Radioactive Boar On the Rise In Germany 165
Germans who go out in the woods today are sure of a big surprise, radioactive boars. A portion of the wild boar population in Germany was irradiated after the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown, and the boars are thriving. In the last two years government payments to compensate hunters for radioactive boar have quadrupled. From the article: "According to the Environment Ministry in Berlin, almost €425,000 ($555,000) was paid out to hunters in 2009 in compensation for wild boar meat that was too contaminated by radiation to be sold for consumption. That total is more than four times higher than compensation payments made in 2007." I think the Germans are overlooking just how much money there is to be made from regenerating bacon.
quoth the radioactive boar: (Score:4, Funny)
GET OUT OF HERE STALKER
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I said come in, don't just stand there!
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Ah lol?
In the US you cannot sell the meat radioactive or not. Our hunters are not compensated for game they cannot consume that I'm aware of. Prion testing is offered in states where it is an epidemic. I'm kind of shocked that Germany would pay squat to a hunter. I support hunting and game management by purchasing hunting licenses, buying ammo and firearms and several other supplies. I'll listen to a hunter cry in his beer about the mutant hog he couldn't eat but I'll be damned if the government should line
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In the US you cannot sell the meat radioactive or not. Our hunters are not compensated for game they cannot consume that I'm aware of.
IIRC, an issue of the print version of National Geographic stated that some states do compensate farmers and/or hunters who cannot gather enough game due to wolf populations. I don't have the article on me so I cannot be sure exactly what it said.
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Wild boars cause incredible crop damage to farmers in Germany. In areas with a large wild boar population, farmers pay hunters a token fee to keep the damage at a minimum. Most of the hunters' compensations comes from selling the meat to restaurants. It's a delicacy and tastes delicious. The Frischlinge (baby wild boars) taste quite outstanding.
To hunt boars in America it takes cunning, patience, stealth, patience, an uncanny knowledge of the boars' habitat, a good aim, and more patience.
In Germany, the wild boar hunter builds a small tower at the edge of a farmer field. He then crawls up there with his weapon, and a thermos of coffee in the eve
Profit (Score:1)
No question marks in this one
1) Kill Boar
2) Irradiate it
3) Sell to German government
4) PROFIT!!!!111!!!
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No question marks in this one
1) Kill Boar 2) Irradiate it 3) Sell to German government 4) PROFIT!!!!111!!!
Bacon that cooks itself, what's better than that, other than bacon with ketchup.
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Bacon that cooks itself, what's better than that, other than bacon with ketchup.
Bacon coated bacon that cooks itself in bacon fat.
(With a side of ketchup)
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Bacon coated bacon that cooks itself in bacon fat.
You, sir are my new hero!
(With a side of ketchup)
Never mind you damn vegetarian freak!
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Bacon coated with cheddar cheese inside a doughnut with ketchup.
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You would make a lot more money selling the meat to resturants and it would involve less upfront investment as you would not need to purchase a radiation source.
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The areas affected by contamination are pretty well known and the contamination can definitely be measured in the environment.
Also, if you get caught doing stupid stuff like that, you'll most likely land in prison for the rest of your life, because you're obviously a nuclear terrorist.
Additionaly, uncontaminated wild boar meat fetches a pretty good price. There's absofrickenlutely no point in taking whatever compensation the government offer
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No question marks in this one
1) Kill Boar
2) Irradiate it
3) Sell to German government
4) PROFIT!!!!111!!!
Irradiated =/= Radioactive. Radioactive things can irradiate other things. Irradiated things _very_ rarely are ever radioactive. This is why irradiating food to kill pathogens should be more accepted, but the radioactive/irradiated conflation is what keeps the public fearful of irradiated food.
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Well, you set the challenge yourself :
OK, how are you going to twist this story into a MS bashing?
[/Self : This should be good for a laugh if he can do it. And good for a laugh if he can't. Win-win!]
err, World of... uhm Germany-craft? (Score:1)
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New German Movie Due Out Next Summer (Score:3, Funny)
Boarzilla!
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Hopefully with more cowbells.
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Boarzilla!
More likely Godzoara.
It's actually a good thing! (Score:4, Funny)
Germany could market these as "Self-Cooking Boar!"
Too lazy to cook? No fuel for your stove? No problem - just shoot, wrap in foil, and a few hours later...DINNER!
