TheNerdNews:Woman Reports Biting the Bullet in Hotdog

[thenerdguy]

Woman Reports Biting the Bullet in Hotdog

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A woman claimed she swallowed a live bullet and bit into a second round while eating a hotdog, and says she has the X-rays to prove it.

Police said on Thursday they were investigating the bizarre incident the 31-year-old woman said happened at a Costco store in Irvine, California, about 47 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

"She said she had swallowed one bullet and felt another in her mouth," Irvine police Lt. Jeff Love said. "She showed us the bullet and we took it as evidence. We had them cut up all the other hot dogs and found nothing in the buns."

A spokesman for Seattle-based Costco Wholesale Corp. COST.O) said the company had no comment on the incident, which occurred on Sunday and was still being investigated.

The woman showed local television news an X-ray of her stomach with a bullet lodged in it.

Love said the Hebrew National brand hotdogs served at Costco were prepared under Kosher laws with a high standard of cleanliness, and were X-rayed before leaving the factory.

He said it appeared "highly unlikely" that a hot dog would leave the factory with an undetected bullet in it.




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[thenerdguy]

Nation Frets That Its Young Are Not Tall Enough

HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam's greatest living figure, General Vo Nguyen Giap, is treasured although he stands just five feet tall, but the communist government is worried that its future generations won't be tall enough.

"The growth rates (of Vietnamese) are much lower than those of other countries like Japan and China," Duong Nghiep Chi, director of the Physical Training and Sports Institute, said in the Vietnam News daily on Friday.

The institute, a state-run facility, proposes that Hanoi allocate $40 million to set up nutrition and exercise programs for school children to boost height and weight.

Despite nearly 30 years of peace accompanied by rapid economic growth, the average 20-year-old Vietnamese male stands at 1.65 meters (5.5 ft), only about six cm (2.4 ins) taller than at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.

Vietnamese females of the same age stand at an average 1.53 meters, 4.8 cm taller than 30 years ago.

That contrasts with Japan, where the height increase since the 1980s is about 17 cm, the report said. Through nutrition and exercise, the institute aims to add three cm to the average height of young Vietnamese by 2010.

Giap, the 93-year-old mastermind of Vietnam's wars against France and the United States, is about five feet tall.


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[thenerdguy]

Woman Bites Off Attacker's Lip

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A woman bit off the lower lip of a fugitive man she said attacked her outside her house in the South African town of Tzaneen, police said on Friday.

They said the man -- who was already wanted on charges of burglary and rape -- waited outside the woman's house for her to return from an errand and then tried to drag her inside.

"This woman managed to grab the lower lip of the man with her teeth and bit it off," police Captain Moatshe Ngoepe told Reuters from the fruit-growing northern Limpopo province town.

The man was arrested when he sought treatment at a nearby hospital. He is due to appear at magistrates court on Friday.

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[Revisedsoul]

yummy 10 char limit

 

[thenerdguy]

Woman Hit by Bat in Sausage Race Retiring

MILWAUKEE - Wisconsin's most famous sausage has decided to retire, but she'll always relish the memories. Mandy Block, the woman in the Italian sausage costume hit with a bat by Pittsburgh Pirates (news) first baseman Randall Simon last July, won't be in the Milwaukee Brewers (news)' sausage races this summer.



She has decided to retire from competitive sausage racing at Miller Park to take psychology classes at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"It's too bad," Block told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "It kind of ended with a bang, though."

Block received attention after Simon hit her over the head with his bat as she passed by the visitors' dugout. Veronica Chandler, the hot dog who tripped over Block's fallen sausage, never ran again.

The whacking was broadcast worldwide, but Block brushed aside the controversy, accepting Simon's apology and declaring herself "just a sausage."

Simon was handcuffed by Milwaukee County sheriff's deputies after the game, taken to a police station and fined $432 for disorderly conduct. Major League Baseball suspended him for three days.

Simon sent Block an autographed bat and apologized several times. When he returned to Miller Park later in the season, as a Chicago Cub, he bought a section of fans Italian sausages.

The Curacao Tourism Board offered its own apology, an all expenses-paid trip for Block and Chandler. Simon is from the small Caribbean island.

Block also was recognized by the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council with a certificate of bravery.

"I'm proud of it," Block said. "I didn't even know there was a hot dog council."

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[thenerdguy]

Man Wins Lottery Three Times in One Night

SYDNEY, Australia - For a Sydney grandfather, it was third time lucky — and second time and first.



The 60-year-old bought three tickets at three separate stores — all with the same numbers — for a Saturday night Lotto draw and was among 20 winning tickets for the top prize, lottery officials said Monday.

The three tickets scooped a total of 494,326.44 Australian dollars (US$346,028). Had he only bought one ticket — as he originally planned — he only would have won A$183,083.86.

The winner, whose identity was not released, bought one ticket and then went on vacation. Fearing that the ticket he purchased wasn't for Saturday's draw, he got a friend to buy another. Then when he got back from vacation, he was concerned the friend hadn't bought the right ticket, so he bought a third just in case.

