... Finally Friday ... 3-7-2008

Slideshow Transcript

1. Slide 2: Colombia Files Show Chavez Funded FARC, Rebels Sought Uranium March 3 (Bloomberg) -- Colombia's police chief Oscar Naranjo said documents from the computer of a guerrilla leader killed last weekend in Ecuador show links to Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. The documents on the computer of Raul Reyes, the second in command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, indicate that Venezuela provided the guerrillas with at least $300 million and would help Chavez in the event of a U.S. attack on Venezuela. Naranjo said the FARC, as the group is known, was seeking to buy 50 kilos of uranium for bomb making with aim of getting involved in international terrorism. Bloomberg.com
2. Slide 4: Consumer Reports: The 10 best cars The magazine's list includes the first American product in 5 years and the first Korean models ever. Small sedan: Hyundai Elantra Midsize SUV: Hyundai Santa Fe Pickup: Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Crew Cab Luxury sedan: Lexus LS460L Family sedan: Honda Accord Upscale sedan: Infiniti G35 Fun to drive: Mazda MX-5 Small SUV: Toyota Rav4 Minivan: Toyota Sienna Green car: Toyota Prius
3. Slide 5: Vermont towns vote to arrest Bush and Cheney WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Voters in two Vermont towns on Tuesday approved a measure that would instruct police to arrest President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for \"crimes against our Constitution,\" local media reported. The nonbinding, symbolic measure, passed in Brattleboro and Marlboro in a state known for taking liberal positions on national issues, instructs town police to \"extradite them to other authorities that may reasonably contend to prosecute them.\" Vermont, home to maple syrup and picture-postcard views, is known for its liberal politics. State lawmakers have passed nonbinding resolutions to end the war in Iraq and impeach Bush and Cheney, and several towns have also passed resolutions of impeachment. None of them have caught on in Washington. Bush has never visited the state as president, though he has spent vacations at his family compound in nearby Maine. Roughly 12,000 people live in Brattleboro, located on the Connecticut River in the state's southeastern corner. Nearby Marlboro has a population of roughly 1,000.
4. Slide 6: Introducing the world's smallest gun that fires deadly 300mph bullets - but is just TWO inches long Meet the pistol that fits in your pocket - and packs a hell of a punch. The SwissMiniGun is the size of a key fob but fires tiny 270mph bullets powerful enough to kill at close range. Officially the world's smallest working revolver, the gun is being marketed as a collector's item and measures just 2.16 inches long (5.5cm). It can fire real 4.53 bullets up to a range of 367ft (112m). The stainless steel gun costs £3,000 although the manufacturers also produce extravagant, made-to-order versions made out of 18-carat gold with customised diamond studs which sell for up to £30,000.
5. Slide 7: 'Green' furniture cut out from cardboard What does cardboard furniture have to do with technology? As prices rise for oil and raw materials (even sawdust), fans of furniture made from cardboard call it more earth-friendly and affordable than its wooden counterparts, which usually requires felling trees, or furniture made of pressboard, which contains toxic glues. It's also lightweight and can be packed flat for easy shipping. Star architect Frank Gehry is known as the design pioneer in this realm. Between 1969 and 1973, his \"Easy Edges\" series of designs layered corrugated cardboard to create chairs and tables capped by a wooden layer for extra strength. Design schools regularly teach Gehry's forms. Cardboard as a building block is slowly gaining in appeal around the world. The 2000 Olympics in Sydney featured cardboard furniture. In Hong Kong, cardboard is used for coffins.
