Silly News Items Not Covered In The Shoutbox That Don't Warrant Individual Threads

A used car dealership in Florida has launched an unusual promotion to help it through the sluggish US economic recovery: a complimentary AK-47 with every purchase.

Nations Trucks, in Sanford, promises to pay for a Soviet-style assault rifle for anyone who buys one of its used trucks.

The dealership has more than doubled sales since the offer was announced last week, according to Nick Ginetta, the general sales manager.

A poster in Nations' office window proclaims "FREE AK-47" above a large illustration of the gun, which is by far the biggest-selling assault rifle of all time.

Mr Ginetta said rather than hand out guns itself, the firm gave truck-buyers a $400 (£250) voucher which could be redeemed for a rifle at a local firearms shop.

"I don't think it sends the wrong message," said Mr Ginetta, who insisted the dealership was merely allowing customers to assert their rights under the Second Amendment of the Constitution.

"You don't need to buy a truck to go and buy an AK-47," he told local television. "You have the right to do that as long as you meet all state and federal laws. So it's just a promotion."

Mr Ginetta claimed that under the scheme, which runs until the end of November, all customers would be subjected to background checks before being able to obtain a firearm.

On Monday morning he told The Daily Telegraph that business was so brisk that he was unable to field more media enquiries about the promotion.

"There is a long line of people just waiting to buy trucks," Mr Ginetta said. Earlier he suggested it was the perfect offer for his customer base.

"My buyer is absolutely a gun owner, no question," he said.

One customer said he was not deterred by the dealership's promotion despite knowing from experience what an AK-47 could do.

"I've had them shot at me," Don Zeis, a Vietnam War veteran, told local television. "I need a truck... that's why I'm here."

An obese man was shocked into losing seven stone after he identified his overweight frame on Google Street View.

Bob Mewse, 56, weighed 21 stone 3lb after years of feeding his sweet tooth with cakes and biscuits.

He was so horrified a year ago when he saw himself on Google Street View – a mapping service that uses a 360-degree camera to record images – that he decided to start losing weight.

Mr Mewse lost a third of his body weight after drastic changes to his diet and a strict regime of exercise. He now weighs 14 stone (89kg).

The Google Street View photograph showed Mr Mewse, of Bristol, side-on opposite a filling station wearing a tent-like grey shirt.

He said: "I was horrified when I saw that photo. I was massive. My belly was sticking out and I looked huge.

"I'd been thinking about losing weight for some time but after seeing that picture, I knew that I actually had to do something about it. I was in such bad condition that I was unable to walk and talk at the same time.

"My blood pressure was sky-high and I was getting back problems due to the excess weight I was carrying around." Mr Mewse was classed as morbidly obese.

After seeing the picture, he joined a gym, Fitness First, in Longwell Green, Bristol.

A personal trainer gave him an exercise programme to run in conjunction with a healthy eating plan – which replaced cakes and takeaways with fruit, salads and protein-rich foods – and he lost weight rapidly.

Will McCullough, the gym's fitness manager, praised Mr Mewse for his determination and said he was an example for anyone who wanted to lose weight.

He said: "He's stuck with the programme we gave him and followed it to the letter to reach his target weight, which is fantastic."

Mr Mewse said: "If I can do this, anybody can – I'm just an ordinary bloke. I feel much healthier now."

A miniature horse used by a blind student in the US is thought to be the first “guide pony” to attend university.

Cali is the first guide animal for Mona Ramouni, a devout Muslim whose parents – Jordanian immigrants – would not accept a dog into their house.

Miss Ramouni, a 30-year-old blind student at Michigan State University, uses Cali, one of a handful of miniature horses in the US known to be used as guide animals.

“Usually I’m good about it because you have to educate people,” Mona Ramouni said. “Sometimes I’ll say, no, it’s a really cool toy.”

The university has an internationally recognised centre which assists disabled students and employees integrate into the community and achieve their full potential.

While there was some initial concern about whether Cali would make a mess or be a distraction, the tiny brown horse with a shiny black mane is surprisingly tidy and even gets along with the guide dog of one of Ramouni’s classmates.