"When we returned home we found that our friend had got a bit confused and we weren't sure what entry he had put on so we put on all our regular games as normal, and that's how we ended up having a third entry in the same draw," the man said in comments released by New South Wales Lotteries.

"Having the same entry three times was not done intentionally and can only be described as the luckiest bungle we have ever made," he added.

NSW Lotteries officials said they could not cite any previous occasion when a single winner has won three times in the same draw, although a handful of people have won twice.

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[Farrowlesparrow]

What could be tastier than taste itself?

(Joke fit for tongue not lip)


Seems that guy was definately better safe than sorry


Nice to see you post again nerd

 

[thenerdguy]

Violinist tunes in to arm wrestling

LIVERPOOL (Reuters) - A classically trained British violinist is preparing to battle a world champion arm-wrestler and says regular bouts of the pub sport have sharpened his fiddle-playing.



Liverpool violinist Daniel Axworthy, who took up arm-wrestling last year after beating a doorman in a contest for a bet, expects to face world bantamweight champion Steve Rogers in the 2004 "Arm Wars" contest at the end of May. Axworthy won a bronze medal in the sport in Switzerland last month.

Axworthy, a classical session player and violin teacher, told Reuters arm-wrestling had made pieces easier to play by strengthening his grip on the fingerboard.

"I've found I don't have to worry as much about the little finger," Axworthy said on Sunday. "It's intensified the vibrato and trills are easier."

"It's always been something I really wanted to do."

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[Brian Damage]

I always hear one of those TV News Program themes playing in the background when I read the stuff thenerdguy posts...

*Dahmdahm-dahdahdahmdahm-dahmdahm-dahdahdahmdahm-dahmdahmdahm*

 

[thenerdguy]

Prostitute says government ruining trade

BERLIN (Reuters) - A leading German prostitute says the government is putting the squeeze on the legalised prostitution industry with a drive to collect taxes and plans to fine businesses that don't hire trainees.



Molly Luft, operator of a famous Berlin brothel with 10 freelance staff, said the government's moves would harm a profession that employs 400,000 in Germany and has annual sales of four billion pounds.

"People just don't have the money to pay for sex anymore," said Luft, 60, referring to the country's stagnant economy and the new tax pressures.

"Who can pay more than they can afford? These law changes will be disastrous for brothel operators," she said in an interview with Reuters Television on Friday.

German lawmakers have started looking for ways to more effectively collect taxes from prostitutes after the Federal Audit Office scolded the government for squandering some two billion euros a year in lost tax revenues.

A parliamentary committee is expected to soon propose new measures to improve the tax take from red light districts because the government's budget deficit is worsening.

At the same time, the lower house of parliament on Friday passed a separate law that will fine companies that fail to hire at least one apprentice for each 15 staff workers -- and brothels would not be exempt from financial penalties.

"My God, I can't imagine the consequences because of the special circumstances of the trade," she said, when asked about the government's plans and the double blow her business faces.

"It would be terrible. Prostitution attracts women who can't usually cope with a regular job and have never really learned general skills on punctuality, reliability.

"These women come and go as they please," said Luft, who has appeared on television talk shows and is one of the country's most outspoken prostitutes. "They don't think about record keeping and taxes."

Law changes in recent years to force prostitutes out of the underground economy and into legitimate tax-paying businesses have failed to make any headway, she said.

Prostitutes can get health insurance and retirement benefits and trade unions have tried to bring prostitution out of the shadows by drawing up standard contracts after the government passed a law in 2001 allowing them to sue their clients for mistreatment or failing to pay fees.

But very few sex workers have taken advantage of that.

Prostitutes serve an estimated 1.2 million clients a day. Nearly two-thirds work in bars, clubs or brothels. About one-sixth work on streets and the rest operate as call girls or escorts. Lobby groups have said workers can earn between 5,000 and 10,000 euros per month.


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[thenerdguy]

African Frogs Threaten San Francisco Area

SAN FRANCISCO - California biologists are alarmed over the latest invasive species to take up residence in this city: African clawed frogs, which eat just about anything and tend to breed like crazy.
Even worse, they're kind of cute — and thus more likely to be whisked away by children and dumped into other ponds, where they spread even more.

"They are a threat," said Dr. David Wake, an emeritus professor of integrative biology at the University of California-Berkeley. "They change the environment quite profoundly."

Native to Kenya, the frogs are able to live under ice, in the ground and in salty water. They alter ecosystems by gobbling up insects, fish, lizards and even birds that fit into their large, tongueless mouths. They also burrow into the ground to survive dry conditions and prey on the state's endangered red-legged frog.

The African frogs, outlawed as pets in California several years ago, are used in medical and biological research. Some theorize that researchers might have released the animals into Golden Gate Park's Lily Pond and parts of Southern California to save the frogs from destruction.

