Project Munkland!
Thanks for checking out February's Happyclown. Who is he?
Well, he's Peter Munk, chief executive of Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corp.
What has he done to win such a prestigeous honour, you ask?
As it turns out, we've been asking ourselves the same thing for quite a while. Then, it dawned on us. He's just a good ol' fashion nice guy with a heart of gold. Simple, eh?
After all, how many people do you know who would throw out in the wind the opportunity to become the world's biggest gold producer and instead open a theme park and tourist resort smack in the middle of picturesque East Timor? For Peter, it's not only a brilliant venture but also the fulfillment of a childhood dream. So, dear Happyclown fans, here's your invitation to visit Munkland!
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But for now, let's celebrate Peter's Happyclown achievement together. It'll almost make you cry.
At an age when most children were playing silly games like finding out how many watermellon seeds there are in a pickle jar or plucking daisies out of parking lots of some suburban strip mall, Peter was developing his principles. He came up with the idea of opening a utopic Wonderland in the heart of one of the most oppressed regions in the world. Pretty bright kid, eh? No one around him had ever heard of East Timor, or the Indonesian government's eventual involvement in keeping its landscape ethnically clean and happy after the Vietnam War.
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He first came up with the idea of a theme park when he tried to convince former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to build a $400-million resort behind the Pyramids. But the time was not right.
Now, after months of negotiations with the Indonesian government to forfeit his lucky stake in Busang's gold strike -- believed to be the world's richest -- Peter has convinced this friendly administration to open his illustrious tourist attraction and profit from millions in tourism dollars and bring a happy lifestyle back to East Timor.
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![BARRICK GOLD [logo]](./images/barrick.gif)
How will he do it? Simple. After all, it's a theme park.
Imagine the splendor -- amusement rides, fairground attractions, cotton candy, a casino -- all in the heart of East Timor.
The greatest attraction of Munkland! will be the Bre-X Memorial Roller Coaster, where joyriders can take stock in having an option to take their lives in their hands and climb to virtigeous heights and then freefall at the same speed as falling from the top floor of the Toronto Stock Exchange tower.
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Or you can check out Pot of Gold, a virtual-reality arcade where you become a gold prospector, staking out acres of virgin jungle as you experience gold rush fever in a bid for the world's biggest gold mine. You can even lie about how much gold that's there by tampering with core samples! The first person who can buy or somehow knock out all the smaller and less-competitive players wins.
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When you think of it, tremendous employment opportunities abound at Munkland! for thousands of happy East-Timorean refugees and torture survivors, who will have the opportunity to earn a nominal wage as they cater to the evergrowing needs of affluent tourists and thrill-seekers from around the world, including Peter's long-time Bilderberg friends and colleagues. What better job than to mop public toilets at an amusement park when your family and friends have been the target of relentless genocide.
So hats off to this month's Happyclown and savious, Peter Munk, and his wonderful Munkland! Remember to come visit.
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