Was it just a product placement?

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Sales of the model of shoe thrown at Bush have gone through the roof:
The shoe hurled at President George W. Bush has sent sales soaring at the Turkish maker as orders pour in from Iraq, the U.S. and Iran.

The brown, thick-soled “Model 271” may soon be renamed “The Bush Shoe” or “Bye-Bye Bush,” Ramazan Baydan, who owns the Istanbul-based producer Baydan Ayakkabicilik San. & Tic., said in a telephone interview today.

“We’ve been selling these shoes for years but, thanks to Bush, orders are flying in like crazy,” he said. “We’ve even hired an agency to look at television advertising.”

I hope Muntadar al-Zeidi, the journalist who threw the shoes, is getting a cut of the sales. After all, he's the one responsible for popularizing them.

Maybe I should throw one of my company's brain-computer interface headsets at him. It's not on sale yet, but we could always use the publicity.

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