Oddly enough

CNN openly questions why they could cover the Iraq War and South Pacific tsunami devastation, but FEMA won't let them cover ongoing NOLA rescue operations. And by "openly questions", I mean "files lawsuit".

"In response to official statements earlier today that news media would be excluded from covering the victim recovery process in New Orleans and surrounding areas on the suggestion that what is reported may offend viewers' or victims' sensibilities, CNN has filed a lawsuit in federal court to prohibit any agency from restricting its ability to fully and fairly cover this story.

As seen most recently from war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, from tsunami-ravaged South Asia and from Hurricane Katrina's landfall along the Gulf, CNN has shown that it is capable of balancing vigorous reporting with respect for private concerns. Government officials cannot be allowed to hinder the free flow of information to the public, and CNN will not let such a decision stand without challenge." [From a certain evening memo for the CNN staff, mediabistro.com]

After a bite from neighbour's dog, woman dons long blonde wig and "goofy clothes", rents car, drives around corner and guns down neighbour, takes another hostage. Just another day in Northampton, Massachusetts

An woman, upset over being bitten by a neighbour's dog, shot the daughter of the dog's owner and then took another neighbour hostage, police said. Brenda Smith, 54, was charged with attempted homicide, aggravated assault, burglary, terrorist threats, reckless endangerment and unlawful restraint. She was sent to prison under $500,000 bail.

Smith shot the neighbour's daughter after confronting her about the alleged poisoning of Smith's dog. She is in the hospital with internal injuries but is in stable condition. Smith wore a long blond wig and ''goofy clothes'' during the incident and used a rented car to drive around the corner to her house.

''We all knew she was upset about the bite and she was bugging all the neighbours about my dogs, but I never thought she would end up doing this, that she was dangerous,'' the neighbour said. Of course, Smith said she never wanted to shoot her: ''I meant to shoot the dog, not the lady, but at least now I'll be able to get some sleep tonight.'' [mcall.com/news/]

Thief foiled by adversary he could not outsmart: The sliding door
A thief raiding a shopping centre in Geneva, Switzerland was arrested after his head was clamped by a sliding door, police said.

The thief forced his way through the automatic sliding door during the night and carted way several bags full of DVDs, watches and food. But the door suddenly shut during the illicit shopping spree, trapping his neck and foot and forcing him to call for help.

Some locals prised open the door but pushed the thief back inside as it shut. Police said he was forced to wait inside until they picked him up [news.yahoo.com]

Unable to control a powerful and dangerous 12-year-old girl, Cincinnati cops taser her
An officer shot a 12-year-old schoolgirl with a Taser gun and arrested her after she became disruptive at school, police said. The incident happened at an elementary school in Avondale, Arizona.

Police said the principal called them when the girl refused to go to class. When officers arrived, they had trouble bringing the girl, who is 5 feet 5 inches tall and 120 pounds, under control. Officers said they warned the girl several times that they would use the Taser on her if she did not calm down.

She was charged for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. [news.yahoo.com]

Headlines from Fark.com
Compiled by Ahmed Ashiful Haque

Ditch blogging for V-logging

The world is going head over heals with blogging… writing down your thoughts and enabling the whole world (practically) to see it. Now here comes a new feature called VLOGGING, or in other words, vodcasting. It is a short form of- blogging using the video conferencing. If only you have your web cam, QuickTime video player/recorder, then you're in for a good start. Video blogging - vlogging - is still a new phenomenon but is expected to take off as web space becomes cheaper - or even free - and digital cameras become ever more sophisticated. It is the new hot way for people to stick their personal lives on the Internet! I saw this particular funny vblog called "Not another freestyle movie"- a hilarious five minutes of freestyle dissing! You can check it out at www.vidblogs.com!

There is a small but growing number of vloggers who feel that videoblogging transforms the Internet into a medium in which people can communicate audiovisually through personal video posts and globally network with people as well as to create new independent programming and content not controlled by major broadcasting networks or cable outlets. These practices revolutionize online communication.

There are many different types of vlogging; Religious, Tutorials, Behind the scenes of music videos or movies, Political blogs, Magazine Type or Lifestyles, and last and most popular, the Personal videoblogs, where you can create your own video and host it online.

Some important tools are listed below to get you started on your own vblog
Tools. Unfortunately we could not "google" a concrete know-it-all tutorial website. Please let us know if you have found one.

Vlogdir.com - Videoblog Directory, Media Aggregator and Community

Videobloggers.org - Free Hosting for vloggers courtesy of ibiblio.org (hosting @ videobloggers.org) and a vlogoshpere content aggregator.

Videoblogging Universe - Previews of the latest vlogs, a human-reviewed directory, tools to make your own vlogroll, and a vloggers webring. www.videoblogging-universe.com

YouTube - Free flash based video hosting community. 100meg file max, no limit on the number of videos . www.youtube.com

Video Google - Free video host. No limit on file size or number of videos. www.video.google.com

Hope these tools were enough to get you started. Ditch the old blogging and switch to this increasingly popular technology. Till the next article, happy vlogging!!

By Shamma Manzoor Raghib

Cool Adda

Sunrise Watching
Place: Rooftop water tank of your apartment.
Requirements: You must have some sort of talent. Required talents include sketching, fiction writing, poem writing, music composing and also the talent of etching inscriptions on the wall like, Y+J (Yusuf and Jolekha) or B+J (Ben and Jen, Jen as in Jennifer Garner). And don't forget to place them inside an oddly shaped heart.

Essential Equipments: 1x umbrella to protect yourself from poop bombing crows. 1x coil of strong rope to fasten yourself with the lightning rod, incase you get too bored and fall off. Several pieces of broken brick to throw at the windows of the apartment building across the street. Not only does it pass as a great add-on activity but it also improves your targeting skills.

Activity: In order to catch the full brilliance of the sunrise you must observe it from the beginning. For that reason you must get up very early in the morning. And if that's not possible then you shouldn't sleep at all. Watching a horror movie like "The Grudge" the previous night will do the trick. And if you still feel like sleeping after that, then you're one lousy piece of sloth. Presuming that you do manage to get up early, you shouldn't waste any time and go directly to the roof. Climbing up to the water tank can be a feat if there are no ladders available. In this case mountain-climbing lessons are recommended. Or you could just speed up the evolution process and sprout a pair of wings to get up there, which is much easier. If you're lucky enough to produce black wings then crows probably won't attack you, taking you as one of their own. They might even decide to make you their king/queen and offer you sacrificial boons like, dead rodents or leftovers from last week. But be ware of pink wings for they might consider it a mortal offense to their kind. Hoping that you do make it to the top unscathed, you should concentrate on watching the rising star from the eastern horizon. Now if you're a good-looking female and there just happens to be some building under construction near by, then you'll probably be interrupted by the laborers who'll jibe at you for no particular reason and dedicate eccentric Bangla movie songs to your name. Here you can accelerate the evolution process again, which will enable you to conjure an air-gun out of thin air or a six-shooter will do grand (but that requires real bullets and even the low-quality Chinese ones cost 40 tk). And if you are the Queen of Crows by now, then you can order your feathered friends to poop bomb them in the middle of their extended chorus. By the time you're done with all this you'll figure that the sun's already risen and there is no vision of grandeur left to view. Now if you still have those brick projectiles with you, you know what to do, right?

Pros: Within the small amount of time you do manage to watch the sunrise you'll make up thousands of philosophies of your own. You'll find answers to age-old questions like- "Why George Bush attacked Iraq?" or "Why scarecrows are so scary?" You will also fathom that crows are the most magnificent flying specimens alive.

Cons: Within a few weeks time you will be apprehended for all the damages you have caused to the apartment building across the street. By this time the crows have already left you discovering you to be a sorry excuse of a human being. You'll probably be sent to "isolation", where you'll never see daylight again. (Here it is recommended that you sprout a pair of bat-wings and form a powerful Bat-Legion to break out. You can also wear an enormous cape, which allows you to trip over time to time and you can also wear a pair of blue underpants over gray tights, cause it's really the "in" thing among super-heroes at the moment.)

Disclaimer: RS will not take responsibility if anything happens to you. Perform these tasks at your own risk. Jumpers planning to blame us for their pitiful demise, be ware, the crows are watching.

By Knafice-Man

Jokes

Ghostly confessions
A young American tourist goes on a guided tour of a creepy old castle. At the end of the tour the guide asks her how she enjoyed it. She admits to being a bit worried about seeing a ghost in some of the dark cobwebby rooms and passages.
"Don't worry" says the guide, "I've never seen a ghost all the time I've been here."
"How long is that?" asks the girl.
"About three hundred years."

Non-commitant follower
First thing - every single morning - one of the secretaries in our office opened the newspaper and read everyone's horoscope aloud.
"Gwen," said our boss finally, "you seem to be a normal, levelheaded person. Do you really believe in astrology?"
"Of course not," Gwen answered. "You know how skeptical we Capricorns are."

Old age statistics
At his 103rd birthday party, my grandfather was asked if he planned to be around for his 104th.
"I certainly do," he replied. "Statistics show that very few people die between the ages of 103 and 104."

Definition of marriage
Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right and the other is a husband.

Proof that husbands pay attention (not)
A woman had gained a few pounds. It was most noticeable to her when she squeezed into a pair of her old blue jeans.
Wondering if the added weight was noticeable to everyone else, she asked her husband, "Honey, do these jeans make me look like the side of the house?"
"No, dear, not at all," he replied, "Our house isn't blue."

Illiterate writer
A little girl was diligently pounding away on her grandfather's word processor. She told him she was writing a story.
"What's it about?" he asked.
"I don't know," she replied. "I can't read."

The truth sinks in
Our five-year-old grandson couldn't wait to tell his grandfather about the movie we had watched on television,
"20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."
The scenes with the submarine and the giant octopus had kept him wide-eyed. In the middle of the telling, my husband interrupted Mark, "What caused the submarine to sink?"
With a look of incredulity Mark replied, "Grampa, it was the 20,000 leaks!"

How to tell your age
When my grandson asked me how old I was, I teasingly replied, "I'm not sure."
"Look in your underwear, Grandma," he advised. "Mine says I'm four to six."

Marital warning
A woman said to her friend, "I don't know what to do. My husband is such a mess maker that you can't imagine. He
doesn't put anything in its place, I am always going around the house organizing things."
The friend says, "Take a tip from me. The first week after we were married I told my husband firmly, 'Every glass and plate that you take, wash when you are done and put back in its place.'"
The first woman asked, "Did it help?"
Her friend said, "I don't know. I haven't seen him since."