CALM Humour

HUMOUR

* Idiot warnings
* Frank Stronach is 688 years old!
* The world's easiest trivia quiz (and answers)

Idiot warnings

CALM

* Label on the back of a cardboard auto-shade: "Warning: remove auto-shade before driving."

* Label on a Batman costume: "Caution: cape does not enable user to fly."

* Sign posted at the bottom of an out-of-service escalator: "Escalator not moving: please watch your step."

Frank Stronach is 688 years old!

CCPA / CALM -- Auto parts magnate Frank Stronach has tried to justify his $43.2 million salary (the highest in the country) by saying he's smart, and he's worth it. He recently made the following claim: "If I added up all the hours I've spent working over the past 40 years, I probably haven't made much more than the minimum wage."

Is this possible? Or is it just hyperbole? Let's do the math.

At the highest minimum wage in Canada ($7 an hour, in British Columbia), it would take Stronach -- even if he could work 24 hours a day, every day of the year -- 688 years to earn $43.2 million! He doesn't look that old.

To view it another way, if the Magna International CEO had worked every hour of every day for the last 40 years, his $43-million-plus salary would amount to about $123.20 an hour.

Maybe Stronach can tell us where he finds a minimum wage like that. We'll gladly pass the information along to those who now have to settle for $7 an hour, or less.

The world's easiest trivia quiz

OPSEU 417 / CALM

1. How long did the Hundred Years War last?

2. Which country makes Panama hats?

3. From which animal do we get catgut?

4. In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?

5. What is a camel's hair brush made of?

6. The Canary Islands in the Atlantic are named after what animal?

7. What was King George VI's first name?

8. What colour is a purple finch?

9. Where do Chinese gooseberries come from?

10. How long did the Thirty Years War last?

Answers to the world's easiest trivia quiz

1. 116 years, from 1337 to 1453

2. Ecuador

3. From sheep and horses

4. November -- the Russian calendar was 13 days behind ours

5. Squirrel fur

6. The Latin name was Isularia Canaria, meaning, Island of the Dogs

7. Albert -- when he came to the throne in 1936 he respected the wish of Queen Victoria that no future king should ever be called Albert

8. Distinctively crimson

9. New Zealand

10. Thirty years, from 1618 to 1648

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