`The outsourcing revolution has come to an unlikely place: the drive-through window at your local McDonald’s quick-service restuarant (that’s “fast food joint” in English). No longer just a way for companies to cut costs on their helpline or offer inexpensive tutoring over the Web, outsourcing is now seen as way to make the drive-through experience more efficient, which translates into more cheeseburgers sold. [..]
The system is currently a trial project that serves 40 McDonald’s in the US (including Hawaii). When a customer rolls up to the order board, their conversation is actually routed across the Internet to someone working in a California call center. Call center employees are specifically trained to be fast, polite, and to upsell—or, as Joseph Fleischer of Call Center Magazine describes it, “advising the customer on getting more out of the product.” The employee then enters the order into a computer, which routes it back over the Internet to the local McDonald’s, which assembles the requested items.’
`Some high school criminology students in Fort Lauderdale got a taste of the real thing this morning.
Their teacher had set up a mock crime scene at Holiday Park for their class. The students were supposed to bag evidence, take pictures of the scene and try to solve the fake crime.
The students from St. Thomas Aquinas High School soon discovered a man’s body and began taking notes and pictures as they were taught. But at the time, they didn’t know it was a real dead person. One student even said he thought his teacher “planted it there.” Once they realized it was the real deal, they notified their teacher and the police.’
`A lion killed a man who climbed into its enclosure at the Kiev Zoo, police said Monday.
The lion attacked the 45-year-old Ukrainian late Sunday after he used a rope to climb down into an enclosure with four lions, said police spokesman Volodymyr Polishchuk.
Ukrainian TV channel NTN broadcast interviews with witnesses who said the man told them that he believed God would not allow the lions to hurt him.
According to Reuters, an official said, “The man shouted: ‘God will save me, if he exists,’ lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions.”‘
Also: Lioness in zoo kills man who invoked God
`”A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery.”‘
`There is no subtle way to say this: Brian Walker plans to shoot himself nearly 20 miles into the air aboard a homemade rocket launched from what could be the world’s largest crossbow. (Seriously.) [..]
Walker’s idea of fun? Stretch a carbon-fiber bowstring 24 feet along a rail, fire up a jet turbine with 1,350 pounds of thrust, hit a trigger, and pull 10 gs as his craft, modeled on spaceships from Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica, shoots to the stratosphere. He’ll plummet back to Earth using hydrogen peroxide rockets (the propulsion system used in 1950s jet packs) to slow his descent.’
`Two university students were found dead inside a large, deflated helium balloon after apparently pulling it down and crawling inside it, officials said.
The deaths of Jason Ackerman and Sara Rydman, both 21, appear to be accidental, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Major Bob Schrader said.
Their bodies were found yesterday partially inside a deflated helium balloon at the entrance of a condominium complex a few kilometres north of Tampa. The 2.4-metre-diameter balloon was used to advertise the complex.’
`A late-night brawl that included a quarter-mile foot chase among combatants — with two men catching up to another man and beating him with a broom and window squeegee — led to the arrests of six people early Saturday morning, police said.
Deputy Police Chief James Pigott said two separate groups of people visited the Shell Gas Station and convenience store, Route 36 and Main Street, at 2:20 a.m. Saturday.
The ensuing altercation led to injuries that required hospitalization of the Little Falls man, who was transported by Keansburg Fire Department EMS to Jersey Shore University Medical Center, Neptune. The victim’s name was not released.’
Beaten but clean..
`As an 8-year-old girl looked at toys in an Orlando Kmart, a 5-foot-6, 160 pound man with blondish-brown hair politely approached and asked her to open her mouth. Yes, this story gets really nasty. When she refused, he pointed a fish-shaped squirt gun at her, sprayed her face, snapped her photograph and ran. What he shot on her face was not water but semen from inside a squirt gun. The picture he took was going to be used no doubt to help refill the gun.
Apparently this was at least the ninth time — possibly the 11th — that a bizarre child molester has struck in the past year, police said.’
`A St. Paul man is thankful to be alive tonight, after his washing machine exploded this morning in his basement.
Glenn Johnson of St. Paul put gasoline in his machine to clean some greasy clothing. Johnson says he’s done this for 25 years to break up grease stains.