“The thing that I love about having Cali and the dog Harper in the class is that it’s such a vivid example to people about how adaptive students can be in going about their lives and achieving what they want to achieve,” Prof Shelley Smithson said.

Weighing in at slightly over 7st, miniature horses are about the same size as a large dog but are much stockier and can help support people with mobility issues.

They also have significantly longer lifespans – they can live and work for more than 30 years while guide dogs are usually retired after about six to eight years – but require much more care.

Without Cali, Miss Ramouni probably would never have pursued her dream of getting a master’s degree in rehabilitation counselling so she can one day work with disabled children.

She bought Cali in October 2008 and sent the retired show pony to a professional trainer to be taught to tap her hoof to point out obstacles, get in and out of cars and buses, and even pick up misplaced objects with her teeth.

A coroner's office in the US is trying to breathe new life into its dying gift shop.

Not a lot of people know that the Los Angeles county coroner sells a range of quirky clothes and tongue-in-cheek trinkets from an office near the morgue and from a website called Skeletons in the Closet.

And that's the point. So its sales have been rather slow.

In fact, it has been subsidised by a drink-driving educational programme.

Now auditors have suggested that marketing experts be brought in to resuscitate sales.

Craig Harvey, the department's chief of operations, said: "We can do government services very well but business is another thing."

The shop is thought to be the only one in America. It has been operating for 17 years and its biggest customers are homicide police officers.

It is mentioned in guidebooks, however, and tourists can buy anything from beach towels with chalk body outlines, "Body of work" T-shirts and bottles of "Bodily Fluids".

Mr Harvey said: "There is a mystique about the LA county coroner, something people identify with. People want to know what we do and how we do it."

But while recognising the sales potential, he said it had simply not been a priority for a department that prides itself as one of the top forensic science units in the country.

Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
Friends,
Yesterday, in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the lawyers for WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange presented to the judge a document from me stating that I have put up $20,000 of my own money to help bail Mr. Assange out of jail.

Furthermore, I am publicly offering the assistance of my website, my servers, my domain names and anything else I can do to keep WikiLeaks alive and thriving as it continues its work to expose the crimes that were concocted in secret and carried out in our name and with our tax dollars.
We were taken to war in Iraq on a lie. Hundreds of thousands are now dead. Just imagine if the men who planned this war crime back in 2002 had had a WikiLeaks to deal with. They might not have been able to pull it off. The only reason they thought they could get away with it was because they had a guaranteed cloak of secrecy. That guarantee has now been ripped from them, and I hope they are never able to operate in secret again.


So why is WikiLeaks, after performing such an important public service, under such vicious attack? Because they have outed and embarrassed those who have covered up the truth. The assault on them has been over the top:

**Sen. Joe Lieberman says WikiLeaks "has violated the Espionage Act."
**The New Yorker's George Packer calls Assange "super-secretive, thin-skinned, [and] megalomaniacal."
**Sarah Palin claims he's "an anti-American operative with blood on his hands" whom we should pursue "with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders."
**Democrat Bob Beckel (Walter Mondale's 1984 campaign manager) said about Assange on Fox: "A dead man can't leak stuff ... there's only one way to do it: illegally shoot the son of a bitch."
**Republican Mary Matalin "he's a psychopath, a sociopath ... He's a terrorist."
**Rep. Peter A. King calls WikiLeaks a "terrorist organization."

And indeed they are! They exist to terrorize the liars and warmongers who have brought ruin to our nation and to others. Perhaps the next war won't be so easy because the tables have been turned -- and now it's Big Brother who's being watched ... by us!

WikiLeaks deserves our thanks for shining a huge spotlight on all this. But some in the corporate-owned press have dismissed the importance of WikiLeaks ("they've released little that's new!") or have painted them as simple anarchists ("WikiLeaks just releases everything without any editorial control!"). WikiLeaks exists, in part, because the mainstream media has failed to live up to its responsibility. The corporate owners have decimated newsrooms, making it impossible for good journalists to do their job. There's no time or money anymore for investigative journalism. Simply put, investors don't want those stories exposed. They like their secrets kept ... as secrets.