Dusterwaldkeiler (Score:4, Funny)
Ahh, reminds me of my Magic: The Gathering days... cast "Wild Growth" on the "Dusterwaldkeiler" and goodbye to enemy "Serra Angel"s. Muhaha
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See: http://magiccards.info/st2k/de/3.html [magiccards.info]
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Yeah... I stopped playing Magic right after Ice Age was released, but before I quit, I was working on two collections: Atogs and Durkwood Boars. With a bit of trading, I ended up with a good number of Durkwood Boars in foreign languages.
I recently fit my many boxes of Magic into a backpack (barely, and it was damned heavy!) and went to a Magic gaming night at a local toy store. Apparently (and unsurprisingly), the game has changed a lot, as I was lost. Also, apparently it's a lot easier to make fast decks -
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Here are some tis on how to semi-cheaply build workable decks without having to
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I still have never heard of any of the cards you mention (except for black vise). Remember, Ice Age was the last set I've seen. I do remember blast decks, and I often enjoyed building decks that were mana-burn centric with mana flare (that I could flip around for a bit using manabarbs if I managed to get more creatures out than they could deal with).
I don't think I've heard of shadow - is it like landwalking?
Anyhow, I imagine I won't start playing again regularly - it might be fun to dust off the old kobold
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If you want to see a nicely balanced mo
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Oh, you're right. I haven't played the game for years and my memories are slightly foggy.
What????? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm having trouble understanding how the Cherynobl meltdown [google.com] has anything to do with wild boar populations in southern Germany. The article specifically mentions Bavaria, a region a thousand miles (and several countries) away. I admit I'm just an ignorant American, but surely this doesn't make any sense? [google.com]
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I'm having trouble understanding how the Cherynobl meltdown [google.com] has anything to do with wild boar populations in southern Germany. The article specifically mentions Bavaria, a region a thousand miles (and several countries) away. I admit I'm just an ignorant American, but surely this doesn't make any sense? [google.com]
I'm just as clueless... But I'm going to assume that you've got radioactive dust drifting in the wind. Maybe?
Re:What????? (Score:5, Funny)
Just a idea. Sit down. Have a drink. Now don't get mad at me or all stressed out, I know it's hard to deal with new things. Just consider to concept at least:
Read the Fucking Article.
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to all the nutt cases who think that "Nucular is the new green energy".... ... When Chernobyl blew up we (i lived in bavaria at that time) got a healthy dose (pun intended) of fall out from the wind drift.
It was in fact so bad that no agricultural products could be sold that year, public playgrounds closed, and people generally were advised to not go outside.
(and when they come back in, to decontaminate their shoes)
I bought a geiger counter and was amazed that the lettuce from our garden was more radioactiv
Re:What????? (Score:4, Informative)
No, it's thanks to the Russian designers and managers who decided to build a crappy and unsafe nuclear plant.
Germany is next-door to France, which has tons of nuclear plants, and sells lots of power to the rest of Europe. In fact, you might be using nuclear-generated power from France right now, since you're so close to them. How many disasters has France had with their nuclear plants? Zero?
Cars can be very dangerous too, for instance if you put the gas tank in a place where it will rupture and explode in a small collision (like the Ford Pinto). Should we stop making all cars because of this? No, of course not; we stop making crappy, unsafe cars like the Pinto.
BTW, I don't think the nuclear lobby had anything to do with nuclear plants in the Soviet Union. They didn't have lobbyists there, and environmental concerns weren't very important to Communist ideology.
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The German nuclear industry also has problems (Score:3, Interesting)
IMHO nuclear power requires a kind of long-term thinking that is utterly alien to modern politicians and industry managers.
Case in point: Back in the 1980s there was a political decision to develop an old salt mine (Gorleben [wikipedia.org]) into a long term storage for highly radioactive waste. But today it seems that the major reasons for that decision were
A) Gorleben was close to the Border to East Germany
B) The people there would be grateful for any jobs and would keep voting for the conservative parties forever
Geology
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Coundn't plastics be made out of coal? I mean it is easier to make them out of oil, but it's not like oil contains fairy dust that makes it unique, and not just chains of hydrocarbons. And what about actually recycling plastics, they don't degrade in the environment so they could be collected from landfills and well.. recycling containers.