6. Slide 8: For sale: Nazi German tanks Published: 2 Mar 08 9:30 CET Former Nazi ally Bulgaria plans to auction German tanks from the Second World War. Bulgaria is selling German tanks from World War II for about €100,000. This is the starting price, according to the Sunday edition of Bulgarian daily Trud in Sofia. The Bulgarian Defence Ministry plans to auction some 22 German Wehrmacht tanks and assault guns. The best-preserved pieces will be offered to museums before auctions begin. Bulgaria was allied with Germany during the Second World War, and the German military sent the tanks to the country during that time. The Bulgarian army later used the same weapons to fight Nazi Germany until its surrender in May 1945. At the end of the 1950s, the tanks that weren’t scrapped were cemented into a barrier to protect the formerly communist Eastern Bloc country on the Turkish border. Now that both Bulgaria and Turkey are NATO members, the tanks are no longer necessary to protect the border. In December 2007, Bulgarian authorities arrested two German nationals and a Bulgarian army officer who allegedly stole a German Wehrmacht tank and attempted to steal a second one near the southeastern town of Jambul in Bulgaria. The Local....German News in English
7. Slide 9: Donations fund boob job Fort McMurray woman raises $8,000 in exchange for photos, videos See more of Karla-Rae Karla-Rae Morris is getting an $8,000 boob job for free – and she owes it all to bosom buddies she befriended on a controversial website. Since the fall of 2005, the petite 26-year-old Fort McMurray mother has been racking up donations on www.MyFreeImplants.com – a California-based site that allows men to invest in breast augmentation surgery for flat-chested women who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford it. In exchange for donations, the women chat online with the charitable men and send them photos and videos of themselves. Morris, a married stay-at-home mom with two young children, reached her goal of $8,000 last month. She joins Strathmore mom Candace Leadley, also 26, as the only known Canadians to reach “Hall-of-Fame” status on the site. The five-foot-six, 98-pound Morris, who initially took some grief from her husband and two of her sisters for her quest for a treasured chest, plans to undergo surgery this spring to expand from a 32AA to 34C cup.
8. Slide 10: High on Mount Sinai? JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The biblical Israelites may have been high on a hallucinogenic plant when Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai, according to a new study by an Israeli psychology professor. Writing in the British journal Time and Mind, Benny Shanon of Jerusalem's Hebrew University said two plants in the Sinai desert contain the same psychoactive molecules as those found in plants from which the powerful Amazonian hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca is prepared. The thunder, lightning and blaring of a trumpet which the Book of Exodus says emanated from Mount Sinai could just have been the imaginings of a people in an \"altered state of awareness,\" Shanon hypothesized. \"In advanced forms of ayahuasca inebriation, the seeing of light is accompanied by profound religious and spiritual feelings,\" Shanon wrote. \"On such occasions, one often feels that in seeing the light, one is encountering the ground of all Being ... many identify this power as God.\" Shanon wrote that he was very familiar with the affects of the ayahuasca plant, having \"partaken of the ... brew about 160 times in various locales and contexts.\" He said one of the psychoactive plants, harmal, found in the Sinai and elsewhere in the Middle East, has long been regarded by Jews in the region as having magical and curative powers. Some biblical scholars were unimpressed. Orthodox rabbi Yuval Sherlow told Israel Radio: \"The Bible is trying to convey a very profound event. We have to fear not for the fate of the biblical Moses, but for the fate of science.\"
9. Slide 11: Illinois Attorney Says Virgin Islands Casino Didn't Pay Up on Slot Machine Win (KSDK) -- A Belleville attorney is suing a casino in the Virgin Islands after claiming they did not make good on a substantial slot machine pay out. Alvin Paulson said he was vacationing with his family at the Wyndham Sugar Bay Resort on St. Thomas Island and stopped in the Ocean Club Gaming Center the first night he was there. Shortly after putting a $20 bill into one of the machines, Paulson said he hit the jackpot. \"Next thing I know there's bells and whistles going off, the place is going crazy,\" he said. The machine indicated he'd won $5.15 million; but as the quarters began to pour from the machine, Paulson said a manager came over and shut off the machine. \"Whoever shut the machine off said, 'It's an obvious malfunction. If you look at the top of the machine, it says we're not responsible for malfunction of the machines . There's no bet,'\" Paulson said, adding that the casino management did not explain how or why the malfunction occurred. After being offered $100 and a free meal by the casino's manager, Paulson asked if the casino would pick up the tab for his trip. \"Assuming that they were right and there was a malfunction, I think at least I should have been treated not like I did something wrong. They almost acted like I did something wrong,\" he said. Paulson said filed a report with the gaming commission of the Virgin Islands, but has not heard from them regarding their own investigation into the matter. \"Quite frankly, I'm not expecting (the casino) to pay me $5 million if they can prove to me somehow that there was a malfunction, and it wasn't due to them trying to manipulate the odds or something, then maybe I'm not entitled to it,\" Paulson said.  KSDK
