Monday Morning Links: News and other stuff

Is it just another Manic Monday ?  No, It’s CYBER MONDAY!  The day productivity drops to zero while everyone shops from their desk at work. But obviously you’ve been out there wearing the stripe off your credit cards. Sales are strong from the first official week of Christmas shopping. What’s for lunch? Let me guess, you’re taking leftover turkey to lunch today.

Here’s the Monday Free-For-All for those who want some friendly discussion today. So no calling in sick this morning, we have links to read.

Weather: Batten down the hatches.  Today, we have an 80% chance of thunderstorms. Tonight we’re had a significant risk of straight-line wind damage and tornadoes. ‘Cause you know, nothing says Christmas like a good tornado. Here’s the Jackson-area forecast.

RIP Leslie Nielsen: Surely I’m kidding. No, I’m not kidding and stop calling me Shirley. I hate it when funny people die — although Nielsen lived a long, fruitful life. He passed yesterday at the age of 84 after a bout with pneumonia. The star of the the Naked Gun and Airplane! movies turned his career on its ear in later life, reinvented himself and mastered deadpan comedy.  Here’s a video compliation of his career.

WikiLeaks latest revelation: Lord Voldemort dies in the last Harry Potter book. Add that to the pile of other recent embarrassing revelations from the leaked State Department cables. Read about the other leaks here from the The NY Times story.  It’s like having your e-mail to your coworkers you thought were private read aloud from the top of your desk. The State Department is red-faced and in the fetal position.

It’s like Reindeer Games except with nukes: War games have begun! South Korea is now doing artillery practice on the previously shelled island (by the North Koreans).  The WikiLeaks leaks also talked about how the U.S. and the South Koreans are planning for eventual unification of the two Koreas.  Good luck there.  UPDATE: South Korea just canceled the practice according to the AP.

Can you hear me — um, wrong company: Cellular South is going 4G.

WikiLeaks report that Houston Nutt is going to Colorado — but I think it’s just another internet rumor.  Actually, there will be some kind of announcement about changes today at a press conference about” a course correction”.  There are more rumors than points were scored — stay tuned to find out.

WikiLeaks also leaked reports from Boxofficemojo.com that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 was the top movie ($50.3 million, $220.4 overall domestically) while the Disney animated flick Tangled ($49.1 million $69 million overall) was tangled up with it for a very close second.

And just when you thought all humanity had died, here’s a cool story about a stranger who saved Christmas for another woman who had her gifts stolen while shopping. That’s a good place to leave it on Monday morning.  We need all the good news we can get.