I ask you to imagine how much different our world would be if WikiLeaks had existed 10 years ago. Take a look at this photo. That's Mr. Bush about to be handed a "secret" document on August 6th, 2001. Its heading read: "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US." And on those pages it said the FBI had discovered "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings." Mr. Bush decided to ignore it and went fishing for the next four weeks.

But if that document had been leaked, how would you or I have reacted? What would Congress or the FAA have done? Was there not a greater chance that someone, somewhere would have done something if all of us knew about bin Laden's impending attack using hijacked planes?
But back then only a few people had access to that document. Because the secret was kept, a flight school instructor in San Diego who noticed that two Saudi students took no interest in takeoffs or landings, did nothing. Had he read about the bin Laden threat in the paper, might he have called the FBI? (Please read this essay by former FBI Agent Coleen Rowley, Time's 2002 co-Person of the Year, about her belief that had WikiLeaks been around in 2001, 9/11 might have been prevented.)
Or what if the public in 2003 had been able to read "secret" memos from Dick Cheney as he pressured the CIA to give him the "facts" he wanted in order to build his false case for war? If a WikiLeaks had revealed at that time that there were, in fact, no weapons of mass destruction, do you think that the war would have been launched -- or rather, wouldn't there have been calls for Cheney's arrest?

Openness, transparency -- these are among the few weapons the citizenry has to protect itself from the powerful and the corrupt. What if within days of August 4th, 1964 -- after the Pentagon had made up the lie that our ship was attacked by the North Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin -- there had been a WikiLeaks to tell the American people that the whole thing was made up? I guess 58,000 of our soldiers (and 2 million Vietnamese) might be alive today.
Instead, secrets killed them.

For those of you who think it's wrong to support Julian Assange because of the sexual assault allegations he's being held for, all I ask is that you not be naive about how the government works when it decides to go after its prey. Please -- never, ever believe the "official story." And regardless of Assange's guilt or innocence (see the strange nature of the allegations here), this man has the right to have bail posted and to defend himself. I have joined with filmmakers Ken Loach and John Pilger and writer Jemima Khan in putting up the bail money -- and we hope the judge will accept this and grant his release today.


Might WikiLeaks cause some unintended harm to diplomatic negotiations and U.S. interests around the world? Perhaps. But that's the price you pay when you and your government take us into a war based on a lie. Your punishment for misbehaving is that someone has to turn on all the lights in the room so that we can see what you're up to. You simply can't be trusted. So every cable, every email you write is now fair game. Sorry, but you brought this upon yourself. No one can hide from the truth now. No one can plot the next Big Lie if they know that they might be exposed.
And that is the best thing that WikiLeaks has done. WikiLeaks, God bless them, will save lives as a result of their actions. And any of you who join me in supporting them are committing a true act of patriotism. Period.
I stand today in absentia with Julian Assange in London and I ask the judge to grant him his release. I am willing to guarantee his return to court with the bail money I have wired to said court. I will not allow this injustice to continue unchallenged.
Yours,
Michael Moore
[email protected]
MichaelMoore.com
P.S. You can read the statement I filed today in the London court here

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange won bail from a British court Tuesday over sex crimes claims but must stay in jail for at least another night after Swedish prosecutors appealed against the decision. Skip related content

The 39-year-old Australian had given a thumbs-up to the packed courtroom in London as the judge granted him conditional bail, one week after being arrested at the request of Swedish authorities.

But two hours later, lawyers for Swedish prosecutors announced that they would appeal the ruling, meaning the case will now go to Britain's high court and a new hearing must be heard within 48 hours.

Until that time Assange, who denies the allegations, must stay in his cell at Wandsworth prison in London.

"This is really turning into a show trial," Assange's lawyer Mark Stephens told reporters after hearing the Swedish decision.

"They clearly will not spare any expense to keep Mr Assange in jail."

District judge Howard Riddle had earlier granted bail worth 240,000 pounds (378,000 dollars, 283,000 euros) but ordered that Assange wear an electronic tag, abide by a curfew and live at the country estate of a supporter.

"I am satisfied that the conditions I am going to impose will make it certain as far as the risk of flight is concerned," Riddle told City of Westminster Magistrates' Court.

Celebrity supporters in court included socialite and campaigner Bianca Jagger, while US filmmaker Michael Moore offered to put up bail. Assange's mother Christine had flown in from Australia and was also in court.