Pet stores and collectors wary of being slapped with fines of up to $1,000 also might have released them into local creeks and ponds.

Eric Mills of Oakland-based Action for Animals, which has lobbied the state to fight the spread of invasive species, said the only way to prevent the frogs from spreading is to kill the population in Lily Pond.

"They spent millions of dollars a few years ago in San Diego trying to get rid of these frogs," Mills said. "If they get loose in the San Francisco delta, it will be devastating to get them out."

But getting rid of the frogs has been a problem for the cash-strapped California Department of Fish and Game.

A plan to dry out Lily Pond was canceled last summer just as a crew was readying pipes to flush the pond into the sewer, said Susan Ellis, the Department of Fish and Game's invasive species coordinator.

Ellis said the department had to divert funds to species that posed bigger threats — such as the voracious northern pike that has taken over Lake Davis near the Sierra Nevada community of Portola.

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[thenerdguy]

Spring Thaw Allows for Burials in Alaska

FAIRBANKS, Alaska - As the spring thaw softens ground that has been frozen hard as granite by the long Alaska winter, cemeteries start burying people who died during the past seven months.

Since October, when digging became next to impossible, many of Alaska's dead have been in storage. Now, families are finally able to inter their loved ones in a somber Far North rite of spring.

"It's around Memorial Day when we go down 6 feet," said David Erickson, cemetery manager of Northern Lights Mortuary and Memorial Park in Fairbanks. "We'll start earlier for infants and urns."

Burials started May 3 at Birch Hill cemetery, said Dave Jacoby, public works director for the city, which operates the cemetery. Birch Hill had 22 delayed burials to perform.

Northern Lights, which stored about 15 bodies this winter, begins its burials near the latter part of May because it's at a higher elevation where the soil gets less exposure to the sun.

Winter temperatures can fall to 40 below zero or lower at Fairbanks, in Alaska's interior.

"The ground is so hard we'd be digging a grave for three days," Jacoby said.

Even in places with milder climates, such as Anchorage, many cemeteries close in the fall because of freezing ground.

Delayed burials occur in other frigid climes across the North, including some parts of New England and northern Minnesota.

But in Canada, winter burials are the norm, said Roger Yador, director of Heritage North Funeral Home in the Yukon Territory city of Whitehorse.

And even in Alaska winter burials are still common outside the bigger cities.

"Why wait? We live in the cold and snow and ice. It seems barbaric to store them above ground and wait until springtime," said Shirley Demientieff, an Athabascan who buried her grandmother, Mary, in the village of Nenana in January.

After clearing the snow from her grandmother's grave site, fires were used to slowly thaw the ground, Demientieff said.

Erickson said Northern Lights once tried using steam to thaw a grave site, but it cost more than most families could afford.

Another time, cemetery workers tried digging graves in advance, before the ground froze. "It turned out nobody wanted those graves. They wanted to be by their relatives or in another spot," Erickson said.

The Rev. Scott Fisher, of the 1,200-member St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Fairbanks, said he disagrees with the practice of storing bodies over the winter because the flow of a service from church to graveside is psychologically important for grieving families.

"The sound of the earth on the casket — ka-thud — breaks through some of the shock and the grief," he said.



"Say somebody dies and nothing happens for seven months. By that amount of time — five months, six months, seven months — a thin veneer of feeling has begun and it gets ripped off," he said.

Fisher will hold services at two spring burials this year. Other members of his congregation who died during the winter already have been buried in villages outside Fairbanks.

Fisher said he holds a special graveside service because of the time that's passed.

"You've got to go back into the moment. We have to pull ourselves where we were when the funeral service ended," Fisher said

Jacoby said some families choose not to have graveside services in the spring, but ask the cemetery to notify them when a loved one is buried.

"I've seen people worse at the interment than at the actual service, because they relive it twice," he said.

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[thenerdguy]

Boy's bush trek saves father's life

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A seven-year-old Australian boy will be nominated for a bravery award after walking over a mile through rugged bush with broken ribs and collapsing lungs to get help for his injured father, emergency services say.



Tyler Moon and his father, David, 39, were seriously hurt on Saturday when their all-terrain four-wheeled vehicle turned over and pinned the boy's father to the ground about 120 miles south of Sydney in New South Wales state.

"With the severity of his injuries he staggered as two lungs were collapsing to make it home for dad because he loves his dad. We think he deserves recognition," said Ian Badham of CareFlight, which airlifted Tyler to a Sydney hospital.

Tyler collapsed after making it home to his mother, Gail. He and his father were now recovering in separate Sydney hospitals.

"He was always a hero in my eyes. He's now just a hero in everyone else's eyes," Tyler's mother told reporters on Monday.

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[thenerdguy]

OK thats enough for now Ive got weeks of old news to go through. Ill post more later.

 

[Dedalus]

BERLIN (Reuters) - A leading German prostitute

ahahahahahahaa

that's me done for the day

great to see thenerdnews back again and on great form :cheers: