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From wallyfu

 

 

 

Marine Chooses Wedding Ring Over Finger

VICTORVILLE, Calif. - When Marine Lance Cpl. David Battle learned he'd either have to sacrifice his ring finger or the wedding band he wore, he told doctors at a field hospital in Iraq to cut off the finger.

The 19-year-old former high school football star suffered a mangled left hand and serious wounds to his legs in a Nov. 13 fire fight in Fallujah.

Doctors were preparing to cut off Battle's ring to save as much of his finger as they could.

"But that would mean destroying my wedding ring," he said. "My wife is the strongest woman I know. She's basically running two people's lives since I've been gone. I don't think I could ever repay her or show her how grateful ... how much I love my wife, my soul mate."

With his approval, doctors severed his finger, but somehow in the chaos that followed, they lost his ring.

From Daffodilious

 

 

BEIJING (Reuters) - China will soon host the finals of the country's first beauty contest in which every contestant has gone under the knife.

Twenty "man-made" beauties will parade their surgical nips and tucks next Saturday in the hope of taking home the country's first Miss Artificial Beauty crown.

Beauty pageants were once considered reviled displays of western decadence but have become big business in Communist-ruled China following more than two decades of economic reforms.

"I wanted to convey a message to society -- that the pursuit of beauty is ageless," said 62-year-old Liu Yulan, the oldest contestant who turned to plastic surgery to smooth facial wrinkles and fill out her drawn cheeks.

 

 

Lodi armor maker: Rumsfeld mistaken
Company ready, willing to expand output

By Jeff Hood
Lodi Bureau Chief
Published Saturday, December 11, 2004

LODI -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently told disgruntled National Guard troops in Kuwait the reason there isn't more armor on military vehicles in Iraq is because it can't be made fast enough.

"'There's no capacity' is what Rumsfeld said," said Mark Frater, chief executive officer at R.E. Services, which began making lightweight armor for military vehicles earlier this year. "I'm just running one shift. I've got capacity. I could run around the clock if they gave me the orders."

Frater's company makes laminated plates that stop armor-piercing bullets, shrapnel and fragments from roadside bombs that have taken a toll on U.S. troops in Iraq.

 "We've taken 20 hits on 12 vehicles and we've had no failures," Frater said. "We haven't lost one soldier in our vehicles."

 

 

 

 

66-pound tumor removed

By Tim Bonfield
Enquirer staff writer

Surgeons at University Hospital removed a 66-pound tumor from the abdomen of a woman from Peebles, Ohio, a little over a week ago.

The 1.5-hour operation wasn't easy. At various points, team members had to lift and roll the heavy tumor from side to side to allow surgeons to disconnect blood vessels feeding it from underneath.

Once fully disconnected, it took four sets of hands to lift the slippery, watermelon-shaped mass out of Radtke's body. They rolled the tumor onto a stretcher, then sent it to the pathology department, where tests confirmed that it was not cancerous.

Grace Radtke entered the hospital weighing about 245 pounds. She left weighing about 160 pounds and extremely relieved that the tumor wasn't cancer.

 

 

http://www.thehungersite.com/

How does the site work? Who pays for the food?
The site's sponsors pay for your daily click. The sponsors purchase tiles on the Thank You page for a certain amount of time. The Hunger Site then tabulates the number of people who click during that time frame and bill the sponsor for the appropriate amount. The Hunger Site divides the monies between two leading hunger relief organizations: America's Second Harvest and Mercy Corps.


Do it. Click everyday! One click per day is the only catch. It's free. One click per day, people. It won't kill you. And you're doing something really special. Pass it on. Tell your friends. It's really important.

From whatever22

 

 

Action Alert!

Dhaka's Rickshaws Under Threat:
Help Stop the World Bank's War on the Poor

Action Alert released Dec. 6, 2004 - expires Dec. 31, 2004
produced by World Carfree Network; endorsed by Roads for People (Dhaka) and ITDP (New York)

In Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, most journeys are made on foot, and bicycle rickshaws are the main form of vehicular transport. Rickshaws are an efficient, non-polluting way to move around, and for many people without job skills, pulling a rickshaw is the only option other than begging or crime. It is estimated that five million people in Bangladesh are dependent on the income of rickshaw pullers for their survival.

The World Bank has shown nothing but hostility towards rickshaws being the dominant mode of vehicular transport in Dhaka, seeing them as an impediment to their idea of development (e.g., mass motorisation, fossil fuel dependence, traffic jams, dirty air, and accelerated climate change).

Under pressure from the World Bank, Dhaka City Corporation (The City of Dhaka) announced that from December 17 it plans to ban rickshaws and non-motorised transport from Mirpur Road. Pushing rickshaws off the main roads would allow motor vehicles to become the dominant mode of vehicular transport in the city. At the same time, the World Bank is pressuring the Bangladeshi government to pass a law freeing the bank of legal liability for any harm that results from its policies.

Increasing limitations on rickshaws in Dhaka are causing untold hardship to the poorest and most vulnerable segments of society, reducing the mobility of the middle class (particularly women, children, and the elderly), and contributing to air pollution and motorisation. Meanwhile, roads that have completely banned non-motorised transport are still some of the worst affected by traffic jams.

Banning rickshaws and building highways while people face starvation is nothing short of a war on the poor.

Take Action Today:

Make December the month to fight for the rickshaw. The campaign in Bangladesh will continue, but your support during this month will be critical to its success.

• Tell World Bank President James Wolfensohn to stop the bank's promotion and financing of rickshaw bans in Dhaka:


• http://worldcarfree.net/dhaka/

 

 

From addictabLe

 

 

Marines hunt down Fallujah's strays to head off rabies threat 12-10-2004,

Cris Bouroncle - (AFP/File) FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) - US troops fire off another volley of shots amid the trashed houses of Fallujah, hunting down new adversaries. But this time the marines are not chasing down insurgents. Their quarry is stray animals grown fat on the flesh from corpses and who could harbor rabies. The marines gather briefly over a pile of trash, one pointing across the dirt lot to a row of burned out homes where moments before a dog was seen loping for cover amid the ruined buildings. "I think we wounded a couple and they took off that way," he said, as another marine pulled his quarry onto a ridge, its bloodied head rolling side to side in the dust. The marines have been told to organize special details to "thin out" the battered city's animal population. "It eliminates the threat," marine Lieutenant Lyle Gilbert, spokesman for the 1st MEF, said Wednesday.