice" blonde woman he met in Arizona during shore leave from his job as an oil rig cook but says he had no idea they married.
In 1978, he would still have been married to his first wife. He had since divorced and married his Hawaiian girlfriend.
It was when they applied to live in Hawaii that US immigration authorities broke the news.
The man was shown an Arizona marriage licence. "I looked at the signature and thought it could have been mine or it could not have been," he said. He said his latest wife, who has now become his girlfriend again, was very understanding. "We have been with each other on and off for over 20 years in Australia. She's terrific, a top cook.
She looks after me and I take care of her. I couldn't find anything better."
They plan to marry.