I received a couple or interesting responses to this "challenge". Couple people noted that the offset + packet length is 1480, which would be in line with a regular ethernet MTU of 1500 bytes.
Alex had a couple of interesting insights: He noted that the 8 bytes of data are consistent with Base64 encoded data. While there is not enough data here to reconstruct any content, he suggests it may be one of the many "spam images" going around these days.
Also, he menioned that 1472 is a common MTU for PPPoE DSL connections.
So a likely reason for the fragment is that the host is connected to a local ethernet network which is using a DSL uplink.

The reason the first fragment is missing is likely some kind of packet filtering device. Given that only the first fragment will include the port number, the packet filter allows the second fragment to pass.

Lessons learned:
- If you are using a DSL modem with PPPoE, take a look at what MTU it supports. Your internet experience may improve if you reduce your MTU to match the DSL modems MTU.
- Check how your border device deals with fragments. I typically like to put some kind of statefull firewall at my border that will reassemble fragments. Most of the home-devices (NAT routers) typically do a good job at that. Its a bit more challenging to find one that can deal with large loads (in particular if you have a lot of connections. The bandwidth is sometimes not as critical here as the number of connections you are trying to support.

Thanks to everyone who responded!

Frame 1 (60 bytes on wire, 60 bytes captured)
    Arrival Time: Nov  8, 2006 10:46:21.288548000
    Time delta from previous packet: 0.000000000 seconds
    Time since reference or first frame: 0.000000000 seconds
    Frame Number: 1
    Packet Length: 60 bytes
    Capture Length: 60 bytes
    Protocols in frame: eth:ip:data
Ethernet II, Src:  (xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx), Dst: (xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx)
    Type: IP (0x0800)
    Trailer: 000000000000000000000000000000000000
Internet Protocol, Src: xxx.yyy.171.21 Dst: aaa.bbb.181.18 
    Version: 4
    Header length: 20 bytes
    Differentiated Services Field: 0x00 (DSCP 0x00: Default; ECN: 0x00)
        0000 00.. = Differentiated Services Codepoint: Default (0x00)
        .... ..0. = ECN-Capable Transport (ECT): 0
        .... ...0 = ECN-CE: 0
    Total Length: 28
    Identification: 0xdf49 (57161)
    Flags: 0x00
        0... = Reserved bit: Not set
        .0.. = Don't fragment: Not set
        ..0. = More fragments: Not set
    Fragment offset: 1472
    Time to live: 112
    Protocol: TCP (0x06)
    Header checksum: 0xXXXX [correct]
        Good: True
        Bad : False
    Source: xxx.yyy.171.21
    Destination: aaa.bbb.181.18
Data (8 bytes)

0000  75 37 68 4c 52 65 2b 4d                           u7hLRe+M