He puts detergent, water and a little gasoline together and after what happened this morning, he says he’ll never do it again.
“I’ve done it a hundred times before,” Johnson tells 5 Eyewitness News. “This is the first time it ever exploded on me.”‘
`As someone with a great interest in teratology – the study of perceived abnormalities in the natural world – the human marvels of the sideshow garner great attention and interest from me. Herein bear witness to peculiar and puzzling physical phenomena – to those prodigies of years past. Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present for your enlightenment, The Human Marvels.’
`The BBC has uncovered new video evidence that US forces may have been responsible for the deliberate killing of 11 innocent Iraqi civilians. [..]
According to the Americans, the building collapsed under heavy fire killing four people – a suspect, two women and a child.
But a report filed by Iraqi police accused US troops of rounding up and deliberately shooting 11 people in the house, including five children and four women, before blowing up the building.’
`Specifically, Louis has isolated strange, thick-walled, red-tinted cell-like structures about 10 microns in size. Stranger still, dozens of his experiments suggest that the particles may lack DNA yet still reproduce plentifully, even in water superheated to nearly 600?F. (The known upper limit for life in water is about 250?F.) So how to explain them? Louis speculates that the particles could be extraterrestrial bacteria adapted to the harsh conditions of space and that the microbes hitched a ride on a comet or meteorite that later broke apart in the upper atmosphere and mixed with rain clouds above India. If his theory proves correct, the cells would be the first confirmed evidence of alien life and, as such, could yield tantalizing new clues to the origins of life on Earth.’
followup to Red Rain Proof of Extraterrestrial Life?.
`The tradition of students driving farm tractors to school on the last day of class is coming to an end in one Beaver County community.
Freedom Area High School students from farming areas have been driving tractors on the last day of classes for more than a decade, perhaps several decades, students said.
But this year, New Sewickley police said they will issue citations to anyone who tries it. Using tractors as transportation is illegal, according to police Chief John Daley, and he said police want to ensure the safety of students and motorists.’
`Still, when it comes to grand ambition, the impresarios of the Strip are mere pikers next to Budget Suites owner Robert Bigelow. For his next hotel enterprise, Bigelow is looking beyond the bright lights of Las Vegas—beyond Earth’s atmosphere, in fact. He is actively engaged in an effort to build the planet’s first orbiting space hotel. Bargain-basement room rate: $1 million a night. For its water show, this hotel will have all of Earth’s blue oceans flying past its windows at 17,500 miles an hour. Guests on board the 330-cubic-meter station (about the size of a three-bedroom house) will learn weightless acrobatics, marvel at the ever-changing face of the home planet, and, for half of every 90-minute orbit, gaze deep into a galaxy ablaze with stars.’
`A Plattsburgh man is facing felony charges for allegedly striking his mother in the head after the two disagreed about the fate of an “American Idol” contestant. [..]
His mother made comments that contestant Katharine McPhee was going to have a successful career despite losing to another contestant, Taylor Hicks.
Favreau allegedly stood up, made a malicious comment to his mother and struck her in the head with a sharpened, cross-shaped object attached to a bicycle chain.’
`We may not be entirely human, gene experts said on Thursday after studying the DNA of hundreds of different kinds of bacteria in the human gut.
Bacteria are so important to key functions such as digestion and the immune system that we may be truly symbiotic organisms — relying on one another for life itself, the scientists write in Friday’s issue of the journal Science. [..]
“We are somehow like an amalgam, a mix of bacteria and human cells. There are some estimates that say 90 percent of the cells on our body are actually bacteria,” Steven Gill, a molecular biologist formerly at TIGR and now at the State University of New York in Buffalo, said in a telephone interview.’
`Nova 969’s Merrick and Rosso were forced to make an on-air apology this morning after a prostitute claimed she had “seen” a senior Labor politician.
Speaking on Nova’s Merrick and Rosso breakfast show this morning, a woman who said she was a sex worker was asked what the prostitutes’ code of ethics was when it comes to keeping secret the names of high-profile clients they have slept with.
She replied: “We may have defamation cases brought against us and, as I’m anonymous, I can say I’ve seen [the politician].”’
