In his eulogy, President Obama called Ted Kennedy the soul of the Democratic Party and the Lion of the US Senate. Apparently, the senator is loved and admired by millions of Americans.
On July 18, 1969, in a drunk driving accident, Ted Kennedy drove his car into the Chappaquiddick river, managed to escape from the wreck and went back to his hotel without telling anyone of the accident, leaving his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne to drown in the car.
Of course, that was a long time ago and people can change, I'm told. But may be it's because the Chappaquiddick incident was not such a big deal forTed Kennedy, who was capable of joking about Ms Kopechne's death.
It's been what..Two years? Three years? Time to buy a new cellphone. I really wanted the Palm Pre -- I've always liked the Palm family -- but it's sold exclusively by Bell and as any resident of Quebec would tell you, Bell has the worst customer services in the world, may they rot in Hell!
Don't want an IPhone because of the cult attitude of its users, so what's left? I give you the Nokia N900!!!!
The Nokia N900 has finally been officially announced, slated for release in October 2009 with a price tag that might surprise you.
If you were disappointed by the underpowered Nokia N97, it may be worth waiting until October for the Nokia N900 in stead. Put simply, Nokia's new N900 boasts technology that is worthy of a high-end smartphone today combined with software for the future.
The Nokia N900 will come equipped with a slide-out QWERTY thumbboard, Quad-band GSM network support, 10/2 Mbps HSPA connectivity (with T-Mobile USA support) as well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 support. Limited RAM has been an issue on the previous generation of Maemo based tablets, but the Nokia N900 will offer 256 MB RAM plus 768 MB virtual memory. This will especially be crucial for the desktop-grade, Mozilla based browser to deliver the goods as promised. The Nokia N900 is also powered by an ARM Cortex-A8 processor and 3D graphics acceleration with support for OpenGL ES 2.0.
The Nokia N900's 3.5-inch WVGA display is of the resistive touchscreen kind, meaning that it responds both to finger and stylus navigation. A complete overview of the Nokia N900's capabilities can be found here, revealing that Widgets will just be a small part of the package. Our hope is that Maemo 5 ... and the N900 will silence the Widget craze to some extent, and that developers will be encouraged to develop real applications again.
In addition to the new Mozilla based browser, the Nokia N900 will offer a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and dual LED flash. The camera should also be capable of recording WVGA video, while a front-faced camera will act as a VGA web camera. The smartphone will also be capable of video and audio playback, and offers up to 32GB of internal storage as well as a microSD memory slot capable of holding 16GB cards. A 3.5mm headphone jack has also been incorporated.
The Nokia N900 will be available in October 2009 with the healthy price tag of 500 EUR (around 700$) before taxes and carrier subsidies.
Saturday, 22 August 2009 - The only US Army officer convicted over the 1968 massacre of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai made an extraordinary public apology while speaking to a small group near the military base where he went on trial.
William Calley, who has long shied away from publicity and routinely turned down journalists' requests for interviews about My Lai, broke his long silence after accepting a long-time friend's invitation to speak at a meeting of a local community club.
Speaking in a soft, sometimes laboured voice, he told members of the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus, Georgia: "There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai," the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reported yesterday.
"I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry."
Calley, 66, was a young lieutenant when a court martial at nearby Fort Benning convicted him of murder in 1971 for killing 22 civilians during the infamous massacre of 500 men, women and children in Vietnam.
Frustrated US troops came to My Lai on a "search and destroy" mission, looking for elusive Vietcong guerrillas. Although there were no reports of enemy fire, the troops began mowing down villagers and setting fire to their homes.
The incident shocked Americans and undermined support for the war.
Though sentenced to life in prison, Calley ended up serving three years under house arrest after President Richard Nixon later reduced his sentence.
I found this clip via Cynical-C Blog. Apparently two white American girls decided to videotape themselves trying to convert an Indian girl into Christianity and uploaded the video on YouTube.
Cynical-C has these quotes from the video:
"I had two friends over. One regular one and one Indian one." “She’s Indian. It’s like, an African country in Asia.” “But I am not African. I am Asian.” “Then why are you so dark then?”
Yeah I know that you wanna be Canadian, please Even if in winter things tend to freeze We've got the world monopoly on trees And our country's bordered by three different seas
Yeah I know that you wanna be Canadian, please We invented the zipper, we've got expertise We made insulin to combat disease Yeah I know that you wanna be Canadian, please
CHORUS Brits have got the monarchy The US has the money But I know that you wanna be Canadian
The French have got the wine and cheese Koalas chill with the Aussies But I know that you wanna be Canadian
Et si ce n'était pas assez On a deux langues officielles: L'anglais et le français Ooh la la
Yeah I know that you wanna be Canadian, please Where else do you find mounted police Or go to the hospital and not pay fees Yeah I know that you wanna be Canadian, please
And when freshwater is in high demand We've got the world's largest supply on hand So you know that we could make a pretty good friend But it's even better if you can be...
CHORUS
So you're thinking to yourself, "How do I live in this beautiful country?" Well we've got some steps for you to follow...
STEP 1: Lose the gun STEP 2: Buy a canoe STEP 3: Live multiculturally STEP 4: You're ready, there is no more!
We got beavers, cariboo and moose We got buffalos, bears, and Canadian goose And we're sorry about Celine Dion But she did do that good song for James Cameron...
CHORUS Brits have got the monarchy The US has the money But I know that you wanna be Canadian
The French have got the wine and cheese Koalas chill with the Aussies But I know that you wanna be Canadian
The Greek chilled out with Socrates Can't build a wall like the Chinese But I know that you wanna be Canadian
In Kenya they have safaris We've missed lots of other countries But I know that you wanna be Canadian
It is said that the ability to make and understand PUNS is the highest level of language development. Here are the top 10 winners in the International Pun Contest.
1. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The Stewardess looks at him and says, ‘I’m sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.
2. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says, ‘Dam!’
3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly, it sank, proving once again that you can’t have your kayak and heat it, too.
4. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, ‘I’ve lost my electron.’ The other says, ‘Are you sure?’ The first replies, ‘Yes, I’m positive.’
5. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.
6. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. But why they asked, as they moved off. ‘Because,’ he said, ‘I can’t stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer.’
7. A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named Ahmal. The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him Juan. Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, ‘They’re twins! If you’ve seen Juan, you’ve seen Ahmal.’
8. A group of friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to ‘persuade’ them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he’d be back if they didn’t close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent florist friars.
9. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him (Oh, man, this is SO BAD, it’s good) a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.
10. And, finally, there was the person who posted ten different puns, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make his readers laugh. No pun in ten did.