The announcement of bail prompted cheers from about 20 supporters who had staged a protest in support of Assange outside court, but the response became muted as it emerged that he would not yet be free.

Even if Sweden had not appealed, Stephens said the court had demanded that those standing bail for Assange come up with 200,000 pounds in cash before he could be freed -- and this was unlikely to be raised immediately.

Another member of the legal team, high-profile human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson, earlier told the court that the rape and molestation allegations made against his client by two Swedish women should not be taken seriously.

"It was very clear this is not an extremely serious offence. It is arguably not even a rape offence," Robertson said.

He added that Assange was being held in "Victorian" conditions in prison and was being detained in solitary confinement and allowed just one visit per week.

Assange was arrested on December 7 after giving himself up to police acting on an extradition warrant from Sweden.

His legal team has condemned the claims as politically motivated, noting their timing coincided with WikiLeaks' release of thousands of secret US diplomatic cables which have touched off a global storm.

Swedish prosecutors insist their investigation is based on law.

Wearing a dark suit and a white shirt, Assange spoke in court Tuesday only to confirm his name, date of birth and address in Victoria, Australia.

His next appearance at the court is on January 11, with a full extradition hearing set for February 7 to 8.

Earlier, Assange blasted three global giants which have stopped money being sent to his website -- credit card companies Visa and MasterCard and the Internet payment firm PayPal -- and accused them of being US puppets.

PayPal has said its decision to restrict the WikiLeaks account was not the result of any US pressure.

The three firms have been attacked by computer hackers for their stance.

In a statement to Australia's Channel 7, he also said WikiLeaks would not stop releasing the data, which has included candid reflections from US diplomats of world leaders and global events.

"My convictions are unfaltering. I remain true to the ideals I have expressed," Assange said, in a statement from prison he dictated to his mother.

US President Barack Obama has led worldwide condemnation of the leaks, dubbing them "deplorable", and Washington is pursuing a criminal investigation into how WikiLeaks obtained the information.

Netflix's streaming video service was one of the red-hot entertainment products of 2010. Now it will become easier for fans to access Netflix on TV sets with the click of a button.

A number of consumer electronics companies are working on Netflix-branded one-click buttons on remote controls that operate Internet-connected TVs, Blu-ray disc players and other devices that connect the Internet to the TV, the company said Tuesday.

Beginning this spring, such Netflix buttons, including some featuring the company's red logo, are planned for remotes for devices from the likes of Best Buy's Dynex brand, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sony and Toshiba.

Remote controls for Boxee, Iomega and Roku set-top boxes also will feature the Netflix one-click remote.

"For members who want even more convenience when instantly watching TV shows and movies streaming from Netflix, the answer is about to be right in their hands," said Netflix chief product officer Neil Hunt. "No more turning on the TV, going to a home screen and searching for the Netflix icon. With the Netflix one-click remote, it's simply a matter of pushing the Netflix button to instantly watch any of the vast selection of TV shows and movies available to stream from Netflix."

The Hubble Space Telescope has had its first peek at a mysterious giant green blob in outer space and found that it is strangely alive.

The bizarre glowing blob is giving birth to new stars, some only a couple million years old, in remote areas of the universe where stars do not normally form.

The blob of gas was discovered first by a Dutch school teacher in 2007 and is named Hanny's Voorwerp. Voorwerp is Dutch for object.

Parts of the green blob are collapsing and the resulting pressure from that is creating the stars. Nasa released the new Hubble photo at an American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle, Washington.

The stellar nurseries are outside of a normal galaxy, which is usually where stars live. That makes these "very lonely newborn stars" that are "in the middle of nowhere", said Bill Keel, the University of Alabama astronomer who examined the blob.

The blob is the size of the Milky Way, the galaxy that includes the Earth, and it is 650 million light years away. Each light year is about six trillion miles.

It consists of mostly hydrogen gas swirling from a close encounter of two galaxies; it glows because it is illuminated by a quasar in one of the galaxies. A quasar is a bright object full of energy powered by a black hole.