I don't think it's a big deal that we're burning that oil and some day may run out of it, I'm much more worried about all that carbon that we're putting in the atmosphere
Re:What????? (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if we go nuclear in the interim, we still have the waste storage issue to deal with for hundreds of years...not anything we've even considered in terms of cost.
I know! We can aerosolize our radioactive waste and spew it out into the the atmosphere, where it can kill people hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the site. You know, like coal plants are doing right now.
The solution to pollution is dilution, right?
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My choice is more short term pollution from coal with the goal of renewable sources completely (or at least most) down the road.
You don't get down the road until you start driving, s
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We'll need to deal with the waste at some point and so far there isn't a plan to deal with it.
I don't think we should try to do anything too extreme to get rid of nuclear waste. To the extent the waste is still energetic, we're going to want it back for recycling, I'm sure. I suspect that a recurring theme over the next few hundred years is that one era's "waste" is going to be another era's treasure.
Just put it somewhere and hope it doesn't leak/leech into the environment.
Which is better than spewing i
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Because there's only one road
You may only see one road, but unless we start down a different one we will have problems. Nuclear fuel is finite, it won't last more than 100 years especially if we ramp up to full base load use.
Solar and renewable sources are great when available, but we will never get anywhere enough energy from them to run a modern civilization
You do realize that Solar and Wind each alone already provide multiple times the current worlds energy output right? Now combine them. Literally hundreds of times more energy than we currently use over the entire planet. We just aren't harvesting it. But there's *plenty* of energy there.
Renewables' current
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Nuclear fuel is finite, it won't last more than 100 years especially if we ramp up to full base load use.
That's only true if you count current sources. Existing uranium mines are only picking the low-hanging fruit. (Ideally we'd be transitioning towards fusion in another 100 years anyway, and then the whole resource question is moot.)
You do realize that Solar and Wind each alone already provide multiple times the current worlds energy output right?
Only the energy we can actually harness matters.
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Only the energy we can actually harness matters.
I laughed pretty hard at this. Especially since you just finished saying that we need to work harder to get more uranium.
Why not just work a little harder and harness renewable sources?
And you don't end up with trashed environments when the mines are emptied to boot.
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Pick one:
1. Economical, large capacity electricity storage (which we don't have, nor do we really have a clue about the technology to use for that).
2. Gigantic electricity grids to economically transport electricity over thousands of miles (which are hugely expensive).
3. Give up the notion of electricity supply being reliable. (which we don't want)
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1. Economical, large capacity electricity storage (which we don't have, nor do we really have a clue about the technology to use for that).
Obviously anything tough we've never done and we just can't do it so just sit still. Vegas is already experimenting with molten salt storage for solar power energy storage.
2. Gigantic electricity grids to economically transport electricity over thousands of miles (which are hugely expensive). [emphasis mine]
As opposed to $4/gallon gas? get ready for double and triple that rate within 20-30 years. See #1. Add recent possible advances into room temp super-conductors and pretty soon you have 0% transmission loss over distances.
3. Give up the notion of electricity supply being reliable. (which we don't want)
See #1. It's already proven that adding enough wind turbines actually creates a usable base load since the wind is
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As for nuclear plants, a dozen planes could fly into a modern nuclear plant and do all of nothing much
Which is why I didn't suggest the plant itself is the problem, but the pretty much open air (water) storage of the waste. It sits on site at the reactors for years with little in the way of hardened shielding.
You misunderstand what's growing. He's assuming current growth in energy demand, and zero growth in the fuel supply.
Google 'Uranium shortage'. Given that we're talking orders of magnitude increase in power to reach base load levels, it's perfectly reasonable to question whether we have enough or not. Especially when the OP (and everybody else saying we have enough) doesn't specify what they mean.
The cost of waste storage is factored into the cost of modern nuclear plants.
Please show me wh
Missing options (Score:2)
Sure renewable is great.. but the problem is that the third world isn't going to want to foot that bill as they rise in affluence. Heck it's tough to sell Americans on it. And renewable cant respond to increases in load, a coal plant can increase the feed rate of fuel. Solar, wind, tide cant change mother nature, Geothermal can operate below peak which is simila
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And renewable cant respond to increases in load, a coal plant can increase the feed rate of fuel. Solar, wind, tide cant change mother nature, Geothermal can operate below peak which is similar to a normal plant.