`Teenagers who take pledges to remain virgins until marriage are likely to deny having taken the pledge if they later become sexually active. Conversely, those who were sexual active before taking the pledge frequency deny their sexual history, according to new study findings.
These findings imply that virginity pledgers often provide unreliable data, making assessment of abstinence-based sex education programs unreliable. In addition, these teens may also underestimate their risk of exposure to sexually transmitted diseases.’
`Hey as performed by Prince
No. 13 Baby as performed by Elvis
Vamos as performed by Jimi Hendrix
Mr. Grieves as performed by Bob Marley
River Euphrates as performed by Tina Turner
Levitate Me as performed by The Beach Boys
Wave Of Mutilation as performed by The Bee Gees
Monkey Gone to Heaven as performed by Frank Sinatra’
`A North Texas man is keeping an unusual piece of military history in his yard near Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.
An anti-aircraft gun from the Korean conflict designed to bring down airplanes sits in the man’s front yard off of Valley View Road in Irving.
NBC 5 found out about the gun after receiving calls and e-mails from viewers who were concerned the gun was being used to target aircraft taking off from D/FW airport.’
`A man in a purple woman’s bathing suit and carrying a flare gun is off the streets in Key West.
A bartender at a popular Key West bar said she spotted Jeffrey Anderson dancing in the street, exposing himself to tourists, and asking for money when people took pictures of him.’
`Worried about the safety of her family during a stormy Memorial Day trip to the beach, Clara Jean Brown stood in her kitchen and prayed for their safe return as a strong thunderstorm rumbled through Baldwin County, Alabama.
But while she prayed, lightning suddenly exploded, blowing through the linoleum and leaving a blackened area on the concrete. Brown wound up on the floor, dazed and disoriented by the blast but otherwise uninjured.
She said ‘Amen’ and the room was engulfed in a huge ball of fire. The 65-year-old Brown said she is blessed to be alive.’
`Police are investigating a bizarre discovery involving severed goat heads put on display at the end of a driveway.
Last week, police found two severed goat heads, a coconut and a pentagram drawn in chalk in a driveway of a home, police Lt. Francis Balzano said.
“We’re not saying this is illegal,” Balzano said. “We would just like to know what it means.”‘
`While most Canadians are aware that medicinal marijuana is legal in Canada, many may not know that there is a product available that also offers cannabis health benefits for your pets.
Med-Marijuana’s newest product, Medi-Paws, is being used by Canadian pet owners for a host of animal issues such as cardiac health, arthritis, liver and kidney functions.’
`A council planning department was hit by chaos — after computers banned “erection” from emails.
The word is one of the most commonly used terms in applications for building works.
But it was also included in a list of obscene expressions to be filtered out by software used by Rochdale Council, Greater Manchester. [..]
A Rochdale Council spokesman said: “The software is not designed by the council and we don’t control which words are blocked. We will be apologising to the resident.”’
`Two grandparents in Lake County, Fla., were arrested for allegedly offering a hit man $100 to kill their three grandchildren, daughter-in-law and the family’s pet dog, according to Local 6 News. [..]
“According to an arrest affidavit, Versie Jackson made contact with the undercover agent while her husband stayed in the car because he was reportedly too afraid the meet the person who would kill his grandchildren and daughter-in-law,” Local 6 reporter Louis Bolden said. [..]
After an investigation, authorities said the couple’s son, Jason Jackson, 31, concocted the alleged murder-for-hire plan from jail and asked his parents to seal the deal, Bolden said.’
`The biblical significance of the hand is important, because in the act of fisting, one partner (usually male) inserts his entire hand and fist into the vagina or rectum of his partner. Rather than copulating with his penis, he penetrates her with his fist. Given the powerful symbolism of the fist, it is no surprise that couples who have partaken in the practice of fisting have described it as being a profoundly spiritual experience. On a symbolic and sexual level, a wife who is fisted by her husband has the experience of surrendering completely to the divine love and power of the Lord, as embodied by her partner’s hand. The husband in turn has the experience of touching and caressing her inwardly, in such a deep and intimate manner as God touches our own souls with His grace.’
