Another round-up of odd and wacky news items from around the world

It seems that you can make money out of anything

According to Reuters (“Beirut restaurant makes meal out of war”), at ‘Buns and Guns’, a fast food restaurant in Beirut’s southern suburbs, you can order a ‘Kalashnikov’ sandwich from a bullet-shaped menu, prepared by chefs in military fatigues with the roar of explosions as background music.

And it’s never too young to begin that financial career

The Wall Street Journal reported on a new kind of summer camp. At Finance Camp, children learn about stocks, bonds and risk, while paying bills with ‘Cow Moola’. They will also, “take excursions to a local bank or delve into budgeting and investing simulations. Rather than singing around the campfire, they will chant personal-finance mantras like these sung at Camp Millionaire in Santa Barbara, Calif.: ‘Financial freedom is your choice’ and ‘Assets feed you, liabilities eat you.’” (“Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh, My Portfolio Is in the Gutter”)

It also pays to diversify

An American career diplomat, currently the U.S. ambassador to Paraguay, has become that country’s newest singing sensation. He learned the obscure Paraguayan Guaraní language, recorded a music album of indigenous folk songs and sold 1,000 tickets to a concert in a downtown theater. The Miami Herald adds: “Though he does not leave his post until the fall, he is already planning his life in Miami, where he hopes to sell his album and perform with visiting Paraguayan musicians, possibly inviting local Cuban bands to jam.” (“U.S. diplomat now a music star in Paraguay”)

Get each day off to a good start

Canada’s Globe and Mail explains that, according to researchers, a big breakfast packed with protein, carbohydrates — and even something sweet — can actually lead to weight loss (“Start your day with a square of chocolate”). Researchers tested two low-calorie diets to see which one did a better job at helping people drop pounds and keep them off. The “big breakfast” diet had more carbohydrates and provided 610 calories for breakfast, about half the day’s calorie allotment, by including milk, lean meat, cheese, whole-grain bread, added fat and even a little chocolate.

At four months, women on the low-carbohydrate diet lost, on average, 28 pounds and the big-breakfast dieters shed 23 pounds.

After eight months the situation had reversed. The low-carb dieters regained about 18 pounds, while the big-breakfast eaters continued to shed weight, losing a further 16.5 pounds. The end result: Women in the big-breakfast group lost 21 per cent of their body weight versus 4.5 per cent for the low-carbohydrate group.

Always look on the bright side too

According to Britain’s New Scientist magazine, thinking happy thoughts could help dampen cravings. Volunteers in a study, placed under an fMRI scanner, were told to to associate blue cards with a real $4 payoff, and yellow cards with nothing.

Before either a yellow or blue card flashed onto a computer screen, the volunteers received an instruction to either concentrate on their prize or instead on some calming, natural object — a blue ocean, for instance [. . .] thoughts of clouds and oceans slightly lowered activity in the brain’s reward centre — the striatum — compared to thoughts of money, but only when the card promised a payoff.

The researchers hope that making addicts think about something truly dear to them could make them more resistant to desires to satisfy their addiction (“Happy thoughts may dampen cravings”).

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