Too funny, you don't even understand that this issue is the same for both. Just like you don't build a coal plant to max out at average load, you don't build renewable to only handle average. You simply build a bigger plant [more mirrors/windmills/etc], just l
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Sure renewable is great.. but the problem is that the third world isn't going to want to foot that bill as they rise in affluence. Heck it's tough to sell Americans on it.
Forgot the cost factor, people expect the cost of renewable sources to come down over time. Frankly they really won't, at least not appreciably.
However, the cost of non-renewable sources is only going up as supplies and the environmental costs of their use are tallied. So in the long run renewables are going to be much much cheaper than the other options.
The question is, do you want to pay really high energy costs while also then paying the high cost of rapid renewable development then, or do you wa
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Read the Fucking Article.
Why the hell would I do that? This is Slashdot.
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Here's something that will really baffle your puny American mind:
http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/livestock/scotland%E2%80%99s-chernobyl-sheep-no-longer-radioactive/32935.article
Re:What????? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Never heard of fallout [dailykos.com]?
Re:What????? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What????? (Score:5, Informative)
I guess you weren't around back then.
There was no fresh milk, fruit or vegetables for some time in most of central, east and northern Europe because everything had to be tested and much had to be trashed. People were warned against collecting berries and mushrooms for years.
The radioactive cloud went northwest to Scandinavia first and then southward to Central Europe.
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Then it swerved left and settled over France, first diminishing the intelligence of local elected officials (which went undetected), before finally being fermented into a new "glow in the dark" cheese.
Happy to have finally found a home, the Radioactive Cloud settled down and while currently still unattached, hopes to one day have little "Containment Leaks".
(sorry all, I think I'm in a giddy mood today)
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Look at it another way. Some species of mushrooms are wonderfully good at concentrating heavy metal elements, including radioactive ones. You let the fungus grow, then harvest it and put it in radioactive containment vessels. Now you are using fungus to actively extract and isolate the radioisotopes from the contaminated soil. Yes, it's a shame you can't eat the chanterelles but in some sense, it's nature trying to clean up after humans made a mess of things.
The American chanterelles are much better anyway
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It's called radioactive fallout. A large plume of radioactive debris was spread over Europe (in fact, this was how the accident was first detected outside of the USSR, not because the authorities reported it).
The debris contaminated ground water, lakes, rivers, forests, animals, livestock, etc. all over parts of Europe.
I was in the UK at the time and I remember the contamination almost destroyed the lamb and mutton industry there.
Wikipedia has some information on the effects of the disaster: http://en.wikip [wikipedia.org]
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The radioactive fallout from "Tschernobyl" went down in several european countries. So in the first it's not a purely german problem, but we might have strikter rules for certain radioactivity levels. .. they shovel into earthy grounds with the
The radioactive isotopes are the problem as they stay active due to their rate of radioactive decay ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_decay [wikipedia.org] ). And those isotopes were thought to be taken deeper into the earth through rain. But boars have an interesting habbit
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Most of the U.S. sits between 30-48 degrees latitude. The prevailing winds there blow from West to East, so it's easy to understand your confusion about radioactive fallout making its way westward.
Most of Europe sits from 40-60 degrees latitude, with Scandinavia going even higher. When you get up near 60 degrees latitude, the p
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If you ever wondered why nuclear energy isn't that popular in europe - that's the most likely reason.
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It doesn't, the Wild Boar population increase is due to primarily milder winters, and that's independent of the the fallout from Cherynobl. There might be some cross-over from fewer people not hunting because the pigs are radioactive and inedible, but mostly it's just coincidence. I'm surprised nobody has cued up the AGW band yet.
cumulation in food chain (Score:2)
Interesting factoid (Score:3, Informative)
Hunters also have to pay a fee to dispose of the boar carcass. So some let the animal go to a neighboring territory where the animals can be shot to be eaten.
exploding game (Score:1, Funny)
"You don't have to be a nuclear physicist to realize that it's only a matter of time before one of these deer reaches critical mass, and some unsuspecting sportsperson takes a shot at it, and BLAM, all that's left of the immediate forest is a large crater and a mushroom cloud containing billions of tiny glowing sports molecules. We can only hope, as caring humans, that such a tragedy never occurs; or, if it does, that it will be available on rental videocassette." --Dave Barry
Holy nostalgia (Score:1)
Holy nostalgia! Thanks, samzenpus!