10. Slide 12: Worker caught having sex with Henry Hoover A Polish worker has come up with an unusual excuse after being caught in the act with a vacuum cleaner.The building contractor claimed he was cleaning his underpants with Henry Hoover when he was found naked and on his knees in a hospital's staff canteen.  A stunned security guard stumbled onto the man in the middle of a compromising act with the cleaner, which has a large smiley face painted on its front and a hose protruding from its \"nose\". According to the Sun, the contractor was supposed to be locking up the building site near the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital where his firm is refurbishing administration offices. The security guard, suitably horrified, told the man to \"clean himself and the hoover\" before asking him to leave and informing his bosses.When later questioned by his employers, the man said he was vacuuming his underpants, which was \"a common practice in Poland\". He has since been fired.The man's employers, HG Construction, told The Sun: \"That behaviour is not acceptable, though it gave a few people a laugh\". Henry Hoover is described on a cleaning website as \"famous for its looks, but under its fascia lies a powerful, reliable vacuum cleaner ready to go time and time again.\"The man is not the first person to be caught in the act with an inanimate object.Last year, Robert Stewart was placed on probation for three years after being caught trying to have sex with a bicycle. The 51-year-old was naked from the waist down when two cleaners walked in on him at the the Aberley House Hostel in south west Scotland.He paused only to ask, \"What is it, hen?\", before continuing to \"move his hips back and forth as if to simulate sex\". The court was told that alcohol was the cause of his problems. Telegraph.co.uk
11. Slide 13: Gun that killed JFK assassin in pop culture auction It is billed as the best pop culture collection ever assembled -- ranging from the gun used to kill the assassin of President John F. Kennedy to the Wicked Witch of the West's hat from \"The Wizard of Oz.\" Collected over the past 25 years by South Florida property developer Anthony Pugliese, the collection, which also includes a whip and the holy grail from \"Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,\" will be put up for auction next month in Las Vegas. Arlan Ettinger, president of New York-based auction house Guernsey's, said the collection of 850 lots could fetch more than $5 million when it goes under the hammer at The Palms Resort and Casino on March 15 and 16. \"This collection is as good as it gets,\" said Ettinger, with \"The Maltese Falcon\" resin statuette sitting on his desk alongside the gun used to kill Kennedy's assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and the \"Braveheart\" sword from the Oscar-winning film. \"Most collections have one or two great things and then things trail off from there,\" he said. \"This collection, there would have to be 100 items here, any one of which would be a star attraction anywhere else.\" He said the Colt Cobra revolver used by Jack Ruby to kill Oswald in 1963, just days after Oswald was arrested for assassinating Kennedy, could fetch several million dollars alone. The initials of detectives who handled the gun are scratched on it. \"The whole world saw that unfold live and here's the very gun and the hat that Jack Ruby was wearing,\" said Ettinger, adding that the tag tied to Oswald's toe to identify his corpse and a lock of his hair were also to be auctioned. Also up for grabs is the jacket worn by Beatle John Lennon in the \"Imagine\" video, the wedding dress worn by pop star Madonna in her \"Like a Virgin\" video, a \"Superman\" costume worn by Christopher Reeve, and an Andy Warhol paint brush. Ettinger said Pugliese was selling his collection, which he had kept in a large vault at his offices, because it \"had been his passion, but now has taken a back seat\" to a green housing development he was working on. Other items to be auctioned include a Federal Bureau of Investigation badge that belonged to the bureau's founder J. Edgar Hoover, a wig worn by Elizabeth Taylor for \"Cleopatra,\" and the leather jacket worn by actor Brandon Lee when he was accidentally shot and killed while filming \"The Crow.\"
12. Slide 14: Saudi Arabia Arrests Group For Flirting Cairo, Egypt (AHN) -- Saudi Arabia has arrested over 50 men for \"flirting\" with girls at a Mecca mall. Prosecutors are currently investigating charges that include wearing indecent clothing and playing loud music in order to attract female attention. The arrests came after the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice called for an investigation into their activities that were deemed \"harmful.\" This comes less than two weeks since the conservative Islamic nation banned the sale of red roses and other Valentine's Day symbols typical of the holiday. The ban was part of a nationwide attempt to rid the country of anything in connection with a \"pagan Christian holiday.“ Saudi authorities felt the holiday promotes the relations of men and women outside of marriage, which is punishable in the kingdom. Guardians of the men defended the arrested groups action, arguing that they always got together on the weekends, but never violated any of the country's laws pertaining to the separation of sexes.
13. Slide 16: US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) smiles during a campaign rally in St. Clairsville, Ohio February 27, 2008.
14. Slide 17: The ULTIMATE in Women's Body Piercing... Men all over the country are urging their wives and sweethearts to get this 'chic' procedure. The going rate on the East coast now exceeds $10,000. Many men feel it is worth it.