The blob was discovered by elementary school teacher Hanny van Arkel, who was 24 at the time, as part of a worldwide Galaxy Zoo project where everyday people can look at archived star photographs to catalogue new objects.

Ms van Arkel said when she first saw the odd object in 2007 it appeared blue and smaller. The Hubble photo provides a clear picture and better explanation for what is happening around the blob.

"It actually looked like a blue smudge," Ms van Arkel said. "Now it looks like dancing frog in the sky because it's green." She said she can even see what passes for arms and eyes.

A wounded fox shot its would be killer in Belarus by pulling the trigger on the hunter's gun as the pair scuffled after the man tried to finish the animal off with the butt of the rifle, media said Thursday.

The unnamed hunter, who had approached the fox after wounding it from a distance, was in hospital with a leg wound, while the fox made its escape, media said, citing prosecutors from the Grodno region.

"The animal fiercely resisted and in the struggle accidentally pulled the trigger with its paw," one prosecutor was quoted as saying.

Fox-hunting is popular in the picturesque farming region of northwestern Belarus which borders Poland.

Five teenage burglars snorted human and animal ashes after mistaking them for Class A drugs, it has been revealed.

After a burglary, which took place at a woman's home in Silver Spring Shores, Florida, thieves made off with electronics, jewelry and two urns - one filled with the cremated remains of the victim's father and two for her Great Danes.

Police discovered what happened to the stolen ashes after the suspects were arrested last week in connection with another attempted burglary.

In a statement, deputies from Marion County Sheriff's Office said: "The suspects mistook the ashes for either cocaine or heroin. It was soon discovered that the suspects snorted some of the ashes believing they were snorting cocaine."

Speaking after the burglary, which took place in December, grieving victim Holli Tencza, 35, told a local Ocala news site: "I understand why the burglar took my flat-screen television, the Blu-ray DVD player, laptop computer and jewelry… but there's no monetary value in the ashes, so who knows in this crazy world. I just want them back. I don't care if I ever know who took them."

When the gang members discovered their mix-up they threw the remaining ashes into a lake in fear that their fingerprints were left on the urns.

Marion County Sheriff, Jenifer Fisher Lowe told Yahoo! News: "On Thursday at 11AM EST, underwater divers at Magic Lake in Gail d'Helvie Park recovered two urns containing the ashes of the owner's dog and father."

The ashes were protected by plastic bags inside wooden boxes stored in the urns. The delinquents have been jailed on a number of charges, including burglary.

A Susan Boyle biopic is underway, and, if reports are correct, they've picked a surprising actress to play the former Scottish spinster.

Glenn Close, best known for her role as the psycho mistress in 1987's 'Fatal Attraction', has won the part, despite Boyle wanting Scottish actress Elaine Smith to play her in a movie, according to The Sun.

While SuBo is believed to have preferred Rab C Nesbitt's screen wife for the film, it's the veteran actress that has reportedly won the part.

An insider told the newspaper, “The film is full steam ahead now the leading role is sorted. It was always going to be a tricky one to cast. (Her) incredible story is so well-known across the planet that the film is bound to go down a storm.

"Glenn has played some imposing women in the past including Cruella de Vil and Alex Forrest, who boils the pet rabbit in Fatal Attraction. But [Boyle] might just be her biggest role yet."

So less Bunny Boiler, and more Susan Boyle-r!

While the idea of a 64 year-old American playing a 49-year-old Scottish woman seems a bizarre one, it hasn't been the oddest suggestion.

Welsh beauty Catherine Zeta Jones was once linked to the part, while Robin Williams joked two years ago that he would like to done a skirt and reheat his old ‘Mrs Doubtfire’ accent to play Boyle, saying, “I've been asked if I want to play Susan in the movie. I think she's incredible.”

And Matt Lucas can consider himself unlucky to not be in the running, following his uncanny dead-on impersonation of her in a 2009 photo shoot.

Susan Boyle became a global phenomenon following her iconic performance of 'I Dreamed A Dream' during an audition for 'Britain's Got Talent'.

It transformed the shy Scottish woman into a hugely successful recording artist. Her two albums have sold nearly 10 million copies worldwide.

Filming is reported to begin earlier this year, with no word yet on who will play Simon Cowell – Ricky Gervais anyone?