Picnic time for teddy bears,
The little teddy bears are having a lovely time today.
Watch them, catch them unawares,
And see them picnic on their holiday.
See them gaily dance about.
They love to play and shout.
And never have any cares.
At six o'clock their mommies and daddies
Will take them home to bed
Because they're tired little teddy bears.
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From the article: "Germans who go out in the woods today are sure of a big surprise, radioactive boars."
From the song: "If you go out in the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise. If you go out in the woods today, you better go in disguise..."
There is some good news (Score:5, Funny)
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I am not sure if Washington D.C. has any wild boar to be contaminated. (The parent post is a reference to Fallout 3)
The mind boggles (Score:2)
So now we have wild animals that can be classfied as radioactive waste?
Put it in the freezer for 50,000 years!
Is anyone working on breeding an animal that concentrates human-made radioactive pollution, a biological wild skimmer?
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And, yes, such an animal exists. They are called "boar."
(see also "sheep" in the UK, which have the same issue with Chernobyl fallout, and "reindeer" in certain Nordic regions, not to mention carnivores in a lot of places)
Lichen (aka. reindeer chow), fungi (loved by boar) and certain other plants (probably including the grasses or some other plant that sheep eat a lot of) are apparently great radioactivity concentrators.
Fortunately, C137 has a half life of about 30 years, not tens of thousands, so in a few
Obligatory (Score:3, Funny)
fraud? (Score:2)
"According to the Environment Ministry in Berlin, almost 425,000 ($555,000) was paid out to hunters in 2009 in compensation for wild boar meat that was too contaminated by radiation to be sold for consumption...."
I'm sure that if we had a system of government payments for radioactive wild boar meat in the U.S.A. that there would be plenty of claims and payments here too. Any government program designed to hand out money attracts fraud in great numbers, why assume that this isn't happening here?
Re:fraud? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because untainted boar meat is far more valuable?
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Artificial contamination with radioactive materials is trivial to test for and, in our current political climate, would land anyone trying to dabble in such things in prison for life + half an eternity for nuclear terrorism ... if they survive their arrest by the SWAT team (or rather, the SEK or GSG9).
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That could have happened only because rats have no other value. If you did such a thing with wild boar you would be better off selling the meat on the open market, you would make more money that way.
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Except that farm-raised boar is called "pork" and there's already a low market price associated with it.
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If the radioactive crap from Chernobyl hadn't been blown over most of Europe, do you think the world would have made such a fuss about it?
But if you know any other source that could deposit radioactive Cesium and Strontium over half a continent, I'd be interested to hear it.
Must... stop... (Score:4, Funny)
...must not make "Peter Porker" joke...
Not all mutations are bad (Score:2)
Pigs and People are pretty close, genetically speaking. They do medical testing on them, right?
Maybe eating these pigs would yield some unforeseen benefits.
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What about Chicken Chernobyl? (Score:1)
"Radioactive Boar" (Score:2, Insightful)
"Radioactive Boar" would be an awesome name for a heavy metal band...
Kosher (Score:2)
If there are mutant boar running around that ruminate (i.e. chew their cud), you'd have the beginnings of a kosher pork industry.
Well, I for one... (Score:2)
welcome our pre-cooked bacony overlords.
After the Bomb: Road Hogs (Score:2)
Chernobyl made the flowers bloom (Score:2)
"My grandparents reported that the day after the Chernobyl meltdown every flower in their yard had bloomed overnight. They said it was beautiful and very frightening."
-- Anecdote related to me by a friend whose elderly grandparents live in Austria.
Soon to be sold as a German Cultural Recipe (Score:2)
How would irradiation make them radioactive? (Score:2)
I don't think merely being exposed to radiation would make the boars radioactive. If that were the case, we'd all be radioactive since we're exposed to it every day. Now, if the boars ingested radioactive material, I could understand.
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SpiderPig?
No, SpiderHam (Score:2)
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Not much. You find yourself quite boared.
Hunting tips (Score:2)
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I was expecting Giant mutant boars rampaging through cities and destroying buildings and then ultimately being stopped by a Giant Robot (or a Giant Lizard).
http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB122937877627908421.html [wsj.com]
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Thanks for the link.
Great read from WSJ about the growing problem of Boars invading cities in Germany, even if the article is 2 years old.
(really, a good "related read")